Chapter 49: The News

Vidhi was fast asleep. Ashma was lying on her back, staring at the roof. She was in pain. Her knee was throbbing hard. She couldn't sleep. She couldn't even toss and turn on the bed due to pain. She slowly landed her feet on the ground and got up from the bed. She looked at her mother to check that she didn't disturb her sleep.

She tried getting up but her knees refused to support her. She sat down immediately. Slowly she put pressure on her knees and stood up. She flinched, closed her eyes tightly and took in all the pain. Limping, she came out of her room and stealthily closed the door of the room.

The footlight was on. Steadily she moved towards the terrace. She climbed the stairs one at a time and reached the terrace. She halted in her path when she saw Young-Soo already sitting on the swing.

Young-Soo's eyes fell on her and he stopped the swing with his feet. He got up and came running towards her but hesitated to touch her. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"I am fine, just couldn't sleep," assured Ashma. She refused to smile at him. Her face was blank as a paper.

"Because of pain?" Young-Soo understood what was troubling her.

"You can say that," said Ashma, indifferently.

"Come here." Without thinking twice, he wrapped her hand around his shoulder and distributed some of her weight onto himself thus relieving the pressure from her knees. He helped her to walk and made her sit on the swing.

"You can sit too," she said and gestured next to her.

He was on cloud nine. His daughter who hated him asked him to sit next to her. "Thank you," said Young-Soo.

"What are you doing here?" asked Ashma.

"Nothing."

"Why do you come here almost every night?" pressured Ashma.

"Okay fine, only yuhbo knows about this," said Young-Soo.

"Who?" asked Ashma, curious.

"Your mumma, I call her yuhbo," explained Young-Soo.

"What does that mean?"

"It is an endearing term for a wife, or you can say darling," said Young-Soo.

"Ohh!"

"So, only she knows that I come here when something is disturbing me," clarified Young-Soo

"What is disturbing you today?"

"Don't take it in any other way but the first one that was disturbing me was you."

"Me?" said Ashma, surprised.

"You were in pain, I felt bad, so couldn't sleep."

"Thank you for your concern. I will be okay soon." Ashma looked at him and smiled.

His heart jumped with happiness after seeing her smile. This was the first time she smiled at him. He thought this moment would have been the same if she would have smiled at him in her childhood for the first time. The imagination of her tiny lips smiling at him gave him much joy he needed in his life. He smiled at her and said, "I know, you are your mother's daughter. She was tough, so you must be tough too."

"Hmm, and second?"

"The second was my business."

"What about it?" asked Ashma with interest.

"I was thinking about how to expand it internationally."

"Ohh, what do you do?"

"I look after the handicrafts sector of Park conglomerate. My company is called 'Susegong'. 80% of Korea's handicrafts are produced in my company," said Young-Soo with a hint of pride in his voice.

"Wow! You must be rich," teased Ashma.

"Ha-ha, not as rich as you," laughed Young-Soo. He was enjoying every single second with her. He wanted the moment to carry on forever but it kept flying away.

"Well, that is true," Ashma teased again.

They both smiled at each other. They sat in silence for a while together, swinging in the cold air. Young-Soo was in seventh heaven. No one of his children ever spend time with him on his precious swing except Ashma, it was the second time she was sharing his space and time.

After some time when Ashma started feeling sleepy, she said, "Thank you for spending time with me. I should get back to sleep. I need to wake up early or Chin-Sun will get angry, again."

"I heard what you did to Hae-Won. It seems all of us must get scolding from you," teased Young-Soo.

She was about to get up but delayed her action after hearing his tease. "Please don't say that I still feel guilty about how I reacted that day."

"But you are still angry with me, aren't you?" Young-Soo became serious.

"Yes, I am. You left me, you abandoned me. You proved that your family, your father was more important for you, not us," said Ashma frigidly.

"That is not the case," Young-Soo wanted to explain.

"Please I don't want to hear excuses. What was done is done. Let's not talk about it. I don't want to get angry anymore," said Ashma without any emotions on her face. But inside she felt as if she was on fire.

"But don't you want to know?" begged Young-Soo.

"No, I don't. I don't want to know anything. The moment my mother gets better I will leave and forget that I ever came here," said Ashma icily.

"You won't be here for the wedding?"

"Do you really think that I will stay for the wedding?"

"But you were helping out Bongie and Chinsuna," protested Young-Soo.

"Helping and attending are two different things. Moreover, if I attend the wedding it will be the talk of the century. I don't design wedding dresses, then what am I doing at a wedding, will be a question on every mouth. Will you be able to answer that?" Ashma slightly raised her voice.

