AAE -- Wishes Of The Heart

Chapter 47

written by LoveCR2 -- 2005

edited by All-About-AAE -- 2017

 

"One part of my heart is still in Seoul, looking back. The other is in London, looking forward. And my head is in the middle, going in circles, looking both ways." -- Jin Sun-Mi

 

 

AUNTIE JIN'S HOME ... LATER THAT NIGHT ...

 

"Leaving so soon, Min-Cho?" Auntie Jin queries as he makes a beeline for the front door from the dining table. "I made coffee."

 

He stops in the entry, and turns back...

 

"Sorry, I have work to do tonight," he declines apologetically, glancing at Sun-Mi, who is still as icy as when she alighted in the car at MBS.

 

"Can't you stay for a bit to talk?" she asks hopefully. "Sun-Mi just arrived from Seoul, and doesn't know anyone here yet. I was hoping you could help orient her to London."

 

"Maybe next time we could go out for a day of sight-seeing," he suggests, ignoring the 'evil eye' Sun-Mi shoots at him.

 

 

Sun-Mi rises abruptly to her feet in a huff...

 

"Perhaps you two have all night to chat, but I have some reading from the office to finish," she declares irately.

 

Brushing past Min-Cho without another word, Sun-Mi flees up the stairs.

 

Min-Cho and Auntie Jin exchange puzzled looks as the sound of a door slamming comes back down the stairs...

 

 

Alone at her bedroom desk, Sun-Mi stares vacantly at the internet printouts she'd found left on her desk that morning: articles calling into question the legitimacy of her post to London, and pictures showing Park So-Won publicly acting intimate with Hyung-Chul.

 

A sharp knock on the closed door startles her, and Sun-Mi hastily wipes her eyes dry with her sleeve before answering, "Yes?"

 

"May I come in?" Aunt Jin asks. "I brought some hot cocoa, and a snack."

 

"Sure..." Sun-Mi allows, quickly turning over the papers on the desktop and opening a book to cover them.

 

The door opens, and Auntie Jin appears, carrying a tray to the desk. "You didn't eat much at dinner," she gives a reason for her visit."

 

"I wasn't very hungry. That's all," Sun-Mi smiles to allay her aunt's fears. "But everything tasted excellent, Auntie."

 

"Still, what I said earlier is true," her aunt casts a critical eye over Sun-Mi. "You're much too thin and wan. It's not healthy."

 

"It's because of all the work moving from Seoul, being jetlagged, and adjusting to the office," Sun-Mi rattles off a plausible list of reasons to dispel her aunt's concerns, adding cheerfully, "I'll be okay as soon as things settle down."

 

 

But Auntie Jin isn't fooled by false cheerfulness -- and Sun-Mi's red, puffy eyes readily give her away. She sits on the bed and gently suggests, "Why don't we talk about what's bothering you?"

 

But Sun-Mi still tries avoiding the issue. "Tell me the truth," she demands. "Are you and Min-Cho's uncle trying to set us up?"

 

Auntie Jin laughs at her supposition. "Now where did you get that idea?"

 

"First his uncle has Min-Cho collect me for dinner, but conveniently doesn't show. Then he assigns Min-Cho as my English tutor. And now, you send him to move me here, and even invite him to eat with us," Sun-Mi complains. "Why shouldn't I think that something is up?"

 

Auntie Jin shakes her head, smiling with amusement. "Don't you know? Min-Cho is like a nephew to me. After the divorce and his parents left, I practically raised him. He's no stranger in my home."

 

Sun-Mi looks away, embarrassed by her rude attitude at the dinner table. "Oh... he never told me that..."

 

Then she looks back at her aunt, and grumbles, "Why am I always the last to know anything?" I feel like an idiot. Still..." she thinks about her meetings with Min-Cho, and justifies herself. "It's partly his fault, too. He keeps insisting I should be his girlfriend."

 

"It's because I trained him well," her aunt beams. "Of course he'll be able to recognize and choose the loveliest flower in the field."

 

"Auntie!" Sun-Mi is upset. "Are you taking his side?"

 

"No, but if you were looking for a nice young man to date, you can't do better than Min-Cho," her aunt claims.

