The bell of St. Martin struck and echoed across the small town of Chur, in the eastern part of Switzerland. Where the terracotta roofs of each of the pretty houses and buildings were covered in thick layer of snow, reminding Jennie of a miniature Christmas village that her Dad used to set up under the Christmas tree when she was a kid, for her entertainment. A battery-motored red train would go round and round around it and tiny villagers in thick clothes with jolly faces were scattered around the tiny village.

Chur was a quintessence of that Christmas village and perhaps it was of the reasons why she decided to spend the holidays in this charming five thousand year-old town and Switzerland’s oldest city, after she saw a postcard-worthy photo of the town square with its quaint houses on a winter time, when she was randomly browsing through the Web while looking for a destination. And indeed, it was perfect that she decided to stay there until her vacation is over, instead of jumping on the next train after exploring the old town.

Jennie decided to take a two-week break after the annual company Christmas party celebration that she attended before she boarded the jet and after a gruelling months of meetings and planning for the opening of the Kim Group Hotel chain – the newest venture of the Kim Group and one of her major projects – which they timed perfectly before the start of the holidays to accommodate the surge of tourists wanting to spend their Christmas in Seoul. One column described it as the ‘expansion of the hegemony of the Kim Group of Companies, signalling another triumph that Miss Jennie Kim, President and CEO, has won yet again after today’s remarkable milestone of South Korea’s biggest conglomerate’.

Jennie found that article ridiculous, however, no matter how much she tried to convince herself that it was nothing but praises for her and her brand of leadership, when the writer described her success as ‘a stroke of brilliance’.

A stroke of brilliance? No one in their right mind would dare call a milestone ‘a stroke of brilliance’ after she, as the sitting president and chairwoman, had been setting milestones after milestones for the company, carving her own legacy by making the Kim Group a global-tier with foreign investors marching on the entrance, desperately seeking for her audience, for partnership. In fact, she had just closed an important deal in Paris for a clothing line, which she partnered with some of the brilliant young minds of the Kim clan who knew a great deal about the fashion industry and whose innovative ideas she trusted. It was part of her strategy as President and CEO – to not isolate the young minds by inviting them to discuss ideas and let them partake in the business. Jennie wanted to end the conventional approach of the conglomerate through inviting the modernists to help her design a more contemporary method which would be beneficial for the long-term goal of the Kim Group, while infusing the orthodox ideas that the brilliant minds of the older Kims would suggest her. A win-win solution.

Hence, she saw the article, and it was hard not to take it personally, an insult to her three years of being President and CEO. Even the boards and the shareholders who had shown shameless reluctance to her leadership at first were now convinced that she was the right successor to lead them. She did that in three years and the writer decided to reduce all her hardwork to ‘a stroke of brilliance’? The audacity! But while she was personally outraged by it, Jisoo thought it was an eye-opener.

“I agree. It somehow opened my eyes that the world is made up jealous old men who hate young, successful women to thrive on her chosen field and so they would try to smear the woman’s reputation by cajoling her ego before destroying it and then expect her to laugh at his joke,” Jennie told Jisoo, when the latter dropped by her office when that article was released and Jennie wasn’t particularly delighted about it.

“I hate that guy and I don’t agree with most of the things that he wrote about you, to be honest. But what I meant to say when I said that his article was an eye-opener, was that it should open your eyes to the idea of taking a break,” said Jisoo.

“There was nothing in his article that suggested I should do that, Chu. In fact, if I should read between the lines, I think he meant to suggest that I should work double time to impress him. As if I haven’t been working double time since day one and as if I would ever want to impress someone like him. Who does he think he is?” Jennie said scathingly.

“Someone who successfully gets under your skin, apparently,” Jisoo replied with a smirk.

“Right. A privilege that he thinks he earns and enjoys, no doubt, because we’re letting him. I’m letting him,” Jennie said scornfully. She didn’t personally know the man behind the article but she was told he was a senior correspondent to Seoul Daily and a certified prick. Jennie was told that the man probably took it personal when she refused an interview that he requested a few times through her office. But to her defense, she was a busy person and an interview would only disrupt her schedule.

