Sunset at Hamdeok

Chapter 35

Eighteen months later.....

SNSD Coffee Shop's glass door was open. A man with a silver T bracelet around his right wrist came in. He approached a girl who was sitting on a table by the window.

"Sooyoung ah." That handsome man smiled. He sat in front of her.

Sooyoung put down her cellphone and smiled back at the man she'd missed so much.

"Taehyungie, I am really happy to see you here again." That girl squeezed Taehyung's hand. "I missed you...."

Taehyung smiled. But his smile had changed. It wasn't as bright as before. That smile kept a silent cry.

"How have you been, Sooyoungie?"

"I am fine.... And you?"

Taehyung stared at the table. "I am still the same...."

Sunny came with two cups of cappuccino. She tapped Taehyung's shoulder without saying any words. It was the fourth times Taehyung came to SNSD Coffee Shop since Tiffany gone missing.

"You look really tired, Taehyungie." Sooyoung noticed that Taehyung looked ten years older than his actual age. Some of his hair even went grey although that man didn't even care.

Taehyung sipped his coffee and smiled. "I am. Sometimes, most of the time, I feel like ending my life since the day Tiffany left me....."

Sooyoung bit her lips. She looked outside the window. Since the day Tiffany left me.... That sentence sounded so sad.... And ever since that day, Taehyung traveled the world to find Tiffany. There was no city in South Korea that Taehyung hadn't visited. There was no hospital he hadn't checked. But he still couldn't find Tiffany.

Taehyung tried to track Dr. Jo Insung. He found out that doctor had planned to study in Germany. And Germany was where Taehyung went. Yet, he still coudn't find any trace of his girlfriend in that country.

"Taehyung ah, please don't talk like that." Sooyoung begged her childhood fiance. She held his hand.

That handsome lad held her hand in return. "I know. The only one that prevents me from ending my own life is Tiffany herself." Taehyung sighed. "I know she is still alive. I can feel it in my soul that Tiffany is still breathing somewhere." Taehyung painfully smiled. "And I can't die before I find her, even though the feeling of missing her almost drives me insane...."

Sooyoung could see all the sorrows and pains in Taehyung's eyes. That man had definitely been miserable all these months. "Taehyung ah, Tiffany didn't leave you because she'd stopped loving you...., she left you because she loved you too much. Tiffany didn't want you to see her appearance change due to the cancer treatment she'd receive. Tiffany wanted you to remember her as the healthy and beautiful girl you once saw at Hamdeok Beach."

Sooyoung withdrew her hand. On her last encounter with Tiffany, that girl confessed everything to Sooyoung, about her feelings, about the red string that connected her to Taehyung. And about their fateful night at Hamdeok. Only then Sooyoung could finally understand how deep their love for each other. And it was something that she could never compete with.

Taehyung nodded. "I know. And that's what makes me sadder even more. But that's also one of so many reasons why I have to find Tiffany. We're like two wings that cannot function well without each other....."

Sooyoung avoided Taehyung's eyes. She couldn't stand to see those two black eyes. Those eyes were so pitiful.

"Ah," Taehyung bit his lips, "I am sorry that I make you uncomfortable." For a moment, Taehyung forgot that Choi Sooyoung was not only his childhood friend, that girl was also his ex fiancee, someone who loved him so deeply. "I must've hurt you again...."