-----

He was on his way to see Bom. It had been the first time they’d see each other for two weeks. Lately, Choi Seung-hyun had been busy, going out of town to visit sites and landing deals for his real estate company. How he missed her during those days he was away was unparalleled, but he wasn’t the type to express his longing. That would only cause his girlfriend to worry, and Bom worrying would only make him miss her more.  

 

When Bom called him up to meet that afternoon when he returned to Seoul, Seung-hyun was only too happy to oblige. A date after two weeks was the best after work incentive.

 

It was odd, though. Bom rarely asked for them to meet during the weekdays. Seung-hyun understood the busy life of a fashion designer. There would be times when she would be away for a whole month because she would be asked to attend or take part in fashion shows in London, Paris, Japan. She was only building up her career, so she was always busy trying to make a name out of her clothing line.

 

Seung-hyun would rarely call her during those days. He didn’t want to be a bother at all, and that was his personality. He was the type of person who would keep his sadness bottled up if that meant that his girlfriend wouldn’t have to worry about him.

 

Bom was the opposite. She was always the emotional trainwreck of the two. She would worry over a fever, or a tired muscle. She was cute that way.

 

Now there they were, at the café where they first met. She was sitting at their favorite spot. She was wearing his favorite white dress, because that was the white dress where he spilled his cup of coffee. That cup of coffee linked his and Bom’s destiny forever.

 

“Bommie-ah?” he called, setting his bag down under the table and sitting in front of Bom. She frowned at her tired looking boyfriend.

 

“You.” She began, pinching his cheeks so hard it made Seung-hyun wince. “Were you really away on a business trip?!”

 

“Yah!” Seung-hyun exclaimed gleefully, holding Bom’s hands with his. “Where else would I be, huh? Aigoo, are you suspecting again?”

 

“Why would I?” Bom tried to look smug, but he knew her better to know she was worried. Worried that Seung-hyun would be out with someone else. “Unless a pretty yeoja was…”  

 

“Stop it, jagiya.” Seung-hyun kissed her right hand softly, still containing his laughter. Bom had always been insecure of him; she always worried that he would cheat on her. He never had. He knew he never will. There was no reason to cheat on a woman as perfect as her. He gazed at her worried eyes. “Yah, if you don’t stop it I’ll have to make out with you in front of all these people.”

 

He leaned playfully to Bom. They’d been together for four years, yet everyday he felt that he was falling in love with her all over again.

 

“Don’t!” She finally complied, grinning while pulling her hands away from Seung-hyun’s grasp. “Arrassou, arrasou!”

 

Seung-hyun continued to lean over to Bom while she continued to pull herself away.

 

“S-stop it jagiya, people are staring!” Bom whispered to Seung-hyun, who was a few inches away from her plump lips. “I believe you! I believe you!”

 

He smiled. Still inches away from her. Screw the jealous people gawking at them. Let them be jealous. “But, why are you wearing those clothes today? It’s not our anniversary; it’s not our birthdays… Could it be? Are you going to propose to me?”

 

“Yah!” Bom laughed. She did make an effort to appear nicely to Seung-hyun today, but only because they had been busy recently; and she had missed him dearly. “That’s your job!”

 

The guy widened his grin. Slowly he pulled out his necklace where two familiar silver ring were.

Flashback

 

“Tabi….” Bom cried helplessly, causing people to stare. They were at their favorite café again, and his girlfriend had just confessed that she lost her most precious ring. “I’m so sorry!”

 

“Don’t worry about it, Bommie.” Seung-hyun laughed at her. It was only a ring; but it meant the world to her. “I’ll just buy us a new pair!”

 

“NO! DON’T!” Bom shouted, tears falling from her eyes incessantly. People around them seem to think he was breaking up with her. Some girls shook heads, other guys were shooting glares at him. “It won’t be the same… You promised me so much when you gave me that ring. And you never broke your promises ever since… Now that I lost it you might…”

 

Seung-hyun pouted at the insecure girl. “You think I’m going to start breaking my promises to you because you lost the ring? Pabo!”

