DTL Ch 7 part 2

PR by neji

After filing a report at the police station, SeonJae returned to his home. It was 1 AM. The lawyer that came on his behalf was bewildered by SeonJae’s sudden violent outburst, but he quickly took care of it. 

SeonJae sat on the iron chairs as he waited for his lawyer. After finishing his discussion, the lawyer approached SeonJae and told him they were free to go. SeonJae stood up. The victim railed and screamed that he would not settle, but seeing as how they were free to go, the lawyer must have convinced him with a large sum of money. But SeonJae didn’t care about any of that.

“If the president finds out, he’ll be shocked, so I’ll do my best to keep this under wraps.”

“……”

“Where should I drop you off?”

“The office apartment at Seogyo-dong.”

Inside the car, SeonJae looked out the window. Sleet was flying in the wind. He felt suffocated. He opened the window. The cold wind grazed his face. SeonJae closed his eyes. He couldn’t erase the woman’s eyes filled with contempt as she glared at him.

The door opened. The woman was sitting at the dining table as she stared off into space. When he entered, she raised her head. A large suitcase was sitting next to her legs. He walked over to one of the dining chairs and pulled it out before sitting down. He swept his hand across his face. SeonJae looked at the woman with sunken eyes.

“What, are you planning on going somewhere?”

The woman slowly nodded her head. This was the worst-case scenario he had imagined on the car ride here. He didn’t think she’d truly leave. Lee YeonJung is a strong woman. She’ll only do it to make me sweat a little. Right?

SeonJae’s mouth ran dry as he looked at her.

“If I… tell you not to go, will you stay?”

The woman shook her head from side to side. Her pert lips remained stubbornly shut as if to express her determination. The anxiety he had suppressed within his heart began to slowly make its way to his head. SeonJae shook off the nervous feeling and frowned.

“I went a bit overboard because I got so angry. I apologize for overreacting.”

The woman’s expression didn’t change as she stared at him. SeonJae tried again.

“But you were also in the wrong. I… I felt as if you stabbed me in the back. I wish you’d understand where I was coming from. Why I got as angry as I did. So let’s just forget what happened.”

He didn’t like the words that were coming out of his mouth, but this was all he could spit out. I’m not the only one who did wrong. I want you to feel guilty and sorry towards me too.

This was the worst. He felt like a selfish child. SeonJae chewed on his lips.

He felt as if she’d blow away with the slightest breeze as she sat before him. She slowly opened her mouth.

“I… never… tricked yoo, SeonJae-shi.”

“……”

“I told yoo… That I was mah-rried before…”

Damn it. As soon as that word left her lips, the image of her smiling face flashed across his mind. SeonJae’s jaw stiffened.

“Yeah, it doesn’t matter. You’ve never done any wrong towards me since the very beginning.”

Yeah. It was all in the past anyway. So he was going to keep a tight grasp on her from now on and always keep her by his side. SeonJae’s eyelids quivered as he looked up at her.

“I lost. I’m the one who did everything wrong, so go and unpack. Hurry.”

He barely managed to get those words out, but the woman remained silent. Her pale hand clenched the suitcase handle, but that was the only reaction he could see. His message didn’t go through. The woman slowly parted her lips.

“SeonJae-shi, yoo didn’t do ah-nything wrong.”

“Then why are you leaving?”

She didn’t reply. SeonJae’s expression twisted on his face as he spit out the following words.

“Let me ask you one thing.”

SeonJae’s voice shook violently. He looked as if he’d just swallowed some bitter medicine.

“Do you… still love that bastard?”

“……”

“Answer me! I just asked you if you still love that bastard!”

SeonJae slammed his fist onto the table. Instead of answering, the woman bit her lip. Her dry eyes began to fill with tears once again.

“Damn it…”

A deep breath rushed out of his lips. He wanted her to tell him it wasn’t true. That he was merely someone from the past. If she only told him that she had forgotten all about that wheelchair-bound man, he’d believe it even if it was a lie. He was going to move past it.

SeonJae’s heart raced as he watched a tear run down her cheek. He felt as if someone had made a mess of his brain. His whole body went limp. His vision grew dark as if someone had flipped a switch. He began to speak in a voice that almost sounded like a moan.

