AAE -- Wishes Of The Heart

Chapter 140

written by LoveCR2 -- 2005

edited by All-About-AAE -- 2018

 

"I keep saying I need time to figure things out... but as life goes on, I have less certainty, not more" -- Jin Sun-Mi

 

 

SEOCHO-GU, SEOUL...

 

... 'First, just sit down... Like your father said, you and I need to talk' ...

 

Twenty minutes after Min-Cho's demand, with a change of clothes and a half-emptied cup of hot cocoa in her hands, Sun-Mi is ready...

 

"Okay, I'm sitting down... Start talking..."

 

 

Min-Cho had dimmed the living room lights to a soft, indirect glow, leaving only the central sitting arrangement illuminated from the ceiling cans. Outside the windows, the lighted buildings of Seoul are visible.

 

He looks over the coffee table between them, where a steaming cup she brought for him with hers sits next to the issue of The Economist� he was reading...

 

Curled up in the comfortable leather chair, casual in a baby pink cowl-neck cable-knit sweater and white capris from Alice & Olivia, with a canary yellow acrylic headband to hold back her hair, Hello Kitty ankle socks, and a freshly scrubbed face, Sun-Mi appears more like a teenage schoolgirl than a sophisticated, professional broadcaster.

 

"Shouldn't I get at least the benefit of a doubt, before you lay on the accusations?" he complains about her earlier ranting, then quotes her words ... 'What a person shares about their life, or holds back, is their choice'...

 

 

Sun-Mi recognizes those words as originally from her aunt's advice, given to correct her attitude in a similar situation before...

 

"You're right," she concedes. "Frankly, I was just frustrated and blowing off steam... The fact is, you've never given me a reason not to trust you, so why should I start doubting now? As you said, it's not as if I'm a stranger to scandals. I'll survive the gossip, like before."

 

 

"So what's really going on?" Min-Cho takes a stab at drawing her out. "It�s not about what your family or other people think, is it?"

 

Sun-Mi sips her cocoa while she decides how to answer, then averts her eyes sheepishly...

 

"I still have the habit of making everything all about Jin Sun-Mi, when it's not," she confesses. "Do you know the saying ... 'be careful what you ask for, you may get it' ...?"

 

He infers her meaning. "You're having some second thoughts?"

 

 

She nods...

 

"Good, loyal people were retrenched so the Company could hire on some pricey outside celebrity..." she relays what she'd learned that day, not mincing words.

 

"So you feel responsible?"

 

Sun-Mi nods again. "Last time, I was on the other side of things, but it doesn't feel any better from here."

 

"A business doesn't make those kind of decisions lightly," he reasons. "Sometimes it requires a little pain to cure the patient."

 

"That's easy to say, when you're not the one feeling the pain," she disapproves of his cavalier indifference to her colleagues' fates.

 

"Regardless, what's done can't be undone," he contends. "Director Kim Sun-Dal believes MBS needs your name and your ability, so much that he's staked his future, and the Company's, on your performance. That it comes at a price reflects the reality that a good outcome requires a substantial investment -- to MBS, you're worth every won they're paying you, or they wouldn't."

 

"Still, that doesn't mean what happened is right," she argues back, "Couldn't there be a better way?"

 

"Those aren't your decisions to judge," he differs. "Your job now is to prove Director Kim was right in his wager, because if you don't, a lot more people will be feeling that same pain..."

 

 

His serious tone unsettles Sun-Mi...

 

"The truth is... hearing that is a little unnerving," she worries. "Knowing that others are depending on me for their livelihoods, too, is humbling. I think I finally understand now, what he meant, about trying to understand him..."

 

"What is that?" Min-Cho wonders at her remark.

 

"Just something someone said to me, when I was being obnoxiously self-righteous one night," Sun-Mi replies. "I think I'd have a different opinion now."

 

"Regardless, just don't sell yourself short," Min-Cho encourages her. "From what I've seen, I'd be a fool not to put my money on Jin Sun-Mi."

 

"Do you really think that?" she asks doubtfully.

 

"What I think isn't important," he pointedly states. "It's what the audience wants that counts, and right now they want to see more of the real Jin Sun-Mi."

 

 

"How can I give the audience what I don't know myself?" she sighs uncertainly. "I keep saying I need time to figure things out... but as life goes on, I have less certainty, not more..."

 

She gazes into her cup, swirling the smooth brown liquid as she contemplates her situation...

 

"You sound so confident, but I find myself wondering... who is that person? I don't recognize her..." Sun-Mi expresses her doubts.

 

Then she looks up at Min-Cho, directly into his eyes, to gauge his reaction as she begins tenuously, "What if..."

 

She pauses, stiffening her resolve, before starting again, "What if I'm not who I appear to be? What would you say then?"

 

"I'd say, let's worry about that later," he judiciously sidesteps the question. "Right now, we have something more important to deal with, the reason you came back for..."

 

 

Sun-Mi half-smiles, reflecting on what had transpired since she arrived in Seoul, and how things hadn't been at all what she'd expected...

 

"Frankly, after what you told me tonight, I'm at a loss of what to do," she acknowledges.

 

"Well, I'm not!" Min-Cho states brashly. "As usual, I have the solution to your problem..."

 

"Haven't I heard that before?" she remarks wearily. "I'm in no mood for jokes right now."

 

"It's no joke," he promises. "Hear me out first."

 

"Fine," she consents. "Go on, then."

 

 

"First, this..."

 

He reaches into his pants pocket and takes out the ring that he had proposed with in London's Tate Modern, holding it out with a flourish for Sun-Mi to see. The flawless pale blue diamond, centered in a circle of smaller white diamonds, brings back memories of that night to Sun-Mi...

 

... the red carpet walk ... the largest blue diamond in the world ... dancing as if floating on air ... Min-Cho's proposal, and her decision ...

 

 

Gazing at the dazzling precious gemstones, sparkling in the light, she raves admiringly, "It's so beautiful!"

 

"Why don't you try it on?" he suggests.

 

"How can I?" she declines gently. "I know what this ring means to you, and you know I don't share those same feelings."

 

"Let me worry about my feelings. That's not your responsibility," he brushes off her concern. "But if you want people to believe we're really engaged, then it's time we start acting like a real couple."

 

"But it's so expensive, I'd feel like a Cinderella," Sun-Mi objects again. "Anyway, where could I wear a ring like this, and not seem ostentatious?"

 

 

Min-Cho has the answer to that question waiting...

 

"Where else, 'Cinderella', but the royal ball," he declares with a wide grin, and then reveals the next step in his plans...

 

 

"... the MBS Annual Charity Gala ..."