Still, Marry Me: 4 Girls Ha Min Jae Dated (1/5)
Title: 4 Girls Ha Min Jae Dated (1 He Dated Twice) (1/5)
Author: Vashti (tvashti)
Fandom: The Woman Who Still Wants To Marry
Character(s): Ha Min Jae, Oh Se Na, Choi Sang Mi
Rating: PG
Summary: While Lee Shin Young is on assignment, Ha Min Jae follows her advice and tries to move on...with mixed results
Length: 1048 words
Disclaimer: I don't know you. You don't know me. Let's keep it that way.
Dedication: My Dramabeans OT family, particularly Ricky the Royal Highness who reminded me that I meant to post this here at some point. Now's as good a time as any ;)
Notes: Written to cover the interstitial time when Lee Shin Young has left to do international reporting in Finland, before she comes home and reunites with Ha Min Jae.
§§§
1. The girl that called him "Oppa"
Ha Min Jae smiles and looks down at Oh Se Na hanging onto his arm. She's surprisingly heavy. He's too savvy to say that to her, and too smart to say it to anyone else, but he thinks it awfully hard.
"Is oppa feeling alright?" she asks.
Smiling, Min Jae quickly clears the expression on his face, mentally kicking himself all the while. He knows he shouldn't have tried dating so soon after Lee Shin Young left for her assignment in Finland. (And why Finland? he wonders, not for the first time. Wasn't it even colder than Korea, and for longer?) "It's nothing. The concert is coming up--"
He doesn't even have to lie. Se Na makes the excuses for him. Convenient, that. Min Jae almost smiles again before remembering he's supposed to be concerned and distracted. He blames this on Shin Young, too -- this forgetting how to be a player. Because of her he's spent much of the winter being first a suitor then a lover, and now he's rusty. It's a good thing his hyung is well-married. Any advice he'd have for hyung now would be suspect.
What he can't blame Shin Young for are all the things he doesn't feel for Se Na. There's no excitement, no thrill, no sparks. She's very pretty--maybe, probably even prettier than Shin Young, but his pulse doesn't jump when he sees her. Any plans they make together beyond the upcoming concert is more duty than privilege.
No one seems to notice, much, except his mother, but he rarely hides from her. He hadn't hidden Shin Young from her, not to start.
"I know why your expression is so sour." She stopped clearing their dinner from the table to push his hair out of his face and cup his cheek. She tilted his face so that he had to look up at her. "You're still getting over Lee Shin Young. Give it time. Maybe you shouldn't have tried dating again so soon."
Still sitting, Min Jae covered her hand with his. "Oma, I thought you liked Se Na."
"I do. Oh Se Na seems like a nice girl and she comes from a good family. I won't lie and say that I wish Lee Shin Young were here instead. You know I disapproved. But I also know how it is when your heart breaks." She began clearing the table again.
Min Jae watched his mother, this new, almost-happy creature he sometimes didn't recognize. "Lee Shin Young told me to live my life, to date girls my age," he told her. "She didn't want me to wait for her, and Oh Se Na has always been obvious that she was interested." His mother moved from the dining room table to the kitchen table and back again as he talked. He stood the next time she went into the kitchen. He followed her and began washing the dishes she had brought out. "I think Oh Se Na is exactly the kind of girl Shin Young would have wanted me to date."
His mother nodded. "I agree with you and Lee Shin Young. My advice is that you should have waited more than a week to begin dating."
They had lapsed into silence while Min Jae washed and thought. Whatever conclusion he had been looking for hadn't been forthcoming, so he followed his mother into the laundry room when he was done, watching her as she sorted his clothes. She'd glanced back at him, briefly, and flashed him a smile--Choi Sang Mi the stranger peeking through.
"How are things between you and Yoon Sang Woo?" he'd said eventually, trying to coax the stranger out of his mother. Talking to her had been preferable to trying to process his mother's words.
But, of course, words spoken don't disappear. The more time he spends with Se Na, the more he thinks on the things his mother has said.
It's a relief and a terrible surprise when Se Na unwittingly puts the nail in the coffin of their relationship later that afternoon. They are all, his band and hers, in the studio on-campus working out a few new songs that will either be part of Purple Rain's playlist or go to Se Na’s Orange Map.
The first three are very straightforward yeses and nos. This one, however... Min Jae doesn't like it, but the band does. Se Na tries it out anyway, because min Jae's not convinced, but it is obviously not meant for her.
"Oppa, this one is for you, not me," she says with all seriousness. Not for the first time, Min Jae wishes that studio-Se Na was all-the-time-Se Na. "You're just not ready to play it yet because it's so different from everything else in the set list."
Everyone agrees.
"I know there's not a lot of time until the concert, but hold onto this one and come back to it. Trust me. You're just in a different mode right now."
Frowning, he says, "What if I'm never in this mode?" He sounds petulant and even Se Na, who is studio-Se Na for now, looks unimpressed with his childish stubbornness.
"Then even though you and this song sound like you belong together, it isn't part of who you are and should go to someone else. Someone new," she adds lest he try to pawn it off on her again.
There's a tense silence, and Min Jae feels the foolishness of his words. He's the leader. He's also the oldest. He should be setting an example. Nodding to her, he says, "You're right, Se Na. I've been acting poorly," he says to them all. "Forgive me. Let's put this one down for now, as Oh Se Na suggests. We'll try again tomorrow?"
They all agree with a resounding, "Ne!" and the tension is broken. Almost.
More than being the leader and the oldest, Min Jae is also the only one of them who knows that two conversations have just happened, with two questions answered.
It's no longer a matter of whether he will break up with Oh Se Na but when. As they sort through the music sheets strewn across the floor to put them in play-order, Ha Min Jae wonders just how bad it will be when he does.
