North - South

Stuck to me

There was a little snow flurry in the air, the flakes fluctuating and at the same time falling tenacious and rapid. They didn't care.

There was warmth, inside his hug, when Se-ri eventually spurted against his chest, when Jeong Hyeok eventually opened and closed it around her.

There was warmth and a sense of safety in keeping her arms wrapped over his huge torso as to not make him dissolve into thin air, the face hidden against his coat.

Silence and warmth. With her small figure framed in his as he had dreamt every day and every night, with the nose buried inside her hair which didn't smell flowers anymore, Jeong Hyeok allowed himself for a while to lose it. No time, no space, nothing but Se-ri.

It didn't last long though. "Bring me somewhere where we can't be seen," he whispered across her hair. Se-ri made a small nod.

"So..."

It was proving... instructive? Yoon Se-ri's office was impressive, majestic, enormous, modern. The waiting room could contain his whole apartment. Glass and metal dominated the space, together with a bi-sided, orange couch that split the ambient in two. 

All that grandeur was having him slightly embarrassed and destabilized. All of a sudden, his apartment and everything he could have ever offered her in life were seeming to him ridiculous.

Yoon Se-ri herself was looking different from the girl dressed in a NK ilk who used to welcome his fried chicken with a wide smile. And that awkwardness only worsened when she got rid of the precious coat, revealing a suit with a superb, elegant aura. She was very, very stunning, jaw-dropping stunning.

In front of that important-looking business woman, Jeong Hyeok simply felt stupid. And repented that humble meal he had thought to bring her. Such a childish move. She would have probably thumbed her nose.

The discomfort was so material that it could have been cut with a knife, and Se-ri needed no time to identify the origin of it. However, she waited for a little while before explaining herself. Witnessing the always marble stern Jeong Hyeok looking so lost was slightly amusing. 

"It's just a façade. It's needed to convey a sense of solidity to the clients," she eventually dragged him back to reality. 

It was marketing, a matter of brand image, and she detested all of that. That office in particular cost her a fortune per month and she hated it dearly. It wasn't like Jeong Hyeok's house, it wasn't like his apartment where she had really felt at home – and no, not just because his house was free.

"Come to my room," she encouraged him, noticing how the man was still having that 'damn I'm a peasant bumpkin' face, "or do you need a bathroom maybe? OMO, do you need a shower?"

"Wha...? No, NO. I had it, in my hotel room, I don't need it." Gosh, that was awkward for real.

Se-ri closed the door at their backs and proceeded to prepare two cups of tea and free her desk so that they could have used it for the dinner. Her nostrils hadn't betrayed her, nor her imagination had. What Jeong Hyeok was holding in a paper bag was fried chicken.

She was moving confidently, the man noticed. And this should have felt normal since it was her personal room. Nevertheless, he didn't miss how her confidence crossed a thin yet essential line. It wasn't just familiarity, yet the moves of someone used to have her meals at that desk on regular basis.