Chapter Text
“Sunmi ya!”
Sunmi, in her killer high heels and the suit Sohee liked to call “dressed to literally kill anyone”, turned and saw Kwon Boa running in her very own killer high heels.
Out of respect (and she was really fond of Boa), she stopped and waited for Boa.
“Unni? What is it?”
Boa beamed at her, “Thank the gods I was able to catch up. I thought you’d have left already. Yubin told me you already left after that awful meeting.”
Sunmi raised her eyebrow. Boa blushed, embarrassed at getting caught gossiping about what Sunmi would like to call the “I nearly sent those stupid investors to eternal damnation” meeting.
“Sorry, Sunmi.”
Sunmi smiled and shook her head, “I know the execs for Wonderful are a bunch of old maids who gossip when they’re on break.”
Sunmi can hear her fellow execs affronted gasps. Boa chuckled, “Fair enough.”
A brief silence occurred between the two which made Sunmi fidget slightly. Then Boa shook her head, “Anyways, I wanted to talk to you about something.”
Sunmi blinked and then stared at Boa’s slightly pleading face.
“Is it that bad? Do I need to cut off Kangta oppa’s balls?”
Boa giggled, “Unnecessary.” She patted Sunmi’s arm. Sunmi rolled her eyes but did lead Boa back to her office.
“Let’s talk in my office, unni.”
“Thanks, Sunmi ya.”
Opening the door to her office, she let the elder enter first and then clicking the lock shut after she got in. Sunmi gestured to the comfy couches Sunye would stay in to nap whenever she left the kids with her husband. Boa sat down in the middle of one of the couches while Sunmi sat right across her.
“What is it you wanted to talk to me about, unni?”
Boa cleared her throat and then handed her a folder that she’d been clutching since she had stopped Sunmi from going home and raiding Hyojong’s secret alcohol stash (her youngest may be a brilliant producer but hiding his alcohol stash underneath his twin sister’s bed? A bit of a dummy move).
Sunmi opened the folder and saw a couple of documents and blurry photos.
“What’s this, unni?”
Boa took a deep breath and Sunmi noticed that she looked a bit nervous.
“You know that my daughter, Chungha, went missing when we were in Japan on her 4th birthday, right?”
Sunmi nodded, unable to repress the memory of seeing one of the strongest women she knew break down after having lost her daughter in some kind of freak accident that to this day, Sunmi still believes was deliberate and that Chungha was kidnapped because her mom was turning into one of the most powerful businesswomen in Southeast Asia.
Boa takes another deep breath and sorts through the pictures Sunmi spread on the coffee table to show one picture. It was a bit blurry but the features of the person in the photo was recognizable enough. Sunmi had been one of Boa’s closest friends but had only seen Chungha once because she was too focused on getting her life back together after her husband had died, leaving her nearly-college age self and twins alone to fend in the world (thank goodness for Sunye and Sohee though).
Sunmi may have married young due to circumstances that Sunye likes to describe as the “biggest fuck up dad ever did” but she did her best and most of the time, she and Boa only communicated via letters and postcards plus the occasional get-togethers if Boa was in the same country as she was.
The photo Boa showed distinctly shows a young woman, probably in her early 20’s or late teens, that had Boa’s cheekbones and her eyes. Sunmi vividly recalls a tearful phone call she got a few days after Chungha was born (back when she didn’t even know that her husband would be taken away from her 7 days from then) where Boa had exclaimed “She looks entirely like me! Mi ya, she doesn’t have any features from-”
Sunmi lightly shook her head when Boa looked at her questioningly.
“What is it?”
Sunmi smiles and grabs the photo, “She looks exactly like you.”
Boa blushes.
Sunmi stammers a bit, “I- ...what I meant was she looks a bit like you. Back then, unni. Sorry. I didn’t see Chungha for so long but s-she looks a lot like you.”
Boa brightens at that. It was Sunmi’s turn to blush.
“Thank you, Mi ya.”
