“What was that?!” was her first thought. The number was unidentified. “Christopher?” the name said out loud reverberated in the walls of the room making sense and she decided to ask him about it on Monday.

The weekend woke up grey and warm. She was a mess because of the night before and even more ashamed of the events that had taken place. At this time, she dreaded Monday and the looks and whispers of her students.

Ana was not usually a person who cared much for what other people had to say about her. However, that changed a lot since she came to that country and started working at the university. Not only the security of her job seemed to be directly connected to the image she gave the board, the other teachers and the students but also, she did not want to be a social outcast in a still foreign country that she wanted to keep living in. The nightmare of that little incident all over the internet’s social network gave her a headache. As a means to forget the possible future disaster, she decided to get out of the house and go for a jogging. Her apartment was close to Han river park, the favorite spot for many Koreans and it was packed as usual, not even a grey day could keep people from taking their family out. She smiled at how different that was from her country where the favorite place for a walk seemed to be a shopping mall. With headphones in her ears, the jogging took almost the same pace as the songs that were playing and she enjoyed the refreshing river breeze in her hot cheeks, feeling the alcohol leaving her system. Before heading back to her building she sat down at one of the park benches eating ice cream and completely ruining her morning exercise, with a smile of satisfaction in her face.

“아이스크림 좋하습니다?”

The deep voice came out of the shadow blocking her sunlight and was a perfect match with the tall, muscular, tanned, dark hair, black eyes with a teasing glow, stranger. He had also been jogging, judging by his outfit and the tiny drops of sweat in his temples. Without any hesitation, nor waiting for a reply, he sat down next to her stretching his long legs, lounging in the back of the chair letting his head fall a little behind and closing his eyes. Ana was a bit in shock, although not sure if it was because of him addressing her out of the blue, or because she found him to be gorgeous. A second later she was still staring and was caught in the act when he suddenly opened his eyes turning his head in her direction. A beautiful bright unnerving smile was drawn in his lips.

“Excuse me, did you ask me something?”

Ana was not a young innocent girl anymore, she was perfectly trained to mask her emotions and made use of that pretending to be indifferent to his obvious charms. He continued smiling but sat straight in the chair. “

I’m sorry I did not realize you were not Korean. I asked if the ice cream was good since you seemed to be enjoying it and I was considering getting one for myself.” The English words that came out of his mouth made perfection by the cute accent.

“Yes.” she replied, blushing a little by the sight of a now completely melted ice cream in her hands.

Well, it seemed that she still needed to work on how to mask her shame. Getting to her feet, not really wanting to face a stranger that would probably look her in the eyes and see just how embarrassed she was, Ana bowed her head slightly and whispered a Korean goodbye. One of the few words she could say in the language.

Walking to her apartment block she was shaking her head and feeling sorry for being herself. Why on earth had she not maintained the conversation, asked his name at least, whatever...she had found him gorgeous and he started the conversation first… “Ahhhh! I’m going to be the death of me!” and there she was talking to herself in the middle of the street.

“안녕하세요 선생님” (Hello teacher)

The young shy boy at the security desk greeted her and she gave him a smile, greeting him back. As she was waiting for the elevator, looking at the colored numbers showing the floor it was passing by. The elevator stopped for quite some time on the 3rd floor and she realized it was probably broken. Taking a quick look at the second elevator she noticed a warning sign on it, no idea what it meant though…

“ Hi again. I think the elevator broke down.”

The boy gave her a puzzled look and she started making gestures trying to explain the situation. After a couple of minutes of the same puzzled expression and getting nowhere, Ana signaled him to follow her, what seemed to have worked. The security guard looked at the direction of her pointing finger and shook his head as if he understood saying something to her in Korean. She smiled, being the only option of politeness, she had not understood a word of course. “Well,” she thought to herself “The little sin committed in the park just got payback” the image of the stranger suddenly popped into her mind. “The ice cream Ana, the ice cream.”