For the last fifteen months, post-graduate student Son Yejin has constantly felt that she wasn't quite in her professor's good books. The lingering looks, the penetrating gaze and his penchant for calling her name all point towards her being the Tea...
It was bitterly cold out there, though cold is good if one is warm inside, just the same as how people love ice in the summertime.
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Hanging low in the dove gray sky, the afternoon winter sun brought out the purity of crystalline snow blanketing the earth; pristine and white.
Is this glistening white world their blank slate?
Or is it just a new page in their book, waiting to be filled with more stories, she wondered, humming along to the Christmas songs riding the airwaves.
Sitting in the passenger seat in Hyun Bin's car, with her overnight bag on the backseat, Yejin found herself constantly stealing glances at the professor's devastatingly good-looking side profile.
This Christmas Eve dinner would mark their first official date.
All he had instructed in a text message for her to bring along was an 'overnight bag, herself and an open heart'.
Seeing that Hyun Bin had asked her to pack some essential belongings and how they were now driving along the streets of Gangnam, it was pretty obvious that they'd be spending the night together. At his place, most likely, snuggled up in that very comfortable bedroom of his.
"Bin. How did you spend last Christmas?" Yejin quietly asked, casting a casual smile at him.
It was funny that she asked, the student inwardly thought. On one hand, she was painfully curious, yet on the other, she knew she would inevitably feel a twinge of uneasiness if he were to reply that he had spent it in some other lady's company.
"I spent it grading research papers," He replied with his eyes fixed on the road ahead, before turning to give her a soft smile. "And wondering how a certain girl was spending hers."
A certain girl...? Her brows knitted involuntarily.
"This year, I don't have to wonder, for she's spending her Christmas with me."
"...you were referring to me...?" Golden rays danced across her features— her eyes glistened prettily with the afternoon sun casting flecks of glitter in them, parted lips upturned in a surprised smile.
"I'm not crazy enough to ask more than one lady out on Christmas."
Her smile grew with amusement, before Yejin quietly added, gesturing at themselves, "So...this could have taken place last year. I spent last Christmas watching TV and eating two pints of ice cream by myself."
That drew a chuckle from Hyun Bin, "I thought you seemed...very close with Mr Jung."
"Mr Jung...oh!" Yejin exclaimed as a familiar face from her postgraduate course popped up in her mind. "Hae In? We are friends, yes, just that he calls me Noona. He's a very nice guy, but, yeah...no sparks there, and he has a girlfriend. Was that why you didn't..."
