DTL Ch 8

PR by neji

“YeonJung-ssi, have some coffee before you continue.”

A steaming cup of coffee was placed on the table. YeonJung looked up to see the grinning face of DongHoon. She expressed a gesture of gratitude.

“But what has caught your attention? You’ve been looking at it so intently for a while now.”

DongHoon stretched his neck and took a look at the monitor.

YeonJung had been looking at a photograph. A naked woman was swimming with a group of whales ten times her size in the deep waters of the sea. DongHoon murmured, ‘Ah,’ as he nodded his head.

“Ah, I know this woman. She’s the one who free-dived into the sea north of Russia, right? I heard she jumped into the water naked because she didn’t want to seem intimidating to the whales. She’s truly amazing. Uwaa, I get shivers by just looking at the photo. I wonder how they took that picture. The whales would have probably escaped if they felt an ounce of danger.”

DongHoon crossed his arms and shivered as if he were freezing. YeonJung’s pale hands moved in the air.

‘I heard that the whales first thought she had fallen into the sea by mistake and tried to push her back up. Later on, they realized this wasn’t the case and began to play with her.’

“You can’t help but be in awe whenever you see things like this. It really looks like they’re communicating even though they’re from two different species. Haha, although Hyejin and I are both human, we still fight due to miscommunication sometimes.”

‘That’s just a lovers’ quarrel.’

“You’re only saying that because you have never seen Hyejin get angry, YeonJung-ssi. She may look small and cute, but when I first saw her angry, I thought she was a real pokémon. I wonder how she can evolve like that so easily.”

‘Either way, I’m still on Hyejin-ssi’s side.’

“Wow, that’s sad to hear. I feel like such an outcast when it comes to you two women. I might consider hiring a male employee just to have someone to talk to around here.”

YeonJung merely chuckled in response and stretched out her hand to take the coffee cup. DongHoon had hearing-impaired parents, so YeonJung was able to speak to him in sign language. From the moment they met, DongHoon was a warm and kind person. Another example of his kindness was the way he spoke slowly so that she could easily understand what he was saying.

He was an interior designer. Over six months had passed since she had borrowed his workspace.

After returning from her studies abroad, she had worked with him a few times at the beginning of her career. Not only was DongHoon a kind man, but he was also very talented. While he joked about Hyejin like this, his eyes still dripped with honey whenever he looked at her.

They were a very well-suited couple. After she packed up her workspace, the first person to reach out to her was his wife, Hyejin.

“The reason why I was able to meet my husband was through working with you, YeonJung-ssi. So having a worker like you around whenever we need the extra hand is only a plus for us.”

It wasn’t that there wasn’t any change in her life after she broke up with that man. His legal mother, the madame of the SeonJin Group, had come to YeonJung’s workspace accompanied by her driver and caused a scene.

The scenes she had only seen in dramas began to unravel before her very eyes. She accused YeonJung of being a disabled person who dared to seduce a chaebol to try and grab onto a piece of the family fortune. As she continued to scream at her, YeonJung could only lower her head.

“You look so innocent, so where did you learn to open your legs for a man like that? Do you know what you have done?!”

Her fingernails were long as she slapped YeonJung across the cheek. She grabbed her hair and pulled as if she was trying to pull out every strand. Through all this, YeonJung just took it as punishment for secretly meeting a man who was to be married to another woman. 

“I’m sorry, YeonJung-ssi. I really don’t believe any of the rumors, and it doesn’t matter to me at all, but… the in-laws asked that we move forward with another florist, so… I’ll pay you for the work you’ve done thus far.”

The ruckus that Min SeonJae had caused at the Cheongdam-dong restaurant had spread from mouth to mouth. YeonJung believed this was just a cross she had to bear. Ultimately, the rumors caused her to lose her workspace. And while this did upset her, she felt that she’d be able to endure it. However, when her parents found out that their very own child was deemed a ‘secret mistress’, YeonJung’s heart broke.

‘Is this… what you meant by ‘freedom’?’

This came as a great shock to YeonJung’s parents. She had expected this. She was their one and only daughter. She was supposed to be the apple of their eye, but she only served to be a burden since the moment of her birth. Living a quiet life and doing her best not to be a bother to her parents would be barely enough, but she ended up giving them an unforgettable scar instead. Not just once but twice.

“Do whatever you want. Live the way you want to live. I’ve decided to just give up on you. It’s too hard. I can’t take it anymore.”

In the end, YeonJung moved out. Her mother pounded her fists against her back as she left. Her father looked at her with disappointment behind her. YeonJung just couldn’t take it any longer.

She managed to scrape up the rest of her savings and rent an apartment on the outskirts of Seoul. However, she didn’t have enough to rent a workspace.

