Tiffany sipped the champagne they had bought together, fifty-fifty, sitting in Yul’s hotel room, on a chair in the corner, watching TV.  Yul walked out of the bathroom with only his shirt and pants from the whole tuxedo outfit.  The rest was thrown on the bed.  Tiffany sighed.  This was certainly quite a way to spend the weekend, with a man she didn’t even like.  They wouldn’t even get along, if it weren’t for those silly bets.  At least, that’s what she told herself.  Tonight had been dangerous.  When Dr. Kwon was charming, she knew it.  The way he’d hold her, the way he’d keep her close to him.  It was as if they really WERE engaged.  Well, they were, but not in the strictest sense, she hoped.  They couldn’t ACTUALLY get married.  Kwon was only around for the games, the make-believe.  It would have never worked if it was real.  Though, Tiffany thought. 

*If it COULD work out in the real world, it’d make life a lot less lonely and more interesting.* She had floated the entire evening…in his arms, in her mind, in her heart.  With him, she felt as if she was high on a cloud, being swept up and carried over some strange threshold…a new emotion, perhaps, but who knew what it was.

“So Hwang, we have to discuss a few things.”

“What would that be?”

“Wedding date.”

“You said March, I said June.  Let’s compromise.  May.”

“April.”

“WE’RE NOT EVEN GETTTING MARRIED!!!!!!!!”

“So?  We still have to agree.”

“Then I suggest this.  The later we put it, the fewer wedding preparations we’ll have to make before this whole thing is off.  Let’s face it, Kwon.  We’re breaking up at Christmas.  We don’t want to start preparing for a wedding that’s never going to happen.”

“True.  But I still say April, and we agree on April.” Yul said.  But he didn’t want to agree with Hwang.  The ease he’d felt when he was with her was entirely too frightening.  The whole sense of being in a couple with her really made no sense at all.  He had tried to charm her out, to see her squirm, but she took it coldly, and just fought back, muddling his mind up with confusing dreams of kissing that beautifully curved mouth.

“April showers…”

“But May flowers?”

“If I AM going to get married, it might as well be beautiful outside when I tie the knot.”

“We’re not getting married, as you are constantly reminding me.”

“But since you’re so in love with me, you’ll let me have my way, right dear?” She flashed those beautiful perfect teeth of hers, and he wanted to melt. 

When she smiled at him, even superficially, there was a certain warmth.  When she smiled genuinely, which was VERY rare, Yul sometimes thought he was in love.  Those eyes were warm, a warm blue sky in the summer when the sun was out.  Pure, joyful, unblemished brown.  And her lips had that special quirk in an honest smile, the kissable quirk.  But it was only that.  She was gorgeous.  Who WOULDN’T want to kiss her?  It wasn’t as if he actually liked her mind or anything like that. 

“Tell me about yourself,” she said, suddenly.

“What?”  Yul asked, puzzled.

“Tell me about yourself.  If we’re engaged, we should be able to talk as if we knew each other.  We don’t right now.  I don’t want to accidentally something that isn’t true about your life, only to have myself contradicted, and we’re supposedly in love, so I’m supposed to know a LOT more about you than I do right now.  You don’t have to get too personal or anything, but tell me enough so that I can talk to others about you without having to worry about being wrong.”

“All right, pour me a glass of that, will you?”

“After I go to my room and get some PJs on.  These heels are killing me, and I’m starting to get cold in this dress.”

“Okay,” Tiffany said, settling down on the opposite side of the bed in her pink silk jammies.  “Shoot.”

“Well, as you know, I’m surgeon general of this beautiful nation, and I teach at Johns H, heading the med department.”

“Cousin Sunny teaches there, right?”

“Yes, that would be Sunny Lee and her fiancee Sooyoung Choi, who are on Cloud Nine whenever they’re together.  It gets annoying to the staff at times, for they never seem to be able to do anything else but talk about the wedding.”

“It’s an improvement from when she was a child.  She was always so SERIOUS!”

“And you weren’t?”

“What do you mean?” Tiffany shifted in her place, suddenly self-conscious.  She played with a loose thread on the bed cover. 

“You skipped two grades.  You KNOW what I mean,” Yul said, gently.

“No, I don’t.  I was being ambitious.”

