AAE -- For Better For Worse

Chapter 22

by LoveCR2

edited by All-About-AAE

 

 

"Let's break up ..."

 

Hyung-Chul slowly inhales a deep drag on his cigarette, then chases it with a long draught of straight bourbon. The potent combination of nicotine and 120 proof Buffalo Trace floods into his bloodstream, dulling the anxiety crowding any rational thought from his mind. He sits back in the chair and closes his eyes, waiting until his inner calm returns.

 

Then, step by step, he methodically thinks back, trying to figure out what exactly had happened, where things had gone wrong ...

 

Clearly, Sun-Mi had meticulously planned their entire day from the beginning -- from the trip down memories lane reliving the happy innocence of their early relationship, to the final scene in the park and her prepared breakup speech. He could see now, that it was all a charade, crafted to raise his hopes with the cruel intention of dashing them into broken shards.

 

"But why?"

 

Searching out an answer, he replays his last exchange with Sun-Mi ...

 

"Is it because of me? Something I did, or said?"

 

"No. It's because of me. Because of what I want."

 

"All I want is you, Sun-Mi!"

 

"Do you? Is it me, Senior, or what I represent, that you really want?"

 

 

The question had jolted him when he'd first heard it, and the accusation still stings in his mind. But it wasn't just what Sun-Mi said, it was the pain, or more accurately, the betrayal, that her voice conveyed to him.

 

"I don't understand."

 

"You once told me --'No matter where I go in this world, I'm asked whose son I am. But to you I was just another person.' -- Like you used London to escape before, aren't you using me now, too, as a way to escape, to where you can be another person?"

 

 

Hyung-Chul downs another swallow, using the burn to distract him from the unpleasant idea that he had, indeed, used Sun-Mi in a last-ditch attempt to keep his rebellion alive. Why else had he found it so difficult to express his feelings toward her, if they weren't always suspect from the beginning?

 

 

"You said that your birthstone is the only one that comes flying in from another world, and is now together with my pearl from the ocean. But I don't see it like that. It's impossible for two opposing worlds to coexist, since one or the other will be out of its natural order. Like a bird can't breathe underwater, or a fish can't breathe out of the water, eventually, one of us will suffocate."

 

 

"Is that why she ended it?" he voices his uncertainty aloud. "Did I stifle Sun-Mi to the point that being with me was unbearable? Is the thought of living in my world that burdensome to her?"

 

 

He draws another hit of nicotine to ease the depressing thoughts, pushing them aside with the pictures he'd taken of Sun-Mi throughout the day. Happy pictures of her smiling and laughing, like she had no cares in the world.

 

But the pictures only taunt him, rubbing salt into the wound that Sun-Mi had deliberately made to inflict as much pain as possible ...

 

 

"But why?" he asks himself again, frustrated.

 

Then the answer comes to him, like the proverbial slap in the face ...

 

"She wants me to hate her. To push me to let her go!" he concludes exultantly.

 

 

But his jubilance is soon tempered by realization that he had only opened the door to another question -- This isn't like Sun-Mi. So what had changed to make her want to do this?

 

"Why, indeed?" he puzzles over the new mystery.

 

Putting down the empty bourbon glass, he picks up his mobile, flips it open, and taps in a number.

 

 

Sun-Dal's tired voice answers his summons, "Yes?"

 

"Let's meet after work tomorrow, for a drink," Hyung-Chul proposes.

 

"Sure, I could use the company. But why are you calling so late, to just tell me that?"

 

"It appears, my friend, that we are both aboard the same sinking ship."

 

 

"Sun-Mi? Again?" Sun-Dal guesses. "Are you serious?

 

"It seems she has dumped me. And this time, for good," Hyung-Chul fills him in on the recent development.

 

"No way. That's not like Sun-Mi, at least not her usual self," Sun-Dal opines. "Something must be wrong."

 

"Exactly my feeling," Hyung-Chul agrees. "And I'm hoping you can help me find out what ..."