“Well, you said you didn’t want to invite unnecessary drama when he aimed his cheap shot at you after that luncheon meeting you attended with the diplomats last year.”

Oh, yes. She remembered that. It was his first attack on her. “That’s because it was a cheap shot,” Jennie said, recalling in her mind the ridiculousness of the article, written by the same correspondent, calling her a snob when she left the meeting earlier than the rest of the attendees. In her defense – and it was released by the PR team – was that she had another important meeting to attend to that day and the diplomats were all aware about it.

“But that old gruff is having your attention now. It’s either he finally touched a nerve or you allowed him to touch a nerve,” Jisoo said.

“Your point being?”

“That you should take a break. You’re obviously so stressed out and that’s probably the reason why he has successfully found a way to get under your skin. Go on a vacation and free your mind from all these. You seriously look like you need one,” Jisoo said. Concern was now on her voice. She couldn’t remember the last time that Jennie enjoyed a rest.

“And leave the company to whom exactly?” Jennie asked with a bemused look, as if Jisoo had just told her a bad joke.

“To everyone working for you. They’ve never disappointed you eversince you took office. They’re efficient and they work hard. You’ve been working yourself hard and you never once taken a break even when everyone in the company is benefitted with holiday breaks and work leaves. You deserve that for yourself, too. In fact, you deserve it the most.”

“No, I don’t think that’s possible, Chu. Because a part of me thinks that if I will rest for a day, the company might collapse and I cannot let that happen,” Jennie said.
“You might collapse one day from all the things that have been stressing you out. Go easy on yourself for once and take a break, Jendeuk. Or is this your way of diverting your attention from—,”

“No, no, no. Stop right there, Chu. I don’t want to talk about it,” Jennie cut her off while flapping her hands in the air as though warding off whatever was on her thoughts.

“You’re still evading the subject, I see. Which validates my point that you’re working yourself to death if only it would help you eliminate the matter from your mind. You’re not doing yourself a favor, I’m telling you. It’s doing more harm to you than good,” Jisoo replied.

“Taking a break would do harm to the company than not taking a break would to me. I’m just doing my job. Besides, I’m not doing this for me. You know that,” Jennie said.

“Chu’s right, darling. You should learn from the mistake of your father,” Mrs Kim said when she entered the room. She heard the conversation, apparently.

“Dad dedicated his life to the conglomerate, Mom, and he loved every second of it. I don’t think he ever considered it a mistake,” Jennie said after she and Jisoo greeted Mrs Kim with a bow.

“He did. He spoke about it on his last days. He said it’s not the cancer that’s going to take him away from us – away from you, especially. It’s the conglomerate; the company. He spent most of his life working and making sure that he’s at the top that it made him inaccessible from doing his duty as a husband and a father. He regretted it,” Mrs Kim said. Three years had gone by and she still looked as regal as ever.

“And yet he put me exactly where he was when he was still alive. That’s not exactly one should do to stop history from repeating, to be honest,” Jennie replied.

Mrs Kim smiled kindly to her. “There was no one else fit for the job and you know that,” she told Jennie kindly. “Anyway, your father had always known you’re different. You’re more stubborn and you do not yield so easily and that’s the reason why he entrusted the job to you.”

“Thank you, Mom. I’ll take that as a complimentband my reason exactlt why I can't agree with the two of you suggesting that I should take a break. I’m stubborn and don’t yield easily,” said Jennie with a victorious smile. She thought she had won the argument.

Jisoo tutted and turned to Mrs Kim. “You know what, Mrs Kim? I honestly think she’s only doing this to forget Lisa,” she said, dropping the name so casually that it successfully wiped off Jennie’s smile and turned into a glare.

“A battle that she hasn’t won for the last three years,” Mrs Kim replied with a sigh dramatically.

