Angel quickly snatched the keys from Eun Woo’s hand, then turned around with an awkward step. She handed her own car keys to Eun Woo and hurried into the man’s luxury car.
Just as Angel was about to start the engine, Eun Woo approached the driver’s door, its window still halfway open.
“Angel Lee?” Eun Woo called softly.
“Yes?” Angel turned toward him from inside the car.
“Take that. It’s for you,” Eun Woo said, flicking his eyes toward an elegantly ribboned gift box lying on the passenger seat beside Angel.
Angel raised one eyebrow in confusion. “Were you planning to see me from the beginning?”
Eun Woo rested both hands on the edge of the car window and gazed meaningfully at Angel. “Actually, I was planning to come to your house today. But it seems fate wanted us to meet sooner, right here on the road. Take it. Consider it a homecoming gift from my military service.”
“Thank you,” Angel whispered sincerely.
Angel honked once as a goodbye, then drove away from the scene. Meanwhile, in the rearview mirror, she saw Eun Woo pressing his phone to his ear. He was probably trying to contact an acquaintance who owned an auto repair business so they could tow Angel’s car.
“Wasn’t there no signal?” she wondered.
Not long after Angel’s car disappeared around the bend, another vehicle stopped beside Eun Woo. Someone got out and looked around for their car.
“Where’s our car?” the man asked in confusion.
“I lent it to someone very special,” Eun Woo replied casually as he climbed into the passenger seat of his friend’s car.
Eun Woo’s gaze accidentally fell on a small photo charm left on the dashboard. It showed Angel Lee with her arm around her younger sister, Hae-Li.
Back in high school, Eun Woo and Angel had been the dream couple at their school. They were both smart and popular, and they often participated in the same student organizations. Their classmates never stopped trying to set them up. But after graduating and choosing different paths through college, communication between them gradually faded away.
Maybe they had once harbored feelings they never got the chance to express. But as Eun Woo stared at the photo, he realized something for the first time. As far as he had known, Angel had always claimed to be an only child. He had never known that Angel had a younger sister with such a sweet face as Hae-Li.
“Do you know the girl in that photo?” his friend asked, breaking the silence.
“Yes. I ran into her by accident this morning,” Eun Woo murmured, his fingers gently stroking the photo frame. “I’ll have to go back to her house later to return her wallet and the things she left behind.”
Meanwhile, inside the airport parking lot, Angel Lee sat behind the wheel, waiting for her parents to come out of the arrivals terminal. Curious, she slowly opened the gift box Eun Woo had given her.
As soon as the lid came off, a sweet fragrance filled her senses.
“Chocolate and flowers?” Angel murmured in surprise. A second later, a small laugh slipped from her lips. “He knows perfectly well that I never used to like romantic stuff like this. What a tease.”
Even so, Angel couldn’t hide the blush spreading across her cheeks. She closed the box again and hugged it tightly against her chest.
End of flashback **
In the dimly lit bedroom, the present came rushing back. Angel lay flat on her bed. The sound of Hae-Li’s bedroom door slamming shut down the hall still lingered in her mind.
Angel let out a short sigh, then reached for the phone on her nightstand. She opened her secret gallery and gazed at an old photo of herself and Eun Woo standing side by side in their school uniforms beneath a tree.
Angel gently touched the phone screen, then glanced toward the flower stem and the piece of chocolate now resting sweetly beside her pillow.
“All right,” Angel whispered into the silence of the room. “Starting today, chocolate and flowers are my two favorite things in the world. Just like the feelings I’ve had for you since back then.”
Angel slowly closed her eyes, wearing the most sincere smile that had not graced her face in years. Amid the chirping of crickets outside the window, one sweet question spun through her mind.
“Will fate bring me together with my first love again tomorrow?”