During lunch break, Adam wanted to eat out with his sister but he remembered that he made a bento for her this morning. Thus, he ended up eating alone somewhere.
Hana ate with her colleagues happily. She didn't care about the rumors circling around within the customers and perhaps it reached her co-workers and to her boss already.
"Will you be sketching me today?" Jacob asked her when she was being quite with them.
Most of the time, she would talk to them about different things but today she was silent and kept spacing out.
Hana looked at him and grinned. "If you smile for me, I'll sketch you today."
Her colleagues stopped eating and looked towards their boss whose mouth was twitching. If he wanted to smile when there wasn't anything worth smiling, he would look horrible. He can only show her thousand-watts smile when he was truly happy.
Hana put down her spoon, grabbed a tissue, wiped her hands and reached out to pinch his cheeks and stretched it.
"You have to stretch your face like this to smile. You look so stiff! Is your smile so expensive that you don't want to show it?" she stretched his face for few seconds before taking back her hands. "Boss, anyone will be afraid with your stiff and poker face."
Lily was chuckling silently, her shoulders were shaking like everyone else as they tried to stop themselves from laughing.
If their boss knew how weird his facial expression right now, he would probably throw Hana out of the cafe.
Jacob picked up his plate and left without saying a word. It was so sudden that Hana was surprised and couldn'd find the words to stop him.
'Damn it! If only I could keep my hands to myself! He must be fuming in anger now.' Hana cried mentally while thinking of several ways to apologize. She was so overconfident and was feeling so close to him. She was being rude.
"Do you think he will fire me?" she asked in whisper to her colleagues.
"Most probably." They all answered in unison, including Lily who was the closest person to her.
Knowing what could happen, she quickly ate her food and finished it in no time. She washed her things and dried them before putting them back inside her bag.
Outside their dining lounge, Jacob went back to his little office with his lunch. His heart was beating abnormally and he could still feel the soft fingers touching his face.
"I must be sick!" he mumbled to himself as he placed his lunch on his work desk. "Leaving like that without saying anything, she'd probably misunderstand me. Should I go back?"
Dealing with this kind of situation was his first time so he didn't know what to do. He sat on his swivel chair and thought of several ways to apologize but nothing came to his mind. Her smiling face would always emerge and he was distracted easily.
Both of them were busy thinking how to reconcile but no one took the first step. The rest of her break time was used to sketch him but she couldn't find a memory of his genuine smiling face.
"Hana, it's time to get back to work." Lily reminded her.
"Okay. Let me keep my things first. I'll follow you out." she dusted her skirt, opened her locker and placed her art materials inside her bag.
A knock on the door startled her and whe she spun around to see who it was, Jacob was standing there with expressionless face once again.
Hana clasped her hands together and she played with her fingers nervously. "Boss, I apologize for my rudeness earlier. I shouldn't have touched your face as if we are close friends. I shouldn't have said those words to you. I was being insensitive earlier. I'm sorry." she gave him a deep bow and waited for him to say something but he turned around and left.
'Eh?! Am I forgiven or not?! Why isn't he saying something?!' Hana wanted to scream or yell her questions directly at him but she couldn't do it.
With low spirit and enthusiasm, she went out of the room to continue working. She didn't find Jacob at the back of the counter or in the kitchen. She guessed that he was in his small office but she didn't dare go to him.
Jacob was actually standing at the balcony on the second floor. When she said that she shouldn't have touched his face like they were close friends, he couldn't understand his feelings at all.
'Well, she was right. Our relationship is between an employer and employee. I could understand that she won't see me as one of her friends.' Jacob thought to himself. 'But I don't like our relationship. Can't I become her friend even if I am her employer?'
He didn't notice it at all. His, once, organized life was being messed up by a little flower. He never liked anyone of the opposite sex and he didn't mind not having any female friends.
However, for the first time, he wanted to become Hana's friend. He wanted to see her smile that she normally showed to her friends. She did smile at him but it was full of mischief. 'Still, she looked beautiful with mischievous smile.'
"Eh? Did..did I just think that she's beautiful?" Jacob asked himself in surprise. "Is that even normal?"
Slowly, his heart was warming to her and his eyes would always look for her.
They didn't know that the wheel of their destiny had been spinning already.