Chapter 27

Joon Young? Ji Won crooked her head and look at the phone again. What the hell did he want? Especially on his wedding night of all times? “Which Joon Young is this?”

He laughed. “What do you mean which Joon Young is this? Which other Joon Young do you know?”

She snickered. “Well, the Joon Young I know got married a few hours ago so it makes no sense that he’d be calling me instead of enjoying the night with his new wife.”

He laughed some more. “I would be if my wife wasn’t lying on the bed, drunk and snoring really loudly.”

“Wow. The prospect of spending the night with you drove her to the bottle, huh?”

He chuckled then said, “Did you get quicker with the zingers or have I forgotten?”

Ji Won picked up the television remote control then laid on her couch. “What do you want?” she asked as she flicked through channels. She put the phone on speak and placed in on her chest.

After a silent moment, he cleared his throat. “I just wanted to apologize to you.”

“For…?”

“For sending the invitation to you. If I had any control over it, you wouldn’t have gotten one.”

“Oh, you wanted to hide your wedding from me?”

He groaned. “That’s not what I meant. But it was wrong of me to send it to you… seeing how things ended. My wife sent it to you without my knowledge. I’m sorry.”

“Whatever,” Ji Won said right before she turned off the television. There was nothing to watch and even if there wasn't she wasn't in the mood to watch it. It was time for bed. She picked up her phone and put it off speaker. “If that’s all you have to say…” she said after she'd placed it against her ear and had begun to walk around, switching off the lights in the living room.

“It was nice seeing you. How have you been doing?”

She walked over to the kitchen and turn off that light too. “Are you pretending to care?”

‘You can’t still be mad.”

she stopped moving and leaned against a wall. “What’s there to be mad at? That I now know that you didn’t really have a problem with marriage – that you just had a problem with marrying me? Or what else? That you have the guts to call me on your wedding night telling me some bulls.hit?"

“What would you like me to say? Tell me and I’ll say it. You looked happy at the wedding so I thought that perhaps it was okay for me to contact you. Did I make a mistake?”

“To be honest, I’m not mad at you." She got off the wall and walked into her bedroom. "I’m already over us and know that we weren’t meant to be. I guess I just feel like lashing at someone – it’s not about you. I’m sorry.” She got on her bed and jumped on it.

“Want to talk about it?

“Not really," she said, noting the time on her clock. She just wanted to take a quick shower and fall asleep. "So you only called to apologize?”

“Yeah. I'd prayed that the invitation got lost in the mail so that I could pretend that you never received it but then you just had to show up and shatter that dream,” he said with a chuckle.

“You were hoping I wouldn’t come?”

“Maybe hope wasn’t the word. But I just didn’t think you’d show up. For me, the most probable scenario involved you tearing up the invitation card and cursing me a thousand times. But I guess I was wrong.”

“Yeah, maybe despite our relationship, we never knew each other as well as we thought. Maybe I don’t know anybody at all. Maybe what I thought was love really wasn’t. Maybe I'm just an idiot. Which is why you couldn’t marry me after like five years together but you married someone you’ve known for less than half the time.”

“I did love you. And I regretted it for a long time. I still regret it. I did initially get involved with her to spite you – I can admit that. But something happened along the way. And I was scared sh.itless yesterday -moreso than with you. But I can’t always let my fears keep me from doing the right thing, can I?”

“I guess you can’t.”

“But when I saw you today, I was glad to see you happy… to see that you’ve moved on too. It made me realize that I’d made a mistake that had changed both our lives forever but we both figured out a way to adjust to that change. It also made me understand that sometimes, we can't help but hurt the people we love because no one is perfect. And sometimes, we ask for forgiveness and are granted it. But if we aren’t, we must live the best we can with the consequences. One moment of weakness or stupidity can change our lives forever.”

***

Shin didn’t even know how he got home. For damn sure, he hadn’t been paying attention to the road or traffic lights. As he walked into his building, all he could think was that what hurt him most wasn’t even that his mother didn’t love him, but how hurt he felt by the rejection. He didn’t want that woman to have this much effect on him and he just wished he could figure out a way to kill his feelings.

