AAE -- Wishes Of The Heart

Chapter 1

by LoveCR2

edited by All-About-AAE

 

"Will you marry me? ... Don't go." -- Yoon Hyung-Chul

 

 

"Sun-Mi…!"

 

Jin Sun-Mi stops in the middle of the zebra crossing and turns to look back. Through tear-filled eyes, she can barely see Hyung-Chul standing by his car. She wonders what he wants...

 

Within seconds he sprints across the street.

 

Barely pausing to catch his breath, he tells her, "I feel like this is something I have to do right now, or I won't be able to."

 

... those were the same words she had just used to justify leaving him, for London ...

 

Ostensibly to fulfill an obligation to her Senior, Yoo Joo-Hee, for recommending her, or to take her next step in pursuing a dream career, or to prove she was Huh Young-Mi's equal and had what it took to be a real celebrity... in reality it was a matter of the heart, not the mind, that compelled her out of the car and propelled her, one halting step at a time, on a new path in life -- a path without him.

 

This was not the first time she had turned her back on Yoon Hyung-Chul and walked away, but it would be the last... This time, when he declared he would wait for her, as he had every time before, she would stiffen her spine, look him in the eye, and tell him no, the time for waiting was past. Because it wasn't just his waiting, but hers, too... waiting for her heart to heal, to forget, to believe, to learn how to trust again, so she might give him everything he deserved from her...

 

… 'If you love somebody you give everything or nothing' ...

 

Since it couldn't be everything, she had decided it would be nothing. Make a clean break. Let him move on to someone more worthy, more capable, more beautiful -- the perfect match she would never be.

 

All this passes through Sun-Mi's mind in the seconds after Hyung-Chul spoke. She knows what will come next...

 

But instead of following the script she had pre-written, Hyung-Chul grasps her left hand, a ring appears, and he slips it onto her finger. Sun-Mi stares at the sparkling diamond in total disbelief, stunned by the sudden turn of events, not knowing what to say, to think...

 

"Will you marry me?" His voice is hoarse with emotion. "Don't go..."

 

Sun-Mi questions if she is dreaming. She looks into his eyes for confirmation. The sincerity she finds dispels the doubts in her mind and quiets the fluttering of her heart, giving her assurances that this is real... not a fairytale.

 

A lump blocks Sun-Mi's throat; tears of joy fill her eyes. By a smile and a nod she conveys the assent she is unable to articulate.

 

With a breath of relief, Hyung-Chul bares the depths of his heart, declaring the four simple words she'd waited so long to hear... "Sun-Mi, I love you…"

 

He draws Sun-Mi into his arms. His lips search out hers, caressing hesitantly, seeking permission.

 

She yields.

 

Their first kiss is tentative, an introduction to a new experience of intimacy, simple in its sweetness, but a tantalizing enticement igniting a spark arousing long-withheld desires. Then passion flames -- and residual inhibitions falter -- they come together now with abandon, intensely, insistently, as if trying to make up in minutes, the years lost to indecision and misunderstanding.

 

Beneath her, Sun-Mi feels a distinct sensation that the street is moving, as her world starts to spin out of control. Immersed in the exhilarating, all-consuming spell of the moment, she is only vaguely conscious of the low rumbling sounds and acrid fumes of the heavy traffic lumbering past them.

 

But none of that matters now. Sun-Mi has found her heart's dream... True Love...