"Of course. I can answer that question at any given time. I am ready to shout at the world that you are my daughter," said Young-Soo with determination.

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"But have you thought if I am ready?" questioned Ashma.

"Ashma, be assured I will never do anything that will hurt you."

"You already hurt me 27 years ago," taunted Ashma, harshly.

She got up and started walking away from him. She limped and yet ran away from him. Tears started flowing down his face. He wanted to grab his daughter and tell her everything that happened 27 years ago but she was not yet ready to hear his side of the story. In her eyes, he was wrong, he did everything wrong. Little did she know that it was fate, it was kismet that he didn't return back to her.

She went to her room and slept angrily. She hated all that was happening in her life. She was happy, why did Bong-Cha have to call her and tell her everything. She wished for that phone call to never happen. She wished for not hearing Bong-Cha's voice that day.

"Wake up, wake up!" Bong-Cha shouted early morning. So much for her wish. Even God was not in a mood to listen to her and solve her life's problems.

"What? What?" groaned Ashma. She was sleeping on her side, she turned towards Bong-Cha, opened her eyes and saw her too close to her own face. She flinched and moved her face away.

"Wake up, now," shouted Bong-Cha, again.

"What happened, Bong-Cha?" asked Vidhi. She got up from the bed and faced Bong-Cha.

Bong-Cha was now jumping up and down on the bed with thrill. "She is in the news," she blurted out.

"For what?" asked Vidhi with a smile on her face. This was nothing new to her. Her daughter was always in news for her designs or awards.

"Um…" Bong-Cha hesitated. "You see… the thing is… uh… people saw her at the Gocheok Sky Dome."

"What?" Ashma sat on the bed with a jerk. Her sleep went away in an instant.

"You are blowing up. People are talking about you," said Bong-Cha.

"But I had my mask on, who said that?" yelled Ashma.

"What happened? Why are you both shouting?" Eun-Kyung came running to the room. She halted when she saw Bong-Cha kneeling on the bed near Ashma's head.

"She is trending," said Bong-Cha.

"What? Why?"

The next moment Young-Soo and Baek-Hyeon came running after hearing all the yelling from Bong-Cha and Ashma. "What happened today? What did bongie do?" asked Baek-Hyeon.

"What? I did nothing," said Bong-Cha.

"Then why is she shouting at you?" asked Baek-Hyeon.

"I am not shouting at her," yelled Ashma. She failed to see the irony.

"She is not shouting at me," shouted Bong-Cha.

"Then what happened?" asked Young-Soo.

"Haven't you guys seen the news?" questioned Ashma with surprise.

"No," said everyone in unison.

"She is trending, it's in the news that she was at skydome," explained Bong-Cha.

"What?" screamed everyone in unison.

"Who told all the reporters?" asked Ashma.

Bong-Cha got off the bed to create some distance between Ashma and herself as she knew Ashma would burst after hearing the name of the person who told everyone she was in Korea. "Uhh… Salt," said Bong-Cha, hesitantly.

"Come again!"

"She… she had her live stream yesterday after the album launch and she told the whole world what she did and what you did and then apologised to you," informed Bong-Cha.

"She did what now?" screamed Ashma.

"Apolo… apologised to you," answered Bong-Cha and moved a step back due to fear. More than fear it was her survival instincts. She knew Ashma was already in pain due to what Salt did and to add to her pain she told the whole world about her visit to Korea.

"That moron!" screamed Ashma.

"What everyone is saying?" asked Young-Soo.

"That she came here for your dress but they have no evidence of her leaving. So they are searching in every hotel for her."

"Oh no! I really should have slapped the shit out of that girl," Ashma gritted her teeth.

"Ashu!" reprimanded Vidhi.

"What? Can't I curse when I am angry?" shouted Ashma.

"Nowadays, you are always angry," said Vidhi. Young-Soo smiled at her taunt. Vidhi too smiled at him.

"That's so true," nodded Ashma.

"What are you going to do?" asked Bong-Cha to Ashma.

"Talk to my PR team," said Ashma and started looking for her phone.

"But you came as positive in this scenario."

"For now, you never know how people will spin something. Also, I want everyone to know that I left. I am not in Korea. The PR team can say that I am in India for the spring show," said Ashma.

"You have come here twice so what's new about this time, your PR team can surely spin it," said Bong-Cha.

"For the first two times, I was not staying with the most famous family in Korea," enlightened Ashma. She grabbed her phone in her hands and opened the lock.

"Right!" exclaimed Bong-Cha. She knew Ashma was right.. Staying in a hotel would not have attracted so much attention but staying with the Park family definitely would.

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