16

Jin Hun barged into his mother’s house. He’d tried to keep calm but what the hell was wrong with Sam Soon? He couldn’t decide which was worse: the fact that she wouldn’t tell him what his mother had said or that she’d hidden it from him in the first place. He slammed the door behind him and headed towards the living room. The maid looked at his face and scurried away.

“Uncle,” an oblivious Mi Joo yelled, running to him.

“Go to your room,” he said, walking past her.

“Uncle?”

“Go to your room!” he repeated, not looking back.

Knowing when to back out, Mi Joo did what she’d been told.

On seeing that the living room was empty, Jin Hun headed towards her study and flung the door which had been slightly ajar wide open. His mother who’d been sitting at her desk poring over some files, looked up in surprise. “What’s with all the noise?”

“What did you say to Sam Soon?!”

His mother looked him over then raised a brow. “What?”

“President Na, what did you say to Sam Soon?” If Sam Soon wasn’t going to give him this information, his mother sure as hell would have to.

She stood up and put her fists on her hips. “Are you crazy? How dare you talk to me in the tone?”

“Mother,” he started venomously. It just wasn’t going to be one of those days. She could save her scolding for tomorrow but today, all he needed was an answer to his very simple question. “What did you say to Sam Soon?” he repeated.

His mother regarded him curiously and sat back down. She straightened her blouse and put on her ‘presidential’ face. “About what? I’m sure I’ve said many things to her.”

He folded his arms. “Something about not being good enough?”

“What?” His mother thought about it for the moment. “Oh, that was a long time ago.”

He moved further into the study. “Just tell me what you said,” he droned. He tried his hardest not to grit his teeth but her nonchalant attitude was grating his nerves.

“The same things I said to you – that I didn’t think she was right for the family and that the best thing she could do was give up on you,” she said dismissively.

“You said that?” He was a little surprised. Okay, maybe not entirely but he didn’t think she’d actually say that to her… at least not in his absence. He knew his mother didn’t approve of the match but he never really thought she'd go that far, especially after so many years. Had be really been stupid to believe that she’d slowly begun to come around? Maybe Sam Soon was right – he shouldn’t have waited for her approval. Dumb, dumb, dumb Jin Hun, he chided himself. He glowered at her. “President Na, if I’ve lost her forever, I will not forgive you. You had no right--”

“God. Don’t be so dramatic,” she said glibly.

“How can you sit there like that? I am your son – have you forgotten that? You had no right to say that to her.” He shook his head in disgust. “So what now? You’re happy? You’re ecstatic that we are not together anymore? You’re happy to see me like this?”

His mother rolled her eyes. “Relax. Be a man for chrissakes!”

At that moment, all Jin Hun could think was that the woman across from him was very lucky that she was his mother otherwise he might have said, or worse, done something he’d have later regretted.

“Besides, that’s your business,” she continued. “If you are together, not together, whatever happens is your business. You’re a grown man – what does it have to do with me? You need to take responsibility for yourself.”

Jin Hun burst out laughing. “Wow. I can’t believe you. You are truly something. You are one hell of an amazing woman.”

“Watch your mouth,” she warned.

He scoffed. “Now, it’s my business? When you went behind my back and spoke to her, whose business was it?”

He waited for a response but his mother didn’t say anything.

“And since it’s my business, stop throwing Eunsoo at me. I thought it was quite clear that I am not interested in her.”

“Eunsoo? I already gave up on that a long time ago. If you don’t want her, that’s fine. It’s clear that you don’t know a good thing when it’s standing in front of you.”

She’d given up on them? “What do you mean? About Eunsoo…?”

His mother shrugged. “As I said, do whatever you like. You’re already 32 years old. I would like to see my grandchildren you know. And if…”

His mother had begun to drone on and on about his marriage choices but Jin Hun was no longer listening. So if his mother didn’t care about Eunsoo, did it mean she approved of Sam Soon? He asked her just to be sure that he understood her correctly.

“I never said that I accept her,” she finally replied. “I just said that I will not interfere. If you are bent on marrying her and since Mi Joo likes her, who am I to interfere? If that’s what I have to do to get you married, I will.”

Jin Hun smirked. Now she tells him. He just loved how his mother only had that epiphany after Sam Soon had left him. Well, if this woman thought she was playing mind games, he hoped that she realized she was going to lose because when he got Sam Soon back, he could care less if she kept her word.

He cleared his throat. “So Mother, would you be willing to say this to Sam Soon?”

“I already have.”


***


“So what do you think about a trip to Hong Kong?” Sam Soon asked, pulling two tickets out of her bag. It was funny how she hadn’t even thought of them till the second after Tae Young had dropped the bomb about their trip to the U.S.