Right then, DongHoon and Hyejin thankfully reached out their hands to her in her greatest moment of need. They didn’t really need an employee, but they offered her a part of their workspace and let her use it. While there was only a wooden table that had been designed by DongHoon himself, it was still a very precious space for YeonJung. 

“Another thing, YeonJung-ssi…”

DongHoon sipped his own coffee and he spoke as if in passing.

“Are you in contact with Min SeonJae at all?”

YeonJung’s hand froze for a moment. Then she picked up her warm coffee cup with both hands. Her head lightly shook from side to side.

Two years ago, in winter, the news of the broken engagement of the two large conglomerates filled all the economic and gossip magazines. The gossip magazines spread countless rumors about this break, but they couldn’t seem to figure out the reason for the broken engagement. Initially, YeonJung’s name popped up several times. They had only been together for six months. However, their time together had soon been labeled an ‘affair’ and a ‘common-law marriage’. 

‘No.’

YeonJung did her best to pretend as if she wasn’t bothered and shrugged her shoulders with a smile. She had already confessed everything that had happened to DongHoon and Hyejin. Instead of looking at her with condemnation, they brought her into their kindness and warmth. However, she didn’t want them to be affected by the mess that came with her name. YeonJung blew her hot coffee and took another sip.

“When Hyejin and I were out to drop our items off just a while ago, we thought we saw Min SeonJae as we drove by in the car. But he was wearing clothes we had never seen him in, so we almost didn’t recognize him. Hyejin says it wasn’t him. That there’s no way he’d come to this neighborhood. But I’ve met him before. Back in front of the Rael Hotel.”

She couldn’t deny it. Whether it was due to his looks or the magnetism he carried with him, Min SeonJae always caught eyes wherever he went. Two seasons, almost three, had passed since she had last seen him. And still, whenever she closed her eyes, she could clearly see the playful smile on his lips, even down to the divot in his chin. The thick brows and the sharp eyes below it. His tall nose that crinkled whenever he felt mischievous. The sharp line of his jaw. She could still remember them so clearly.

‘He must have had some business nearby.’

“But just like Hyejin said, what kind of business would he have around here? He doesn’t seem like a person who would ever have a reason to go south of the river…”

DongHoon seemed to be mumbling to himself as his voice faded away. YeonJung intentionally stretched out her hands and got up from her seat.

Whether he had seen correctly or not, it was none of her business. Min SeonJae was now a person who belonged in a different world. No, his world had been different from hers from the very start. If she thought about it now, it was a mystery as to how their paths had even crossed in the first place. How had they been together for over half a year? And even now, because of that short amount of time they had shared, her heart still went numb from time to time.

‘I think I’ll head back early today. There are a few pieces of work I need to finish at home.’

“Why don’t you have dinner with us before you go? Hyejin has been going on and on about wanting to eat some meat, so we were planning on getting some kalbi.”

YeonJung shook her hands.

‘I’m fine. You two should have a date. I’m sure you haven’t had one in a while.’

“Eh, what do you mean by ‘date’…”

Hyejin, who had just returned from the bathroom, grasped her protruding belly as she waddled into the workspace.

“I’m already dying from carrying all this weight. I’m sure Park DongHoon-ssi doesn’t even see me as a woman anymore. I’m so sad. YeonJung-ssi, don’t get married. Just keep dating for the rest of your life. With as many men as possible. Got it?”

“Ah, why are you saying things like that, Kang Hyejin-ssi?”

Seeing DongHoon run to Hyejin with a flustered expression, YeonJung laughed and took her empty mug to the sink. Although they spoke like that, the two of them couldn’t live without each other. She knew it better than anyone because she was always around the couple.

Having fallen head over heels for the sensible florist with a steady hand, DongHoon had strived to win Hyejin’s love for a year. And it finally ended in success with their marriage. They seemed like the perfect couple. After their sweet and lovely honeymoon, they received the good news of their pregnancy as if right on schedule.

‘Will I ever be able to find someone with whom to live a normal, pretty life like them?’

She washed the mug squeaky clean at the sink.

Min SeonJae. She would often recall his name during her musings.

Two years ago, in winter, she made a resolute decision to never see him again as she exited the office apartment. Their dinner last night. As she watched him look around at the murmuring onlookers with distress, YeonJung came to a realization.

She didn’t suit someone like SeonJae. He was a man who could never condone pity. He was perfect from head to toe and could not allow a single crack in his image. Even if he hid his passion and anger deep within, only the best suited him.

If someone like her was by his side, it would naturally draw pity from those around them. Although she had grown used to these eyes, the pain never dulled. Min SeonJae wasn’t a man who could endure something like this. No, he didn’t need to. They should never have begun in the first place.

“Haa…”

YeonJung sighed as she looked up at the gray sky.

‘It looks like it’s going to snow.’

