Lights Don't Go Out in the Annex - Chapter 14
CHAPTER 14
Knock knock.
A knock at the door jerked Leeseo awake. Still groggy from sleep, she blinked her eyes dazedly. The bustling noise of a party in the annex was audible as usual.
She wondered if she misheard due to drowsiness, but then there was a knock on the door again. Leeseo pulled herself up from the bed. She glanced at the digital clock on the small table. The clock showed that the time was a little before midnight.
Who could it be?
It was very unusual for someone to come to her container house at that hour. Actually, there had never been such an occasion before.
Leeseo turned on her phone’s screen. There were no new messages or missed calls. If it were Mrs. Seo, she would have called first.
Curiously, she walked over to the window where the curtains were drawn and gently lifted a corner of the curtain. It was a new curtain she had bought online a few days ago. Thanks to the blackout curtains, at least she could block out the light coming from the annex, but she couldn’t do anything about the loud music and the uproarious laughter, though.
As she peeked through the curtains, Leeseo’s eyes first caught sight of the well-lit annex. where a group of men appeared to be eagerly consuming a fresh batch of liquor. When she shifted her gaze slightly to the side, she noticed a shadowy figure hovering in front of her door. Leeseo’s eyes narrowed.
It was Kwon Jin-gyeom. He was kicking the ground with his head down, a workbook tucked under his arm.
If she didn’t answer from inside, it would be reasonable for him to give up and leave, but after glancing back at the gleaming annex, Jig-gyeom stretched out his hand as if to knock again.
Leeseo let go of the curtain hem and let out a small sigh. She put on a thick cardigan over the sleeveless dress she was wearing. When she opened the door and stepped out, Jin-gyeom’s eyes widened in surprise.
“You were there? You were so quiet, I thought no one was here.”
He sounded a bit ridiculous for someone who he had been knocking quite persistently. Though a bit baffled, she didn’t show it. Leeseo adjusted the front of her cardigan and crossed her arms as she asked.
“What are you doing here at this hour?”
“Why, what else?”
Jin-gyeom waved the workbook he had tucked under his arm.
“I have a problem that’s bothering me so much I can’t sleep.”
“Is that why you came all the way here? It’s almost midnight.”
Deliberately looking at her phone as if to make a point, Leeseo let out a long sigh. It was getting close to midnight. For a man who grew up without a care in the world, he was seriously thoughtless.
“It would have been nice if you had given me your phone number. That way, I could have just called you to ask.”
Jin-gyeom said shamelessly. After that day, he had waited for Leeseo several times in front of the greenhouse. He gave her a bunch of questions and finally asked for her cell phone number instead.
She refused, fearing that if she gave out her number, Jin-gyeom would call her day and night without a break. But he nuanced it by saying that it was Leeseo’s fault that he had to come all the way here in the middle of the night.
What self-centered mindset this Kwon brothers had.
It was enough to make her roll her eyes. With a cold expression, she spoke.
“You have a private tutor, don’t you? Why bother me? Are you bored?”
By this point, she couldn’t help but realize that the workbook he had tucked under his arm was just an excuse to call her out. His methods may have changed, different than before, but the torment was the same.
Jin-gyeom curled the corners of his mouth and said.
“Why don’t you just be my tutor? I’ll talk to my mom. You don’t have a lot of school credentials, but you’re good at teaching. I’m sure she’ll pay you a lot more than you’re getting now for tutoring me.”
“I’ll think about it if you start showing me some respect and use honorifics with me.”
“Honorifics? To you?”
Jin-gyeom’s brow furrowed as if that would be a problem.
At that moment, laughter burst out from the annex. Jin-gyeom turned his head towards the annex as if to investigate the source of the laughter.
“Ugh, seriously. He looks like he’s really worked up. If I drank and partied like that, my old man would’ve beaten the crap out of me.”
“….”
“Hey, it’s loud, can we go inside where it’s quieter?”
He asked nonchalantly, pointing inside the container. Leeseo glanced toward her house, following his gesture, and then looked back at him.
Their gazes met. Beneath Jin-gyeom’s seemingly casual demeanor, his eyes held a mixture anticipation and a hint of nervousness. It was not a good sign. Leeseo firmly shook her head.
“No.”
“Oh, come on.”
Jin-gyeom’s words stretched out as if he were pleading.
“I’ve only heard about it, and this is my first time actually seeing it. Since I’ve come this far, let me take a look inside. The exterior looks like a fucking work of art. How do you live in a place like this?”
