AAE -- Wishes Of The Heart

Chapter 110

written by LoveCR2 -- 2005

edited by All-About-AAE -- 2017

 

"It's your nature, Sun-Mi, how you were created, to be someone who brings love and happiness to others." -- Ha Jin-Woo

 

 

FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY ...

 

 

"Ta-da!"

 

Jin-Woo presents the omelette with a flourish as he slides it from the frying pan onto Sun-Mi's plate ...

 

On the table already are serving plates heaped with crisp-fried bacon and triangular-cut slices of buttered toast, two tall glasses of freshly-squeezed orange juice, and a cup of steaming coffee.

 

Sun-Mi sniffs the fragrant herbs folded into the omelette and eagerly anticipates the flavorsome taste. "Smells delicious! But why the feast?"

 

"When I heard you were dieting all week, I decided to come to your rescue," he explains the robust spread, encouraging her, "Go ahead, eat. I've been practicing on the court every day, so you'll need lots of energy if you expect to beat me."

 

 

She laughs and picks up a thin strip of bacon, part of which she snaps off with her teeth, savoring the hickory smoked flavor, as he returns to the kitchen and flips his own omelette with a practiced heave of the pan.

 

"Even with the extra workout, tomorrow I'll have to do full penance for my sins," she jests, and sighs ruefully, "I still need to lose two kilos."

 

From the kitchen, Jin-Woo assesses Sun-Mi's lean, fit figure cased in a light pink, midriff-baring Juicy Couture velour tracksuit. "I don't see where you're going to find them first," he quips. "What's the big deal anyway?"

 

"It's only a month until New York Fashion Week's Spring/Summer events," she informs him. "We're shooting all the segments of 'Fashion Today!' here, and there's a dozen outfits in my wardrobe schedule that I can barely squeeze into."

 

"Don't you get tired of being treated like some manikin in a store window, dressed to sell fashion fluff?" he questions her mind-set.

 

"I don't think of it that way," she tells him. "Fashion, at its best, can help a woman feel confident and show her best side to the world. Many women are unsure of themselves. I want to help them find their own fashion sense and become the best they can be, so I don't take this role lightly."

 

"You seem to regard fashion pretty seriously," he remarks.

 

"It's not all serious ... I enjoy meeting the famous models and designers, and have a lot of fun dressing up in the latest styles," she admits, "and the shoes are to die for!'

 

"Okay, I know I'll never get that shoe thing," he acknowledges his incomprehension of the feminine mind. "But honestly, Sun-Mi, you look fantastic right now, two 'extra' kilos or not."

 

"I'll take the compliment," she replies with a gratified smile, forking in another piece of his golden brown egg concoction and letting it melt in her mouth.

 

 

Finishing his work at the stove, Jin-Woo comes to the table, plate and coffee in hand, and sits down across from her.

 

"Ah ... once again I have the privilege of dining with the beautiful and famous Correspondent Jin Sun-Mi," he cracks as he grabs some bacon strips to munch on.

 

Sun-Mi spreads a thick layer of strawberry preserves on a piece of toast while she speaks with a twinge of guilt, "When you offered to make breakfast for me, I didn't expect you to do it every Saturday. Now I feel like I'm taking advantage of you."

 

"It's nothing," he plays it down. "Considering otherwise I'd be eating alone, I don't see it as being taken advantage of."

 

But she continues earnestly, "Still, I'm feeling a bit shameless, letting you do all this for me ..."

 

 

After washing down a hefty chunk of omelette with a long draught of orange juice, Jin-Woo notices that Sun-Mi has stopped eating, instead idly pushing the food around with her fork as she pensively gazes out the window at the cloudless sky.

 

"If there's something you want to say, just say it," he prompts.

 

"It's just that ..." she begins tentatively, "I can't believe I acted so foolishly ... Opening a door, when I wasn't sure myself where it was leading to. That's not right."

 

"You didn't so much lead," he admits, "as I was looking for an open door myself."

 

Sun-Mi is curious now of his expressed intentions. "But then, why not make a move, when you had the chance?"

 

"Perhaps because..." he reflects back, to when he held her in his arms on the dance floor, recalling her words ... 'Say that you like me, that I'm important to you ... Why did you take so long to tell me?' ...

 

"It was what you said ... no ... more how you said it," he answers. "I felt that it wasn't me you were really speaking to, but someone else ... someone you felt deeply for, and I knew I'd be fighting a losing cause ... just like you are, too. You might as well try to deny gravity."

 

Sun-Mi sighs. "But the weight of it all, I can't bear any longer," she states dejectedly. "That's why I'm trying to move on."

 

"Why not try accepting your feelings for what they are?" he advises, "Not as a weight holding you back, but as a confirmation of your ability to truly love someone, a solid footing you can stand on, helping you to move forward."