“I’m still here and I can clearly hear everything and I’m not liking what I’m hearing right now,” Jennie said, eyeing Jisoo and her mom reproachingly. She hated it when they would talk about Lisa so casually in front of her.

It was bad enough that the press would ask her about the royal, every chance they would get. As if she needed reminding when in hindsight, the promise that Lisa had spoken so eloquently to her during that press con three years ago had given everyone the chance to remind her about it. It had been haunting her since then. The way oftentimes she thought she’d caught people looking at her with sympathy had never failed to strike a nerve. As though they feel sorry for her that she’d have to wait for the ‘right time’ and as though she needed it. That promise somehow defined her, in the eyes of those who thought there was nothing better to do with their lives than to pry on her life.

“Take a break, darling. Travel. Go somewhere. Unwind. Rejuvenate. Don’t worry about the company. Chu and I, and along with everyone else who works for you, will make sure that everything will be fine while you’re away. I assure you that.”

And so here she was, unwinding. Rejuvenating. Travelling to the other side of the world, alone and spending her Christmas holidays in a town that not a soul knew who she was and why she was there and which she preferred, exactly. She didn’t want anyone fretting over her being there. She had never phoned anyone from the office since she arrived and only called Chu and her mom, once, to tell them that she arrived (but did not elaborate where she was exactly, only that she was somewhere in Europe, surrounded by the Alps) safely and to feed her dogs, Kuma and Kai, and told them not to contact her unless it’s a life and death situation.

“We suggested a break, not a total isolation. You’re not going to do anything stupid there, are you?” Chu said.

“This is a small town, Chu. And a very old one, at that. There’s nothing to do here except whiling away the time inside my hotel room, thinking about why I’m here instead of running the company. This is going to be very boring, I’m telling you.”

But she was wrong.

It had been a week since she arrived in Chur and while it was true that she was alone, she was, however, loving the isolation, so far. It was so much better than she had imagined. Because Chur was offering her a lot of things to do that it was impossible to stay all day in her hotel room and contemplate about her life.

Jennie had already visited the museums (the Raticshes was her favorite) and the old library of files. She had visited the old churches of Chur, too. She was a frequent visitor of the St. Mary of Assumption in the afternoon and would drop by the church of St. Martin – the largest building in Chur and one whose presence cannot be missed because of its tall spire – before she would start her day; she loved the interior of the church mainly for its three glass windows where the Christmas story was depicted.

When she wasn’t hopping from churches to museums or visiting shops and boutiques, tasting what gastronomical surprises that Chur would offer or tasting a variety of wines or picking and reading books or shopping for trinkets and clothes, and skiing in the mountain on her fifth day, Jennie would spend her time walking along the cobbled street, marvelling at the stunning Swiss architectures and the street art frescoes while occasionally conversing with the locals and tourist alike, that she met on the streets. They were a bit curious about the pretty Korean who could be seen walking along the cobbled lanes for days now, entering shops and emerging from alleyways and monumental archways, all by herself. She could be seen wrapped in thick, winter clothes because the weather in Chur was unforgiving. She could be seen with a camera with its leather strap hanging on her neck and stopping by from time to time to take photos of the things that would piqued her interest and curiosity, mostly people and what they do in the daily.

She had taken her interest in photography for a year now. Film, to be exact, and would ask Manager Young to send the rolls to Bobby, who was still running Lisa’s old studio. Jennie would like to think that she was trying to understand (and slowly understood) Lisa and her mind through the lens – the way how Lisa wanted to see it.

Jisoo and her mom were wrong when they insisted that she was all work and no play. Sure, she could be seen working day and night and spent most of her days in her office, poring her head over papers after papers and hopping from one meeting to another, most of the time or riding the jet and fly to where her job and her position in the society would take her, to meet people who would become instrumental to the hegemony of the Kim Group. But on her free time – which was mostly rare but otherwise valuable – she would ask Manager Young to take her somewhere, away from the hustle and bustle of the company. She would ask him to take her to the park if she was lucky enough to be given a free hour or two; to the countryside on a weekend, once or twice; and a few times she went to Hongdae, dressing incognito because she didn’t want to be recognized. She would met Chaeng there, on her bar, when Chaeng was in the district and they would spend the night talking about her.