“You were also so studious you didn’t go out in the social circles like your cousins,” he looked at her, matter-of-factly.

“Hey, that’s a PRIVILEDGE!  If I ended up like them I’d kill myself!” she joked, fighting to keep the atmosphere light.  “Okay, so it’s a bad suggestion.”

“If I remember correctly, you’ve met all my cousins, and according to Jessica, they’re all in love with you.  Would you prefer I was one of them, another starry-eyed grown-up teenager?  And they’re all very materialistic and stuck up.  They want husbands who look like tennis pros and who have bank accounts in Switzerland.  But my favorite has to be Bora Hwang.  Such style!  No one could wear an elegant dress and still manage to look desperate.”

Yul laughed.  How true.  However, he became serious again rather quickly. "You say that they’re materialistic, but what about you?  What do you live for?  You aren’t materialistic, but you don’t really shine with ideals in your eyes.”

“Fairy tales don’t come true.  I thought they did, but when I came and found that I LIVED a fairy tale, I found that it wasn’t one at all, because fairy tales don’t exist.  Don’t get me wrong.  I like my life, and I like my family, despite all the materialistic snobs (which only total to be about an annoying ten; the rest of them are quite nice), and I like what I do.  I just don’t want to wish for more, because I’ll only be let down in the end.”

“No such thing as love?” he asked, gently, reaching across, taking a small grip on her chin, and tilting her eyes to meet his. 

Tiffany nervously drew in a breath, and then began.  “There is such thing as love.  Otherwise, Sunny would never blush when Sooyoung walked into a room, and Jessica wouldn’t get that expression in her eyes when she talks about Taeyeon, even after all these years.  And my every time my father doesn’t think anyone’s looking, he’ll take my mother’s hand, and hold it, or bring it to his lips and kiss it.  There is love out there, but I’m just saying that it’s not out there for me.  I believed in it before, but that illusion was shattered a long time ago.”

“How?”

“Oh, I met a guy, never knew who he was.  He gave me my first kiss, and I got all starry eyed and I hoped I’d see him again.  I waited for him until I was 23.  Of course, in the end, I was totally depressed, and decided that I wasn’t ever going to put myself into believing those things.  Besides, I don’t have time for relationships, and I don’t have the emotional strength.  I can’t believe this.  You hardly know me, and I already told you this.  I’m still working up the courage to tell my friends not to bother with their lame attempts at setting me up.”

“They really can’t do that now, can they?”

“No, but this whole thing was started by matchmaking, only at the highest level, the matriarchs.  But at least the friends stop now.  They all wanted to see me ‘happy’.  You know, marry off the unlucky one.  I’m the last one of all my female friends to still be single.  I’m an endangered species,” she laughed.

“No, you’re extinct now,” he reminded her.

“We’re not REALLY getting married, though.  And why am I saying all this?  I thought you were supposed to tell me about you.”

“You started it.”

“Well now I’m ending it; your life now.  Why don’t you take one of my cousins out of my hair and marry them?”

“Aside from that fact that they’re ALL scheming cats out to rip each other’s faces off?”

Tiffany laughed.  “No, tell me, you’re the Kwon prince.  Why haven’t you actually settled down with a princess?”

“I’m REALLY idealistic, I suppose.  I believe strongly in love, and I believe that it WILL come for me some day.  But not too soon.  It’ll come when I’m ready for it.  I’m a go-with-the-flow guy.  I had to be when my parents died.”

“Jessica told me about it.  How old were you?” Tiffany’s eyes became soft, caressing his face with a gentle almost tearful brown. 

“Only ten years old.  It tore my heart out.  I was totally lost.  But I met someone.”

“You work fast!” Tiffany teased lightly, “Ten years old and already attracting someone!”

“No, not necessarily attracting.  She just made me think, that’s all.  She was a little girl, running into the hospital room with this beautiful red rose.  Said her brother was born that day, and that she wanted to give it to her mother, but she decided I needed it more.  So she gave it to me.  She was a sweet thing.  She got me believing again.  Seeing her made me realize that I could go on, as long as I toughed it out.”

The alcohol started to make Tiffany a lot more understanding and calm, but also somewhat light-headed.  “This is so weird, but I need to ask this question.  I bet you know I was in Korea in my childhood, so I guess it’s not that odd.  Do you remember if the girl had a funny hair do, and brown eyes?  And do you remember if that nurse that chased her out had on some fluorescent pink-“

“Bunny slippers?” Yul completed.

