MEET

[TANG HIU YING]

Honey sits on an intricate wooden chair. The square table in front of her is made up of red maple wood that the restaurant did not bother to cover. The warm atmosphere and red lightning give it an appetizing aura while the large Buddha display at the center gives it a unique appearance.

She smiles scanning the vast quiet dining area where people eat heartily with their mouths close. Shanghai has adopted the etiquette of the west while the National City still embraces its old ways, eating loudly to express a flavorful meal from the chef.

"Ms. Tang?" A woman with clear glasses says, standing beside the table where Honey sits.

"Why did you suddenly become formal, HeRu?" Honey greets the lawyer who is only two years younger than her. 

She gestured for the lawyer to sit down at the opposite chair with her hand and smile. "HeRu" was her pet name for the woman while she called the twin brother, JiRu when they were still together.

"Time flies so fast isn't it, meimei," Honey mumbles, staring at Ms. Bao with the same clear glasses she wears the first time she meets the woman. "Was it ten years ago when we first met?" She asks.

"Yes, jiejie," Hwei Ru nods her head and quickly smiles. She stares at her hands resting on her lap to avoid the senior lawyer's eyes. The woman who motivates her to become one of the best lawyers in the country almost became her sister-in-law if only her brother and Honey didn't break up because of Wang Xiu.

Honey sighs.

A decade of her life passed. Ten years of her life she can't go back. Honey recalls the time again. The time she regrets everything. She feels this whenever she remembers the only man who broke her heart. The only man who made her a fool. The man doesn't look like Hwei Ru but their little resemblance reminds her of him, Bao Jiang Ru.

Who she is now was molded from what she was before. Honey recalls her ten years like it was only yesterday when it all happened.

Honey's parents are both lawyers. The shadows they cast over her are vast and inescapable yet unlike those who fight to have a name of their own, she embraces it. Her parents taught her to enjoy her privilege and share them with others, a great motivation that put her on track to become a lawyer as well.

She met the Bao's patriarch because of a case her mother handled against them. The lawsuit was supposed to be purely professional but the media coverage made it excessively sensational that Honey was once chased by paparazzi outside her university.

Luckily, a young man saved her. A freshman at a famous business school on his way to see his twin sister at the law school where Honey is a third-year student.

'Was it love at first sight?' Honey recalls in her mind.

Bao Jiang Ru looks boyish with his curly black hair and a gritty wide smile showing his white teeth over his thin lips. He doesn't have broad shoulders like most men and looks palsy and weak but what made Honey fall for him is his eyes that convey innocence, like an angel with long black thick lashes and delightful gaze.

Never knew those angel eyes would break her heart in many ways. What she thought was a heaven-sent savior was honestly a devil reincarnated. Bao Jiang Ru is the most sought-after "uni boy" in their school. Rich, good-looking, and smart. He never likes to be tied down early and Honey accepted it. He was young and wanted to play with girls but his heart belonged only to her.

The man's playboy image lasted until he graduated. Honey was the most patient and understanding girlfriend there is. She never caught Bao Jiang Ru with any other girl and took it as another school rumor meant to be ignored. She loved him with all her heart and never looked at anyone else.

Honey knows Zhang Wang Xiu before she met the woman personally. Jiang Ru would often say the woman's name in anger. The "Long Snake" as they call her, reaching far to get what she wanted, and often it would cost the man great academic opportunities.

Unlike Jiang Ru, the woman didn't come with money. An orphan being supported by a rich uncle. It was obvious that Zhang Wang Xiu would want to be the best and make her uncle proud of her. Honey understands the sentiments of a woman who wants to prove herself against all odds, she never bothers despising Zhang Wang Xiu until after the apprenticeship that Jiang Ru wanted to be in.

Park Min Ah is a famous entrepreneur mentor not only in South Korea but all of Asia. Her husband's small boutique became huge in America because of her. Gaining branches all over the world. She was a genius in marketing and business strategies. Every year she would take five students from different universities and Bao Jiang Ru wanted to be a part of it until Zhang Wang Xiu swiped it out of his hand at the last minute.

"FUCK!!! FUCK!!! FUCK!!!" Bao Jiang Ru slams the table with his fist after receiving the letter of rejection from Park Min Ah's office.

Honey stares at the man with wide eyes, shocked by the furious look of her boyfriend. She sits at the wooden table on the right side of the man while on the left is Hwei Ru and Mrs. Bao sipping jasmine tea in the morning.

Honey didn't ask JiRu, she pulled the paper from her boyfriend's clutch and read the contents of the letter. She read it with her eyes and frowned at the message. Her boyfriend has been looking forward to joining the apprenticeship from Ms. Park and being rejected is hard for the man.

"If it isn't for you, it wouldn't be, Jin," Mrs. Bao says, lifting her porcelain cup filled with tea. The blue intricate designs of flowers and leaves on the cup's surface indicate its costly item.

The matriarch knows her son quite well. Jiang Ru loses his temper when he doesn't get what he wants. An insensitive act that he gets from being spoiled by his father. He is treated like an emperor by her husband and no matter what she does, she couldn't do anything to change the behavior of her son.

"I bet that "snake" got it, again." Hwei Ru reacts with a sneer on her lips. Adding more fuel to the blazing anger that his brother feels.

Bao Jiang Ru stood up from his chair and walked out of the Bao Mansion. Honey heard the sound of a screeching vehicle abruptly running at the driveway. She didn't stop her boyfriend from leaving or followed him. She knows her beloved will calm down after one or two days.