Jennie paused on her tracks when her mind drifted so suddenly to that night three years ago. Perhaps Jisoo and her mom were right when they said she was working her ass off to take her mind off Lisa and the haunting memory of an eloquently spoken promise. Especially at night when the world around had already fallen asleep and there was only the memories of Lisa to keep her awake until sleep would take her, finally.

That had become the routine of her life after she refused Jisoo to take her to that airport that night, three years ago, before Lisa would depart for Thailand. Jisoo called it her most stupid decision ever and Chu had never forgiven her for that yet.

“You know, I was just thinking,” Jisoo told Jennie one time, when she did a quick drop-by in the executive office.

“What?”

“What if you went there that night? This would’ve been an entirely different story and you wouldn’t have turned out like this,” said Jisoo when she paused in front of Jennie’s desk and frustration was all over her face. It was one of those days where she would permit Jisoo to nag her about it.

“I turned out like what, exactly?” Jennie asked with a raised brow and looking at Jisoo ominously behind her gold-rimmed glasses.

“Standoffish.”

Jennie issued a chortle. She was expecting an insult. “Since when did I struck as friendly, Chu?” she said. Amusement was dancing on her eyes all of a sudden.

“Cold,” Jisoo continued.

“I was never really a ball of sunshine,” replied Jennie with a snort.

“Lonely.”

“Blame my work. It’s taking away my social life, too,” Jennie said and picked another folder.

“I’ve never seen you laugh for a long time,” said Jisoo morosely.

“That’s because there’s nothing remotely funny about my job,” Jennie said gravely.

“And I often wonder if you regret it,” Jisoo said, looking at her curiously.

“No,” Jennie said firmly. She perfectly knew what Jisoo was talking about. She was aware that Chu had been waiting for the perfect chance to ask her that.

“You’re a bad liar,” Jisoo concluded after a long moment of assessing Jennie’s reply.

“No. I mean it, Chu. I don’t regret it at all. But sometimes I’d wonder what could’ve happened if I went there and meet her before she left. Sometimes I’d make up different scenarios in my head, trying to come up with something that – like you said – would’ve made this a different story.”

“So, why didn’t you?”

“Because I thought it’s not what she wanted me to do,” said Jennie.

“What does that even mean? Of course, she wanted you to be there, Ruby Jane. You heard what she said on TV. You understood it better than everyone else,” Jisoo said indignantly.

“I did. And that’s why I didn’t run to the airport that night, Chu. She wouldn’t have spoken those words to me on TV when we could’ve simply met before she left. She knew exactly where to contact me, how to contact me. She didn’t have to do all that grandeur of an announcement. Besides, it wouldn’t have made any difference, anyway. It’s what I’ve realized after making up all those scenarios in my head. She’d still leave and go back to her country and we’re still bound to fulfil our duties to our families. So, no, Chu. It wouldn’t have been a different story, even if I went there that night.”

“Hallo!” a local greeted Jennie that pulled her back to the present. It was the old lady from the shop across her hotel, whom she had spoken to a few times but had never gotten her name. They had been exchanging greetings and short conversations in the streets eversince Jennie visited the lady’s shop that sells fruity wines, on her third day in Chur.

“Grüazi!” Jennie replied with a warm smile and gave the lady the customary Korean bow.

The lady then asked her if she was going somewhere and if she cared for a drink and would Jennie care to join her for dinner later.

“I’m cooking,” the old lady said proudly and showed Jennie her bag of groceries. “I know you’ve tasted great food around here but you haven’t try my Polenta and braised beef yet,” she said.

Jennie said it was tempting, even groaned a little bit, and that she really wanted to come (because honestly, she missed dining with someone who she can converse with while indulging in a warm bowl of homecooked goodness) but she had already booked a table at the Zschaler