“Going through the memories

That haven’t healed yet,

I’m drawing out that one person,

You...

Whom I just cannot erase yet.”

Chen – Portrait of You

~ Summer-1998 ~

“Appa! They sell ice cream over there! I want ice cream!!!”

The seven-year-old little girl’s voice rang across the park, as she bounced on her dainty magenta shoes, making her two pigtails sway rhythmically with their pair of frilly pink ribbons as she pointed eagerly at the ice cream stall a few meters away. Her father who was lazily stretched over their picnic mat sat up, looking at the said stall. And there was a little queue of children and their parents in front of it, all of them who had come on picnics to the neighbourhood park on a Sunday evening.

“Fine...coming princess!”

He jumped on to his feet and jogged towards his daughter, after asking his wife for the favour she wanted.

“I want peach!” the little one pointed at the series of flavours displayed, while playing with the floral white skirts of her frock. Her father did the same, pointing at the peach flavoured ice cream compartment. “One peach flavoured, and two coffee flavoured.”

She was busy spinning around while clinging onto her dad’s arm, when her eyes caught something, that completely looked out of place in the bright and colourful surroundings.

Or rather someone.

A little boy, around the same age as her with sunburnt apple cheeks and overgrown messy hair, was sitting by a lamp post near the lilac fence of the park, clad in an oversized faded black t-shirt and dusty brown shorts, biting on his nails and watching the passing by parents whom were busy being happy with their own children.

He was all alone.

“Appa,”

Her dad looked down as he felt the tugging at his sweater. And his daughter was staring up at him with eyes widened with hope. “Can I buy one more ice cream appa?”

“One more?” he asked back, with identically widened eyes. And she nodded, pointing at the little figure seated on the grass in a distance.

A smile crept onto his face, touched by his daughter’s compassion. “Of course, let’s buy one more sweetheart.”

The little boy who was busy biting his nails, looked up through the curtain of untamed jet black bangs as she approached him. His eyes ran up from the shiny shoes, up her doll-like dress, paused for a moment on the cone of ice cream she was holding at him, and travelled up to the bright smile on her face.

“Take it.” She grinned, holding the cone in front of his sunburnt face. He blinked, not even moving a finger in order to accept the unexpected treat.

“This is for you! Aren’t you Korean? Don’t you understand Korean?”

A silent blink, yet again.

And the girl decided to make the move, bending down and grabbing his hand.

“Now take this! It’s my favourite flavour so I can assure you it’s good.”

He stared at the ice cream that he was forced to hold on to, and his stare averted back to her face.

“I gotta go now. Enjoy it okay? Bye....!!!”

With that cheery wave, she ran back to her parents, happily jumping into her mom’s arms and earning a kiss on her rosy cheek. He stared at the little family in silence, until he felt a trickle of melted ice cream running down his hand.

And he started hurriedly taking big bites of the slightly melted treat, fascinated by the tingle it left in his mouth.

The first ice cream he ever had in his life.

* * * * * * * *

~ Winter-2019 ~

The top notch hotels in Seoul wasn’t a marvel to Hwang Mina, since she’s been visiting them ever since she remembered.

All these years, at least once a week for some high-class function where her parents wanted to show their pretty, elegant and well-educated daughter whom everyone would gasp and swoon at.

But the luxurious suite of this certain hotel was nowhere near their reach, where the guests well considered beyond royalty. She sat upright in the living room filled with latest French style furniture, eyes blankly staring into the distance, not at all fascinated by the million-dollar interior.

None of those luxuries were able to grab the girl’s attention. She crumpled the crystal embossed bridal dress in her fists, trying her best to hold the tears back.

“Make sure you’re always up to his standards. We can’t afford to displease him Mina-yah...it’s all in your hands now.”

Her mother’s words were ringing in her ears, making the welled up tears force their way down her cheeks, washing away the flawless bridal makeup.

What am I now? His slave? Why should I please him? Am I a courtesan or what? What do they take me for?

The person she loathed the most at the moment stepped out of the bedroom, changed his tuxedo after a shower, and now clad in black trousers and a silk black shirt with thin silver stripes running down the limited edition designer garment.

Black and silver. As if he deliberately matched his nightwear to the interior of the suite room.

Swanky and snobbish as always.

Ruffling his wet hair which had the same shade of his outfit, he walked up to the sofa and flopped on it beside her, not taking the slightest notice of his bride’s tears.

“Go get a shower. I’m done.”

Mina didn’t move, and chewed down on her lip with her eyes fixed on the black carpet beneath her white high heels.

“I bet your mom packed you some carefully chosen honeymoon nightwear to get their son-in-law all excited... Well she must try that much at least since I’ll be the redeemer of your closing down factories. So what’s the point of still being in that sweaty bridal dress? Go get changed!”

Kim Junmyeon wasn’t just rude, he had that ability to throw anyone off guard, attacking their weakest point and insulting them in the cruellest possible way. Her eyes filled with tears again, but this time, the tears were purely out of rage, and endless hate she felt for him.

She had pleaded. She had practically begged him to keep the deal just within the companies, promising to convince her dad to agree with any condition Junmyeon and his dad came up with, and had begged him to leave her alone.

Even the day before their wedding day. She went to meet him in his office and pleaded him for hours, explaining him how a marriage would not work out between them.

“Is it because of Park Chanyeol?” He asked, his brown eyes turning icy cold with a shade of black. “Junmyeon please...what good will happen by getting married when we don’t have feelings for each other? Marriage isn’t a business Junmyeon...it’s about getting together with someone you want to spend the rest of your life with! This isn’t a joke anymore!”

“Break up with him.” he turned his eyes back to the tablet PC in front of him.

Mina didn’t notice the hard swallow and the bobbing of his adam’s apple, or the unsteady flicker in his eyes.

“It’s not me who needed the marriage. I just suggested on buying your dad’s good for nothing shares and my dad was the one who said I must marry the Hwang’s daughter if I want to get the deal done.”

“Junmyeon please...it’s a problem about us! Our own lives are at sake and not our parents! How can we live under one roof when you and I don’t—”

“Secretary Jung, Ms. Hwang out of the building.” Junmyeon summoned his personal assistant, cutting off the girl’s words, and that was the end of their last discussion before the wedding.

And