Last Chapter

“What is it?” I muttered in annoyance as I unfolded the paper on my lap.

It was the newspaper which first published our picture together a couple days ago. Then I found the reason why Jung Yonghwa kept insisting me to read it. There I was in the front page, exiting a cafe with a man, with a big bold font above the picture that read “SEO JUHYUN’S SECRET LOVER”.

I turned my head at him and found his eyes staring at me so coldly.

“Who is he?”

~o0o~

Five

Men Are Cowards

I looked back at him, confused and amused.

If I didn’t know better, I would have thought that he was actuallyjealous. But of course I knew he was just upset that this article might affect our stocks price.

“He’s my cousin,” I deadpanned. His eyebrows shot up in shock.

I put back the newspaper into the drawer in front of him. “From my father’s side,” I added calmly as I adjusted in my seat.

“Haven’t you heard about him?” I nonchalantly glanced at him and caught his troubled expression.

“I have,” he mumbled.

As chaebols, we are as popular as celebrities. People know almost everything about us. Our family history, wives and concubines, step sons, exes, unrequited crushes, pets, vets, a random man who winked at us on a party three years ago. It’s spread around through gossip articles, people talked on social media, even ahjummas in the sauna.

The existence of my cousin was supposed to be a common knowledge for Jung Yonghwa, like he knew that it would be Sunday after Saturday. I was certain he must have had heard about him somewhere even though Omuni’s secretary didn’t write it on my CV. He might even have done a thorough background investigation about me before deciding to propose a marriage to my family. I just couldn’t understand why it didn’t flash his mind when he first saw the picture. He didn’t have to call me so early in the morning without greeting me back just to tell me to read a newspaper. He didn’t have to drive himself to my home and treated me rudely like that. He didn’t have to be that upset.

“I’m so stupid,” he muttered, voicing exactly my thought, as he banged his head to the steering wheel. Thank God he hadn’t the engine or he’d surprised the butlers who were tidying the garden with the horn.

“Jung Yonghwa-sshi, I’m sorry to ruin your sacred moment of enlightenment but I’m late already,” I said as I checked my wrist watch. He turned his gaze to me without lifting his head from the steering wheel then sighed. He finally straightened his back and started the engine.

We drove in silence.

There was a time when I glanced at him absently and caught him glancing at me. He looked away immediately and yelled to the ceiling “ARGH! This is so embarrassing!”

I looked away to hide my smile, suppressing a giggle, finding his bashful behavior amusing.

After several minutes of silence, I decided to ask, “So what are we gonna do about the news?”

He cleared his throat before answering my question, “I’ll call your mother later to discuss it.”

I nodded in agreement. The false news actually bothers me, because clearing it meant revealing my long separated cousin to the world, which would bring back some unwanted memories about my father. And it made me worried. Other than Halmoni and God, I would be the only other one who knew how painful the divorce was for Omuni. I didn’t want her old and dried wound to bleed again. I think discussing the solution of this mess with Omuni first would be wiser.

“I’m sorry,” he suddenly said when the traffic light turned red and the car had to stop.

“For what?” I asked as I stared at his side profile.

“For being so rude this morning,” he said softly, almost a whisper, “for almost accusing you something you didn’t do, for not trusting you.”

My heart started to beat faster and my tongue froze.

“When I first saw the picture, I remembered your words right away, about not cheating on you, you remember?” he asked, not really expecting an answer so I stayed silent, “you said not to ever cheat on you, though it didn’t mean I couldn’t have another woman. I had thought that it was strange. And wrong,” he fidgeted on his seat as he shifted the gear and continued driving since the light had turned green.

“Seeing your picture with another man made me think that maybe you actually have… someone else.”

“I think I’ve told you that wasn’t the case,” I finally managed to speak.

“I know,” he responded immediately, “that’s why I apologize, for falling into conclusion blindly.”

A few minutes passed and I finally said, “It’s fine.”

“Thank you,” he said as he steered the car to take a turn to the left.

 “What time will your class end?” he asked, slowing down the car, entering the area of my campus.

“Around 11, why?” I asked back.

