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Summary: Four years and continents apart. What keeps Yi Jeong and Ga Eul's hope alive are the letters that they write to each other from time to time…

LOVE LETTER

XVII

Madam Lee Soo Jin was feeling mildly exasperated. Right now, her precious granddaughter was holed up in her room with her nose in a mountain of books. Yes, it was important to study for exams. But it was even more important to plan for one's future happiness. Ga Eul would probably die an old maid, at the rate she was going. 'And I will never see my great grandchildren,' she muttered sorrowfully.

Madam Lee was busy counting her misfortunes and finding people to blame for them (her son she blamed for Ga Eul's stubbornness) when the house phone rang. Her daughter-in-law had gone out to buy groceries for that night's dinner and Ga Eul probably couldn't hear the phone from upstairs. 'Might as well pick it up,' she thought and reached for it. 'It could be one of those nice young men that Ga Eul met.' That would give her an excuse to force Ga Eul to come out of hiding.

"Hello?"

"Hello, may I speak to Madam Lee Soo Jin please?"

The man had a very nice voice indeed. But she had no idea who he was. "Yes, this is she. I don't think I know you though."

'You will in a moment,' Yi Jeong thought. His heart was beating a little faster than usual—after all, he was talking to Ga Eul yang's grandmother—but he still felt relatively calm. "My name is So Yi Jeong. Ga Eul wrote to me and in her letter, she mentioned that you were staying with her. I thought now might be a good time to introduce myself."

As he had hoped, she jumped on the detail he had dangled in front of her. "You and Ga Eul have been exchanging letters?"

He chuckled. "Yes we have. I know it sounds strange in this day and age but ever since I left to further my studies in Sweden, Ga Eul and I have been writing to each other. It takes a little longer but I think it makes our communication more personal. It was her idea actually."

Hmmm, it sounded as though this Yi Jeong was someone special to Ga Eul. There were plenty of questions that Madam Lee to ask. But the most important one had to do with the fact that Ga Eul had never mentioned him. "Are you dating my granddaughter? She's never spoken about you before."

This would be a little tricky but he had prepared for that very question. "We have been out on dates. I left before we had a chance to be an official couple though. Perhaps that's why she hasn't said anything about me. But we made a promise to wait for each other."

In spite of herself, Madam Lee found the notion rather romantic. "Hmm, is this why you are calling me? Perhaps in her letters Ga Eul has mentioned the fact that she has been on some dates."

Yi Jeong resisted the urge to tell her that those weren't dates; they were appointments. "Ga Eul has told me a little. I must admit, I do feel a little uneasy about it."

It was Madam Lee's turn to chuckle. "Jealous, are we?"

On the other end, Yi Jeong flushed slightly but consoled himself by thinking that there wasn't any man on earth in his position that wouldn't be jealous too. If it had been Jun Pyo or Woo Bin, those other men would probably be dead and buried somewhere. Ji Hoo would have just married the girl. At least he wasn't that extreme. He was taking the moderate way out.

"So, when will you be coming back?"

"In about two years," he replied.

"Two years?! I can't wait that long for great grandchildren!" Oops. She hadn't meant to say that but it had spilled out all the same.

"Great grandchildren?" Yi Jeong echoed, sounding a little bewildered and mildly horrified. Wasn't this whole scheme about getting Ga Eul paired up with someone and eventually married?

"Well, of course marriage means children and that means great grandchildren for me. Or didn't you intend to have any?" she asked sharply.

At the moment he was just getting comfortable with the idea that he was in love with Ga Eul yang and wanted a relationship with her. And had her grandmother just assumed that he was going to marry her and immediately produce children? Not that he wasn't keen on the baby-making process. He just didn't want the babies. Not yet.

"Uh, I…we never talked about it."

"So you don't want any!"

It was time to do some major backpedalling if he didn't want to be banned as a possible suitor. "But I suppose eventually we will have…babies." There, he had said it. That hadn't been too hard.

"Oh good, I want three at least. Boys or girls, it doesn't matter to me, although a son would be nice. Someone to pass on your surname. That would make your parents happy too."

Yi Jeong was so busy wondering how on earth he had landed on this slippery slope leading to marriage, babies and family planning that he almost missed Madam Lee's next question.

"So what is it that you are studying in Sweden that cannot be studied here? And why does it take two years?"

"I'm furthering my studies in pottery Madam Lee. In another two years' I will get an advanced degree and I would have learnt far more than any of my peers in Korea." Not that he had any peers now but he could not very well sing his own praises. At least not in front of Ga Eul's grandmother whom he was trying to impress.

In the silence that followed, he could've heard a pin drop. "Pottery?"

Come to think of it, the men that Ga Eul had mentioned had either been pre-med, law or even business students. He could sense a pattern there. Obviously artists hadn't made it to her list. "Yes, pottery," he said enthusiastically, choosing to forgive her for her disapproving tone on the basis that she was Ga Eul's grandmother. "It's a family business and it certainly helps to be an artist if I'm going to take over the running of the Woo Sung Museum next time."

He could almost see her eyebrows go up and her eyes widen. It never failed to impress anyone.

"The Woo Sung Museum? Your family owns that?"

"And some others in the region."

"Is this a joke young man?"

She'd blindsided him again. Thank God that if they were going to be related, it would only be by marriage. He would produce a child, plunk it into her arms and hopefully keep her out of his family's hair if it would make her happy. Wait, what was he thinking? He was still at the relationship stage with Ga Eul yang. He couldn't rush ahead of himself. Ga Eul was right; her grandmother had some kind of insidious influencing force. "Excuse me?"