He scanned the exterior of the container house with his gaze. Leeseo grabbed Jin-gyeom’s shoulder, turned him around, and gently pushed his back.
“You, go.”
“Why?”
Jin-gyeom playfully turned back to Leeseo, pushing his feet against the ground and standing his ground.
“Go away. Don’t come back here again.”
“What’s with you? You’re a terrible hostess. I thought you’d at least offer me a cup of coffee, but instead you slammed the door in my face. Do you have a hidden treasure chest inside or something?”
After giving him a firm push to his back, causing him to reluctantly step away, Leeseo still found him irritatingly grinning. Shooting him a cold glare, she opened her mouth to snap at him but in that moment, her phone, which she had left in her pocket, vibrated softly.
Keeping an eye on Jin-gyeom, Leeseo pulled out her phone and briefly checked the screen. It was Mrs. Seo. It was truly unusual for Mrs. Seo to call her at this time of the night.
What could be going on?
Leeseo furrowed her brows and pressed the answer button.
“Yes, hello?”
- Uh, Leeseo. Were you sleeping by any chance?
“No. I was just in my room. Is something the matter?”
She lowered the volume of the call, walked into the house. The figure of Jin-gyeom, head cocked and looking her way with interest, disappeared from the doorway as she closed the door closed with a loud thud.
Mrs. Seo hesitated for a moment over the phone before cautiously asking,
- Um, yeah. It’s not something else. Can you come to the annex for a moment?
“The annex?”
Leeseo walked toward the window and gently pulled aside the blackout curtain. The annex was still bathed in bright light. She watched Jin-gyeom’s back as he headed back toward the main house and listened to Mrs. Seo’s next words.
- .. It seems like the young master has injured his hand a bit.
Leeseo’s gaze turned toward the windows on the second floor of the annex. While the first floor wasn’t visible due to the wall, the large windows in the bedroom and living room on that floor looked down toward Leeseo’s room.
- He said it’s not a serious injury, but if you could find the first aid kit and bring it to him, that would be great. It would take me quite a while to get to the annex myself and the young master seemed he’s in a bit of a hurry, so…
Leeseo subtly sensed Mrs. Seo’s hesitating tone, realizing that there was a hint of awkwardness in it. As far as she knew, Mrs. Seo wasn’t the kind of person to leave her work to others, no matter how troublesome they were.
Especially not at this late hour, amidst the ongoing party in the annex.
Leeseo wondered if he’d instructed Mrs. Seo to send her instead, and asked her to call Leeseo herself as he had said to Leeseo to never look at him, the prior day.
Regardless of the situation, Leeseo didn’t want to make Mrs. Seo, who was probably reluctant to make the call anyway because Kwon Tae-gyeom had ordered her to, feel uneasy. Leeseo answered in a nonchalant voice.
“I’ll go. I’m just right next door, so it won’t take long.”
- Really? Thank you. The first aid kit should be in the pantry on the first floor, right?”
“Yeah, I know where it is.”
As she was about to end the call, the uneasy tone in Mrs. Seo’s voice caught her again.
- Hey, Leeseo, the people are making a fuss again over at the annex… Whatever they are doing inside, just look straight ahead, give the first aid kit to the Master then come out. Understand? I shouldn’t be asking you to do this kind of errand, but the situation…”
Leeseo could see what Mrs. Seo was worried about. Even though none of them had actually seen what was going on inside the annex, they had indirectly experienced the aftermath of the chaos the next day.
“Don’t worry, I got it.”
Leeseo responded calmly and hung up the phone. As she prepared to head outside, she paused as she looked down at her attire. The sleeveless dress she wore under her cardigan was made of a thin, airy material that was more suitable for a midsummer day than for going out in the night.
To keep out the noise from the annex, she had been closing her windows tightly at night, causing her room to become as hot as midsummer. It was still too early to turn on the air conditioning, so she chose to wear something light to stay comfortable. She typically wear a sundress as loungewear at home, rather than pajamas.
Realizing that her current outfit might not be suitable for going across, Leeseo took off her cardigan. She opened her closet and took out clothes more appropriate for going outside to run an errand.
How injured could his hand be?
Suddenly, she remembered his long, straight fingers. His skin was so clean and pale that it would have been a waste if they were injured.
Seeing that he was only searching for a first aid kit, it probably wasn’t severe enough to warrant a hospital visit, but an inexplicable sense of urgency washed over her. Leeseo quickly changed her clothes.
As the light from the annex spilled through the partially opened curtains, her heart raced uneasily.