“Can we have lunch together?” he asked as the car halted in front of the lobby, his eyes were on everything but me, looking obviously nervous for unknown reasons, “there’s something I need to talk about.”

“I can’t,” I answered curtly made him jerked his head toward me immediately, looking disappointed.

“I have an appointment with Omunim,” I reasoned, “we’ll meet this wedding planner…” I trailed off, suddenly feeling shy and uncomfortable.

He widened his eyes before spoke, “Oh… okay.”

I nodded and unbuckled my seatbelt.

“What about dinner?” I stopped my hand from opening the door and looked back at him.

“After the meeting,” he hesitantly proposed the idea, “I can pick you up, or maybe you can ask Omuni to drop you off in my office.”

“Can we just talk about it on the phone?” I declined.

He sighed, “It’s just dinner, Seo Juhyun. Do you hate me that much that you always decline everything I offer you?”

“Do I have to admit it out loud?” I asked back nonchalantly.

“Do I have to beg every time?” he asked exasperatedly.

“You can try,” I shrugged. He hanged his head low dramatically and sighed again as I opened the door.

One foot outside and I heard his loud “Please!” I turned around and found his puppy eyes attempt. That made me smirked.

“I’ll think about it,” I said in finality and got off the car completely.

“Thanks for the ride,” I told him before closing the door and walked inside the building, leaving dumbfounded Jung Yonghwa in his car.

~o0o~

Omunim had waited for me in her car in the parking lot near the lobby when I stepped out of the university building. We exchanged greetings and pleasantries inside the car and quickly drove away to have lunch before meeting the wedding planner.

We had lunch in another one of dozens restaurants Omunim owned. Omunim had a particular interest in culinary, and with her business sense she then decided to invest, buy, and establish restaurants. Gomonimwas kind of the same, only the field she was interested in was art, so she built galleries, theaters and music halls around the country. She also invested in some movie productions and sponsored some musicians.

That afternoon Omunim brought me to her Italian restaurant in Chongdamdong and made me taste the most delicious cheese fusilli I ever had in my life. We had a pleasant lunch and chatted. I told her about the latest scandal and explained to her honestly that the guy in the picture was my cousin. She squeezed my hand in assurance that she trusted me and told me not to worry a thing because her son would take care of it.

After lunch we soon went to the wedding planner’s office, it was only a block away from the restaurant so we decided to just take a walk as we chatted some more.

She told me a lot of things about the family, about why Jung Hwejangnim was so stern to the males of the family, making them call him Hwejangnim instead of Aboji or Haraboji, about the relationship among family members, about her activities as a Jung wife, about Jung Yonghwa.

Mostly about Jung Yonghwa.

She told me his embarrassing childhood stories which I was sure would make him pout like a duck if he knew it. She told me about his favorite dishes, hobbies, drinking habbits, childhood crush, his idols, his dreams. Even though I initially listened to Omunim just out of courtesy, I found myself drowned into the stories, picturing Jung Yonghwa on my mind with his guitar when Omunim told me about his first performance on stage, imagining him inhaling his favorite pasta when Omunim first took him to an Italian restaurant, giggling at the thought of him got drunk with Jung Yunho and crying over losing his favorite hyung to a girl in the latter’s bachelor party.

I felt like I knew him some more. And I couldn’t say I disliked it.

~o0o~

I walked out of the elevator somehow feeling nervous. I looked to the left and found desks in an open area and Oh Jungse, Jung Yonghwa’s secretary, occupied one of them. I breathed in before walking to his direction. He looked up from his computer when he sensed someone approaching.

“Oh,” he gasped when he realized that it was me.

“Annyeong Haseyo,” I bowed slightly as I greeted him. He stood up immediately and greeted back politely.

“Sa-sajangnim is in the meeting room,” he informed, stuttering, maybe surprised by my visit.

It was Omunim’s idea.

I received Jung Yonghwa’s text message while we were discussing the flowers arrangement.

Have you thought about the dinner? He had written.