“God, you are greedy. One trip abroad isn’t enough, so now you want to go on another one? Do you even care about the shop?” her sister teased. They were sitting at Yi Young’s dinning table drinking some coffee.

Sam Soon groaned. “Stop it. You know that’s not what I meant.”

Her sister caressed her hand. “Sam Soon, is it really that difficult to make a decision? You're making this far more difficult than it has to be.”

She made a face. “I just don’t want to make the wrong one – this is something I am going to have to live with forever.”

“As you know, it doesn’t have to be forever,” her sister said matter-of-factly.

“Like divorce is even an option. See how hard it is for me to get married in the first place. Who wants a 45 year old divorced woman?” There was no way in hell she was going to go through this a second time.

“Then don’t get divorced.”

“I wish it were that simple. This doesn’t make any sense. I am Kim Sam Soon! I know what I want and I go for it!” She placed head on the table in surrender. “God, send me a sign!”

Her sister regarded her closely. “You want to know the difference between my first husband and this one?”

With her head still on the table, Sam Soon turned to look at her. “He cheated on you?”

“Well, other than that…”

“What other reason? Didn’t you leave because he cheated?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the last straw. But even if he hadn’t cheated, it would just have been me being married to someone because I didn’t want to get divorced.”

Sam Soon sat back up.” So what’s different?”

“It was simply the wrong man.”

Sam Soon thought about it. “So you’re saying that you didn’t love him?”

“Well…,” Yi Young paused for a second, “Yeah, I definitely loved him. But love isn’t all you need in a marriage.”

“You loved him and you love brother-in-law. How can you tell the difference?”

“Compatibility. Can you live with this man with all his flaws, and trust me, there are hundreds, forever? Can this man be the father of your children? Is he dependable? Will he always be there for you? Things like that.”

“So Dr. Yi Young, to cut to the chase, are you saying I should marry Tae Young? Or you’re talking about Sam Shik?”

Yi Young smiled apologetically. “You know I’ve loved Sam Shik as a brother-in-law for quite a long time so I don’t think I can answer that question. But you know who you should be with. In there.” She pointed at Sam Soon’s heart.

Sam Soon shook her head. “This conversation isn’t going like I expected. I thought you hated Tae Young – I was getting ready to defend him.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, dongsaeng, but right now, I love Tae Young. He’s about to make us rich women,” she said grinning.

Sam Soon rolled her eyes.

“But in all seriousness, it's really not that difficult. Just follow your heart… with a little help from your head.”

“Now, if only both of them could give me a clear message!” She hit her head on the table.

They sat at the table for a while longer and when they started to drift to other topics, Yi Young began, “Ehm, Sam Soon, I don’t know if this is the right time to bring this up….”

“What?”

“You’re about to become an auntie.”


***

Jin Hun needed a day to let everything sink in. Not only had his mother asked Sam Soon to break up with him, apparently, she’d later on told her that she accepted them. So what was going on in Sam Soon’s head? He drove up to her house and called her out. To his surprise, she didn’t make any excuses and agreed to meet with him.

“Do you mind if we sit? I’m a little tired,” she asked, shutting the gate behind her. She was already in her pajamas and didn’t even bother to cover it up with a robe.

“Is everything okay?” Jin Hun noticed how tired she looked.

She gave him a small smile. “It’s just one of those days. Can we sit in your car?”

Jin Hun led the way and opened the door for her. Then he went over to the driver’s side and sat in the seat.

They sat in silence for a few minutes.

“So what do you want to say?” She was looking ahead.

“I spoke to my mother about what she said.” He, too, didn’t turn his face.

“Okay.”

That was her only reaction? “So why didn’t you tell me?”

She shrugged. “What difference would it have made?”

He turned to her. “Why would you say that? Of course it would have made a difference.”

She looked at him. “Really? It would? It’s not like she told me something that I didn’t already know.”

“So why did you listen to her? You broke up with me because she asked you to, didn’t you?”

“Hmm… yeah, sure. That’s it,” she said sarcastically.

“Sam Soon, why are you acting like this?” He wanted to shake her back to the woman he’d spent so many years loving. Why was she acting defeated? Why had she given up?

She looked at him. “How am I acting? This is all in the past, right? For four years you didn’t do anything about it, so what’s all this?”

“But that’s all over now.”

“It is?” she scoffed.

“My mother accepts us now. Didn’t she tell you?”

“Is that what she told me? She kept going around in circles and said a lot without saying much. God, why are we even talking about this? Is there even a point? It will never be the same. Look at how my mother loves you – your mother will never love me like that.”