 

"But I already said I'm not interested in that now," Sun-Mi repeats her earlier assertion.

 

"You really don't like him? Is that all it was?"

 

"Actually, it's not Min-Cho, Auntie, but..." Despite Sun-Mi's efforts to hold them back, being only in front of her aunt, the tears suddenly spill over and trace wet streaks down her cheeks.

 

"Come here, Sun-Mi." Auntie Jin pats the bed next to her.

 

Sun-Mi gets up from the desk and sits next to her aunt, resting her head against the older woman's shoulder.

 

"Auntie... what am I going to do?"

 

"Don't hold back," the older woman encourages her, "It's okay to cry over a broken heart..."

 

"How did you know?"

 

"We women can tell these things," her aunt explains, then adds lightly, "and, I also read the news from Seoul..."

 

"I came here to get away from all that," Sun-Mi sighs, "hoping I could forget him... I told myself I could leave everything behind and move on... but it's not as easy as I'd hoped..."

 

"Nothing about the heart is ever easy," Auntie Jin interjects comfortingly.

 

"I promised myself I'd be strong," Sun-Mi continues. "So why do I feel so empty inside? Why do I feel like I'm going to die?"

 

"Because love isn't just waiting out there to happen upon by chance, or by fate, or just because you meet someone," her aunt philosophizes. "You have to create it in your heart, and nurture it, and when it's ready to blossom, open your heart to give it away to someone."

 

"But the love I gave away wasn't returned," Sun-Mi replies.

 

"Yes, and then you're left with an empty space, in a heart that aches to be full," her aunt empathizes, putting her arm around Sun-Mi's shoulders comfortingly. "And that is what you feel right now. But given time, your heart will mend itself. We have to go on living, after all... even though we bear a scar."

 

 

"Auntie, why did you never marry?" Sun-Mi is suddenly curious. "Didn't you ever meet someone you loved with all your heart?"

 

"I carry many scars," her aunt acknowledges. "But that's my fault; I could never get my heart and my head to agree. Perhaps I was too particular, or too practical, or just too independent. And before I realized it, life moved on, and there was no one left standing in line."

 

"Do you regret it?"

 

"That's hard to say. Perhaps at times, when I come back to an empty home," she reflects. "But I've had a full, and rewarding life regardless. If I had to do it all over again, I might do it differently, but then maybe not."

 

Sun-Mi looks at her aunt and asks, "Auntie, what should I do?"

 

"Only you know that. Just listen to your heart," her aunt counsels.

 

 

"But that's the problem," Sun-Mi frets. "My heart was wrong about Kim Woo-Jin, and because I kept looking back, refusing to give up hope, I lost Senior, too. How can I trust myself anymore?"

 

"Have you learned anything since then?"

 

"I thought so. When I got on the plane for London, I vowed I'd be different; I promised to be decisive, and not to look back anymore... Then today happened, and now I'm totally confused... One part of my heart is still in Seoul, looking back. The other is in London, looking forward. And my head is in the middle, going in circles, looking both ways."

 

Auntie Jin catches what Sun-Mi isn't ready to say. "Then what you claimed earlier, about not wanting to date..."

 

"Was just an excuse, because I'm afraid of repeating the past," Sun-Mi admits.

 

"So do you like Min-Cho, or not?" her aunt prods.

 

"Yes, sort of," Sun-Mi confesses. "Sometimes he irritates me to no end, but other times..." she looks away and laughs at her own shyness, "he makes me feel special in a way that I've never felt before..."

 

"I think you know what you want to do, more than you realize," Auntie Jin says optimistically. "After all, my niece is the best newbie correspondent MBS has ever sent here, right?"

 

"So you did talk to Chief Kim about me!" Sun-Mi exclaims.

 

"Of course," her aunt comes clean. "How else could we conspire to set you and Min-Cho up? But that's our secret, okay?"

 

"Min-Cho doesn't know?"

 

"For men, it's better that they believe they're in the driver's seat," the older woman advises.

 

Looking at her aunt with new-found respect, Sun-Mi feels her confidence rising. "Auntie, thanks for listening, and helping me figure things out," she says gratefully. "Now, I think I know what I want to do..."