Chapter 1 – The Shameless (Part 4)

Soo-yeon gathered some side dishes from home and went to Min-jun’s place. The side dishes were all his favorites, prepared by the kitchen lady. It was her task to carry the heavy load up the stairs of the villa, which had no elevator. Soo-yeon had never set foot in such a rundown place before. Even when she offered to find a better place, Min-jun had boasted that he would soon escape from there as his situation improved. However, two years had already passed. Remembering his words, Soo-yeon pressed the doorbell.

♫♪

From inside, there was a loud thud, as if something had fallen. Soo-yeon unconsciously moved closer to the door, wondering if Min-jun had fallen. However, the footsteps she heard didn’t belong to just one person. Given how the cheap villa was prone to noise, it might have been footsteps from the upstairs neighbor.

But when Min-jun opened the door after a long while, he had a rather urgent expression. He rushed out the door, half-stepping out awkwardly, and breathlessly scolded Soo-yeon.

“Haah, why did you come without calling?”

There were only a handful of times Soo-yeon had called before coming. Min-jun didn’t like receiving calls during trading hours, saying that even a minute could make a difference in his short-term investments. But now he was scolding her for not contacting him, which was very unlike his usual self. His hair was completely disheveled, as if he had just woken up, and he stood in the doorway without even wearing his shoes properly. Soo-yeon, who had always been dull to sensing ominous situations, felt a terrible sense of unease wash over her for the first time.

“Is someone inside?”

Even to her own ears, her voice sounded as cold as ice. It chilled the narrow hallway of the villa into silence. Watching Min-jun’s face change by the second, her heart began to crumble like a sandcastle. At the very least, he could have lied quickly. But Min-jun, already past the golden opportunity, shook his head and finally spoke.

“There’s no one. No one’s here.”

“Min-jun.”

“Just wait outside for a bit. I’ll wash up quickly and come out, okay?”

“Min-jun, I can see women’s shoes behind you.”

Soo-yeon spoke, her gaze fixed on the shoes behind the barefoot Min-jun standing in the doorway. She hadn’t intentionally looked, but when she glanced down, she saw the shoes. In the well-organized shoe cabinet, a pair of women’s shoes and Min-jun’s sneakers were tangled together and had fallen over. It looked as if they hadn’t even had the time to take them off properly in their haste.

Unable to bear looking at the tangled shoes any longer, Soo-yeon finally lifted her head.

“Soo-yeon, really, nothing happened…”

As she watched Min-jun’s face contort, the weight of the container of side dishes in her hands felt overwhelmingly heavy. It was early autumn, the summer heat not yet faded. She couldn’t bear how foolish she felt, carrying side dishes to this villa without an elevator. The villa had been secured with the deposit Soo-yeon had provided, and it was a space where she had occasionally stayed. Her sanitary pads and toothbrush were in his bathroom, her underwear and clothes were in his closet, and photos of them together were on the dining table. Their long-term relationship was practically a semi-cohabitation, and yet, he had brought another woman into their shared space.

“I, really… I drank too much last night. You know I’m not usually like this. Please…”

When he wasn’t drinking, Min-jun was a man who borrowed money from Soo-yeon for investments. Now, he had become a man who slept with another woman after drinking. Soo-yeon felt like her life was turning into a melodrama. She had imagined continuing their love until he recovered and eventually forming a warm family, but this was the true face of the love she had dreamed of.

She was standing in front of a man who had not only relied on her kindness to the point of ruin but had also betrayed their relationship with his own hands. Soo-yeon let go of the side dish container. It fell with a thud, echoing on the floor, but she didn’t care.

“I have to go.”

“Please, talk to me before you go. Say something, anything. If you leave like this…”

Min-jun grabbed her arm as he spoke. At that moment, Soo-yeon found his touch so repulsive that she sharply shook off his hand. She slapped his hand so hard that even her own hand stung. It felt like a bug crawling up her skin.

Knowing he had held and caressed another woman with that hand, yet touched her so nonchalantly, made her feel nauseous. Seeing the look of contempt on Soo-yeon’s face, Min-jun seemed to predict the end and desperately called out to her again.

“Soo-yeon.”

Not noticing the fallen side dish bag, Min-jun stepped forward and knocked it over. One of the containers, not properly sealed, spilled its contents, dirtying the hallway. The kimchi he particularly liked scattered, filling the air with the pungent smell of fish sauce. The effort she had put into preparing for Min-jun was now rolling on the dirty hallway floor of the cramped villa. Soo-yeon felt like her heart had always been treated this way, and she was only now realizing it.

“Who is it?”

At that moment, a woman’s voice was heard behind Min-jun. The voice, heavy with sleep, followed slowly, and Soo-yeon immediately turned her body. She couldn’t bear to see the woman even wearing her pajamas. The thought of that woman slipping her feet into her slippers made her feel like she would vomit and collapse. Soo-yeon quickly ran down the stairs she had struggled to climb with the side dish container.

“Soo-yeon!”

Min-jun’s shout followed, but she didn’t look back. It was close to impossible for her to turn around. Despite the many difficult moments over the past five years, she had never considered breaking up with him. Even when he borrowed money from loan sharks and ended up buried in the golf course’s sand bunker, she hadn’t thought of leaving him. It was almost impossible for her to abandon Min-jun.

Five years was a long time. It wasn’t something that could be cut off in a single day.  But the result of Soo-yeon enduring the present while dreaming of a future with him was just this.

‘It’s better to be an outright bastard than to pretend to be innocent while being in heat.’

As she ran down the stairs, Soo-yeon felt as if she heard Hee-tae’s voice in the wind. As humiliating as it was, the vulgar man was right. It would have been better if Min-jun was an outright bastard. Then, like she did with Hee-tae, she could at least curse him out. But her boyfriend, who betrayed her after five years of dating, was still pretending to be innocent, pathetic, and loyal, which made her sick. It was only after experiencing the worst that she realized this fact.

***

“……Miss?”

Soo-yeon barely opened her eyes at the chauffeur’s call. As soon as she opened her eyes, she saw the wide ceiling of her studio. As she sat up, the piles of Hanji paper around her rustled. There was quite a lot.

After witnessing that terrible scene, Soo-yeon had locked herself in her studio, neither eating nor sleeping properly, and had been painting. It wasn’t creating artwork but more of an act of venting her anger. Everything that came out of her fingertips was a poor piece of work. On the day she left the villa, she had sent a single message to Min-jun, who kept calling her incessantly.

[Throw away all my stuff.]

It was close to a breakup notice. But she didn’t want to be more polite than that, and she had nothing else to say to Min-jun. She thought she would want to hurl all the curses she knew at him in anger, but surprisingly, she didn’t want to say anything at all. She simply turned off her phone and ignored the calls that would surely come. No matter how much he wanted to talk to her, she didn’t want to hear anything anymore.

“The boss asked me to take you to the blind date location, so I came to pick you up.”

Soo-yeon blinked at the chauffeur’s words. Even her father’s persistent efforts to set her up on blind dates to use her for his own purposes no longer stirred any rebellious feelings in her.

Soo-yeon told him she would wash up and then head out, and sent him away. She took off her ink-scented clothes, washed herself, and put on makeup over her haggard face. After getting ready, Soo-yeon sat in the back seat of the car driven by the chauffeur. As she took in the sophisticated cityscape flowing past the car window, she felt like she was returning to her place. She would never go back to that old, dirty villa again. Never again to him, never again…