AAE -- For Better For Worse

Part 2 -- Chapter 03

by LoveCR2

edited by All-About-AAE

 

 

While Sun-Mi busied herself with preparing tea, Hyung-Chul sat on the living room couch, wracking his mind with questions. What had he done, this time? Now that he had the opportunity, he wasn't sure that he wanted to know. The possibility that this was the end between them was too hard to consider.

 

"Just one minute," Sun-Mi calls from the kitchen, her lilting voice easing his trepidation -- she didn't sound angry at all.

 

 

Actually, it was two very long minutes that Hyung-Chul was left to stew in his mental anguish before she appears, carrying the cups of steaming tea. Putting down one cup on the coffee table in front of him first, she sits on the chair on his left, and sets her cup down, too.

 

"I asked you not to contact me," she speaks first.

 

"I know, but I had to know."

 

"Know what?"

 

"Why did you run away? ... Is it that you don't love me? That you still love Kim Woo-Jin?"

 

"Don't be silly!" she retorts. "I love you and only you!"

 

 

Hearing this, the burden oppressing Hyung-Chul evaporates in an instant. But the questions still remained.

 

"Do you believe that I love you, too?"

 

"It took me a long time before I was certain about that," she admits. "Because I couldn't understand why. And I still don't."

 

 

Her answer raises more questions than it answers for him. "If you love me, and believe I love you, then why break off our engagement?"

 

"How can I be so selfish to grasp something for my happiness that might cause so many others to suffer?" she tells him her worry.

 

"How would our marriage hurt others?"

 

"Because it means you will have to give up MBS, just for me," she elaborates.

 

"Whoever told you that?"

 

"You did, when you said you'd come to London with me, and get a new job," Sun-Mi reminds him of his promise when he proposed. "I now know that unless you marry Joo-Hee, you won't become the CEO of MBS."

 

"You heard that from Joo-Hee?" he surmises.

 

"Yes." The reminder of that meeting still sets her teeth on edge. "Why am I always the last to know?" she complains. "Why didn't you tell me yourself?"

 

 

"I didn't tell you that, because it's not true," he avers. "Or, more accurately, not the whole truth. Do you want to hear my side of the story?"

 

"Yes," she eagerly replies, hoping to put her concerns to rest.

 

"This could take some time," he warns. "Perhaps we should start with a fresh cup of tea?"