Love Me Please ✔️

Chapter 5

HeungSoo I Time machine by LexMimieux

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September 2017 – HeungSoo

Days like this make me miss Colorado. The snowfall over my rooftop apartment makes me feel nostalgic. Colorado is behind me now. Since I had the career-ending injury to my knee during our championship game and subsequently retired from soccer, I moved back to Korea. Just as I quietly left for the United States, I quietly returned to South Korea three months ago.

Noona, God bless her, doesn't understand why I would rent a rooftop apartment in our old rundown neighborhood when I have a penthouse in the Gangnam neighborhood of Cheongdam. I just told her that I bought the penthouse as an investment. The real reason is that I feel more comfortable in the old neighborhood. And the rooftop apartment brings back memories.

I bundle up and walk to the neighborhood convenience store. I am out of ramen and soju, again. All the Christmas decorations crowding the neighborhood get more and more outrageous as the years roll by. I love Christmas but I am not in the mood to celebrate it. I walk into the store and head straight for the familiar aisle. I grab enough ramen packets to last me a couple of days and a few soju bottles.

After paying for my items, I open one bowl of ramen. I warm it in the store microwave and sit by their open window to have my dinner with a can of soda. I grab a magazine and flip through while consuming my dinner. Some business cards fall out of it. One card caught my eye immediately. It advertises lively conversations for the lonely and depressed and stresses it is for entertainment purposes only. I guess one out of two isn't bad. Not for me.

I put the magazine back on the rack, clean up where I ate, and waved to the cashier as I left the store. I had gone about fifty feet when I turned back. I went back to the store, to the window seat, grabbed the business card, and put it in my pocket. No harm in making just one call, right?

Noona and So Hyun were waiting outside my apartment when I got home.

"Let me guess ramen and soju for dinner," she shakes her head.

"Wrong! Ramen and soda. So Hyun! How are you?" I reach down and lift my seven-year-old niece and swing her around. She laughs out loud.

"Uncle stop I'm dizzy," she continues laughing.

"Say please."

"Please, uncle." I put her down gently and sit her on one of the four chairs outside my apartment. I sit next to her waiting for Noona to do the same.

"You're off work early today."

"I had to take So Hyun Christmas shopping. Your lawyer called me, he said he has been trying to reach you and left several messages. Why haven't you called him back, HeungSoo?"

"Because he wants me to micromanage him and I don't have the strength to do that. As long as he does what he is supposed to do, he does not have to call me every day. It's frustrating. If he wasn't trustworthy and good, I would've fired him a long time ago."

"I get it. But return his call and tell him to only call you once a week. That should work for both of you. You are spending Christmas and New Year's with us, right?"

"Aren't you going to your in-laws?"

"Not this year, thank God. This year they go to my sister in law's, so come on over. It's our first Christmas together in years. I'll make ramen."

"You had me at ramen," I smile at her.

"Well, we got to go. Let me leave you with your daily meal. Come on So Hyun, time to go."