 

"You're suggesting to celebrate the past, instead of trying to forget it?" she clarifies his thoughts in her own words.

 

"Exactly. Focus on what you gained, not on the loss," he recommends. "Doing that can really change how you see things."

 

She eyes him carefully, "Are you speaking from experience?"

 

"It's what I learned from you," he discloses.

 

"How's that?" she wonders what she'd said.

 

"Before I kept distant in relationships, because all I saw was the chance for being hurt again. I let the past color the future," he explains, "but knowing you has changed all that."

 

"Okay, now you have me really curious," she says, putting down her fork and leaning forward, elbows on the table, chin resting on her hands. "Go on ..."

 

"It was like inhaling a breath of revitalizing air -- I felt alive again," he reveals the effect she had on him. "I saw how everything that happened up to that moment -- good and bad -- had worked to put me in a particular place at a particular time. A place where I'd meet an angel who would change my life."

 

"Me? An angel?" Sun-Mi scoffs. "How can you say that?  I'm petty, short-tempered, obstinate at one moment and vacillating the next ... and I can say and do the most hurtful things to people I care about," she lists her shortcomings frankly. "I'm not the beatific angel you're making me out to be, just another fallen human being."

 

"I didn't say you were perfect," he downplays her self-criticism. "But you have a rare gift that shouldn't be taken lightly ... the ability to light up a room with just a smile, to inspire a child from fear to dreams, to encourage hurting hearts with the hope that loving again is worth the risk ... That gift makes you an angel, in my eyes."

 

Perplexed, she draws back, sitting erect, "But how could I give you anything, when I'm struggling with hope and love myself?"

 

"Because it's not what you do, it's who you naturally are. It's your nature, Sun-Mi, how you were created, to be someone who brings love and happiness to others," Jin-Woo asserts.

 

"I've never heard anything so preposterous!" she disputes his conclusion. "People aren't MADE to be something, they BECOME something by what they decide to do."

 

"Really? Then how do you explain what I read about you?" he argues his point. "It wasn't all malicious gossip ... there were amazing articles, and countless testimonials on chat boards and personal blogs. Do you know how many lives you've affected for the better, where you lived and went to school and worked? Through your TV and radio programs?"

 

"You can't be serious?' she refuses to accept his commendations.

 

"Think carefully, and then tell me it isn't so," he presses her. "Tell me that you're not the person I see you as."

 

 

Taking up his challenge, Sun-Mi sips her coffee, pondering over his words, thinking back.

 

While she is ruminating, Jin-Woo finishes off his breakfast, watching her ...

 

Noting the time, he interrupts her reverie with a reminder, "We have to be at the Tennis Center soon. Do you want more to eat? Coffee?"

 

Sun-Mi comes back to the present with a sheepish grin. "No thanks, I've had enough for now. It was all delicious."

 

"So, what did you conclude?"

 

"It's not clear," she relates her thinking. "Maybe you're right. Or maybe, it's all coincidence."

 

"Does it really matter?" he points out. "Isn't the result the same? Wherever you go, people's lives are changed. Just think of it like that, if you don't want to believe the angel part."

 

"Okay ... But thanks for the encouragement, anyway," she replies with a smile, while unconvinced.

 

"Consider, too, that maybe this gift will make your own dreams a reality ... to change the world for the better."

 

"Isn't that dream a bit too grand?" she dismisses what she'd told him so confidently just a few weeks ago.

 

"Why dream anything less?" he uses her own words to inspire her. "I'm serious about boasting that I dined with the beautiful and famous Correspondent Jin Sun-Mi."

 

 

His reminder makes her think of something else he'd also said ... 'Before I kept distant in relationships, because all I saw was the chance for being hurt again. I let the past color the future. But knowing you has changed all that' ...

 

"There's one more thing I want to settle if possible," she decides to address the matter she's avoided -- their kiss, and what followed. "What happened that night, it's something we have to face. Where does that leave us, you and me?"

 

He looks at her directly with an easy grin, as if what's bothered her for all this time has barely crossed his mind.

 

"I think I have a solution," he suggests, "First, you accept that I like you a lot. Second, I accept that you don't like me to the same level. And Third, we both agree for friendship's sake, that a kiss, or two, or even three, really can be just a kiss ... and leave it at that."

 

Sun-Mi doubts that his simplistic proposal is possible -- for him. "You'd give up on your feelings, so easily?"

 

"Not give up, but cherish," he replies. "Besides, I'm not a masochist, I don't enjoy beating myself up for no result."

 

"So we're fine? Just like that?"

 

"Just like that," Jin-Woo confirms. "What do you say?"

 

"I know just saying thank you isn't enough," Sun-Mi answers, breaking out her most brilliant smile. "But thank you, very much."

 

"To me, 'thank you' is everything," he assures her. "You don't have to say anything more ..."