Omunim had asked me about the text and it didn’t feel right to hide it so I told her about his dinner offer. And my brilliant mother-in-law suggested to ignore his text and to give him a surprise visit instead. So there I was, walking behind my fiance’s secretary to the meeting room to surprise him.

But apparently, I was the one who got the shock.

The door to the meeting room was slightly open and when Secretary Oh widened the gap, I could hear a woman’s voice inside the room clearly. Secretary Oh froze on his spot as I took a step closer. He immediately tried to close the door and ushered me away, but I was faster. I stopped him from closing the door, only leaving a small gap enough for me to listen and take a peek. I stood outside with the door covering my figure, Secretary Oh stood nervously beside me. I saw Jung Yonghwa standing with his back facing me, but a woman stuck on his back like a leech, covering it from my vision. I couldn’t see their faces at all, but I knew it was him when I heard him spoke, “Get off me, Bora-sshi.”

He removed the woman’s hands off his body and pushed her away from him and bent down, inspecting some documents on the table.

“Oh, come on, Oppa! Why are you always so cold to me?” the y woman circled her arms around his waist and leaned on his arm. He struggled to break free again.

“I need to work here, so please, just go now,” Jung Yonghwa coldly turned her down.

“Just one dinner, Oppa, please…” she begged with aegyo-filled voice, bending down in front of him to steal his attention from the documents.

“I can’t, I have a dinner date with my fiancé,” he said as he pulled out his phone from his pant pockets and tapped it, probably checking my reply.

The woman scoffed, “What’s so good about her, seriously? She’s so stiff and boring. She only got name and money. Why did you choose her?”

“Well, it happens that what I want from a woman is name and money,” he said nonchalantly, “too bad you don’t have either one of them, Bora-sshi,” that made me smirk.

I decided it was the time to announce my arrival so I knocked the door.

Both of them turned their heads to the door and I entered.

“Hyun,” Jung Yonghwa called me the way he liked it, a smile spread across his face. The woman, Bora, looked at me in shock.

“Surprise,” I said in plain tone. Jung Yonghwa walked closer to me.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he sounded excited.

“Didn’t you hear me?” I rolled my eyes, “Surprise.” He giggled.

“Are you here alone? Where is Omuni?” he asked, looking at the door, obviously ignoring Bora.

“Home. She just dropped me off,” I answered, glancing at Bora, the poor thing.

“Oh, what is this?” he asked, reaching out to the paper bag I brought.

“The wedding plan,” I gave it to him, “I think I need to ask your opinion, too.”

He beamed, “Okay,” he then guided me by my back to sit on one of the chairs, “Show me the plan.”

I refused to move, made him looked at me questioningly, so I told him, “Your guest,” and pointed Bora with my gaze.

He turned to Bora, “Is there anything else, Bora-sshi?”

Bora bit her bottom lip in anger then stormed out of the meeting room without saying a word, almost crashing Secretary Oh who stood rooted near the door.

~o0o~

I told him the result of the first meeting with the wedding planner and asked his opinion for some matters. Our wedding was supposed to be a spring wedding, a beautiful one with lots of flowers blooming around us, that was why initially we wanted it to be held in the garden of Hana Hotel Seoul. But Lee Hyori-sshi, the wedding planner, said there was still a possibility of a snowfall in the beginning of April, and the temperature might still be too cold for an outdoor party. It left us with two options. First was postponing the wedding to a later date, which was immediately responded by a loud “NO” from Jung Yonghwa.

I actually understood why he reacted that way. We had made plans and somehow slipped it into our schedule – his tight and packed schedule, changing it would be too much hassle. And I had planned to start my thesis this spring after the wedding, the sooner the better, since my classes of this semester would end this month.

So I guessed we’d choose the second option, which was moving the venue. Lee Hyori-sshi recommended a chapel in Jeju Island. I showed him the picture of the building I got from Lee Hyori-sshi, a circular building with a small garden as the center. We could cover the top with some canopy and put many kinds of flowers in the garden so we’d have the spring flowers and the guests wouldn’t freeze in cold. But unfortunately, the place was too small for the number of guests we planned to invite. And it was in Jeju-do. We should provide tickets and a place to stay for the guests, and judging by the importance of the people we planned to invite, there was also a possibility that they wouldn’t make it to our wedding if it was held in another island.