“So what? What matters is how we feel about each other. I can’t control the way she acts, Sam Soon.”

“Of course you can’t. How could you possibly do that?” She said spitefully. “But what difference does it make? We’re not together anymore.”

Jin Hun was getting increasingly frustrated. Did she no longer love him? A week earlier, he was sure she did but right then, with the way she was speaking, he wasn’t sure. And he wanted to smash something.

She put her hand on the door handle. “Is that all you wanted to say? I am sick of going around in circles with you about this. It’s all in the past. I am tired of thinking about this. I am tired of feeling this way. I think it’s time for us to really move on. I really want to move on.”

She was sick of it? So was he. What the fu.ck? It wasn’t supposed to be this hard. Jin Hun watched her open the door and step out. When she was at the front of the car, he got out of it. How dare she think that they were really over? “So are you saying that you don’t love me anymore?”

She sighed. “Of course I love you. You don’t wake up one morning and just stop loving someone.”

Encouraged by her response, he bridged the distance between them in seconds. “So why are you doing this?”

“What did I read the other day? It takes 6 months for every year of the relationship to get over someone,” she continued to herself. “I guess I have about a year and some months left, I suppose.”

What was she saying? How in the world had they got to this point? He wanted to punch himself for not nipping this at the bud. He should never have left after she broke up with him. He should never have given in. He should have forced her to take him back. He looked at her down turned eyes and reached out and cupped her face. “Answer me. Why are you doing this?” When she didn’t react, he got more agitated. “It can’t be because of that Tae Young character. If you love me, you can’t love him!”

“He doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

Was she completely insane? “Are you for real? You’re engaged to him. You’re wearing his ring on your finger! And you say this has nothing to do with him?”

“That’s right!” she screamed, pushing his hands off her face. “He has nothing to do with us!” Tears had begun to well up in her eyes. “We aren’t together anymore not because of any other man but because of you! I am too scared to be with you!”

What? “Why can’t you be with me?”

“I am sick of always having to do everything. If not for me, we would never have had a relationship. I kissed you first. I was the first person to say I liked you. Remember that? And then you went back to Hee Jin. And then the only reason you ever came back to me was because you hated seeing me with other men.”

“That’s not true. And why are you bringing all this up?!”

“And even after all that, it took you a while to break up with Hee Jin. Remember that? Remember that?”

“So the whole time we’ve been together, you’ve been harboring all this?” His blood had begun to boil. Had their entire relationship been a lie?

“Of course not,” she said at a lowered pitch. “But it’s just that I can see the pattern – your pattern of inactivity. I don’t want to feel like I am the only one holding our relationship together. You know how to be bold and brash when it comes to me – see how you’ve been acting the last couple of days. Sam Soon, don’t do this. Sam Soon, come here,” she mimicked him. “I’m not stupid – I know what you’re trying to do. But when it comes to us, you can’t do anything. Your mother wouldn’t have accepted us if I never left you. Do you understand what I am saying? You even,” she paused for a second.” Do you remember how you wanted me to get pregnant so that your mother would accept us? Even then, it had to be me doing things to convince your own mother!”

“How was it only you? Can you get pregnant alone?”

“No. But does that sound rational? Can’t you be a man for once?! Maybe it’s an age thing – is that what it is? Do I have to wait for you to grow up?”

Jin Hun was damn near speechless. “Are you just saying these things to hurt me?”

“And then this whole time… these four years, you got so comfortable with our relationship that you were satisfied with everything. Oh, I could come over to your apartment, spend the night a few days a week and you were happy, going around, skipping along like character in a CF,” she said sarcastically.

Jin Hun just stood back and watched her diatribe.

“Did you ever once, just once think about me? Did you ever think about what I was going through? You know I wanted to get married. You’ve always known I wanted to get married and you didn’t even care for one minute about it! You were happy not doing anything. Doing nothing! How can I marry a man like that?”

“How come you never said any of this before?”

“Because I never realized it. Or maybe I just didn’t want to.”

He was still speechless. And hurt. So very hurt.

Still looked at him, she wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. She glared at him for a few more seconds and started to leave.

Jin Hun grabbed her hand. “You can’t leave. We have to resolve this. If you want me to change, I will.”

“But you see, I can’t believe you. This is exactly how you were when we first started dating. But I’m scared that two years down the road, you’ll get comfortable with our relationship again and it’ll be back to square one.”

“Don’t forget that you love me. Never forget that you love me.”

“How can I forget that? It would be so much easier if I didn't love you,” she said, her voice cracking. She bent her head and started sobbing again. Jin Hun took her in his arms and let her cry. God, what had he done? And how in the world could he prove to her that he would be the man she wanted?