It was already December. Whenever winter came, she always remembered that night. The winter rain had turned into sleet, and the man looked at her with such a dejected expression. He sobbed as she left that apartment. He screamed as he pierced her with those tormented eyes. She couldn’t forget it.

“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?”

Just as he said, if what she shared with Kim Wuju from the moment they met at the cafe in Moscow was love, then what could she call what she had shared with Min SeonJae?

YeonJung hung her purse on her arm and slowly walked. Before she had met him, she never thought she’d love another man who wasn’t Wuju. And it had been a perfect delusion. She had missed Wuju, but she had never hoped to meet him again. That was the difference between her feelings for Min SeonJae and Kim Wuju.

Although she hated SeonJae, she also missed him. While she loathed the man who treated her like an object, she also pitied him. When he reached out and touched the hand of a disabled woman in order to receive some comfort when he could have ignored her instead, this feeling intensified. This was because she felt that his crooked life wasn’t easy for him either.

After turning the corner, YeonJung froze in her tracks. On top of the slope, a man was leaning against a low, stone wall. The wind seeped into her coat. The fabric fluttered in the wind because she had not buttoned it closed.

“……”

DongHoon had not been mistaken. That man… Min SeonJae… was currently looking at her. He was wearing a white coat and a pair of jeans. Seeing him in casual clothing made her feel as if she had gone back in time.

“You… cut your hair. It’s pretty. It suits you.”

He slowly opened his mouth. White puffs of mist formed whenever he spoke. YeonJung stayed rooted to the spot as if her feet had been nailed to the ground.

“…It’s been a while, YeonJung.”

When his lips moved to call out her name, YeonJung’s heart began to thump painfully against her chest. Her hand clenched on her purse strap.

“How is it that you haven’t changed a bit?”

He took a step towards her. A faint smile formed on his slightly stiff face. The cleft of his chin had deepened. YeonJung drew in a breath.

“Have you… been well?”

Before he could come any closer, YeonJung quickly moved her feet. She had nothing to say to him anymore.

“YeonJung…”

His lips moved, and it seemed like he was saying something to her, but she turned her head away. Tears began to form along the rims of her eyes for some unknown reason, causing her to feel even more bewildered. YeonJung’s pace quickened.

The cloudy sky didn’t shine a single stream of light, so there weren’t any shadows. The twenty minutes it took her to walk to her apartment felt like two hours. Afraid that he was following her and that their eyes would meet, she hunched her shoulders and only looked straight ahead.

“Lady from Unit 906, you’re home early today.”

The apartment manager greeted her as he swept the floor. YeonJung nodded her head. After finding out that she was deaf, he made sure to take special care of her packages and registered mail. He was a kind man.

The world was simple. The moment people found out that she was deaf, they regarded her with sympathy and compassion. Two years ago, what kind of feelings did he have for her? Sympathy, compassion, a sense of superiority… He probably felt a mixture of all three. Probably.

She quickly entered the building and pushed the elevator button. When the elevator reached the first floor, the doors opened. Once she entered the elevator, she finally turned around. She saw SeonJae follow her inside. The moment she tried to say something, his finger pressed the ‘Close Door’ button.

“…I’ll only see you to your door.”

Shocked, YeonJung stared at him and didn’t know what to say in response. Therefore, he pushed the ‘9’ button in her stead. That was her floor.

The old elevator moved slowly. She clenched her purse strap and turned her eyes away. Why did he appear in front of her? Before she could ponder this question, they reached the 9th floor, and the doors opened. She showed no hesitation as she stepped off the elevator. However, SeonJae remained inside. She turned around and glanced back at him. The doors of the elevator began to close, and she could see him waving goodbye. His grinning face slowly disappeared as the doors closed shut.

* * *

After taking a long bath, YeonJung began to dry her hair with a towel. Once it was merely damp, she opened a can of beer and sat down at the table.

‘Why did he appear?’

She was sketching a bouquet in her sketchbook. She grew lost in thought as she gripped the pencil in her hand.

That man. Min SeonJae.

Two years had passed since she had been with him. After leaving his apartment, they had never crossed paths, even by chance. The many messages he had sent her throughout the day had stopped. And thanks to that, she didn’t have to change her number or contact information. She deliberately avoided the area around his hotel, and after giving up her workspace, she never had any reason to return to that neighborhood anymore.

They never had a reason to meet in the first place. Time moved slowly, but it was precise. The time she had spent with him had disappeared as if it had never happened.

‘So why?’

No matter how much she mulled over it, she couldn’t figure out why he suddenly appeared before her. And he was even wearing casual clothing which was so unlike him.

The man in her memories was always wearing the best suits. And even if he was wearing casual clothing, it was always the most expensive, brand-name items. His hair was perfectly styled without a hair out of place. She used to stare at him for long stretches of time because it all suited him so well.

