HEART LIES

ALL MENDS

What a shameless thought. In-Soo refuted the idea. No, In-Sung shouldn't excuse her greed. She didn't deserve a man like him or anything else which could bring her happiness.

In-Soo stared at her swollen stomach; in her mind, she didn't even deserve to be the mother of the child she carried.

The woman wanted to dig a hole and bury herself; no one would miss or cry for her.

In-Soo couldn't be more wrong as the ringing doorbell was about to prove.

"In-Soo-Ah, please come to the door. There's someone for you."

No, it couldn't be thought the woman who dashed down the stairs.

For once, her instinct did not betray her. It wasn't In-Sung, but still a great surprise.

"Sa-rang."

"You know this woman?" In-Soo's father asked.

"Yes."

"Than, I'll leave you," the old man said, backing away from the door.

The two women were left glaring at each other.

Here Sa-rang was anything but flamboyant. Pale and almost translucent, her skin looked thinner than paper. Her face, with its craved traits, seemed to have shrunken by half.

In-Soo had not seen Sa-rang in months. Unlike Sa-rang's entourage, she did not witness the evolution of the woman's health. But, it was clear, the woman before her had crossed a threshold and was walking on a path In-Soo was not in a hurry to follow.

"Sa rang."

"Deo [you], I trusted you, I gave you all I had, everything which was dear to me. How dare you walk away. How dare you give up and betray me. Wasn't I good to you, wasn't my life what you wanted? In-Sung loves you. He needs you more than ever now."

"I'm sorry, Sa-rang, but I can't. He loves you; he was devastated when he found out about your illness. You are the one who played him. In-Sung wouldn't have come to me if it wasn't you're doing. You did everything to make him fall in my arms. Our love story is your screenplay. How dare you play with our lives like this."

"Play, you say, each protagonist here has a choice to make. You choose; no one forced you. You could have said no, you accepted In-Soo, you made a choice just as I have decided to die my way. Just as I decided to give you my family, and like In-Sung decided to have an affair with you before divorcing. We are adults, and we made our decisions alone."

"You can't ask me to standby In-Sung when what we have is founded on one of your evil ploys."

Sa-rang released a chuckle and slicked her string-thinned hair back, "I'll hand it to you, okay, the circumstances were not natural, but the love, the emotions, your feelings for In-Sung, the feelings he has for you are true. I'm no God In-Soo. I didn't create the love you have for one another. Don't be foolish, don't make the same errors as I've made all my life."

In-Soo did not understand. Did Sa-rang regret leaving In-Sung?

The woman had no time to ponder as Sa-rang called her out.

"In-Soo, please, I beg you, you are the only person who can cleanse a part of my sins. I was a bad wife and mother; I didn't care in In-Soo. I was selfish; all my life, I only thought about me."

"Even this is about you, isn't it Sa-Rang? You want me to buy back your faults, but I can't. You should be saying this to In-Sung and Sonmi. They're the ones who deserveㅡ."

"No, I can't show myself before them. I don't want them to see me, not like this. Please, In-Soo, I beg you. What I did was wrong, but it doesn't erase the fact that In-Sung loves you, and you two need each other more than ever now."

Sa-rang heaved. In-Soo could tell the woman struggled. The proud doctor Lee Sa-rang was using her last strength to beg. The scene was surreal, and in other circumstances, in a scenario where Sa-rang would be a simple rival, In-Soo would have shut the door on her face. But, even if In-Soo wasn't insensitive to the dying woman's plea, she could not assess the situation.

"I'm sorry, Sa-rang, I can't."

Sa-rang, who didn't know what more she could do left, hoping that destiny would give her one last push.

Days and nights passed, In-Sung tossed and turned. Finally, thirsty, he got up to get a glass of water in the kitchen. Being alone was something In-Sung was not used to; Sonmi, Sa-rang, and In-Soo, the man had no had a moment alone in twenty years. The empty house felt like a prison; the man looked around, wondering what would become of him. He began to walk back to his room only to drop his glass in front of a moving shadow in the corridor.

"Who is it?"

"It's me, In-Sung."

The man dreamt of her so often he thought the face was another mirage of his mind.

"In-Soo-ah, are you here?"In-Sung asked as he stepped on the broken glass to approach her.

"Yes, I'm here," the woman said and advanced to join him in the middle of the corridor. "I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't be here, but I couldn't Iㅡ."

The man grabbed her in a suffocating embrace, "come back. I can't live without you."

"In-sung, but Iㅡ."

"I don't care; it doesn't matter. What matters is us and what we will do from now.

In-Soo grasped his face, "In-Sung, I swear, I'll spend the rest of my life making up for this. Iㅡ."

"I love you," In-Sung finished.

As always, the phrase was the bottom line; for In-Sung, it was more than that. The man had put everything on balance, and his thoughts swayed from one side to the other only to come to one conclusion. There was no one else on earth he wanted by his side.

If there were one thing Sa rang had ever done right, it would be having put In-Soo in his life.

Life was too short, and the man desired to spend the rest of his with In-Soo.