“Then…then…Yul, I met you when I was six years old!”

Yul suddenly broke out in a smile.  “This is just amazing.  Are you sure?”

“I remember.  I went to hospital because Suho was born and I remembered being very bored so daddy brought me to a flower shop.  He let me get one red rose for mommy, but on our way in, I saw that across the room, there was dark-haired boy crying about his parents.  So I went over to him and gave him my rose, and told him to be brave.  Then I was chased away but a nurse with fluorescent pink bunny slippers.”

“Did you ever find out why the bunny slippers?” Yul laughed.

“I didn’t, did you?”

“No.”

A few moments of silence followed in which they both burst out laughing.

“Well, that will remain a mystery to us.  So go on about your life.  What other things happened.  When did the prince get HIS first kiss?  I told you mine.”

“When he was twenty years old.”

“THAT old?”

“What?”

“It’s just that…”

“Let’s just say that I wanted to find THE one.  I told you I was super-idealistic.”

“So did you find her?  And if you took so long to find her, why isn’t she going out with you,” her heart started to sink.  It wasn’t jealousy, but if he had been with someone else…

“It was at a masquerade.  She was so beautiful.  She reminded me of the little girl in Seoul Hospital, but she was older, more beautiful, and so idealistic.  She was probably seventeen, about to graduate, thinking the world would be in the palm of her hand with no problem.  So I asked her to dance, and we danced the whole evening.  And at the end, I kissed her.”

She was slightly upset.  “So did you ever meet HER again?  That was dumb.  Kwon, you are dumber than I thought.  You should have chased her down, found her.  You waited until you were TWENTY for her, for God’s sake.  That’s most of your life!  If you are waiting for her, you should be pretending to be engaged with HER, not me.  Or at least you should be MARRIED!  If you were married to the dumb girl, we wouldn’t have to go through all this!”  Tiffany said bitingly, with what seemed like a bit of icy envy on the fringes.

“I COULDN’T see her again.” Yul mused.

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t return the masquerade for many years.  My aunt kept me busy all the time at Christmas,” Yul smiled.

“Woah, this is just a little too weird for me.  I have the distinct feeling I will eat those words I said before.  Christmas?  Masquerade?  Was this at Hwang Manor?”

“Yeah,” Yul looked hopefully at her, watching her thought processes go through her eyes very quickly, creating a whirlwind of thought radiating in those brown orbs.

“So then, so then, did you call her-“

“Bright angel?  It IS you, isn’t it?  I kissed YOU that night.  I don’t know, when I saw you the first time just this Christmas, you looked familiar.”

“So I waited until I was 23 for YOU!?!?!?”

“You make it sound as if it is a bad thing.”

“Kwon, let’s be serious.  We have done nothing but play this stupid game since we met.  I can’t believe I waited for YOU!!!”

“I crushed your beliefs,” Yul smiled, slightly.  He had affected Tiffany Hwang.  Of course, crushing beliefs was a very bad thing to do, but HE HAD AFFECTED HER LIFE!!!!!

“It’s just as well that you did, I couldn’t stay up in the clouds forever, you know.  And it wasn’t just you.”

“So what’s made the difference?”

“What in the WORLD do you mean?”  Tiffany looked up from the pattern of the comforter to his deep eyes.

“I mean what made the difference.  When you were a teenager, the newspapers all said you were a klutz who would never apply herself.  You were idealistic.  But you lost those ideals when I never came back.  What’s made you change?  Was it me?”

“Don’t remind me.”

“No, I’m not trying to insult you.  I’m just curious.  I mean, a princess born into an empire, which you said wasn’t very great for you after all.  Why didn’t you just drop into the crowd and live a normal life?  Some people, after losing their ideals, even drop to the way bottom.  I want to know what kept you up.”

“Because I needed to prove something to myself, I suppose.  It’s true, I guess.  I was an awkward preteen obsessed with what people thought of me, because I had no idea who I wanted to be.  I guess in the end, after deciding the press knew NOTHING about me, I’d show them, and maybe I’d show myself just WHAT I could do.”

“You’ve certainly shown that.  But Tiffany, are you really happy the way you are?”

