♡ CHAPTER TWO (1/1)

Besides cooking, Yeonah's second passion was botany--to be specific, flowers. These delicate pieces of nature brought a smile to her face with their wonderful aromas, their unique colors, and shapes. It was in SNU's greenhouse where she could hide from everyone, even her business, and just breathe.Today's weather was abnormal as it was one of the last few stints of the indian summer Seoul would have before winter graced the country. She had been furiously worked in the closed venue as it would be one of her last opportunities before the Botany professor, Dr. Jin, would examine and score the class prior to the cold season. With a spray bottle in one hand, a shovel in another, she tended to each pot of flowers with as much care as a mother would give to her own child. She was so lost into her work that she had no idea how much time had passed or the fact that she was being watched by a familiar figure."Hey," a masculine voice voice rang out, cutting her thoughts short. Unlike her last experience with a mysterious person popping out of nowhere, she held her ground and took a more cautious approach-- grasping her shovel in her hand and slowly turning to the voice. Thankfully for her she didn't have to use the gardening tool as a weapon of defense and felt a bit better when she saw that the voice belonged to the one and only Chen."What? Is there something on my face?" He laughed watching Yeonah's face slowly transitioned from being tensed to relaxed. Her eyebrows furrowed and she turned away from the boy, continuing to tend to her project."Yah, don't ignore me! I was just kidding."She turned once more to face him, "Whatever Chen. Why are you bothering me right now? Don't you see that I have a long ways to go before Dr. Jin comes and examines my row?""Oh c'mon. Why do you always assume that I'm gonna bother you?" he whined but was inaffective to the younger girl, "Also why aren't you addressing me as oppa? That's rude you know.""Leave me alone Chen oppa" she rolled her eyes as she dug deeper into a ditch where she'd be placing one of the last pots of Iceland Poppies, making sure to emphasize the last word to the boy. Though she'd usually enjoy his company, especially in the greenhouse where they shared a class together, it seemed today wasn't the time for him to act this way. Actually, thinking it further, she was very weirded out by his behavior as of late. He was known to be very helpful to others, usually offering his assistance to anyone that needed it, but for her he had stretched himself out so thin that it was almost too much at times. Along with his generousity increasing, his spontaneous appearances and random gifts were getting so frequent that it was also becoming a point of concern for her. Looking back at him once more, she could see the sunlight hitting his face and highlighting his beauty at all the right angles: he had a sharp jawline that was envied among all the other students and his slightly high cheekbones complimented his constantly smiling eyes. In Yeonah's eyes she considered him a handsome man, but not enough to be in the league of Do Kyungsoo. To her Chen was simply an attractive friend that she was blessed to have and nothing more. She didn't expect him having any feelings for her, but if he did then things would definitely be a complication for the pair. After a couple more moments of digging, planting and securing her flowers, she was finished. Chen's eyes lit up excitment seeing that the younger girl was no longer occupied and was able to attack. But before he could say anything more, another voice filled the void. A voice that was familiar and more fonder in Yeonah's heart. "Ah, there you are!" Kyungsoo waved to the two gardeners with a goofy smile on his face. Chen silently scowled at the younger boy and attempted to hide his grimmace when he saw Yeonah react differently to the new arrival. She too had a goofy smile plastered on her face and had no evidence of annoyance present. "Hello Kyungsoo-sshi!" she chirped, "What brings you here? Were you in the neighborhood again and wanted to scare me?" The two chuckled at their inside joke while Chen simply stared in utter confusion, but also fuming with jealousy. "No, actually I'm here for business. I hear you guys have fresh mint here and I was hoping I could steal some for one of my culinary projects?" The younger girl scratched her chin at his request and held up a finger asking him to wait. As she strayed over a couple rows away from the two guys silence began to fill the vacant space that Yeonah once occupied. Chen couldn't help but begin to analyze the younger boy that stood in front of him. It was pretty obvious that Yeonah had a thing for him, even if she didn't tell him about Kyungsoo in the first place, and he was not happy about it. Like what was special about him anyways? Sure he was a cutie: rich in eye whites and had a slightly awkward smile, but at the same time he was lanky and not that much taller than him. He could have pointed out fifty other things wrong about this Kyungsoo character but slowly he realized that he began to sound more of an immature girl than a mature college student. Keeping his opinons to himself he continued to keep a careful gaze on the boy, who was now rocking back and forth on his heels, slowly shifting his weight after a few seconds, clearly in