Something Beautiful
Chapter - 19

"I told you, I don't want to do it" Lisa said, her cheeks blushing with anger. He pouted at the tailor who for three days and three nights measured, clamped, sighed and cut the multicolored cloth that was now scattered in various stages throughout the room to be used as a day dress, riding clothes, clothes for walking, and party dresses. Lisa feels like a rag mannequin that is considered to have no feelings and never tired, whose only use is to stand still, stabbed, touched, and pressed, while Mrs Kim watches over and criticizes Lisa's every move and act.

For three days she repeatedly asked to meet with her future husband, but Kim Mingyu was 'busy' as Will, the butler who looked like a statue, repeatedly told her. Once Lisa saw at a glance the figure of the man in the library, was talking to some men until the afternoon. Food for her and Roseanne is served in Lisa's room, while Mingyu seems to prefer her grandmother's company. 'While docked,' to Lisa it signifies Mingyu does not want to be disturbed by her.

After three days like this, Lisa began to be stressed, upset, and even worse, very frightened. Mom and Uncle Monty are gone. Although they were actually staying in the inn a few kilometers away from this house, they were not allowed to come to this house. A dull life was plastered before him, a lonely gaping hole where he could not be accompanied by his family and Roseanne, even the old servants who had accompanied him since infancy.

"It's really ridiculous!" lisa said to Roseanne, stomping her feet in frustration, and glaring at the seamstress who had just finished clamping the hem of the dress with the orange yellow muslin cloth that Lisa was wearing.

"Stand still, miss, and stop that charade." hardik Her Grace, or the future grandmother-in-law, was cold as she walked into the room.

For three days, the Grandmother had not said a word to her, except to criticize, patronize, command, or instruct. "Theatricality...?" hatch Lisa, while her blood begins to boil, hot and bubbling. "If you think it's a charade, wait until you hear it next!" The Grandma turned around as if about to leave and, for Lisa, she had already reached the limit of patience. "I suggest you wait a minute and let me finish talking, Madam."

The Grandma turned around and waited while raising her aristocratic eyebrows. Mrs Kim's truly haughty attitude made Lisa so angry that her voice trembled. "Please tell your never-before-seen granddaughter that the marriage was annulled, or, if she decides to show up, you can have her meet me and I'll tell her myself." Afraid her tears would spill, and knowing she would laugh at him, Lisa ran out of the room, down the balcony and down the stairs.

"What," the butler asked as he opened the door for Lisa, "what should I say to Mr. Mingyu, should he ask where you are?"

Lisa stopped down the long stairs and looked at Will closely and mimicked his style, "tell him I'm busy."

An hour later, while walking in the rose garden, his heart was already calmer, thanks to his strong self-control. Angrily, Lisa bowed and plucked a beautiful pink rose and lifted it to her nose, inhaled its scent, then unconsciously began to pluck out her petals one by one, her mind deeply tangled. Pink flower petals floated down around her skirt, joining the petals of red roses, white roses and yellow roses that she had unknowingly removed as well.

"Based on the message you left Will," said a deep and quiet voice behind him, "does you seem unhappy at something?"

Lisa was surprised to turn around, relieved that she could finally talk to the man was lost by the panic that she had been trying to muffle for several days. "I'm not happy about everything."

The man's amused gaze turned to the flower petals scattered around Lisa's skirt. "Including the roses, it seems," said Mingyu attentively, feeling somewhat guilty for not ignoring Lisa these past few days.

Lisa followed the man's gaze, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment, then in a frustrated tinge she said, "The roses are beautiful, but.."

"..but you're tired of their looks if they still have petals, right?"

Realizing she was being led into a discussion about flowers when her life was in turmoil, Lisa straightened up and said firmly but calmly, "Your Grace, I won't marry you."

The man put his hand in his pocket and looked at Lisa curiously, "Right? Why?"

Trying to think of the best way to explain it, Lisa put her trembling finger into her beautiful hair. Mingyu's eyes lifted, noticing that graceful involuntary movement, for the first time he actually noticed. Sunlight shone on the woman's hair, gave off a gleam, and turned her large eyes into a radiant greenish color. Her yellow dress accentuated her creamy skin color and peach-colored cheeks.

"Is that what I'm doing?" mingyu asked her follower, to first notice Lisa's high cheekbones and her sultry lips. When observing a beautiful dazzling face like carved with eyebrows like a marching ant and dense eyelashes, he did not understand why he could have mistaken the girl as a boy.

"You made my life a Pygmalion drama, and I don't like it."

"I what?" mingyu asked, her attention suddenly shifting from that dazzling face.

"In mythology, Pygmalion is..."

"I'm no stranger to that mythology, it's just that I'm surprised there's a woman who likes classical reading."

"Your experience with women must be very limited" Lisa said in surprise. "my grandfather said most women are just as smart as men."

Lisa could suddenly see there was an amused glint in the man's eyes but suspected the man was laughing at his opinion of female intelligence and not his statement of Mingyu's lack of experience with women. "Please stop treating me like I'm brainless! Everyone in your house treats me like that. Even your servant was acting haughty and treating me strangely."

"I will have the butler stuff his ears with cotton and pretend to be deaf" joked Mingyu, "And I will have the servants wear blinders. Will it make you more nervous?"

"I beg you to be more serious!"

Mingyu immediately stopped jokingly hearing the rebuking tone in Lisa's voice. "I'll marry you" she said coldly. "That's pretty serious."

Now that he had decided not to marry the man and had spoken of it, the pain of the decision was slightly lessened because he no longer felt afraid and uncomfortable being around the man. "Did you realize," Lisa said with a triumphant smile while shaking her head slightly, "your face becomes very grim when saying the word married?" When the man did not reply, Lisa placed her hands on the man's sleeves, as if the man was her best friend, then looked into his unreadable gray eyes, seeing a cynical peek beneath his base. "I don't mean to be presumptuous, Your Grace, but are you happy with life? I mean, your life?"

The man seemed unhappy with the question, but he answered it anyway. "Not so."

"Well, you see, don't you! We won't fit. You don't like life, but I like it." The joy, courage, and zeal that Mingyu felt the night they met, now reappeared in Lisa's tone of voice as she looked up at the blue sky, her radiant countenance looking optimistic, naive, innocent, and hopeful. "I love my life, even if I'm having a bad event. I can't stop liking her."

Mingyu was stunned to stare at Lisa while the woman stood in front of a backdrop of colorful roses and green hills in the distance. Like a goddess gazing up at the sky in a soft and melodious voice, "Every season comes with the promise that something beautiful will happen to me one day. Ever since my grandfather died I've always had that kind of feeling. It was as if he was telling me to wait for that moment to arrive. In winter, the promise comes along with the smell of snow in the air. In the summer, I heard it in thunder and lightning that cut through the sky with its blue light . But especially, I feel it now, in the spring, when everything is green and black..."

Lisa's voice disappeared and Mingyu confusedly repeated, "Black?"

"Yes, black, you know, like a tree trunk when it's wet, and a freshly plowed field that smells like..." He took a breath, trying to remember the exact scent.

"Land," Mingyu proposed was not romantic.