“Why shouldn’t I be happy?  I’m part of a legacy that rivals the Kennedys, and I’m able to fight my way from being the dim watt to the star.  That gives me a LOT of satisfaction.  I prof at Harvard, where all my students respect me, and most even like me.  I’ve got a great career in Washington, heck I’m attorney general!  I earned my way there!  I did the work, I was approved by the Senate, though they did frown upon it in the beginning because I WAS a relative.  But my rep stuck, and they accepted me in the end anyway.  And if I can’t hold it out here, I’ll go off into New York again and start up with Aunt Hara again.  Heck, I could go anywhere and I’d be able to set something up.  My life’s stable.  It’s fixed.  There are no more chances, no leaps of faith, because I don’t need anything.”

“What about anyone?  Do you need anyone?”

“I have my family…” she started automatically.

“When you decide to visit…” he reproached.

“Wait a second here, what are you doing?  Why are you attacking me like this?”  Tiffany narrowed her eyes, annoyance starting to come in like a tide.

“I just want to find out a little more about you, that’s all.”

“Well, I think that for the first time we’re seriously talking about our lives, this is getting a little over my head here.”

“Sorry.”

They sat in silence for another five minutes when Tiffany interrupted the silence. 

"And who are you to judge anyway, Kwon?  You know nothing about the way I had to life.”

“Hwang, you know that that isn’t tr-” he sighed.  She was crying too much to reprove her.

He wanted to touch her cheek, but decided against it.  She wasn’t his fiancee in real life, and she didn’t like him. 

*And I don’t like her that way either, so we’d just kid ourselves.* 

“I’m not judging, I just wanted to know more.  I’m sorry Hwang.  I’m trying to find out too much about you at once.  It’s just that you’re different.  And I wondered.  You know, when I was a teenager, I’d read about you in the papers, and see how hard they were on you, and I pitied you.  Some others might have caved.  I didn’t know what kept you going.  Maybe it was because you were insensitive to their criticism, or maybe it was because you were so sensitive you were determined to prove them wrong.  The press took your rise to success the first way.  The way I see it now, I think it’s the second.  You’re a very sensitive, passionate person, and I can see that now, and I could hit myself in the head right now if it’ll make you feel better.  Just don’t cry, Tiffany, please don’t.”

She was silent a few moments, looking out the window.  This was a strange experience.  She actually told Dr. Kwon all about herself, and she didn’t feel weak, as she should have felt.  She felt better, having shared these feelings, only maybe sharing them with Kwon wasn’t the best idea.  But then again, he WAS her fiancee.

“Tiffany?”

“How about I hit you instead?” she smiled, trying hard to banish tears from her eyes.

Yul laughed.

It was 3:45 am, and Tiffany and Yul were still sitting up on the bed, talking.  It seemed that they couldn’t think of one thing NOT to talk about.

“So Kwon, since you grilled me earlier, I think it’s only right that I grill you now.”

“Proceed, counselor.”

“Very funny.  Now tell ME, doctor.  How does a ten-year-old boy from Korea not knowing a WORD of English, manage to actually BECOME surgeon general, let alone a head of the department in the finest med school in the nation?”

“I studied.”

“But what kept YOU going?”

“I guess it was you.”

“Me?”

“No, not you now, you as a little girl.  That moment when I got your rose, everything was a lot more clear.  You made everything simplified.  I just had to take everything one step at a time, and keep everything up.  And I guess, it had to do a little with the fact that I was forever trying to conquer your image…Aunt Gertrude always talked about you…’Tiffany Hwang this…Tiffany Hwang that…’ I really hated your name at many points in my life.”

Tiffany laughed.  “Join the club.  If I had to hear your name more time, I was going to scream!”

Yul smiled at her, a lock of his hair falling in front of his face.  Tiffany’s expression changed, and she leaned forward, pushing back the lock of hair, and kissing his forehead.  She then settled in his lap, and let him play with her black locks. 

“But weren’t you lonely?”  Tiffany was startled inside.  She had affected Yul Kwon’s life, not only affected, but inspired it!  That gave her a feeling of satisfaction.  And the fact that he was just as miserable competing with her as she was with him…

“Weren’t YOU?” he smiled down into her upturned face.

