AAE -- Wishes Of The Heart
Chapter 35
by LoveCR2 -- 2005
edited by All-About-AAE -- 2017
"My life is one of dreams, Senior, while yours is one of realities. Like a meteorite from the heavens and a pearl from the sea." -- Jin Sun-Mi
CHEONGDAM, GANGNAM-GU ...
"Sun-Mi? Are you alright?" Hyung-Chul asks, noticing her bewildered expression.
Sun-Mi, preoccupied by an eerie sensation of déjà vu, doesn't answer...
They are stopped at the Daesuri-gil crosswalk on Apgujeong-ro, a place she had often walked by. The Galleria Department Store, where she often shopped, is a block to the west. The bus stop where she often met Hyung-Chul for dates is a short distance to the east. The street has its usual flow of traffic, the sidewalks their typical scattering of pedestrians for a late evening.
Hazy snippets of memory start linking up, recreating a gradually developing scene in her mind... she is wearing her pale blue pantsuit, holding her black office tote on her lap... the sharp clicks of the car flashers cut through the rumble of traffic... outside the car, nearby shop displays and parked cars, light posts and tree trunks, all fit into a familiar pattern...
With a start, Sun-Mi realizes that she is in the identical place she'd been in her dream, and the exact same circumstances.
...but dreams don't predict the future... she tells herself, her head unwilling to accept the evidence ... they only reveal the wishes of the heart... right?
She glances over at Hyung-Chul, aware that he is awaiting an answer. His eyes, earlier so demanding, now exude concern, making her regret her harsh attitude...
"Senior, I'm sorry. I've behaved badly tonight," she apologizes.
"You must be under a lot of stress right now," he extends the face-saving excuse. "Is there something you wanted to say?"
Surprisingly, there is... and the words flow as if she is reading from a well-practiced news script...
"I... I'm always thankful to you, Senior… No matter how many tantrums I had or thoughtless things I said, you always took care of me... Tomorrow, please don't come out to the airport. I don't want to turn my back to you as I leave … I feel like this is something I have to do right now, or I won't be able to... I'll try to be strong and make my own way in London… I am grateful for everything... "
"Goodbye, Senior..."
When she finishes, Sun-Mi realizes she has spoken those words before... and just taken another step deeper into the circumstances of her dream.
To Hyung-Chul, the finality of Sun-Mi's tone is clear --'goodbye' means not 'see you later' but 'don't expect to see me again like this'. His hopes stall, then plummet, crashing and burning. He stares at the steering wheel, devastated, wondering how things could have come to this, knowing he has no choice but to let her go.
With nothing left to say, and the silence between them becoming too oppressive to bear, Sun-Mi opens the car door and gets out. She walks slowly over to the zebra crossing and waits for the light to change. Wanting to appear strong before Hyung-Chul, she turns her face away to hide the tears in her eyes...
... 'Sometimes business has to come before love. Sun-Mi will understand' ... Her mind understands, but her heart can't...
The seconds count down on the signal, then the WALK light flashes on. But Sun-Mi doesn't move.
She has no doubts now... what she'd believed was a dream is becoming more real each minute. All she has to do now, to bring the ending of that dream to reality, is start moving forward.
Bolstered with that thought, Sun-Mi steps off the curb, determined to find out if dreams really do predict the future...
As Sun-Mi walks past his car, and out of his life, Hyung-Chul captures what may be his last pictures of her with his eyes. He stores them away, with all the others he'd taken since that other fateful day, five years before, when at a different cross-walk in a different city, she had walked in front of his car, and into his life.
With each step, Sun-Mi's feet feel heavier, yet her destination seems almost as far away as when she had started off. Finally, she stops, unable to continue. Through a blur of tears, she is vaguely aware that she is at the middle of the zebra crossing.
Then behind her, Sun-Mi hears a car door open and close... A voice calls out: "Sun-Mi…!"
Hyung-Chul's voice... the next piece of her dream, happening as she'd dreamed...
She catches her breath. A flicker of hope lights her face. Slowly, expectantly, she turns to look back.
