The cab driver who'd so gallantly brought the three women and their heavy bags back to the studios ought to have been commended. Not many men would have left their comfortable driver's seat to assist them in retrieving their shopping from the trunk of the car. Either he was eager to see the back of them and thought that helping them in this task would see them leave faster, or he was so taken by the three lovely women in his cab that he couldn't help but be a gentleman.
That, or it was part of his job.
Rose wanted to believe it was the second, but that was the least likely of the three. Sharing the load between them, the three women staggered into the entrance of the studio and dumped most of the bags behind the reception desk where they trusted they would be safe. From this pile, they extracted the dozens of cupcakes they'd bought to help the staff through their troubling hangovers and set about methodically visiting each floor of the building, handing out the treats as they went and enjoying the coos and gasps of the staff members as they admired the individually packaged treats and their adorable decorations. The women received them the most warmly, but the men were happily surprised by the offering of food and descended upon the trio as eagerly as their co-workers. When they arrived at the boardroom, Eun-young opened a bag she'd kept sealed during the rest of the tour, having saved some of the limited-edition flavours for Yuta, Tae-won, and Jin-hee. Hitomi excused herself and skipped away with a pink cupcake covered in love hearts so that she could deliver it personally to Jung-wook, humming cheerily to herself as she departed the stuffy room. Rose had a feeling she'd hear all about their meeting later whether she wanted to or not.
'Yah,' Jin-hee said when Rose placed a cardboard box in her hands, 'I can't eat this. Are you trying to make me fat?'
'It's one cupcake,' Rose said. 'Can't you treat yourself just once?'
'How can you be a model and still eat this crap?' the woman asked furiously. 'Don't you know that there's always going to be someone thinner than you out there?'
'They might be thinner, but that doesn't mean they're healthier,' Rose shot back angrily. She wasn't angry for herself – Rose didn't care a jot if Jin-hee wanted the stupid cake or not – but Eun-young had wanted to do something nice for the staff after their difficult start to the project and this felt like Jin-hee was throwing it back in her face. The polite thing would have been for her to take the cake and then given it to her manager later when she was back at her agency if she was so annoyed by it rather than making a scene.
Jin-hee pushed the box back into Rose's hands and declared, 'You eat it and get fat. Eat all of them, and then I won't ever have to see you in this industry again.'
Yuta opened his mouth, ready to come to Rose's defence when Tae-won reached over and plucked the box out of her hands. He already had one cupcake – with black frosting to match his heart – but happily took Jin-hee's vanilla crème treat from Rose. 'This still doesn't make up for the banana milk,' he told her.
'Oppa,' Jin-hee whined, 'don't be nice to her! Throw it in the trash, it's cheap!'
Tae-won took the cupcake from the packaging and, without warning, took an enormous bite out of it. With frosting on his lips and the tip of his nose, he said with a mouth full of crumbs which flew from his lips and landed on Jin-hee's cheek, 'It doesn't taste cheap.'
'Aish! That's so dirty!' she complained.
'No dirtier than your mouth,' Tae-won retorted. 'Aish, you bring me cake and no water?' he asked. Muttering to himself and pushing more of the cake into his mouth, the man left the room and strode down the hall towards the cafeteria.
Momentarily confused by the manner of the rescue and his exit, Rose took a moment to look back and Eun-young and Yuta, both of whom were similarly confused. It wasn't like Tae-won to be the hero of the situation. In fact, Rose had half expected him to be in Jin-hee's place, complaining that she wasn't taking the life of a model seriously and that they ought to have brought back healthier snacks for the staff to enjoy, especially after he'd already had a hefty dose of sugar in the banana milk. When her brain rebooted itself and she began to make sense of the situation – namely that Tae-won had saved her for the second time in less than twenty-four hours – Rose was quick to run after him to find out why, if only for the sake of her own sanity.
Many of the workers waved and bowed their heads to Rose when she wove between their desks and tried to hurry through without looking like she was in any sort of a rush. She smiled and waved her hand a little to them, modestly accepting their gratitude in the knowledge that it had been Eun-young's idea to bring them the cakes in the first place and she'd merely been the delivery girl. Once she was in the empty corridor she picked up the pace and soon found Tae-won. He'd not entered the cafeteria yet, and there wasn't much time for Rose to get him alone before they were surrounded by other workers. She rushed the man, grasping his arm, and dragged him into a nearby room which, unfortunately, turned out to be a cramped closet rather than the meeting room she'd hoped to find.
Fumbling in the dark, she found a light switch on the wall and slapped her hand against it, illuminating a single bulb above their heads. Confused and still holding cake, Tae-won asked, 'What are you doing, Japan?'
It was difficult to focus when they were crushed together, their chests pressing in on one another and Tae-won's sugar sweet breath wafting over her face. Rose blushed at the force intimacy and cursed herself for acting so rashly. She ought to have taken him to the stairwell or outside into the street to talk to him rather than staggering through the first door she'd found, but it was too late to change it now.
'I need to talk to you,' she said, fighting to keep her composure when every irrational hormonal part of her brain screamed out reminders that she was a young woman alone in a closet with an attractive man. Awful, but still attractive. 'I need to know why you're being nice to me.'
Tae-won looked at the cupcakes in his hands and then down at her. 'I like sweets.'
'Excuse me?'