He hit the elevator button then leaned against the wall. The entire day had been draining and all he wanted to do was go to bed. Or more importantly, sleep and hopefully, when he woke up the next day, he’d realize that it had all been a bad dream.

About a minute later, he was walking towards his apartment, with his eyes almost shut as he rubbed his temple, wondering if he was developing a headache when he heard someone say, “Oppa.” That stopped his feet from moving.

He opened his eyes to see a small female figure sitting in front of his apartment door with her legs akimbo.

“Oppa, is that really you? You’re finally here?” she asked as she stood up. She brushed off some dirt from the seat of her pants then smiled at him. “I’d begun to give up hope of seeing you.”

His mouth flung open and he didn’t bother to hide his shock. Was he seeing things? What in the world was Min Su doing at his place? At this time of the day, no less? He looked at his watch. “It’s already past midnight. Why are you here?” And another blast from the past was the last thing he needed.

Instead of replying, she just smiled sheepishly. He gave her a full once over. Her body was clad in dark blue skinny jeans, and a tube top covered with a tailored jacket. She had on what looked like five inch heels and with her hair loosely framing her face, Shin could see that she hadn’t lost even iota of her looks.

He looked beautiful and he didn’t like that he noticed it. Taking a deep breath, he walked over to the door and pulled out his keys.

“Oppa,” she said, lightly touching his hand.

Her hand was surprisingly cool but also unwelcome. She’d stopped being a part of his consciousness for a long time and that moment wasn’t the time to change that. He shook her hand off him.

“What do you want?” he asked, turning his gaze to her.

“Jeez,” she said, making a face. “Why do you look like this? You must have had a horrible day. What happened?”

He turned his face away from her and shook his head. It surprised him that even with all the years that they’d been apart, she could still read him so easily.

“Just tell me why you’re here so that you can leave.”

“May I come in for a bit? I need to talk to you.”

“About what? We haven’t talked in ages. What could you possibly have to discuss with me?”

“Please,” she said, giving him those puppy dogs eyes that had never failed to win him over. But Shin wasn’t going to let them win this time around.

“I’m going the sleep the second I walk into my apartment so if you have something to say, just say it now.”

“Oppa, I can’t talk about this in the hallway. I’ve been waiting here for over three hours. Just let me come in for a bit.”

Fatigued and irritated by the argument that was leading nowhere, he opened the door and walked into his place. Min Su followed him and shut the door behind her.

“What happened to you? Where did you go? Did you have a fight with your girlfriend? I thought you didn’t have one.”

Shin, who was now in front of his fridge, grabbing a beer turned to her in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

Min Su sat on the loveseat as she looked around his apartment. “Remember that girl you were with at the Schmidt exhibit? I saw her the other day and she gave off the impression that you’d broken up.”

Shin nearly choked on his beer. “What?”

“Or am I wrong? You guys are still together?”

“She wasn’t my girlfriend – she was my editor.”

“That was really all it was?” she asked, disbelieving, because that was not the vibe she’d gotten on that day. “But if that’s all it was, I feel better now.”

Shin gulped down the rest of his beer then opened up another can and swallowed another gulp. There was a time, years ago, that he’d prayed every night to see her sitting in the middle of his sitting room, begging to talk to him. But those days were long gone and he was already sick of playing the Reminisce Game. “We are in my apartment now. Just say what you want to say and leave.”

“Oppa…” she began, getting off the couch and walking towards him. She tried her best to calm her nerves as she got closer. It had taken her some time to muster up the courage to do this but once she decided to, she knew she had to see it through – even if it was three hours later than she’d planned. She cleared her throat and said, “Your place looks nice and it looks like your taste has definitely improved.”

He looked at her pointedly. “Yes, it has.”

She ignored the obvious jab and grabbed a stool and sat with the kitchen table between them. She reached for his hand but he quickly took it away.

“What’s this?”

She took another deep breath then grabbed his hand again. “Oppa, I’m sorry.”

He took his hand back again. “For what?”

“For what I did back then.” She looked into his eyes. “Ever since I saw you at the Schmidt exhibit, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. I was a fool. I’m sorry I was too stupid to realize that you really are the one for me.” She’d loved him but back then, couldn’t see the point in staying with a smart man who in her opinion was wasting his potential writing books that weren’t earning him enough for them to live on. “I’m sorry I broke your heart. And I know I don’t have the right to be here saying this to you but I just felt that I should at least take a chance. If not for me, then for us.”