-Fin-
Read Part 2
Author: Vashti (tvashti)
Fandom: The Woman Who Still Wants To Marry
Character(s): Ha Min Jae, Oh Se Na, Choi Sang Mi
Rating: PG
Summary: While Lee Shin Young is on assignment, Ha Min Jae follows her advice and tries to move on...with mixed results
Length: 1048 words
Disclaimer: I don't know you. You don't know me. Let's keep it that way.
Dedication: My Dramabeans OT family, particularly Ricky the Royal Highness who reminded me that I meant to post this here at some point. Now's as good a time as any ;)
Notes: Written to cover the interstitial time when Lee Shin Young has left to do international reporting in Finland, before she comes home and reunites with Ha Min Jae.
§§§
1. The girl that called him "Oppa"
Ha Min Jae smiles and looks down at Oh Se Na hanging onto his arm. She's surprisingly heavy. He's too savvy to say that to her, and too smart to say it to anyone else, but he thinks it awfully hard.
"Is oppa feeling alright?" she asks.
Smiling, Min Jae quickly clears the expression on his face, mentally kicking himself all the while. He knows he shouldn't have tried dating so soon after Lee Shin Young left for her assignment in Finland. (And why Finland? he wonders, not for the first time. Wasn't it even colder than Korea, and for longer?) "It's nothing. The concert is coming up--"
He doesn't even have to lie. Se Na makes the excuses for him. Convenient, that. Min Jae almost smiles again before remembering he's supposed to be concerned and distracted. He blames this on Shin Young, too -- this forgetting how to be a player. Because of her he's spent much of the winter being first a suitor then a lover, and now he's rusty. It's a good thing his hyung is well-married. Any advice he'd have for hyung now would be suspect.
What he can't blame Shin Young for are all the things he doesn't feel for Se Na. There's no excitement, no thrill, no sparks. She's very pretty--maybe, probably even prettier than Shin Young, but his pulse doesn't jump when he sees her. Any plans they make together beyond the upcoming concert is more duty than privilege.
No one seems to notice, much, except his mother, but he rarely hides from her. He hadn't hidden Shin Young from her, not to start.
"I know why your expression is so sour." She stopped clearing their dinner from the table to push his hair out of his face and cup his cheek. She tilted his face so that he had to look up at her. "You're still getting over Lee Shin Young. Give it time. Maybe you shouldn't have tried dating again so soon."
Still sitting, Min Jae covered her hand with his. "Oma, I thought you liked Se Na."
"I do. Oh Se Na seems like a nice girl and she comes from a good family. I won't lie and say that I wish Lee Shin Young were here instead. You know I disapproved. But I also know how it is when your heart breaks." She began clearing the table again.
Min Jae watched his mother, this new, almost-happy creature he sometimes didn't recognize. "Lee Shin Young told me to live my life, to date girls my age," he told her. "She didn't want me to wait for her, and Oh Se Na has always been obvious that she was interested." His mother moved from the dining room table to the kitchen table and back again as he talked. He stood the next time she went into the kitchen. He followed her and began washing the dishes she had brought out. "I think Oh Se Na is exactly the kind of girl Shin Young would have wanted me to date."
His mother nodded. "I agree with you and Lee Shin Young. My advice is that you should have waited more than a week to begin dating."
They had lapsed into silence while Min Jae washed and thought. Whatever conclusion he had been looking for hadn't been forthcoming, so he followed his mother into the laundry room when he was done, watching her as she sorted his clothes. She'd glanced back at him, briefly, and flashed him a smile--Choi Sang Mi the stranger peeking through.
"How are things between you and Yoon Sang Woo?" he'd said eventually, trying to coax the stranger out of his mother. Talking to her had been preferable to trying to process his mother's words.
But, of course, words spoken don't disappear. The more time he spends with Se Na, the more he thinks on the things his mother has said.
It's a relief and a terrible surprise when Se Na unwittingly puts the nail in the coffin of their relationship later that afternoon. They are all, his band and hers, in the studio on-campus working out a few new songs that will either be part of Purple Rain's playlist or go to Se Na’s Orange Map.
The first three are very straightforward yeses and nos. This one, however... Min Jae doesn't like it, but the band does. Se Na tries it out anyway, because min Jae's not convinced, but it is obviously not meant for her.
"Oppa, this one is for you, not me," she says with all seriousness. Not for the first time, Min Jae wishes that studio-Se Na was all-the-time-Se Na. "You're just not ready to play it yet because it's so different from everything else in the set list."
Everyone agrees.
"I know there's not a lot of time until the concert, but hold onto this one and come back to it. Trust me. You're just in a different mode right now."
Frowning, he says, "What if I'm never in this mode?" He sounds petulant and even Se Na, who is studio-Se Na for now, looks unimpressed with his childish stubbornness.
"Then even though you and this song sound like you belong together, it isn't part of who you are and should go to someone else. Someone new," she adds lest he try to pawn it off on her again.
There's a tense silence, and Min Jae feels the foolishness of his words. He's the leader. He's also the oldest. He should be setting an example. Nodding to her, he says, "You're right, Se Na. I've been acting poorly," he says to them all. "Forgive me. Let's put this one down for now, as Oh Se Na suggests. We'll try again tomorrow?"
They all agree with a resounding, "Ne!" and the tension is broken. Almost.
More than being the leader and the oldest, Min Jae is also the only one of them who knows that two conversations have just happened, with two questions answered.
It's no longer a matter of whether he will break up with Oh Se Na but when. As they sort through the music sheets strewn across the floor to put them in play-order, Ha Min Jae wonders just how bad it will be when he does.
-Fin-
Read Part 2