Chapter 20

When Seohyeon said they should drink while listening to the rain, Soyoon agreed. She hated rain enough to get chills, but listening to it together with a friend with whom she had made memories in the rain felt surprisingly nice.

With each glass she tipped back, one after another, it felt as though the mood that had sunk to the bottom was slowly rising.

“Stop grinning like that. Just a little while ago you were crying your heart out like the world was ending, and now you’re smiling? You’re kind of scaring me.”

“It’s just… I feel good. I’m glad I came here.”

“Come anytime. For you, I could even tell you the door code.”

For someone she had not contacted even once in six years, Seohyeon was thinking of her this much. Soyoon felt grateful and sorry.

The moment the word sorry came to mind, she thought of her mother. The events at the police station resurfaced, and she drained her glass of soju in one gulp.

There was no need to drink slowly. If she got thoroughly drunk, she could just lie down on the sofa and fall asleep.

Perhaps she had picked up the pace too much, because she was starting to feel pleasantly dizzy. Soyoon’s eyes gradually became unfocused. She drew up her knees on the sofa and buried her face in them. She had closed her eyes, and perhaps Seohyeon thought she had fallen asleep, because she began stroking her hair.

That touch made him come to mind again. So Soyoon deliberately did not open her eyes. She felt like if she looked at Seohyeon’s face, she would cry.

She did not stop Seohyeon as she gently laid her down on the sofa. She heard the sound of Seohyeon leaving, probably to get a blanket, and Soyoon turned over from the position in which she had been lying straight.

She heard Seohyeon’s careful footsteps. Just before the blanket was draped over her, Soyoon slowly opened her eyes at the sound of Seohyeon’s breath catching.

“What is it?”

“…What happened to your leg?”

“….”

“What’s that scar?”

If you start crying first, then I won’t be able to cry.

It seemed that while turning over, her clothes must have ridden up.

“It’s just… I got hurt.”

She answered plainly, trying hard to sound calm and unaffected.

Seohyeon, sitting on the floor, touched the scar that ran from below her knee to her ankle with a sorrowful hand.

“Does it look bad?”

“What do you mean bad? It must have hurt.”

“…Yeah.”

It had been the first time in six years that she had told someone she was hurting, and the first time she had shown tears to anyone. She had held them back desperately because it felt like if she cried, both her mother and Hayoon would fall apart too.

She placed her arm over her eyes. No matter what her heart intended, tears kept welling up again and again. They ran without stopping, so hot that her arm felt warm beneath them.

“I’m okay. It doesn’t hurt at all anymore.”

“You fool. You look like you’re hurting.”

As her friend broke into even harsher tears than she did, she cried for a long time as though letting out every tear she had held back until now.

***

She did not know when she had fallen asleep.

She cried her fill, and slept her fill. By the time she opened her eyes, it was dawn the next day. Her eyes were so swollen that she really looked like a goldfish.

On the way home in a taxi, she did not even dare turn her phone on, and instead just held the powered-off phone in her hand and fidgeted with it for no reason.

Only now was she slowly beginning to worry. He must be furious, right?

When she looked out the window, the rain that had been falling so heavily she could not see ahead had paused for the moment. Out of nervousness, she opened the window. From the fishy smell of water in the air, it seemed the rain had not completely stopped after all.

She smoothed a hand over her clothes, dried crisp thanks to the dryer.

It seemed she would have to go home and take some medicine.

As she rubbed her throbbing leg and her neighborhood came into view, she straightened up.

It was the very moment she got out of the taxi.

“Lee Soyoon!”

She saw him in the distance.

With a face that looked extremely angry—no, maybe also a little anxious.

As he strode toward her, he looked like a grim reaper. When she faltered and stepped back, he came up and seized her wrist. As though asking where exactly she thought she was going to run.

If it felt like a touch heavy with possessiveness, was that her misunderstanding?

“You, right now—!”

“……”

“You even turned off your phone! Ha! You didn’t even go to work, so where were you, what were you doing, and why are you only getting here now!”

His gaze swept over her quickly from head to toe, then stopped at her badly swollen eyes. His expression hardened, and his eyes narrowed.

“…I’m sorry.”

“What happened to your eyes?”

“….”

Without answering at all, she shut her mouth. She could not bring herself to say that her mother had gone to the police station and that she had misunderstood and said terrible things.

“……Go get ready for work and come out.”

Even as he told her to go get ready and come out, he still did not release her wrist, as though he meant to walk with her right up to the house. When she twisted her wrist, he only loosened his grip slightly, but did not let go.

As they were walking, Soyoon failed to notice a raised paving block, her ankle turned, and she staggered, and he quickly caught her by the waist. She could feel him sigh above her head. Her face bumped into his solid chest.

At that instant, the scent coming from him made Soyoon’s face turn red.

“Watch where you’re walking. You’re not a child.”

Why do you keep acting like you’re going to fall over? At his words, treating her like a little kid, Soyoon bit her lip hard. Suddenly she thought of Seohyeon, who had held her leg and cried yesterday. If he saw her scar too, would he also be startled and feel sorry for her? She truly did not even want to imagine receiving pity from him.

Do-ha had been waiting for her. Even while sitting in the car, his gaze kept drifting toward the window.

Because she had suddenly evaporated out of his life, how much had he regretted it and missed her over the past six years? And yesterday, because she had suddenly become unreachable, he had experienced firsthand what it meant to have his blood dry up.

Hoo-

After making someone worry himself sick, what had she done so well that she showed up with those swollen eyes?

That little brat was seriously enough to drive him crazy. Lee Soyoon was like a rubber ball that could bounce off anywhere at any moment, and also like a colt that never listened to a d*mn thing.

First, he called his friend. He got cursed out from every direction, with his friend yelling that what kind of company president neglects work like this, ‘are you even human’, but since he had been the one in the wrong, he had nothing to say. He only apologized, saying he was sorry and that this would never happen again, then hung up.

Since he had never once neglected company matters, even his friend stopped nagging at about that point.

After hanging up, he undid a few buttons of his shirt in frustration. Even so, the stifling feeling would not go away.

Just what had happened, for her not even to go to the clinic? Why had she cried? He wanted to press her and force the reason out if he had to, but in the end he took one step back when he saw the frightened look in her eyes.

If Lee Soyoon knew how much he was holding himself back, she should not act like this.

Am I getting too far ahead of myself? Even as he thought that, because he knew she kept trying to run, he could not stop. No, now there was nowhere left for him to retreat to either. It was all or nothing.

Whether by becoming her shield or her fence or whatever else, he wanted to be something for her, but because she had even turned off her phone and disappeared, anger rose all the way to the top of his head.

Of course, even now that anger had not subsided.

How long had it been since she went into the house? Yet even that brief wait had felt like forever.

He was offended and angry. At the same time, his heart ached. The gaze that had once been fairly bold had changed far too much over these six years. He wanted to bring back that old boldness.

His insides burned, and he desperately thought of a cigarette. It had only been one day since he had decided to quit. Maybe that was why the withdrawal was making him even more irritable. No, it was not because he could not smoke.

The reason for his irritation was Lee Soyoon.

Then he saw her in the distance, walking slowly. Let those footsteps come only toward him. Do-ha’s heart grew heavy.

***