Stunned, he started at her for a few silent moments then burst into laughter. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” What a day.

“Oppa,” she said, grabbing his hand again then kissing his palm.

He was in too much shock to react.

“Remember that summer we spent backpacking across Europe, spending our days as tourists and our nights in bed? Wasn’t it in Berlin we discovered Schmidt? Remember how you said that his Happiness painting was the snapshot of our future? When I saw you at his exhibition that day, I knew you hadn’t forgotten me.” She kissed his palm again and still holding his hand, got off the stool and moved closer to him.

Shin’s eyes were trained on her, following her every movement. Yes, he had said that. And yes, he remembered that day. But his heart wasn’t thumping at the memories. Instead, his brain was just getting muddled by everything that had happened and was happening. He drank the last of his beer then reached for another can but was stopped by Min Su’s hand.

“Oppa, I know you only drink this much when you’re upset. I’m here now so you don’t have to do that anymore.” She unraveled his fingers off the can then traced the length of his arm with her palm. From his eyes, she could see his resolve weakening and that spurred her to continue.

As she caressed his neck then his face, all Shin could think was how soft and smooth her fingers felt and how the sensation was a welcome change from all the madness that was occurring in his thoughts.

She smiled when she noticed that he’d begun to breathe heavier. “See? You still react to me. It’s been years but it’s not over between us.” She leaned over, expecting him to push her off him or turn his face away but when he didn’t, she slowly shut her eyes and kissed him.

He knew he shouldn’t have been surprised because anyone could have seen that coming from two towns away but the force of her lips crashing against his still managed to cause his body to stiffen. He wanted to resist but a part of him told him this was exactly what he needed.

Not discouraged by this lack of reaction, Min Su, kissed him even harder, with her tongue teasing his lips, urging them to part. And when they eventually did, she stuck her tongue in his mouth and touched his and when they began to kiss, she sat on his lap, causing the stool to tilt backwards.

They both held onto the table to steady themselves and Min Su quickly got off his lap and laughed nervously. Shin looked up at her and laughed as well but just as quickly as they were parted, they rejoined, this time both standing as they kissed each other desperately.

Min Su had been a little worried that their chemistry would be gone so she was pleasantly surprised to find it still there and that only excited her more.

It had been years and she felt the same. As she tightened her grip around his neck, their shared memories started flooding back to Shin. From the first day that they met to the first time they kissed.

“Ouch,” Min Su cried when her butt hit the table. Shin looked up from her face – he hadn’t even realized that he’d pushed her against it.

The hand on her body instinctively changed from lustful to concerned as he moved his head back and peered into her eyes. “Are you okay?”

She smiled and nodded. “Yes.” She reached behind and sat on the table. “This is better,” she said, wrapping her legs around his thighs before reaching for the top button of his shirt.

Shin looked down at her as she unbuttoned his shirt. She was just as beautiful as always was and there was something soothing about someone who looked like her wanting him. In fact, at the moment, it just felt so good to be wanted.

He shocked her when he scooped her up and carried her. She giggled and when she was sure that their grip on each other was secure, their kissing continued from where they had left off.

As he carried her towards his bedroom, countless memories ran through his mind.

He thought about the ring he’d bought her – the exact one she’d pointed to in a magazine. He’d spent days trying to find a store that carried it. As she whispered his name when he kissed her neck, he remembered the day he’d arrived home only to find her things gone and a note with a single line saying she was sorry. Yes, it felt good to be wanted for once.

She giggled when he kicked open his door then ran her fingers through his hair, and smiled at his face, making sure that her desire for him was clear.

She bounced a little when he threw her on the bed. And as she took off her jacket, he remembered his agent yelling at him to snap out of his depression because mourning a lost love wouldn’t help him make his deadline.

As he took off his belt and pulled down his pants, watching as she unbuttoned her jeans, he remembered the hundreds of drunken calls he’d left on her answering machine begging her return to him. He remembered that he’d promised to become the man she wanted as long as she returned to his side.