He sighed.

“Let’s find some other places,” he said and I shrugged in agreement. I wouldn’t be the one finding the place anyway, Lee Hyori-sshi and her team would do the job, that was what we paid her for.

And then I showed him the invitation Lee Hyori-sshi’s team had designed. I couldn’t decide between two, actually Omunim couldn’t decide between two, while I couldn’t careless, it was just a piece of paper anyway.

He stared at the two cards on the table seriously with his both hands rested on his waist.

“Which one do you like?” he asked me.

I shrugged, “They all look pretty.”

He sighed as he turned to look at me, “Seo Juhyun, can you be more enthusiastic about it? It’s not only my wedding, it’s yours, too. At least you can pretend like you are,” he pouted.

I rolled my eyes but then proceeded to clasp my hands in front of my chest and squealed, “They all look pretty, ooteohke?! I can’t decide!” I decided to humor him.

He scoffed at my acting attempt, but then giggled giddily.

~o0o~

We had dinner in the restaurant where he proposed to me. And it wasn’t as romantic as it sounded, really.

I was in a mood to humor him that day. Maybe because Omunim’s stories about his childhood, or maybe because his cold demeanor towards Bora-sshi’s dinner invitation. So I ordered abalone porridge, just like he did, and earned a toothy grin from Jung Yonghwa.

Jung Yonghwa was very easy to please.

“Did you also talk about the honeymoon with Omuni? We hadn’t decided the country yet, right?” he asked as he inhaled another spoon of the porridge, making me wonder whether he really liked it or if he was just so hungry.

“No, we didn’t,” I answered, “Do you have a place in mind?” I asked back.

He grinned, and I knew he was actually waiting for me to ask him.

“Italy,” he said excitedly, “What do you think?”

“Why Italy?” I asked again, smirking as I remembered Soojung’s words, Choding Oppa.

“Because Italy is romantic,” his answer making me confused, wasn’t it Paris that romantic?

He seemed to catch the confused look on my face so he continued, “You remember Jonghyun?”

I nodded as a response to his question, so he continued, “He lived in Japan until high school, and there’s this Japanese author he favors a lot, her name is Kaori Ekuni, he practically worships her. One of her book was published after I met him, and he showed it to me, for inspiration to compose a song, he said. The title was ‘Between Calmness and Passion’. Have you read it?” he asked.

I shook my head. I never heard it before.

“It was about a couple of lovers in college who parted ways. They met again few years later, but the girl had married another man. The man was devastated but he kept holding on the promise they made to meet in Duomo Firenze, a popular dome in Florence, Italy, on the girl’s 30^th birthday. The story was so touching and beautiful, though I actually don’t usually read romantic novels. I guess it was the only romance story I’ve ever read,” he chuckled at the realization, “that’s why I always thought that Italy is romantic,” he ended his speech and I just stayed silent.

“So, what do you think?” he asked again.

“Okay,” I shrugged. Studying in Oxford, I actually had traveled around Europe, including Italy, though I only visited Rome and Milan. I was curious as to why the writer chose that place. I wanted to visit it.

~o0o~

After dinner he invited me to take a walk around the garden outside, which I agreed easily, making him eyed me suspiciously.

“It’s fine if you don’t want to,” I said as I sat back on my chair. He hurriedly reached out his hands to prevent me from sitting back and pleaded me to get back up. I stayed seated and ignored him nonchalantly around a minute. I heaved a loud sigh before getting up and walked briskly past him to the garden, his bursting cheeks automatically returned.

I looked around the garden silently as he walked in a comfortable distance behind me. When I first came here, on the first lunch with Jung Yonghwa, I was actually curious about how that restaurant managed to keep the flowers grow and bloom in the winter. I found out their tricks when I walked out of the building. The restaurant was actually a huge glass house. The building and the garden was located inside the glass house. I didn’t really know what they do, maybe some architectural magic, the building managed to keep a safe temperature for the flowers in the garden to live.

I looked up and saw the dark sky through the glass roof.