bordeom and slight impatience. The eerie silence was slowly eating away at his tolerance for him. "So do you like Yeonah?" Chen bluntly asked, thowing Kyungsoo off balance by the sudden question. "What?" "You heard me," the elder boy flatly spoke, "do you like her? Is it because she has a successful business or cause she's popular? What is it?" Kyungsoo's eyes widened at Chen's words. He opened his mouth but his mind went blank; he didn't know what he should say. "I think you should stay out of her way. She's too busy to be around the likes of you. Have you ever considered what she has to go through everyday?" Once again Kyungsoo was speechless at the things that Chen was saying to him. He tried recalling any moment prior to this one where he stated or showed any interest for the girl but couldn't come up with anything. He was sure he had no feelings towards Yeonah that way, but apparently it seemed that way to her friend. 'Maybe he's just crazy and a bit jealous of me,' Kyungsoo thought to himself, smirking at the image of such. Before either of them could speak again Yeonah appeared, happily bouncing towards them with a bundle of mint in her possession. As he reached out to take the herb from her their hands, once again, touched-- producing that tingling sensation that resonated deep within himself. Though it was a brief moment, he couldn't help but feel the heat of her touch affect him so much that a blush would form on his face. Chen, the witness to such an event, couldn't help but see an identical blush appear on Yeonah's face. He felt furious; the attraction of the two friends was slowly becoming more obvious and would probably result into them forming a relationship-- something he's always wanted since their first meeting. In a fit of inner rage, he broke the precious moment by interviening and taking her arm, forcibly dragging her away. "YAH! KIM JONGDAE WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" she loudly spoke, struggling to reclaim her arm from his grasp. He ignored her and continued to walk towards the exit of the green house. Before the two reached the door he looked back at the confused younger boy. He raised the arm that held onto Yeonah's and sent him a wave goodbye, "See you later Kyungsoo-sshi," and the two quickly disappeared from his line of sight.Before there was only one thing Kyungsoo hated in the world and now he felt that there was slowly gonna be another thing to add onto his list.♡"Phew... I'm done!" Yeon Kyung happily cheered to herself as she posted the last 'HELP WANTED' ad on the buliten board in the West campus. After much deliberation between her and Xiumin, it was decided that they would secretly join forces in an effort to find more help for Yeonah and BENTO's sake. They both saw how much its popularity had increased over the few months it had been opened and it now appeared to seem unrealistic for the young student to tackle the job alone or even with just one employee. Together they created an ad to call for two more potential employees for BENTO. Sure, they would've just allowed this opportunity for the culinary students [Yeon Kyung secretly wanted to give a flyer to Kyungsoo just to see the young girl's reaction to her crush appearing at her door step] but they realized that she also needed help on the business side of the restaurant. Thus it was her responsibility to paste these flyers all over the West campus, where most business majors were located, and now all that was left was to patiently wait for someone to respond. Yeon Kyung was pleased to see her efforts be apart of the wall of mulitcolored ads and flyers, most of which were job opportunities or roomate requests. She had a lot of time to kill before her next class and was too lazy to go anywhere else, so why not spend your time looking at the buliten board? At first she grazed through the mutlitude of papers, scanning a bunch at a time until she found something interesting. Once in a while she would stumble upon a new club that she hadn't heard before or a party flyer provided by one of the school's fraternities or sororities, both of which would get at her curiousity, but quickly diminish after reading it thouroughly. This process would continue for the next 5 minutes until she came across a familiar face on a rather dull looking flyer. It was an advertisement for students to study abroad and earn credits. The obvious star of the flyer was no other than her co-worker Wu Yi Fan, now known as Kris. She tore off the flyer from the board and analyzed the flyer closely, admiring his smiling face amongst the small bunch of diverse people of the same face. She recalled from one of their personal talks that he had once participated in the world of modeling before seriously studying in the pre-med program at SNU. There was no doubt that he was perfect for such job, his facial structure and body proportions had exceeded the standards of a model in a good way, and it was no secret that he was one of the handsome guys she's seen-- thus he was the perfect candidate for the job. She knew that either occupation he chose would have brought him the same amount of success and fortune, but she couldn't help but wonder why he chose to give up such the easier life. Come to think about it, it dawned on her that she seemed to wonder a lot of things about the tall Chinese man. To her, he was more