As she knelt up straight on the bed and reached for him, he remembered the news article he’d read, announcing her marriage to a successful financier. He remembered how happy she’d looked in the photo, smiling at her fiancé like she’d once smiled at him.

Then as his body fell on the bed, he remembered how he cried when his mother left him alone in Mr. Yoo’s apartment. The light from the living room kept his bedroom from being pitch black but as he reached over and turned on the bedside lamp, he thought of how cold and dark that room had been and how he’d spent those lonely hours wondering if his half siblings had ever experienced such coldness and darkness.
.
She climbed on him then unhooked her bra. And as it fell, he saw that the years had been good to her. She bent over and created a trail of kisses from his chest to his pelvic region. Then she pulled out a condom and smiled at him.

As she tore open the wrapper, he remembered that evening in Aruba when Ji Won was in that exact position doing the exact same thing. Except, instead of the desire he saw in Min Su’s eye, all she had were tears. Then he saw how she’d looked at him a few hours ago, both with care and confusion and he’d forced his kisses on her. Then he remembered the sad expression she’d had when she’d watched him leave.


Shin looked up at Min Su who was now waving the unwrapped condom seductively at him. “This has got to stop,” he said right before he pushed her off him and swung his legs over till he was sitting at the edge of the bed. “I think you’d better leave.”

***

She didn’t know what she shared with Shin but she knew she shared something. She didn’t know if it was worth fighting for but it was clear that no matter how many times he said or did things to annoy her, no matter how many times she decided to forget him, he somehow found a way of getting back into her life.

Even though she really could have done without the call from Joon Young, there were some things he said that rang true. Even though she was over that relationship, she wondered if a part of her still mourned the life that she’d planned with him. Maybe it was time to stop thinking of herself as a jilted woman but simply as a woman. Time to stop seeking out similarities between situations, fighting to not make the same mistakes.

Maybe it was time to really accept that she had a different life and in some way, Shin had become a part of it. Even though she hadn’t labeled their relationship, he had become a constant in her life. She liked his kisses and enjoyed his company and she couldn’t quite work out exactly what that meant to her but she knew that she’d begun to care for him. And caring for him meant that she understood that he was in agony about his mother so she wasn’t going to take anything he’d said or done against her personally. Yes, he had been wrong – but no one was perfect.

She’d spent the entire night agonizing over the evening’s events. Wondering if there was something she could have done differently that would have led to a much better outcome. She wondered if there were words she could have uttered to comfort him so that he wouldn’t have acted the way he did. She wondered if there was a way she could have reacted to his pain to keep him from thinking that she was abandoning him.

He’d said that she was important to him and maybe despite all that had happened in the previous months, she’d never quite believed it till she saw the look of pain in his eyes when he said it.

So once she deemed that it was not too early to show up unannounced, she jumped into her car and drove over to his place.


***

“In which direction will you be jogging?”

“That way,” Shin said, pointing to his right. The previous night, after some more futile attempts, Min Su finally accepted that they wouldn’t be sleeping together. But since Shin was too drunk and tired to drive and felt that it was too late for Min Su to drive herself home, she’d slept on the bed while he’d slept on the couch.

“I understand that yesterday was a shock, but please think about what I said.”

He rolled his eyes. “Go back to your husband.”

“Shinie—”

“Min Su—”

“I’ll walk you to your car. Where did you park it?”

She stepped in front of him and led him to the red Mercedes Benz that unbeknownst to them, was parked a few cars away from Ji Won’s.

“I left my number on your fridge. Call me if you change your mind or if you just need someone to talk to.”

“I won’t be calling you. Have a nice life, Min Su.”

She reached up and kissed him on the cheek. “See you.”


***

Ji Won had been pleasantly surprised when as she parked her car, she saw Shin walk out of his building. But that excitement quickly turned to horror when she saw that woman walk out seconds later.

She barely blinked as she watched them walk over to that lady’s car and after she kissed him on the cheek, she watched Shin jog for a block before turning around and going back to his apartment.

She didn’t know how long she’d sat in her car, barely breathing or blinking but her mind had gone blank and she probably would have sat there for eternity, staring at his apartment building entrance if she hadn’t felt a tear drop on her hand.