Postcards From Africa

*10*

Jang watched Choi as he kept checking his phone and jumping at it whenever it rang or chimed. He had been doing this ever since he arrived, apparently to visit.

Which was odd. Because Choi never visited during the weekdays unless something was wrong or he was very stressed.

"What is wrong with you, Hyung (older brother)?"

"Mind your business!" Choi snapped.

"Don't talk to Jang like that!" Suzy snapped back at him. She stood before him, hands on her hips. "You've been coming here straight from work for two days now with a stinking attitude! What is wrong with you?! And don't you dare say nothing because I will smack sense back into you!"

Abeoje (father) came in. "He's in love," he quipped.

Jang laughed and Choi sent him a deathly glare that shut him up.

"He wasn't this sour the last time he was in love with someone," Suzy said.

The phone pinged and Choi jumped at it. Finally, he received a message from Tae after the two day silence since he left in the early hours of the morning.

His heart racing, Choi opened the message only for his face to fall. Tae had sent him his proposal, the finished version of it and other than than, there was no greeting, nothing.

"Choi, are you ok?" Suzy asked, noticing his pale face.

He silently nodded and stood up then walked out, to clear his head.

Maybe it was for the best that Tae was not talking to him, he though. Their business was done now and at least she had finished up his proposal for him. She was most definitely going to cut him out of her personal life now.

Choi stopped, feeling sad.

He wished he could have had the balls to tell her everything and be able to take the rejection because surely, after everything he had said to Tae before he got to know her, she definitely did not like him back. She tolerated him. But now with the proposal done, she had no business staying in contact with him.

He had messed up.

.

Tae smiled at her father on the screen of her phone.

"How did everything go?" he asked.

"It went well, tata (father). We sometimes did not get along with Mr. Hyun but the draft of the proposal is finished. I'm going to send it to you to review it while I get Mr. Hyun ready for presentation. He's a bit under prepared but he'll be good and ready by the time you finish reviewing his proposal."

"You're doing a great job on this project, my baby."

"Thanks, tata (father). You keep me updated on the draft I sent so that we'll fix what's wrong before presentation date. Mr. Hyun is a project that will bring us a lot of revenue and help us break into the Korean market. I'll do my best to secure this project."

Her father grinned before logging out of the zoom call.

Tae stared at the blank screen for a while.

She didn't want to see or talk to Choi right now. Not after he told her he liked her and then walked out on her like that.

The confession had been highly unexpected, especially because it was as clear as day that Choi did not like black people. So why start now? Was he trying to play at something here? Why would he say something like that to her? Just because they decided to get along did not mean they had to start flirting or anything.