Now inside the room. Baek Hee-Joon’s attention shifted to the man on the other side of the counter, cooking like he was home. In the same place, he had been not so long ago. His eyes traveled through the rest of the space reading the meaning on the set table, the glass wine in her hand, her good mood, the soft music playing, the man staring back at him in a defying manner. They were on a date. That was what it looked like.

“Please stay for dinner?”

Her soft voice reached his ears, but her good mood was making him angrier inside because he could see that the tall, blond man with blue eyes was the reason for that.

“아녕하세요” His Korean upbringing running in automatic mode.

“Hi. How do you do?”

The English accent coming out in every word, he saw the man extend a hand to him. They shook hands testing each other, like rivals. He was not wrong, that guy was interested in Ana. Now the question was, does she feel the same? He thought they, him and her, had something going on. He could feel it when he was with her, a sort of invisible pull. The flirty conversations between them, the sweetness in her gaze. Had he been seeing things? Had she been sending him wrong signals? Maybe it was an occidental culture thing...

“Will you eat with us? I’ll set one more plate at the table.”

She didn’t wait for his reply and was already heading for the kitchen closet.

“Why did you change your number?”

Yes, he was pressing for answers and being nosy. He was completely putting aside his cultural upbringing and being rude and probably inconvenient.

“Not only her number. Ana is moving from this apartment also. Apparently, it has bugs.”

Why was that man giving him private information about her? Who the hell was he to know about that, to speak so freely about her to someone else? Hee-Joon wanted to grab him by the collar and get him out of the house. No, throw him out.

“Let’s talk about that later. Now, let’s eat. I’m starving.”

Putting an end at his murderous thoughts she made way to the table.

“Is it alright if I wash my hands first?”

And yes, he was going to give him a run for his money. After her agreement, Hee-Joon headed for the bathroom. Yes, he knew where that was.

Looking in the bathroom mirror while washing his head he was reprimanding himself. That was so childish. He knew that but couldn’t help it and now it was already done. Drying his hands on the towel, he swore to control his bad temper for the rest of the dinner.

At the table, Ana and the man he still did not know the name of were sitting side by side, his own seat was in front of her.

“잘 먹겠습니다 (have a good meal)” Picking up a fork Ana smiled brightly.

“잘 먹겠습니다 (have a good meal)” They both replied in one voice.

_____________

In truth, filling her mouth with food right now was a good excuse to try and hide the fact that she was nervous.

There was a weird tension in the air. In the beginning, she had thought that it was because Hee-Joon was upset with her lack of good judgment. A reason which she accepted and fully understood. After all, he had done for her, she should have told him at least about the change in the telephone number. But for a while now it seemed his anger was hiding another reason.

As she stole a look at him, their eyes met and she suddenly wished Christopher would evaporate and leave only the two of them.

OMG, she was being so unfair to Christopher, he was the one standing beside her all afternoon, making her laugh and forget her problems. He said something she didn’t hear and passed a hand in her harm to call her attention. A gesture he did all the time and one she did not think anything of, but lite up a strange fire in Hee-Joon eyes as he stared at Christopher’s hand on her harm.

Ana turned her attention to Christopher, making him let go of her arm. She needed more wine.

“So what do you do?”

She heard Christopher ask Hee-Joon as she got up to get another bottle of white wine.

They had finished their meal and she decided to prepare some cut fruit as was a costume in Korea after dinner. Maybe also an excuse to stay away from the line of fire for a while. She took her time as she listened to the conversational flow between the two men. They seemed to be slowly laying down their arms.

“Ok, let’s go.” Ana thought to herself as she held the plate of fruit in one hand and the bottle of wine in the other.

Finally, the dinner was over. It was late and all that stress was now making her sleepy, well it had been good for something at least.

Christopher was giving her two kisses on the cheek, as normal, and Hee-Joo wished her a good night also leaving the wish for something more in the air. The door was closed behind them and the house fell quiet, too quiet.

Shaking it off, Ana changed to her pajamas cursing the two guys for having cleaned up. Without that she was left to battle with her own thoughts.