“Do you know what’s been bothering me all night?”

“……”

“What did you do with that bastard? Was it platonic? Whenever I embraced you, as you whimpered in my arms, was your heart with that bastard? You shared a pure love with that bastard and only tangled bodies with me?”

YeonJung raised her head. Her eyes seemed to hold a hint of pity as she stared at him. He felt pathetic. He felt as if he’d been thrust into a bottomless pit. The thing he hated most in the world was to receive someone’s pity. But right now, he was hoping that the woman would take his hand for that exact reason. With this ironic thought in mind, SeonJae began to shout at her.

“To you… Those times you spent with me were merely that. That’s all it could be. You used me to embrace that man’s shadow… That’s all I was to you! And after making me like this… Now you’re going to leave? No! You can’t leave. I won’t let you!”

He didn’t care if this was underhanded. At this very moment, the thing he was most afraid of was letting this woman go like this. He was afraid that he’d never see her again. His eyes trembled with worry.

“Say something, damn it!”

“SeonJae-shi… used me, too…”

“…What?”

“Weren’t yoo using me… to have some fun… before yoo got mah-rried?”

“…Haha.”

He broke the silence. He felt as if he’d been hit. He looked up at the woman with a broken expression. His brows twitched. An unfamiliar voice left his throat.

“…Yeah. You weren’t just ‘some’ fun, Lee YeonJung. I liked it so much… I liked it so much I could die. No, so much that I wanted to kill you. I felt like I was going to die on top of you. This woman is going to end up being the death of me. That’s how crazy I was for you…”

SeonJae couldn’t continue. Something lurched from within his chest and clogged his throat.

The woman he was going to fool around with before he got married… The woman’s words seemed to cause a river of fire to flow down his throat and settle within his chest. This mute woman was always like this. The things he wanted to express to her were piled up like a mountain, but the words would not leave his lips. He felt so frustrated.

“Ha…”

He bit his lips and looked at her. She lifted her small hand and pressed on his furrowed brow. In order to feel more of her skin against his, he grabbed her hand and pressed his face into her palm. The hand within his grasp was trembling.

‘Don’t go, Lee YeonJung. Don’t look at me as if you don’t like me anymore.’

YeonJung gave him a faint smile.

“I… liked it… too.”

“What?”

He barely managed to ask. He was sure his expression looked as if he was pleading with her.

“When…ever… we had sex… yoo never… looked at me… with pity. During thah-t time… I didn’t feel… like a retard. I felt… like a nor-mal… woh-man.”

She spoke with great difficulty. SeonJae’s eyes trembled. The woman before his very eyes was the world’s cruelest woman. A smile stretched across her lovable face as she pierced his heart with a knife.

“I’ll proh-bably miss… sleeping with yoo.”

“…Lee YeonJung.”

He felt as if his heart had dropped once again. SeonJae grit his teeth. Her usually inarticulate speech seemed clearer today. Every single word was engraved into his head.

“…I want you to stop hurting yourself because you pity me.”

“Stop.”

“A deaf woman doesn’t suit you, SeonJae-ssi.”

“I said stop it.”

The words left his throat with much difficulty.

“Live well, Min SeonJae-ssi. Live as boldly and magnificently as you always did.”

“Don’t go.”

He begged in a raspy voice. He held onto her hand. He rubbed his rough face into her soft hand as he murmured.

“Don’t go, YeonJung.”

Yes, he should have done this from the start. He should have thrown his pride away from the start and held onto this woman from the very beginning. His instincts were directing him. His face twisted against her small palm.

“YeonJung, don’t do this. Don’t do this to me.”

“You’re not someone who’s suited for me either.”

Her hand left his face. For a moment, she gazed piercingly at him. Then, without any hesitation, she turned her back to him.

Stunned, he began to process the words she had just uttered. Then he quickly ran to the front door and stretched out his arms. He was panting. His chest rose and fell with each breath as he began to ramble.