Sunmi smiles but then frowns at the photos and documents that, if Sunmi was right, looked a bit like a report from an investigator. She grabs one of the documents and skims through it.
-was last seen in Dallas.
...seems to be healthy.
- was adopted in late spring (May?)
-foster parents couldn’t figure out where she came from.
-jumped from different orphanages.
Sunmi stopped and put the document back. She looks at Boa who looked anxious and elated, which made her fidget a lot and wrangle her fingers a bit.
“Unni?”
Boa’s distracted hum was her answer.
“Boa unni?”
Boa jumped when Sunmi lightly tapped her leg with the folder. She turned pink.
“Sorry. What is it?”
Sunmi tapped on the document she skimmed through, “Who did you hire to investigate this?”
“Oh! Uh… Eric? And Ai- Amy I mean.”
“Huh.”
Boa looked at her in curiosity, “Why?”
Sunmi smiled, “Nothing. They’re good, as is usual.”
Boa laughs and nods, “They are. Hyojung wasn’t kidding.”
“Well, she is her sister.”
“True.”
Sunmi surveys the information Eric and Amy had managed to gather. It was a lot and she knows Boa would not have shared this if the results were vague. This wasn’t a shot in the dark. Eric and Amy managed to track down where Chungha is now. Sunmi then looks at Boa who was looking at the picture Amy had surely taken.
“Unni?”
“Yeah?”
“What do you wanna do now?”
Boa looked from the picture to Sunmi. The latter sees how much the elder wants to see her daughter and she can understand. She could never imagine losing Hyojong and Hyuna and not seeing them for so long that she’d missed so much of their milestones.
“I-I don’t know, Sunmi ya,” Boa looks at the only clear picture she has of her grown up child and Sunmi felt a pang in her heart, “W-would she even want to see me? She looks healthy in these pictures. Happy. And she looks so carefree.”
Boa looks up at Sunmi with tearful eyes, “How could I take her away from this peaceful place she has now?”
Sunmi quickly stood up and went to the older’s side, pulling her into a hug. Boa’s sobs were quiet and the only noise she lets out were tiny hiccups. Sunmi feels another pang in her heart for her closest friend and tightened the hug.
“Unni, she’s your daughter. Now, I know our lives aren’t all that peaceful but we all have the means to give Chungha the protection she needs. We learned a lesson back then. We all did our best to track her down but we couldn’t.”
Sunmi runs her fingers through Boa’s hair gently, “Unni, we all tried to persuade you to forget about her because she’d been gone for so long. No one could locate her. For more than a decade, everyone thought she was dead. Except you.” She grasps Boa’s arms and looked at her.
“Unni, you never once thought Chungha was dead. Never. You knew and you felt that she was out there even though everyone had already believed that she was dead.”
Boa hiccups and Sunmi quickly offers her the tissues she puts on top of the coffee table. Boa smiles.
“Thank you, Mi ya.”
Sunmi rolls her eyes and returns the older’s smile.
“So, do you wanna see Chungha now?”
Boa shakes her head. Sunmi frowns at that.
“Unni-”
“No, I mean. I would want to see her but not right now? I wanna ease her into this.”
Sunmi takes a deep breath.
“I want Seulgi and Soyeon on this with Hyuna leading it.”
Boa looks at Sunmi, “If that’s okay?”
“If Hyuna agrees… Although, I expect that she would.”
Boa smiles.
“Will you be alright with this, unni?”
“I can wait for a few more months, I think, or years. As long as Chungha can still be this carefree when I see her.”
“I’ll arrange this with Juhyun and Sunye.”
“She’s still in charge of the entire op on your end?”
“Unfortunately. She wants to retire and hand it over to one of the younger potentials but they’re all declining saying that they’re too young and inexperienced.”
Boa chuckles, “They just want Sunye to stay as the head for a while longer.”
“They probably want her to stay forever,” Sunmi quips.
“That’s entirely probable.”
The two women giggle at that.
“You’ll see her soon, unni.”
Boa smiles at Sunmi at that.
“Soon.”