Hyung-Chul is already there, right in front of her, so close she can't see anything except his intense, dark eyes probing hers. Now fully immersed in the moment, she vividly recalls from memory the words she's longed to hear:
...'Don't go... marry me... Sun-Mi, I love you' ...
As if in response to signals from her impassioned thoughts, Hyung-Chul takes her hand in his, and holds it gently.
Breathless with anticipation, Sun-Mi is beginning to feel lightheaded. Her black office tote slips from her grasp and drops to the asphalt with a quiet thud, unnoticed. Her entire mind, her whole heart, is waiting for the moment her world will turn around, and begin spinning into bliss.
But instead of producing the ring, Hyung-Chul turns her hand palm up, as if to place something into it.
Sun-Mi looks down at their hands, wondering if her dream is going off-script at the last, critical moment... Then, instead of watching in stunned amazement as he slips a sparkling diamond onto her finger, she watches in bewilderment as he places the handles of a shopping bag over her palm.
Uncomprehending this unexpected turn of events, she asks, "What's this?"
"Your bag," he tells her, in a straight, matter-of-fact, dream-crushing tone.
"What bag?" she exclaims, incredulous, still not believing what is happening.
"Office stuff. You left it behind in the car," he reminds her.
Sun-Mi stares at the bag, the harsh reality dissipating her dream right before her eyes. She makes a final, desperate plea before the last wisps blow away: "Is there anything else... you have for me?"
"No," he answers succinctly. "Nothing else."
The words hit Sun-Mi like a ten-ton wrecking ball, smashing the last pieces of her dream-fueled fantasy to smithereens, leaving only a biting taste of raw reality in her mouth, and a striking clarity in her mind...
... nothing else with him anyway. No present, no future, no tears, no regrets. Only a past she'd already mostly decided to forget. She can leave the rest behind now and move on ...
"You're right, there's nothing left... I see that now," she answers, her voice firm with resolve. "I must have been daydreaming..."
Hyung-Chul cautions, "Watch the daydreaming, and be more careful while crossing the street from now on..."
Sun-Mi recalls that he'd given her this same practical advice often, the first time just after their accident in London, and later, in different words for different situations. But she'd never heeded his advice for long, and now she knows why... it should have been obvious to her all along ...
"My life is one of dreams, Senior, while yours is one of realities," she reflects on his words, recalling, "You once said we're like a meteorite from the heavens and a pearl from the sea, now come together. But being so different, can we ever truly know the other's heart and mind?"
The crosswalk timer counts down to the last few seconds... like time is counting down for them, too ... she realizes.
"I really have to go..." she says as she holds out her hand, acknowledging the end of one dream, and the start of another...
Hyung-Chul hides his reluctance, and they shake briefly, but warmly, as good friends do. Sun-Mi picks up her dropped tote, then turns and walks away, but he lingers, watching her back. At the far side of the street, she waves once. He waves back, then jogs to his car to get off the street before the light changes.
When he looks again, she is moving quickly, in a hurry.
He reaches into his pocket and takes out the ring, holding it up to see the light sparkle in the facets. In his palm is also another rock, not as flashy, but carrying a deeper meaning. Feeling its unique shape, he hears Sun-Mi's words again with a wistful sadness..:
... 'It's two hearts, entwined together at creation, and now fused for eternity' ...
The memory carries him back to the day they'd sat together on the mountain, high on a rocky perch, in a place Sun-Mi said was magical, where perfect memories are made, and told him of her childhood dreams...
... 'I was like the birds, flying freely over the mountains, above the clouds. Flying to faraway places, with nothing to hold me back' ...
He reflects on how far she has come, from a naive college freshman struggling with her broken dreams, to a polished broadcasting professional making her dreams into reality.
... Does he still have a part in that reality? ... Hyung-Chul wonders at the possibility, then sends a message telepathically ...
... 'Just remember that I'll always be waiting for you... I'll wait for you' ...
He watches, but Sun-Mi doesn't waver in her step; she doesn't look back. She keeps walking, away...
End of Part 1