Chapter 17

It was already six in the evening when Yunho stumbled into the dining room & carelessly threw his drained, beat body onto one of the dining chairs. It almost toppled from the force he exerted on it before, miraculously, it righted back up but he didn’t even blink; he yawned instead. Heck, in the condition that he was in right now, he would be grateful if he could fall on his , have the chair tumble on him & hit him hard in the head. Maybe then, he would pass out & finally could have the rest he desperately needed but couldn’t have.

It’s been a week since Tiffany disappeared from his life. The most hellishly grueling week in his life. He had only been able to get snatches of sleep since that morning Yoona gave him the goodbye letter she said she had found in Tiffany’s room. The moment the content of the letter had managed to pierce the incredulity clouding his mind, he immediately ran out of the house & began his exhausting search for her. When he couldn’t find her in the house or in the orphanage or in any other places he could think of, he had gone to search all the hotels Seoul, even the dingy, seedy ones. He used all the manpower he could spare to help him & yet, it had still taken him three days to finish his thorough search & be sure that she wasn’t hiding or being hidden from him. She had really left.

His search went further to the neighboring cities then, even neighboring states. He even tried to do some tracking on his own about her whereabouts, in addition to hiring a fleet of investigators. He hadn’t slept for the last five days, hadn’t had a decent meal in a week & he was at his wits end now when after eight days, the investigators still couldn’t give him a definite answer about who she really was & where she could be found.

With a resounding crack, he banged his head on the chair’s back. Damn his carelessness for never asking Tiffany for a recent picture of her as a girl! It would make matter so much easier if he could show those investigators what Tiffany looked like, instead of having to go with what he had on his desk, Tiffany as Tim on the yacht, & one old picture she had left him along with the letter. He promised himself then & there that when she’s by his side again, he had no doubt that she would, he would take pictures of her everyday. Each & every day until their faces turned wrinkled & their hair turned gray.

With a sigh that was close to a sob, he closed his eyes, trying to clear his fatigued mind just enough for him to be able to think about another possibility where his love might be.

That was how Mrs. Jung found her son, pale-faced, thin & dead tired. She hadn’t seen him much in the last week, after he ran out of the house one morning as if a pack of hellhound was chasing him. From Yoona, she knew what had caused it & she had been trying to reach him through his cell phone & through his secretary but it seemed his phone wasn’t working & he hadn’t been in his office even once this past week. This is the first time she had seen him stay still in one place & her heart twisted as she gazed at him. Boy, how he changed. Her usually sharply dressed son was replaced by this bedraggled one. His clothes was wrinkled & mismatched. She doubted his face had met razor even once in the last three days & his hair which was usually nicely comb, was now pointing all over the place, as if he had pulled & yanked on them but what broke her heart the most was the misery & dejection that seemed to ooze from every pore of his body.

Quietly, she walked to him. He didn’t even open his eyes when she called his name softly but he did turn to her & bury his face in her welcoming shoulder, “Mom.” He whispered brokenly.

Mrs. Jung patted his shoulder comfortingly, lovingly “Yunho, why are you torturing yourself so?” She asked gently, “You know you only have to come to me whenever you need help.”

“I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know where else to look, mom, I don’t want to live my life without her. I love her so much that it hurts.”

“I know, Yunho. I know.” She eased him back, looked at him & shook her head, silencing him when she saw his lips opened up, “Go to San Francisco, Yunho. Go & find Joowon Hwang’s house. Her name is Tiffany Hwang; she’s his daughter.”

The last thing she saw was the shock & incredulity in her son’s eyes before he became a blur of motion as he ran out of the house, “I wish you luck, son. Go & bring back my daughter-in-law.”

Yunho looked up at the imposing mansion in front of him & let out a soft whistle in reflex. No wonder Tiffany didn’t look impressed with his house when she first saw it. This mansion put his own grand house to shame. He was certain that he wouldn’t blink an eye if he saw elephants grazing on the carefully tended, manicured lawn; it was certainly big enough for it. The main building itself was spread across the whole block it occupied, majestic & striking & yet, somehow managed to look warm, just like a home should be, with its graceful lines & softness which in some way reminded him of Tiffany. From the building, his gaze turned downward, following the trail from the doorstep to the big black iron front gate blocking his way. He was wondering fleetingly if he would have to climb the gate in order to see her, like some kind of test knights ages ago had to go through to see their fair maidens when he noticed a no-nonsense black box nailed to the wall on the left of the gate. It was a state-of-the-art TV-camera security system.

Holding his breath, standing straight, he firmly pressed a button on the tv monitor & waited for the future to unfold in front of him.

Even until this very second, he was still smarting over the fact that his own mother had known about her true identity & thus could tell him where he could most likely to find her & yet, she had let him went into a full blown panic searching for his fiance for a whole week. He didn’t know how long she would still let him flop about on his own if she hadn’t seen him sitting in the dining room like a limp droopy vegetable. It had taken him eight hours to make sure her mother’s information was right & another three hours to get her complete address.

“Hello!” A yell from the black box in front of him was what jerked him from his thought & back to reality. He saw a stern looking old woman looking back at him. A line of irritation formed between her bushy eyebrows as she snapped, “Are you ready yet?!” Her voice was loud & as unyielding as her hair which was marching in straight lines of pink rolls all over her head, not a single strand out of place.