And then it suddenly hit me. I stopped walking and turned around to face Jung Yonghwa. He looked back at me, “What?” he asked clueless.

“Here,” I said, almost a whisper. He furrowed his eyebrows.

“What?” he asked again.

“We can hold the ceremony here,” I told him. His mouth opened forming a big O.

We looked around. We started to talk excitedly about the placement of the altar, the tables for guests, how easy it would be to serve the food since it was a restaurant, and how convenience that the restaurant was owned by Omunim.

“Glad we’ve solved the problem already,” he breathed out and I smiled in return.

There was a bench not far from the spot where we stood so I took a seat there, feeling relieved that the spring wedding Omunim wanted would come true after all. Jung Yonghwa followed suit and sat beside me.

“I’ll make my band sing in our wedding,” he suddenly said, looking at a spot which he might think suitable for the main stage.

I snorted, “And sing that song again?”

“No,” he shook his head, “I have another song in mind,” he grinned.

“Your other composition?” I guessed. He nodded, still grinning.

“Whom you made it for this time? The one you wrote Love Generation for? Or some other girl?”

He guffawed, “The way you said it as if I had so many girls in my life.”

“You didn’t?” I snickered.

“No, I didn’t,” he said in defense, “Do you know how hard it is to be the grandson of Jung Taeyang? I had no time for girls,” he added.

“And Yunho Shisooknim’s not Jung Taeyang’s grandson?” I .

“Yunho Hyung’s different,” he said solemnly, “he was born genius. It was such a hard work just to catch up to him.”

“Wow,” I exclaimed, “I didn’t know that Jung Yonghwa is so humble,” I complimented sarcastically.

“I’m just stating a fact,” he shrugged, “beside, you’re gonna be my wife soon, someone who’ll accept me in health and sickness, joy and sorrow, genius or dumb, right?”

I looked away as he stared at me, expecting an affirmation.

“So, what do you want to talk about?” I asked, ignoring his question.

He sighed, feeling dejected.

“Why do you hate me?” he asked slowly, “Did I do something wrong? Why do you keep rejecting me?”

I stared at him straight in the eyes as my heart began to beat faster caused by the sudden questions and the painful look in his eyes.

“I hate you. But don’t be flattered. I don’t hate you particularly. I just hate men equally,” I told him plainly.

“Why?” he asked in sincere curiosity.

I shrugged, “Because of many reasons,” then I started to explain because he looked clueless, “Because men always think that they’re superior, they’re strong, they can do anything as long as they put their mind to it, they’re the king of the world. And they think women are just an entertainment, a mere tool to please them, something pretty to decorate their house, a trophy to show off to their kind.”

“I’m not like that,” he argued.

“All men are like that,” I insisted, “That was why you chose me. Just like what you told that woman Bora, because I have the name and money you need to be the king. I can be the trophy you’ll be proud of the most. And conveniently, I can also please you-“

“You’re wrong,” he cut me off, “I didn’t choose you because of that. I was just joking.”

I raised my left eyebrow in interest, “Then why did you choose me?” I swore I was going to laugh if he said anything about love.

“That is, Seo Juhyun,” he breathed out and whispered, “Because I like you.”

~o0o~

Preview

“You were the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen,”

.

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“It’s valentine’s day!!”

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.

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I like you, Hyun. More than I can say.

.

.

~o0o~

Trivias:

Remember the wish list Yongseo posted on their fridge in Sangdodong house? They initially wrote only 10, but later put another one, which was visiting Firenze Duomo. And in one of interviews CNBLUE had around 2010, while they were still married, I don't know exactly what interview, Yong revealed that he enjoyed reading more and more thanks to the influence of his buin. One of the books he liked that time was Between Calmness and Passion, the one I mentioned in the story (you can google it). The book was pretty popular in Korea.

~o0o~

Author's Note:

So, did you see it coming? Yonghwa's confession?

Oh, I almost forgot, Happy New Year!!

And as usual, thank you for subscribing, upvoting, leaving comments, and reading through and through...:)

And thank you for the great year...

Yongseo Everlasting!!