'Sweets. I like them. It's bad for my image so all the magazines say I hate sweets, and no one buys them for me. But I like sweets, so I wanted two.'
Rose felt so stupid she wanted to slap herself for thinking there might be any more to it. 'So, you took Jin-hee's cake because you wanted more, and that was it?'
'Yes.'
'I – I thought you were helping me when she – oh my God, I'm so stupid.'
A grin touched Tae-won's lips. 'Did you think I was being your Prince Charming?'
Rose scowled up at the man. Yes, she had thought that he was being a Prince Charming character. After his rescue the previous evening, she suspected she'd misjudged him in some manner, and that genuine smile of his before her departure on her shopping trip had made Rose believe there might be a decent human being lurking inside of Tae-won somewhere.
Clearly, she'd been wrong.
'I need to take Si-woo his cupcake,' she said, humiliated. 'He might be hungry by now.' Before she could make a move to leave, Tae-won's hand shot out over her shoulder and he held fast to the shelf behind her, blocking her path. Startled, Rose backed up as much as she was able in the confined space and heard another shelving unit clatter behind her. 'What are you doing?' she demanded of the man. 'Let me out!'
Tae-won looked down at the bag in her hand which contained the two last cupcakes; hers and Si-woo's. His eyes met Rose's and he said, 'Give me the bag.'
'What?'
'The bag. Give it to me.'
'You already have two,' she argued. 'How many cupcakes does one man need?'
'Enough that he doesn't get one.'
'You'd take Si-woo's cake out of spite?' she asked. 'I thought you were okay with him puking on your shoes?'
Tae-won's eyes pinched as he translated her rapid argument as quickly as he could. 'I'm not okay with only getting one gift while he gets a whole bag of medicine. I saved you from those men, not him. He didn't do anything.'
Rose sighed. She'd have pinched the bridge of her nose if she could bring her arms up in the tight space. As that was impossible, the furrow of her brow would have to do. Impatiently, she explained, 'I bought him medicine because he had a hangover. I felt guilty that I left him in the bar on his own after he got so sick trying to keep up with me. Not that I need to justify myself to you. After you abandoned me, I don't owe you anything!'
'Abandoned?' he scoffed. 'You ran away!'
'You were being a cruel bastard!' she retorted angrily. 'I seriously thought I could work with you after you helped me but you're impossible! Ever since I met you on that plane you've been a pain in my ass. If you're not being egotistical, you're being a bully. And if you're not being a bully, you're confusing the hell out of me, acting like you're a nice guy and then being arrogant and –' she gestured at his extended arm, '- trapping me in cupboards!'
'Who dragged who in here?'
Rose bristled. 'That's not the point!'
'You wanted to be alone with me.'
'I wanted to thank you, but seeing as you were being selfish, I'm taking it back.'
'Maybe I was doing both,' he suggested.
'You're just saying that because I'm mad at you,' Rose said. 'You don't care about anyone but yourself. How could you have been doing both?'
'That's what you think about me?' he asked.
'How could I not?' she challenged, overtaken with emotion as she often found herself whenever in Tae-won's company. Although their acquaintance had been a short one, he'd figured her out so completely that he knew just how to push her buttons and drive her to utter madness whenever they were together. Rose wanted to be the sort of girl who was in control of herself – like Eun-young – but couldn't help but succumb to her feelings when faced with such a man as him. 'How can I not think that you're the worst man in the world when all you do is treat me like I'm some toy that you can play around with whenever you feel bored? I'm a person, Tae-won, not an object!'
'That's why you're so interesting,' he said, leaning in so close that their noses touched. 'Because you're a person who hates me. No woman hates me. Do you know how refreshing that is? Do you blame me for wanting to make you so angry when no one else in the world will shout at me?'
'Yuta shouts at you,' she said.
'Yuta isn't a beautiful woman.'
Rose blushed and hated herself for it. She wished she'd left the lights switched off so that he wouldn't be able to see her cheeks glowing as he looked into her eyes so intently, his cupcake-sweet breath rolling against her lips. 'I don't want to be played with,' she said with far less conviction than she'd intended. Rose cleared her throat, steeling her nerve. 'I just want to work and enjoy myself.'
'I'm not stopping you,' he said. 'I want the same thing.'
'You enjoy yourself by making me miserable.'
'Not miserable, Japan,' he said her name with such a softness that her knees felt weak.
Tae-won brushed his thumb against her lips and Rose was seized with two insane notions; either biting his thumb off or kissing it and giving in to her weak will. Sensing the break in her resolve, Tae-won pressed his lips against the bridge of her nose. It was a lingering touch, and his mouth remained warm and inviting against her skin before he pulled away. Her lips parted, Rose felt the heat burning in her face and neck and heard her pulse drumming in her ears. Dumbfounded, she stared up at the tall, handsome man and found that he'd chased away all her objections which had tumbled from the back of her throat and been consumed by confusion and hormonal, teenage lust.
Satisfied that she wasn't as icy a woman as he'd suspected, Tae-won leaned in again and whispered, 'I enjoy myself by making you want me.'
There was to be no kiss, as Rose had feared. Instead, he plucked the bag from her hand and vacated the cupboard. Rose watched him leave as the door slowly swung closed, sauntering away triumphantly with the cupcakes and her broken pride as his prize.
'Tae-won!' she shouted after him, tears stinging the corners of her eyes. 'I hate you!'