His breath whooshed out from his chest as he hurriedly replied, “I would like to see Miss Hwang.” Seeing the disapproval on her face intensified, he quickly added, “Please?”

A confused expression replaced the irritation on her face for a second before it was back into its grave expression, “Yes, you are right, Mr. Grace. This is the Hwang resident.”

Yunho, trying to hold his eyes from rolling in their sockets, swallowed his irritation & impatience & repeated his request again. This time, much louder & way closer to the microphone, “My name isn’t Grace. It’s Yunho Jung.” He saw the old bat tilted her head as if she couldn’t quite catch his words, “Not Grace! Jung Yunho!” He shouted, then panted a little as he continued in a softer voice, “& I had like to see Miss Hwang please?” “My goodness, what kind of a guy name is Grace Jung Yunho.” She mumbled, if almost shouting could be termed as mumbling, to herself, giving Yunho’s eyes no other choice but to roll heavenward. Then her head snapped up & she scowled at him, causing Yunho’s spine to straighten instinctively, “Sir.” She pursed her thin lips & glared at him from above her glasses, “You want to see Miss Hwang? Which one? Do you know how many Miss Hwang we have in here?”

Yunho cleared his throat & cursed himself for being a fool. Of course he knew how many daughters Joowon Hwang had. Heck, even the whole world knew that fact, “Miss Tiffany Hwang.” He let out the name along with his exasperated breath.

“Are you cursing me under your breath with that low, soft voice of yours?!” She demanded.

Yunho in a deep breath & bellowed out his frustration, “Tiffany Hwang! I said I want to see Tiffany Hwang!”

He knew the error of his tactics when he saw the old bat’s expression turned venomous, “Sir, you are one very very rude guy. You don’t have to shout at me as if I’m deaf.” Then with sarcasm almost literally dripping from her voice, she said snappily, “& do you know what time it is now? Please be a little considerate, sir, & come at a more proper hour.”

Before he could say anything else, the tv turned blank. Gritting his teeth together, he pressed the button again & again & again. Only when he kept his finger on the button, that the tv finally flicked on again, & he could see the old bat’s cantankerous face again. This time, before she could rant at him about etiquette, he spoke first. Carefully, he made his voice loud enough so that she couldn’t accuse him of cursing at her under his breath again, & yet, not too loud that she could accuse him of shouting at her, “Look, I have to see Tiffany. Now.” Looking at those pursed thin lips, at the slightly tilting head, he let out an impatient & frustrated sound, “Tiffany Hwang. Just tell her her fiance is here. Her fiance. My name is Jung Yunho. Jung Yunho. Tell her that I’m here to see her & you can bet your bony behind that she will let me in.”

“Miss Tiffany’s fiance you say?” He didn’t feel too good when that strict face suddenly broke into a toothy smile. He felt even worse when he noticed the delighted light dancing in her rheumy eyes, “I’m very sorry to inform you then.” She said sweetly, “That miss Tiffany can’t see you anymore. She’s getting married tomorrow. I heard the master & miss Tiffany saying so. Yes, indeed. In fact, I think they are still talking about it at this moment. It’s your bell pressing hobby that took me away from the excitement. Well, good night now. I don’t want to miss too much.” She waved gleefully, cheerfully at him before the tv turned blank again.

This time, no matter what he did to the button, the tv stayed blank. Even when he kept his finger on the button, nobody answered his call anymore. With a defeated sigh, Yunho rested his throbbing head on the gate while his stomach churned in dread. What had the old woman meant by Tiffany’s getting married tomorrow? Don’t tell him what the letter said was true. Hurriedly, he fished out a shabby letter from his pocket & re-read it for the umpteenth time.

‘Dear Yunho Oppa,

By the time you are reading this letter, I would be long gone. I’m very sorry to put you through so much trouble all this time I have been staying at your place & even sorrier to say that in order to live more comfortably, I have no other choice but to use you. All the love words, all the longing gazes, all my actions were all intended to fool you & it seems like I have succeed tremendously, even beyond my expectation, for I had reduced you into a love-blinded guy but never mind that.

Oppa, I just want to tell you that I’m going away with Chanyeol Oppa. We are getting married in a chapel nearby & will be going on our honeymoon afterwards. You might not know this but Chanyeol Oppa is my first love. We have been going out for years. The photo I included with this letter is the proof of that. I know you will understand us & give us your blessing but if you can’t, there’s nothing we could do about it anyway. Please don’t look for us? Have a good life & thanks for everything.

Tiffany’

He shook his head vehemently. He refused to believe Tiffany would agree to marry someone else. He refused to believe that the looks, words & action she had showed him all these months were all lies. It would be easier to believe he was a robot from the future sent to wreck the world than to believe this nonsense. No, he wouldn’t believe it unless he heard it from her own mouth, unless he could see with his own eyes that she really meant it. No, she must have been...His head suddenly snapped up as a thought occurred to him. Yeah, that must be it. Her father must have forced her to marry against her will.

He rolled his taut shoulder & flexed his tired muscles as he assessed the imposing barrier in front of him, the barrier that was separating him & the girl he loved. It seemed like he had to climb this gate after all.