 

He knocked her temples softly with his knuckles, grinning endlessly.

 

“Why are you enjoying this?!” Bom asked loudly, getting a tissue to wipe her tears. “B-but Seung-hyun, I promise to find it. I swear!”

 

“Bommie, it’s not that great to swear.” He commented, but was happy at her determination. “You don’t need to worry about finding the ring.”

 

He was about to tell her where the ring was.

 

Seung-hyun grinned. The truth was that Bom left her ring in his possession when she was planting flowers in his house’s garden. He couldn’t believe she forgot. But he made use of this instance to keep the ring until it was time to marry her. She said it, right?

 

----

 

He smiled at the memory.

 

There were a lot of moments when he could have proposed to her, but the moment was never right. Now here they were, and the setting was perfect. Seung-hyun wouldn’t wait any longer.

 

“I distinctly remember you saying you’d marry me…”Seung-hyun removed Bom’s silver ring from his necklace. “When you found this.”

 

Bom was wide-eyed, tears easily falling at her boyfriend’s gesture.

 

“You had it all these years?!”  Bom asked awkwardly as Seung-hyun placed the ring onto her finger.  Her tears streamed down her face like waterfalls, smudging her make-up. “You mean person! Did you know how many sleepless nights I spent looking for this?”

 

Seung-hyun nodded, wiping Bom’s tears with his thumbs.  He stood up and knelt beside Bom in the old-fashioned way. “Marry me?”

 

Bom cupped with one hand and nodded speechlessly. People around them cheered and clapped at the newly engaged couple. Seung-hyun held her head with both of his hands and slowly leaned towards her and kissed her softly, knowing that it would be the start of forever.

 

 

-----

He was back at their lawyer’s office. Another four years had passed since he and Bom got married. To Seung-hyun, those were the best four years of his life. But he couldn’t understand why she didn’t feel the same way.

 

Seung-hyun’s eyes were blood shot, obviously lacking sleep ever since Bom filed for a divorce. It had been two weeks of no contact with her. Bom didn’t even want to see him anymore. Seung-hyun had to beg for her to see him one last time in exchange for agreeing to sign the papers.

 

 

Ji-yong nodded somberly. It also crushed his heart to see the couple go through the divorce. “I tried my best to convince her, hyung… But noona wouldn’t listen.”

 

“She said she wasn’t happy with me anymore?”

 

“She said she wasn’t happy, period.” Ji-yong tried to make it easier for his friend.  “I don’t think it’s your fault, hyung. Don’t beat yourself up over this.”

 

“Ani… It must have been my fault.” Seung-hyun said, his spirit crushed. “Because she was the perfect wife.”

 

“Hyung.”

 

As they talked, Bom entered the room. She wore a simple white t-shirt and black pants. That meant that she didn’t go to work that day.

 

“Noona.” Ji-yong recognized, bowing at her.

 

Seung-hyun gazed at her sadly. Knowing fully that this would be his last gaze at her as his wife.

 

She sat, laid down a brown envelope, and took the papers from inside.

 

 

-----

Flashback

 

“Is it… another guy?” Seung-hyun asked, dumbfounded at what Bom had just requested of her. They were only supposed to have dinner at restaurant near Bom’s design house, as she was busy working on her next collection. Who knew that within this dinner, Bom would be filing for a divorce?

 

“No, Seung-hyun… It’s not.” Bom replied awkwardly.

 

“What did I do?” he continued.

 

“It’s just me. You didn't do anything wrong.”

 

“Since when have you thinking about this?” Seung-hyun asked, raking his hair.

 

“For a while now.” Bom said.

 

Seung-hyun glanced at the window beside their table. It was raining. The perfect mood for a divorce, it seemed. “You really want this?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“There’s no more stopping you?”

 

“I’m sorry, Seung-hyun.”

 

“I love you, Bom.”

 

“D-don’t do this.”

 

He looked at her again. Bom stood up and said, “Good bye.”

-----

Even in their worst moment, he was still mesmerized by her. She was still so beautiful, so perfect. What did he do to lose something this precious?

