AAE -- For Better For Worse

Chapter 21

by LoveCR2

edited by All-About-AAE

 

 

"Have another ..."

 

Perched on the bed next to Sun-Mi, Cho-Jeh pulls a tissue from the box she is holding. Reaching over, she presses it into Sun-Mi's hand.

 

 

Sun-Mi daubs at the tears springing up and running down her cheeks.

 

"I'm the one who broke up, so why do I feel like I can't breathe?" she complains. "Why does it hurt so much? What's wrong with me?"

 

 

Cho-Jeh looks on sympathetically.

 

"It's natural to hurt deeply when losing someone you have close bonds with," she commiserates. "It doesn't matter why ..."

 

She gives Sun-Mi's shoulder a friendly pat.

 

"You should think it over. Talk to him."

 

 

"I can't. I said we would never meet again. That if we have to, for work, we'll greet each other like strangers."

 

"And Director Yoon was fine with that?"

 

"Yes."

 

"Then text him that you changed your mind."

 

"We're to block all calls and texts, too. No communications. I told him that I wanted to forget him and erase him from my heart. And he should do the same with me ... forever."

 

 

Cho-Jeh rolls her eyes, exasperated by Sun-Mi's self-inflicted circumstances.

 

"Why did you do that? What were you thinking?" she scolds harshly. "When you break up, you always leave a way back, just in case. Even an idiot knows to do that! ..."

 

Sun-Mi sits motionless under Cho-Jeh's tirade, not saying a word as fresh tears wet her cheeks.

 

 

Cho-Jeh breaks off her rant to pass another tissue.

 

"You are such a leaky faucet! ... Here ..."

 

 

As Sun-Mi dries her face, Cho-Jeh adopts a less combative tone, probing further, "You haven't even told me why you broke up with him."

 

 

"Oh ... Right ..." Sun-Mi mumbles, acknowledging her omission. "It's because he wouldn't leave me if I didn't ..."

 

She pauses to wipe away more tears from her eyes, before they spill over.

 

"He's waited so long, and to make him wait more ... I'd feel too sorry for him. So I had to end it. That's why."

 

 

Unconvinced, Cho-Jeh eyes Sun-Mi skeptically.

 

"Is that it!? He's a Prince, and it's not as if you're leaving forever. There's more than this, right? I can sense it!"

 

 

Sun-Mi averts her eyes, refusing a response to Cho-Jeh's inquiry.

 

But Cho-Jeh persists, "C'mon, out with it!"

 

"I shouldn't."

 

"Fess up!"

 

"It's a kind of secret."

 

"I'm your best friend, you tell me all your secrets."

 

"Okay," Sun-Mi's resistance crumbles, "but you can't breathe a word to anyone!"

 

"I promise."

 

"It's that unless Senior marries Yoo Joo-Hee," she reveals, "he'll lose his family legacy and be forced to give up control of MBS."

 

Cho-Jeh's eyes bug out. "What?"

 

"Their grandfathers betrothed them, when they were children, as part of a business deal," Sun-Mi explains further. "Senior must fulfill the contract and get married, or be disowned and lose everything."

 

"And how do you know all this?!"

 

Sun-Mi sniffs her nose, discarding the damp tissue onto the small pile accumulating in front of her, and taking the next that Cho-Jeh holds out to her, before she answers.

 

"From Senior Joo-Hee. That's why she broke up with Manager Kim Sun-Dal, because she had no choice. And either does Senior."

 

 

Cho-Jeh gapes in disbelief ...

 

"You gave away Director Yoon to Yoo Joo-Hee, just because she told you some cockamamie story?!" she exclaims, astonished. "It never crossed your mind, that she has a conflict of interest in the outcome?

 

 

Although early on, Sun-Mi had indulged such suspicions, Joo-Hee had persuaded her otherwise. So the possibility now that she had been lied to stuns Sun-Mi. "You don't think it's true?!"

 

"Didn't you confirm it with Director Yoon directly?"

 

"How could I? And even if I had, he wouldn't have admitted it. Joo-Hee said he was in denial over the entire situation."

 

"So it's Joo-Hee's word, again," Cho-Jeh bolsters her case. "My friend, it's seriously looking like you've been scammed!"

 

"It can't be," Sun-Mi refuses to accept the conjecture.

 

"Look at it rationally," Cho-Jeh argues. "Who does that kind of thing in this modern era? It's probably not even legal to make such a contract."

 

Sun-Mi reluctantly concedes, "Well ... er ... perhaps ... But Senior Joo-Hee was so convincing!"

 

 

"How could you be so gullible?" Cho-Jeh sighs tiredly. "What were you thinking?"

 

Sun-Mi stares at the floor, totally chagrinned. Even her tears have stopped, mortified by her own asininity.

 

"I didn't call you here to criticize," she says quietly. "I can beat myself up enough. Right now, I just need a friend."

 

"Sorry," Cho-Jeh apologizes. "I was only trying to help."

 

"I know. But now I feel like a total fool," Sun-Mi expresses her discomfit. "Wondering if I broke up with Senior, for no real reason at all!"