However, he was different today. His slightly long hair covered his forehead. And possibly because of that reason, he looked a lot younger for his age. No, it wasn’t just the simple style. His aura was also different, but she couldn’t quite place her finger on what it was. It was frustrating.

‘Let’s just forget about it.’

It would be best to just stop thinking about this from now on. After closing her sketchbook, she took her can of beer and walked over to the sofa. After plopping down, she turned on the television with the remote control. She flipped to a channel that offered captions for a weekend evening variety show. Her eyes were on the screen, but her attention was elsewhere. She burst out of her seat and began to search through her DVD collection.

‘A deaf woman who enjoys music?’

She found the video performance of her favorite band, and another unwanted memory floated into her mind. Inside the orange tent with the blinking lights, he had definitely been crying. There weren’t any tears, but she knew. He was sobbing inside.

‘You… can’t hear. You can’t hear anything. You’re only spewing that nonsense due to a sense of inferiority. Or do you think that you can hear if you just try hard enough? Isn’t it too… pathetic?’

It was right then. That was the moment she felt pity for this man who seemed to be on the verge of collapse. On the outside, he seemed to be the perfect man. But in this moment, she felt as if she had just taken a peek at what was inside.

‘People are going to laugh at you. When they watch you use up the last of your energy, I’m sure they’ll tell you you’re amazing to your face. But they’ll be laughing at you behind your back. They’ll take pity on you. They’ll feel a sense of superiority as they trample all over you. Do you know how miserable that can make a person?’

YeonJung knew what he was doing. He was speaking to himself. He was a beast who hated showing his weaknesses to others. He was like a lion cub holding on at the edge of a cliff, filled with fear. She wanted to comfort him. She thought she could at the time. Like an idiot.

‘Shut your mouth. Don’t speak.’

She could clearly remember his expression as he screamed at her. She shook her head. She dragged a blanket onto her lap. She focused back onto the television screen. Feathers shook above the head of the lead singer as he gripped the standing microphone. 

Once the can of beer was empty, she saw the blue light flash in the foyer. This was a housewarming gift from DongHoon and Hyeri that was designed for deaf people who couldn’t hear the doorbell.

“……”

She merely stared at the blinking light. The light would automatically turn off when the doorbell stopped ringing. If the visitor didn’t continue to press the doorbell, the light would turn off. The light blinked for ten seconds before it stopped.

YeonJung waited for a long while before she slowly stood up. Her slippers dragged on the floor as she took a look at the intercom. As soon as she pressed a button, she could see a familiar face fill the screen. YeonJung rubbed her eyes with her hands.

SeonJae remained standing in front of the door. He didn’t press the doorbell and merely stood in front of the door as he waited for her.

‘He knows I can’t hear, so what is he doing right now?’

The clock told her that it was well past ten. YeonJung turned around and began to walk into her bedroom. Her fingers slightly trembled as she turned off the light switch.

Lying in bed, she drew the blankets over her head. However, she could not get the image of his face out of her head. Now that she thought about it, she realized that he had known the floor she lived on when they had been in the elevator. Just how did he know where she lived? No, why did he even come to see her?

She continued to ponder these questions as she lay in bed. Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore and got up. She draped a large cardigan over her pajamas and approached the foyer. She hooked the chain lock and slightly opened the door. The man looked at her in surprise as if he hadn’t expected this to happen.

“……”

YeonJung crossed her arms and merely stared at him in silence. She wished he’d just tell her the reason for this visit and leave as soon as possible. She didn’t want to be confused anymore, and she didn’t want to deal with these wavering feelings.

“This… I got this from someone, and I didn’t need it.”

SeonJae held up an LP record to her. YeonJung looked back and forth between him and the record. She couldn’t understand why he had shown up in the middle of the night to give her an LP. Was he joking?

“You like it. I also heard this is part of a valuable collection. Do you already have it?”

His expression looked relaxed and normal, but, perhaps due to the can of beer she had just drunk, he also looked a bit uncomfortable. For a moment, she wondered if she should just slam the door in his face, but she had a feeling that he might just stand out here all night.

She raised her hand and grabbed the LP through the space in the doorway. It was the 1976 Hotel California single by the Eagles. The plastic wrap was still pristine. It was too unique of an item for SeonJae to have just received it from someone.

Now what? Now that she received it, would he tell her to pay him back with her body? It wouldn’t be surprising coming from him. By their third meeting, he had demanded her to sleep with him.

Arrogant and rude, a man who did whatever he wanted. She shouldn’t be proud either as a woman who was dragged around by a guy like him. She felt very uncomfortable. If he grabbed her hand right now, she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to reject him.

“I’ll leave. Listen to this as you sleep. Make sure to lock the door.”

Going against her expectations, SeonJae turned around. He stretched out his hand and pressed the elevator button. Before the elevator arrived, she slammed the door shut. She didn’t relax until she locked the door. The heart that she thought had died began to race painfully inside her chest.