A Broken Promise
Three Sides of A HeartWhen Chang-min left the mess of Jae-joong and Yun-ho behind, he felt instant regret. He was glad that Yoo-chun had texted him and warned him of a brewing situation. Chang-min dropped everything to go to Jae-joong's luxury home to help. He feared that something bad had happened but he managed to keep calm and composed when he arrived on the scene. It became clear to him that Yun-ho and Jae-joong had a lot of tension. Tension that needed careful and patient work. Two hotheads under one roof was never a good combination. Chang-min always managed to remain level headed, his demeanor very calm and patient. He had been like that ever since he was a young child. He never threw tantrums and always spoke his feelings out. He was used to everyone becoming so angry around him and being the glue that held them together. It came with the job but it also came with his personal life.
Soo-hee, his wife, was such a passionate woman. A woman that didn't think much. She hopped into new opportunities like a pair of jeans and lived with a mentality of taking the world by storm. It was what made Chang-min fall in love with her. Her passion for becoming a journalist and exploring the world. Her passion for women's rights and humanity. Chang-min supposed he fell in love with a natural leader. He used to enjoy chuckling to her curse-riddled rants and frustrations. He was always there to calm her down and be her piece of reason and mind. She kept Chang-min on his toes and Chang-min kept her level-headed.
Chang-min recalled his own mother mentioning how much she liked Soo-hee. How he needed a wife that was assertive and free since his past relationships with meek women were short-lived. His father felt Soo-hee was the wrong woman for Chang-min and didn't initially approve of the marriage. His father wasn't into her feminism and freedom. He told Chang-min that he needed a submissive wife and one that would not question things. Chang-min had felt angry at his father's views and almost uninvited him to the wedding. That was the first time Chang-min had felt truly upset and angry over something. He really considered cutting his father out of the picture but rationality overcame the therapist and he soon came to accept his father views and not bring Soo-hee up around him. Even when his father insisted that the marriage wasn't going to last long and that Chang-min would find himself cheating.
Chang-min kept a positive frame of mind and decided that his father was just too pessimistic and misogynistic. Chang-min felt he had a beautiful and amazing wife, that his marriage was one that was going to last the test of time. He was prepared to start a family and love Soo-hee forever. That was the plan until pregnancy tests kept coming back negative. He knew it wasn't her fault, he kept the hope and kept telling her that it would come when the universe was ready. After a year of trying, Soo-hee was finally pregnant and the two were more than excited. The pregnancy hadn't even made it past four weeks. It was a painful experience for Chang-min and his wife. He felt he had no words to comfort her through the loss of a child. He felt he was not strong enough to help her bear children. But Soo-hee insisted on trying again, so they kept trying. They tried and tried, Chang-min losing hope at some point after the fourth miscarriage.
They had finally went to a doctor and it was confirmed that Soo-hee had no problems but it was Chang-min. A matter of his count being too low. It had made Chang-min feel as if he wasn't a true man. That he wasn't able to give his wife the one thing she- no, the one thing that they both wanted. There were easy operations suggested to Chang-min to fix the problem and give Soo-hee the chance of children but then he had became busy with work. His workload filling up as he had to help two girls from the same group deal with their hatred toward each other and their eating disorders.
He then fell into more work with a depressed idol on the brink of suicide and another who was engaged in too many risky behaviors. The date of the surgery kept getting pushed back and back. The surgery eventually falling out of question for Chang-min. He was too afraid to admit to Soo-hee that he didn't wish to go through with the operation. The thought of it scaring him. He had seen the effects of surgery on different people and it was something he did not want to go through. He felt selfish for it but it was really something he could not control. That was why he poured himself into work, to avoid it and genuinely help these idols fix their lives.
But Chang-min knows as he was returning home from Jae-joong's home, that Soo-hee would be furious with him. His surgery was scheduled for that morning, but he chose to help Jae-joong and Yun-ho instead. He had even promised to Soo-hee that he would send selfies of himself in his hospital gown and after the operation. She couldn't be there due to work but she was expecting to see him on video or through photos.
Chang-min tried to get out of things early. He tried to quickly solve Jae-joong and Yun-ho's problems. His heart hoping that it wouldn't be too late to go to the hospital and get checked in, but then Jae-joong got so upset. He had great reason to be mad. Chang-min had promised to help fix Jae-joong and that promise came with hour sessions everyday. He could not just bail on the rockstar especially after all the breakthrough they had been through. Chang-min simply hoped the hour would go by fast and that the hospital would still take him in, but when he called, they informed him the surgeon was already onto the next operations. That he could reschedule but he wouldn't be able to get the job done until two months later. The surgeon was booked and busy.
Chang-min feels the heavy beating of his heart as he pulls up to the apartment he shares with Soo-hee. He hasn't even checked his phone because he knows it is filled with messages from her and missed calls. His squeeze the steering wheel so tight that his knuckles turn white. He tries to remind himself to take deep breaths and remain calm. The mantra he gives to all his clients but now he can't follow through with it. He puts the car in park and removes the keys from the ignition. He gets out and heads into the building, his nerves so bad that he considers just running out. He climbs the stairs to their apartment. The elevator being too fast for his tastes. He knows Soo-hee won't be home until later but the guilt is already eating him up.
He finally gets to his apartment and enters the code on the keypad. He steps inside and removes his shoes. Even though he silenced his phone earlier, he can feel the heat of notifications in his pocket. He tries not to think about it as he walks through their decent sized living room to the kitchen. He takes out leftovers, not even bothering to warm them up as he stuffs his face. He does a couple of stretches and cranes his neck. He takes a deep breath as he pulls the heated device out of his pocket. The screen facing the palm of his hand.
He his lips and flips it over. His eyes quickly reading over the screen. 12 missed calls from Soo-hee and 40+ messages. Even his moth
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