 

But that was reality. People change. She changed. So Seunghyun got a fountain pen from his coat pocket and wrote his name sadly on the dreaded dotted lines. It was against his will, but his love for Bom got the better of him. He had to do whatever made her happy. 

 

 

-----

Seung-hyun woke up at the sound of his alarm. 7:30 am. His meeting was not until 10:00 am, so he decided to stay his bed a little longer.

 

“Yeobo… Good morning.” He reached for the opposite side of the bed with his eyes closed, feeling nothing.

 

Flashback

 

“I’m dying jagiya, I think you need to tell me so I can miraculously recover!” Bom over reacted, holding the covers tightly as Seung-hyun wiped her forehead with a wet towel.. “Pleaaaase.”

 

Bom had called him up early in the morning, she had barely talked in the phone as she was burning with fever. He knew all of Bom’s relatives were in America, and that no one would nurse her when she was sick; so  Seung-hyun quickly rushed to her house after the call.

 

“It’s just fever, you’re not dying.” Seung-hyun answered rationally. “Sit up, I’ll give you a sponge bath.”

 

“J-jagiya…” Bom’s eyes widened playfully. “We’re not yet married, if you give me a sponge bath you’ll be inappropriately touching…”

 

Seung-hyun sighed. Here she was with a 38.5 degrees fever and all she had in her mind were erted thoughts. “Can you do it by yourself?”

 

“I don’t think I can, unless…” Bom said. “You say it. Come on, Tabi. Just once!”

 

“How can I when I need to nurse you? This is not the time, Bommie.”

 

“Just say it! How can I not hear it when we’re a month away from the wedding?” Bom asked, refusing to sit up for the sponge bath. “There are many types Tabi: ‘I love you Jagiya.’ ‘I love you, Bommie.’ ‘I love you my wife.’ You just need to say you love me at least once before we get married!”

 

The guy shook his head. He was reserving those words for the wedding vows. “Alright, alright. I’ll say it, but promise me you’ll sit up afterwards? You’re heating up.”

 

Bom nodded weakly. Seunghyun leaned closely to her ear and whispered. “I love you, Park Bom. Forever.”

 

“KOMAWO!! JAGIYA!” Bom sat up excitedly and embraced Seung-hyun.

 

 

-----

He was at their café again, sipping the same coffee he drank and spilled all over Bom’s white dress once.

 

“Oh, young man, alone today?” A familiar ajumma asked from a table across him. She was a regular at the café as well. She was there when he spilled coffee on Bom, when Bom admitted that she had lost her ring, and when he had proposed to her. Now she was witnessing him after their divorce. “I haven’t seen you two in a while, I was beginning to think you moved away.”

 

“Ah, aniyo.” Seung-hyun replied sadly.

 

“Where is she? Busy still?” the old woman pried.

 

“We… went our separate ways.” Seung-hyun admitted. He could see the genuine sadness in the old woman’s eyes.

 

“Really? How could that be? You were made for each other.” The woman commented, somehow making him feel better.

 

“I thought so too.”

 

“Well, I hope you two get back together. Promise me you’ll try your best to get her back, okay?” the old woman smiled, sipping her tea.

 

“I don’t think I can do anything, anymore. We’ve already divorced.” Seung-hyun said, defeated.

 

“Did she re-marry?”

 

“Not that I know.”

 

“So she’s single?”

 

“I think so.”

 

“So you’re single, she’s single, and you still love her?” The old woman was slowly talking sense into Seung-hyun.

 

“Yes, you can say that.” Seung-hyun replied.

 

“Then go pursue her before someone else does! It’s not over until you say so, son! Fighting!” The old woman gestured encouragingly.

 

She made Seung-hyun think for a while. He thought he’d be satisfied with knowing that Bom was happy, but he wasn’t.

 

No, he couldn’t be satisfied with this. Not until he was sure he tried everything in his power to take her back.

 

With one desperate thought, he said to himself. “One more chance. One last chance Bommie. Let me into your heart again.

 

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