than a co-worker; he was slowly becoming a good friend and after eventually chipping away his engima-like aura around him, it revealed a seemingly normal student. He was kind and considerate to her, flashing a warm smile at her from time to time when they would be working on a patient, comfort her like no one else can when she messes up, and be the first to offer his assistance to her whenever she needed it. The other medical residents had been envious of her, claiming that she was the lucky one to get a guy like him-- always referring to his looks, but she now realized that she was blessed to find a friend in him as well. Taking one more glance at the flyer, she couldn't help but to trace the outline of Kris' face and smile at his beauty. Before returning the flyer back to its rightful place at the board she re-read the phrase 'travel abroad' which triggered her to think of the most important man in her life. Pulling out her phone, she turned on the home screen to see a picture of her and her boyfriend happily smiling with matching couple t-shirts. For five years she had stood behind Chanyeol, through thick and thin, and now upheld the image of being the campus couple. She was well aware that there was an unspoken problem brewing between them and she couldn't help but feel that she was the cause of all of it. He was obviously supportive of her ambition to follow in her parent's footsteps in the medical world, allowing her to skip dates in order to fulfill her time in the hospital, and allowed a rift to form between the two of them, but what did she ever do for him? She didn't shower him with as much affection and attention as she used to and definitely wasn't as supportive of him and his own dreams. For those that didn't know, Chanyeol's dream wasn't to be an architectural design student, but instead was to travel around the world--taking in the sights and sounds that were foreign to him and fully embrace life as it was naturally found. Initially she was very wary of this as she couldn't imagine life without him, being half way around the world instead around the corner and often found herself causing petty fights from his desires. Over time she had formed a facade of acceptance, but was still cautious in allownig him to go through with it. With the words 'travel abroad' etched in her mind, she couldn't help but think of the many instances where she prevented him from signing up.The numerous faults she had towards their relationships began to outweigh his redeeming qualities, making her feel even more guilty than before. Holding up her cellphone and the flyer in her hands she looked at the two guys that mattered in her life at the moment, silently comparing the two as if her life depended on it. Shifting from face to face she felt her heart becoming heavy and darken. It was only the vibration of her phone that suddenly caused her to snap back into reality. Her handphone's background was no longer pictured as the lovely couple photo she cherished, but was now replaced with a green android waving at her with a unrecognizable number attached to it. At first she hesitated picking up the call, but after a short deliberation with herself she let her fingertip slide to hit the green 'Accept' button. She paused, allowing the call to completely connect with hers, "Hello?" Silence followed her greeting, but Yeon Kyung undoubtingly heard some breathing echoing through her earpiece, "Hello?" she repeated. "Ahh.. uh," a feminine voice stammered, obviously a bit nervous, "Hi. I was inquiring your ad about hiring a business major to aid BENTO?" Yeon Kyung mentally slapped herself, 'Duh,' she thought. "Oh yeah! We're looking for someone to take care of some basic accounting and be willing to be our business representative. Can I get your name and possbly meet up with you soon?" "Uh sure!" A voice echoed the voice from Yeon Kyung's phone. She turned around and saw a short girl with raven hair and a handphone forcibly pressed to her ear, staring at the bulliten board where her ad was freely hanging from. She couldn't help but to smile and found herself gravitating towards the mysterious girl. "Um. My name is Oh Jiwoo and I'm currently a Junior studying business with a psychology minor" The girl with doe-like eyes shifted her weight from her heels back and forth, completely oblivious that her future employer was behind her. "Alright and are you the girl that is currently wearing a cute fushia plaid shirt and faded skinny jeans?" Yeon Kyung teased, standing only a couple meters from Jiwoo. Jiwoo was confused; how in the world did the person on the phone know what she was wearing? Carefully turning around she saw a cooly dressed girl flash a wide smile to her. Lowering her phone from her ear she stood, baffled at the situaton. "I'm Jung Yeon Kyung and I'd like to welcome you to BENTO." Jiwoo stared in disbelief at the sudden proposal. She couldn't help but think of this as some hidden camera prank or something of the nature despite the younger girl being completely serious. Yeon Kyung took a quick look at the elder girl before her and in a matter of moments had deemed her fitting for the job. Not only was she a business major-- something vital for BENTO to have-- but was a psych major which could only benefit her as she was now in need of someone to help her in the dilemma between her and Chanyeol.♡