Author's Note: Mature content warning!
The first part of this chapter is dedicated to UbiquitousShips. Study hard, friend, and hope you enjoy :)
***
Chapter 22: The Consummation/ The Betrayal
A memory:
Jeong-hyeok and Se-ri are walking down the streets of Seoul, just a few blocks away from her office. It's the final stretch of an Indian summer: the last rush of warmth before the coldness comes to chill their bones and invade their senses. The late afternoon breeze flows around them with scents of spicy street food and the underlying sweet base of flowers.
The two steal lingering glances at each other as they walk, but nothing more. This is before the accident and they are only friends -- even if friends don't look at each other like this. The memory of Jeong-hyeok holding the child is fresh in Se-ri's memory. She's trying to concentrate on completing the second part of their interview -- finally, a profile of the elusive Ri Jeong-hyeok. But the usually laser-focused reporter is failing, her mind drawn time and time again to the image of him with a laughing baby.
"All you live for is love," reads Jeong-hyeok absently.
"Mmm?" Se-ri questions.
He points at a hot pink and white poster taped to the stucco wall of a community center.
"Oh," says Se-ri, her lip twisting wryly. "Do you really believe that, Ri Jeong-hyeok-ssi?"
So inquisitive, Jeong-hyeok thinks, half amused and half exasperated. Reporters. He turns the question on her instead. "Do you?"
"My life would be pretty sad if I did," mutters Se-ri under her breath. Her family's cold faces arise in her mind.
Against her better judgment, she adds in a loud voice: "How can that be it, Jeong-hyeok-ssi? How can love be the only thing you live for?"
"What do you mean?" he asks carefully.
"Well," she starts. "Say you live a life where you love others, and you're reasonably loved yourself. Is that enough? When you die, the love vanishes with you. So what did you accomplish, Jeong-hyeok-ssi? Why does it matter if you love anyone at all?"
Jeong-hyeok slows his steps, thoroughly considering what she's said. His brow's furrowed, his hands clasped behind him. Finally, he touches her gently on the arm to get her attention, so caught up in his thoughts that he doesn't see how her eyes widen at his sudden touch.
"Perhaps it's not about the love itself, Se-ri-ssi," he says. His focus narrows to her as the crowd passes them by. "Maybe it's how love changes the people you give it to. Maybe that's what lasts, in the end."
***
"I think you were right, Jeong-hyeok-ssi," Se-ri turns to him in the back of the limousine. He raises an eyebrow in curiosity. He's sitting across the seat, leaning against the car door and idly watching her.
Of course, she thinks, he would have no way of knowing what she's talking about.
"Do you remember that hippie poster we saw once? The one about love?"
Jeong-hyeok thinks deeply for a moment.
"No," he admits. Se-ri sighs in frustration.
"It was that day you saved the child from running into the road," she says. The car rolls to a stop outside her apartment. "The day the Dispatches pictures came out...?"
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Fanfiction"Jeong-Hyeok," his father says in a tired voice, "This is how it's going to be. The general shareholder meeting is in five weeks from now. If you are not firmly engaged by then - I am going to recommend that the board make someone else the Chairman...