"I don't know much about the high society families here but I do know that whichever family owns that museum is certainly very wealthy indeed. But those are the kinds of circles that my Ga Eul does not mix in and it's impossible that she would have met someone like you."

Apparently Ga Eul hadn't told her grandmother about Jan Di and Jun Pyo, else she might have put two and two together.

"Now, this has gone on long enough. I'm sure you aren't really So Yi Jeong and that my granddaughter has put you up to this. It's very disrespectful—"

"Madam Lee, I apologise for interrupting. However, this is not a prank. I know Ga Eul because Jan Di is dating my best friend, Gu Jun Pyo, heir to Shinhwa Enterprises. Jan Di knew us through school; she was given a scholarship to attend Shinhwa High and whenever Jun Pyo brought Jan Di on holidays, we all came along, Ga Eul included."

The charm was still there but now he sounded very firm indeed. 'Is he telling the truth?' Madam Lee wondered. It sounded like a fantastic story and Ga Eul had shared none of this with her. There would be time to interrogate her granddaughter later; for now she would listen to what this young man had to say.

"I can understand how you might think this is a scheme that Ga Eul came up." He might have been upset at being accused of being an imposter but he could understand how she had arrived at that conclusion. "It's unfortunate that I cannot be there in person to allay your suspicions. However, I would like to ask for a chance to prove to you that I am indeed who I claim to be."

That sounded interesting. "Okay, I'll give you a chance. What do you have in mind?"

"It's a surprise. But it won't be something that Ga Eul is able to come up with. You'll understand what I mean when you see it. If it's not inconvenient, please keep your afternoons for the next three days free. I hope you don't mind me keeping you in suspense."

"Not at all. I'm looking forward to seeing what surprises you have up your sleeve."

"Then I won't take up anymore of your time. Thank you for your patience Madam Lee."

He smiled when she put the phone down. Ga Eul would probably die of embarrassment if she knew what transpired and there was a good chance that she would, knowing her grandmother. He felt bad for her but was optimistic that things would work out for the best. After the next three days, he was sure that Madam Lee would stop forcing Ga Eul to meet anyone else and insist that she wait for him to return. He might have some trouble stopping his potential grandmother-in-law from dragging them down the aisle during the first week of his arrival.

Maybe she would be satisfied with an engagement first.

………………………..

"I'm busy," Ga Eul called out, trying to ignore the persistent knocking on the door. "I have exams in three weeks."

Very well, if her granddaughter wanted to play dirty like that, she could too. "Yi Jeong just called and we had a lovely conversation." She hadn't counted past two when the door was yanked open to reveal a very alarmed looking Ga Eul.

"Yi Jeong? Called? When? Why? What did you talk about?" To her frustration, her grandmother simply floated into the room past her and settled herself on the bed primly. "Halmoni!"

"So, you are dating someone called So Yi Jeong then?"

Dating?! Was that what he had told her grandmother? 'You idiotic rich chaebol,' she scolded him mentally while frantically trying to think of a way out. "Well, he's never called himself my boyfriend. We've spoken and gone out a few times. It's a little premature to be using terms like dating."

"But if you are exchanging letters with him…" Madam Lee tried not to laugh at Ga Eul's horrified expression. "Yes, he told me about the letters. It sounds serious."

"We're just keeping in touch! That's all. He probably exaggerated."

"Really? He's a multi-millionaire, at least. Why would he need to exaggerate about this?"

"Because…err…Okay, maybe he didn't mean to exaggerate but he gave you the wrong impression. We're just friends."

"Friends don't get uneasy about their friends being match-made."

Ga Eul blinked. Had Yi Jeong confessed to her grandmother that he felt jealous? Here she was waiting for his letter to gauge his response and of all things, she was getting it from her grandmother. "Did he really say that?"

Madam Lee nodded. "I think he called precisely because of this. Since you never mentioned him to me at all, a fact that he must have realised when he got your last letter, he's decided to make his presence known."

She knew it, she should've told him not to interfere. Then again, surely she didn't have to spell out everything to him! And she had said that she was handling it.

"Halmoni, let me explain…"

"Save it for tomorrow. Yi Jeong wants us to keep our afternoons free. I think he has planned some outings."

"He has?" Ga Eul watched as her grandmother got up and walked to the door. Clearly, she was enjoying the discomfort that her granddaughter was feeling at the moment.

"At first I thought that it was one of your friends posing as the real heir of the So family to get me to stop bringing you on introductory dates but from the way you have reacted, I'm pretty sure he's the real thing. I like him. We talked about marriage and he said he wants babies. At least three of them."

"What?!"

"We can discuss baby names tomorrow. Oh look, your mother's back. I'm going to help her with dinner."

"Halmoni…" Ga Eul sputtered as her grandmother scooted away before she could stop her. There was no way that she was going to pursue the subject in front of her mother and that was precisely why her grandmother was so keen to help out with dinner. She was a smart one, Ga Eul admitted grudgingly.

Her face became warm again as she recalled her grandmother's words. Marriage? Babies? There was no way that Yi Jeong would have discussed any of those with her grandmother. Would he? For a moment she felt tempted to call him and demand to know what had happened. But she stopped herself. If Yi Jeong was up to something, she would play along. There would be no harm done. However, she would make it very clear to her grandmother that there would be no marriage the moment he came back. And there was no way she was having three children.

They were stopping at two.