Chapter 9 – A Night Wet with Tears

She met her mother again only the next afternoon. Her mother entered the room with a somehow determined expression.

“Hee-won.”

“Mom, you’re back?”

“Yes. Um… And Hee-won… I have something to say. Can you sit down for a moment?”

She thought, ‘Here it comes.’ Nervously, she sat down at the low table and nodded.

She expected to hear that, because of yesterday’s mistake, she’d been fired by Ryu-il, so they had to leave tomorrow, and they needed to find a new place to live… She’d thought of nothing else all day while waiting for her mother.

She couldn’t stop thinking about it because, while worrying, she kept recalling kissing Ryu-il. She wondered what that meant, but the answer was clear.

“You say… you understand this?”

Was it punishment for saying she understood, after seeing the photos of Lee Min-hee and Albert together? Maybe it was a mistake to voice her opinion about her superiors’ affairs. But at the same time, kissing her was Ryu-il’s impulsive act, just as she’d said—simply a momentary impulse with no thought for the future.

She wondered foolishly if she’d been attractive enough to provoke that impulse. Maybe the makeup and pretty clothes had worked… She remembered Kyung-won saying, “You look like you’re having a tough time,” and checked her closet for clothes. It was a pathetic thing to do when she was about to be kicked out, but still.

“Uh, Mom.”

She tried to calm her noisy heart and smiled gently at her mother, who wore a stiff expression.

“You can tell me.”

“…”

“I have a rough idea. So just say it comfortably.”

“Is that so?”

“Of course.”

When she spoke with a clumsy smile, her mother let out a long sigh. Then, without meeting her eyes, her mother spoke.

“Um… Right. Hee-won… I, you know, actually…”

Hee-won patiently waited as her mother hesitated and stammered. After all, being dishonorably fired from a job she had been at for over twenty years was not something easy to talk about. Both had made mistakes, but a single misstep here could turn the conversation into an argument… She waited, tangled in complicated thoughts, until her mother took a deep breath and continued.

“I want to marry Mr. Choi, the driver.”

For a moment, it felt like she’d been struck on the head.

“We’ve been seeing each other for a while… As you know, he’s a good man.”

Mr. Choi was a middle-aged man who had worked as the Chairman’s driver for years. She’d heard he divorced his wife a few years ago. But she never imagined her mother was seeing Mr. Choi, so she was left speechless.

At the same time, the mismatched pieces of the puzzle started to click into place.

The mysterious cosmetics filling the vanity, her mother constantly leaving home and avoiding her gaze, even sending her on errands during work hours…

Yesterday, when mother called, was she with Mr. Choi then? 

Mr. Choi also lived alone in the Ryu Gil-jae estate’s backyard. Unlike them, he wasn’t in debt—he simply found it more convenient to live and eat there.

So the real estate mother had been looking into…

“You know… I had you at twenty, rushed into marriage with your father, and have only suffered all my life. Now… Now, I want to live like a real person, Hee-won.”

“Ah… Uh.”

Hee-won nodded blankly. She knew all too well that her mother’s life had become so difficult because of her.

Her mother had lived as an orphan her whole life, gotten pregnant at a young age, and since then had worked herself to the bone, always chased by debts that never shrank. In a way, her mother had never lived a normal life.

“If that’s what you want… Of course… It’s fine with me.”

At twenty-eight, Hee-won was too old to be shocked just because her mother had found a man. She didn’t even remember her father. What was surprising was that her mother was talking about marriage.

Did Mr. Choi have enough money to pay off those massive loan debts? Was mother in any position to talk about marriage, when even I had given up on it? 

As Hee-won looked at her mother with a puzzled face, her mother glanced at her nervously.

“But, Hee-won. Actually… A few days ago, I met with Kyung-won.”

Her heart dropped.

Kyung-won was her half-brother, so he had no relation to her mother. Her mother had never raised him, so they were practically strangers. But the fact that they had met…

“Kyung-won said… He knows a way to pay off all our loan debts at once…”

No way, no way.