“I had Sunny and Jessica, and my own circle.  Contrary to popular belief, Tiffany Hwang DID have friends.  The Ice does melt, you know,” she smiled.  “So you weren’t lonely?”

“No, Taeyeon was there for me, and so was Aunt Gertrude.  Taeyeon was one of my best friends.  He met me when I just came.  Taught me English and introduced me into the trade.  You know, I got into the circle.  Being a Kwon and in the circle, I guess it’s a lot of influence, even though I DID have to spend quite a couple years just as a doctor, and another couple as just a prof.  I wrote a lot of med papers while I was both.  That’s what essentially brought me to where I am now.  I did make a few changes to med procedure in the US, and I guess Johns liked the changes a lot, and so did the health department.  The last few months, when Clinton was leaving office, the surgeon general was preparing for resignation as well and Taeyeon asked him to look into some candidates for surgeon general.  I came up in the conversation, and Taeyeon was interested.  We’d lost touch for a few years, and he called me up one day and asked me if I was going to the Hwang thing at Christmas.  I said yeah I was and we set up an appointment there.  When I got there, he offered me the post.  Of course I took it.  So I guess my road’s been kinda based on luck and my own work.”

“And in all those years, you never tired of just going around by yourself?  Earlier in my career, there were times when I got pretty lonely.”

“I didn’t say that pushing myself to the limits wasn’t painful socially.  You already know that.  And yeah, I guess I DID miss just fitting in and hanging around instead of studying.  But I really didn’t care about that.  I had my share of girls courting me,” he smiled again down at her face as the lock of hair fell again in his eyes.

“Yul!” this time, she didn’t reach to fix it.

“It’s not as if I was looking for a relationship with them, and eventually that number died down.  I pretty much was as interesting as a bowl of oatmeal.  Cold oatmeal.”

“And why are you telling ME this?” she said, as she traced a pattern on her pajama top buttons.

Yul was strangely affected watching her, lying in his lap.  “Because I guess you understand what kind of person I am, and where I came from.  You’ve been through it.  And also probably because we ARE engaged.”

“Don’t remind me.” she said, then looking up at her fiancee, with his heart-pumping smile. 

She then turned away, and looked to the mirror to the right of the bed, and looked at them.  They were a beautiful couple, and in this position, they looked almost loving.  Her heart yearned for something like this, and now that she had it, it was so…so…indescribable.  He took her hand and held it. 

“Hwang, I never thought I’d be sitting up on a bed at late hours talking with the Hwang princess in her pink pajamas.  And I never imagined what a different image you presented from who you were.”

“Yeah, well, I guess that shoots down my image of the self-indulging prince who flirted with every woman in the book.” He laughed. 

“You haven’t even BEGUN to know me, counselor,” she sat up, pushing him, as they both fell back on the bed.  Tiffany leaned her head on his chest, and he put his hands around her, meeting at her front, where her hands met his.  They reveled in the moment.  They may have both been drunk, but Tiffany had to admit that she had never felt so warm and safe in her life.  She closed her eyes and drifted off in safety.

Tiffany’s mind slowly drifted out of sleep, and into the waking world.  As she slowly peeled her eyes open, she pushed herself slowly out of bed, and looked around her.  She thought a while before she realized it, but in the end concluded that last night she had probably exposed herself more than she had ever done before with no one else but Kwon.  As she attempted to sit up, she felt a bully of a headache come down on her.  Hangover.  I am NOT drinking that much ever again!  She groaned inwardly as she realized that she was still in his room.  
Where was he?

*Oh, well.  I’ll take advantage of the situation and run into my room, and I’ll just pretend that last night ever happened.  It was a huge mistake.  It was the late hours, and it was the champagne.  He probably doesn’t even remember, and if he does, when I’m through with him, he’ll think he DREAMT all it up.* She went to the edge of the bed and started to stretch, and then set her foot down.

“Ow!”  Tiffany nearly jumped back.  There, on the floor, with a set of blankets as his mattress and a pillow for his head, Yul Kwon slumbered.

I took his bed.  Oops.

Tiffany decided to sneak out on the other side of the bed, and get out as soon as possible.  She didn’t want Yul to even THINK last night had occurred.

The games were fine.  They could play the games.  They just couldn’t do anything else.  If they let emotions and understanding get in the way, the whole engagement situation, as well as her LIFE, would be seriously messed up.