The Blue House

Only The Young

It's 15 minutes past seven and Bin is nowhere near finish with his reading for the day. He throws this week meeting's proceeding to the low table in front of the sofa he sits on.

He stretches out a bit, loosening up his tense muscles and takes out his phone. It looks like he will spend another late night at the office. And will not make it to his dinner date.

He shoots a short text message to his date to cancel their agenda for tonight and proposes a reschedule.

"Preferably until this bill is signed," he mutters under his breath.

Having no plan to marry doesn't mean he doesn't date. He dates occasionally, when the mood strikes, and the need of release consumes him. Although he must be discreet about it, considering the position he now holds and the scandal it may blow up to.

The mood strikes bad this week, and it's not like he can casually ask the one he's been thinking about to a secret date. In another life, maybe he'll have a chance. But now — not now.

Bin reaches out to the container on the table; this is what sustained him these past few days. Cookies. It helps him. It also distracts him.

No, not the cookies itself. But the one who gave it to him. Her smiling face when she unexpectedly left the cookies a few nights ago plays like a loop in his mind.

He had to circle back to the beginning of every document he read today because he managed to think about her again. Even in the most inopportune moment.

His peer, Jung Woo Sung and his staffers were here earlier today to discuss this new bill they wrote together. It was granted an audience with the Assembly next week and they needed to make sure the bill and its supporting documents were ready.

"Do you have someone in mind as the endorser of this bill?"

"Acting First Lady," He mumbled with a smile. He didn't realize Woo Sung heard that.

"Who? The First Lady? I thought she was sick."

That sobered Bin up. He looked at Woo Sung and nodded, playing along with his comment. "You are right. She was still hospitalized."

A fact he knew all too well after dropping Ye Jin at the hospital last week.

"Are you staying with The First Lady tonight?"

"Yes. It's better for everyone's involved. My stepmother, she's not— that easy to tend to."

"How long ago since your father remarried?"

"About 10 years now. How is your mother and your sister, by the way? Abeoji said you lived with your grandparents."

Bin nodded. "My mother lives near Incheon in her family home. Yoon Ah and I lives with our grandparents here in Seoul. They are good. My family. But—"

Ye Jin didn't say anything, but she turned her head towards him, waiting for his words after the 'but".

When he didn't say anything, she made him smile with her comment. "That's the heaviest 'but' without a continuation I've ever heard."

Bin sighed. This was probably the most candid he'd ever been with someone. But she was one of the people who had been in his position amid different circumstance.

"Let's just say, it was never the same since— my father's assassination."

Her expression changed and it was déjà vu. He was thrown back to a moment he shelved to the very back of his mind.

The image was not clear. But he had seen her expression. The time and the place were blurry. But there was him and there was her.

And he needed to get away from that image, there was a reason why he wanted to forget it. He needed to bring the conversation to another topic. Pronto.