No way…

Her heart began pounding. Her mother’s mumbling voice painfully echoed in her ears.

“It’s not… that hard, right?”

Her mother glanced at her, checking her reaction.

“Of course, Young Master Ryu-il… It’s not easy, but, right? Still, a long time ago you were close…”

Her mother’s voice, now almost pleading, made Hee-won dazed. She blinked, unable to grasp reality, then asked, as something occurred to her.

“Mom.”

“Yeah?”

“Yesterday, when you told me to go to Ryu-il’s room, was that on purpose?”

“…Because I was with Mr. Choi, well, that’s part of it… but I also thought it might be good if you met him, even just once…”

She let out a hollow laugh.

She’d spent two sleepless nights worrying about her mother being fired, even half giving up and going to Ryu-il for a final farewell.

“You… You like Young Master Ryu-il, don’t you?”

When Hee-won stayed silent, her mother grabbed her hand.

“I’ve seen you so many times, staring blankly at Young Master Ryu-il’s back as he leaves for work because you like him!”

Her mother’s eyes now mixed desperation with madness.

“What’s wrong with trying for someone you like, huh? It’s a win-win, isn’t it? I’m not telling you to go for the seventy-year-old Chairman… And it’s not just for me. Are you going to live just like me, huh?”

Hee-won gazed quietly at her mother. Tears began to fall, unbidden. Silence settled between mother and daughter.

Kyung-won must have met her mother, too, trying to persuade her somehow. After hearing his proposal, her mother would have come home just as dazed as Hee-won. She must have imagined a life free from loan debts, a small happy home with Mr. Choi, over and over. The more she imagined it, the less she wanted to let it go. That’s why she’d looked into real estate online.

In truth, it would be a lie if Hee-won said she’d never thought about it herself. If she could live a proper life after sleeping with Ryu-il a few times, then, as her mother said, it was a ‘win-win’. Besides, Ryu-il was the man she’d liked for a long time.

But precisely because she’d liked him so long, it was hard.

She couldn’t say anything, just sat there crying. Her mother started to speak, then sighed deeply.

“…I’m sorry, Hee-won.”

At some point, tears were streaming down her mother’s cheeks.

“I’m sorry…”

Her mother knelt before her, bowing her head and sobbing.

“But… Please…”

Hee-won’s heart ached more than ever as she looked at her mother.

At twenty, her mother had thrown herself into loan debt for love. And at forty-eight, she was someone who could throw her daughter into it for love.

“If it were possible, I would do it a hundred, a thousand times myself…”

Those words squeezed Hee-won’s heart. She knew it was sincere. If her mother had received such a proposal, she truly would have done her best, now, in her youth, and even as a child.

With that one sentence, her mother had driven her to the edge. It seemed selfish to say she couldn’t do what her mother would do for her. After all… Wasn’t it because of her that her mother’s life had turned out this way?

Kyung-won hadn’t been able to get her to agree, but her mother could. In the end, Hee-won replied in a choked voice.

“I’ll… try.”

She felt miserable, grateful for the lingering trace of Ryu-il on her lips. Her mother hugged her thigh and cried for a long time. They sat crying together, unmoving, until the room was bathed in the red glow of sunset.

Only when the deep night arrived did Hee-won finally stand.

Today was Ryu-il’s last day off. After today, with his constant overtime and business trips, she wouldn’t know when he’d next come to Ryu Gil-jae.

“Where are you going?”

Her mother asked as Hee-won opened the closet.

“Senior Executive Director lent me an umbrella. I’m going to return it.”

Last time, when she was caught in the rain, he’d sent her an umbrella through the driver. There was no real need to return it directly to Ryu-il, but it was the only excuse she had to enter his room again. Her mother quietly wiped her tears, picked out her clothes, and helped her with her makeup.

So, just like yesterday, she stood before Ryu-il’s door, clutching the black umbrella. She felt like the most miserable person in the world. She wanted to take a jet-black crayon and erase her carefully made-up self as thoroughly as this dark night.