“What do you want, YeonJung? I said I overreacted. I apologized for everything. I’ll forget that we ever met that bastard. I’ll erase it from my memories from this moment on. No, I was planning on doing it anyway. It doesn’t matter what you did with that guy in the past. I’m serious. I won’t ask about it from this point forward. YeonJung, I’m not a pathetic guy who gets hung up over a woman’s past. We were good until now. Nothing’s changed. I swear I don’t care about the marriage. I never did. So don’t do this. You’re a cool woman, aren’t you? You… You don’t dislike me either. You said… haa… you said you like sleeping with me. There will be better things to come. No, let’s go on a trip, YeonJung. Yeah, let’s get out of the country. A couple of months. Let’s go and eat lots of delicious food and enjoy beautiful sights. Hm? Let’s do that…”

YeonJung smiled faintly at him. Suddenly, SeonJae was overcome with memories of their first meeting. The woman he had met for the first time in front of the workspace. She had grabbed onto the hem of his jacket as red beads of blood trickled down from the hand that grasped the roses. And now she was informing him that she was leaving him.

“Don’t try so hard, SeonJae-ssi. It doesn’t suit you.”

SeonJae chewed on his lips as he shook his head. His thick brows furrowed. This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t end his relationship with her all of a sudden without warning. As if they were cleanly cutting it with a pair of scissors.

“YeonJung, please… please… Back then… Back then I lost my mind… So I went crazy for a little bit.”

YeonJung turned her back on him. Her slender shoulders slightly shook. SeonJae began to cry as he stared at her back.

“Haa, please look at me, YeonJung. I’m sorry. So please look at me, please!”

The door made a soft creak as it closed shut. The woman’s back disappeared. SeonJae couldn’t even run after her. He was scared. He was afraid her soft smile would change into scorn.

The shared apartment didn’t have one speck of dust. The stacks of magazines that had been taking up space on the sofa, the orange tent that had been standing in the middle of the living room… There wasn’t any trace of them left.

“Ha… Haha…”

A dejected laugh burst out of SeonJae’s lips. He was truly dumped. Her words saying that he wasn’t someone who suited her rang repeatedly in his head.

He knew that. He was already aware of it. The woman wasn’t someone who could be embraced by someone as trashy as him. At some point in their relationship, he had become aware of it.

That’s why he was scared. The woman had calmly entered his fortress. He was afraid that the world he had built on top of her would crumble at any second. He was afraid she’d chew him up and spit him out. He had assumed that he’d end up begging her and hanging onto her like this… but he hid it.

Drip, drip.

Something trickled down his cheek and splattered onto the back of his hand. He raised his hand and wiped his wet face.

The moment he realized that he was crying, the rock that had been stuck in his throat finally disappeared, and everything burst out. Like a shattered fishbowl, the tears flowed out and did not stop. The lonely goldfish that had been living within him struggled on the ground as it gasped for breath. He knew it now. What that woman meant to him. And his own selfishness that had ultimately driven her away.

He had been chasing after an illusion all this time. She had stepped in and showed him the reality of his world. She had placed glasses before his blurry eyes and turned away. She left him without looking back. She wasn’t the one with the problems. It was him. She wasn’t the one who needed help. It was him. Lee YeonJung wasn’t the one who’d die if she let go. It was him, Min SeonJae.

Meow.

Something crept out from the sofa and tapped his feet. The black animal looked up at him and mewled. There was one thing the woman had forgotten to take with her.

“Haha… Ugh…”

His face twisted as he stared at the cat, tears pouring out of his eyes. The cat leaped up and sat down next to him on the sofa. The cat licked its front paw as it stared at him. SeonJae cried and wept for a long time.

‘You’re not… someone who’s suited for me either.’

He felt as if he was hearing her voice once again. His cell phone in his back pocket kept vibrating. His father was calling. SeonJae stared down at his ringing cell phone for a long while. Then he answered the call.

“……”

He murmured a greeting when President Min began to shout. The words flowing out of the rectangular device didn’t hold any meaning. It went in one ear and out the other. He didn’t care what happened anymore. Nothing mattered. He let out a pitiful sigh. He realized the truth after the woman left. He realized what was most important to him. He knew what he had to put his life on the line for.

He threw the phone onto the ground, breaking it. Haha. It was so easy that he could only laugh. SeonJae leaned back on the sofa and laughed like a lunatic as hot tears poured down his face. He should have done this from the start. One always came to an epiphany when it was already too late.