The office was quiet in the early hours.
Morning, before the day’s schedule began.
Jaehyuk, sitting on the sofa in his office rather than at his desk, was skimming through a report when he looked up to check the time.
The appointment time was approaching.
Perhaps that’s why he felt somewhat distracted.
With all his attention focused on that, he couldn’t concentrate on the report.
As he nervously tapped his fingertips on the tablet while staring at the intercom, a short time passed before the intercom rang.
‘Your visitor has arrived.’
It was exactly on time.
At the appearance of the person he had been waiting for, Jaehyuk immediately replied.
“Show them in.”
After his response, the intercom disconnected and a knock was heard.
And as the door opened, Jaehyuk frowned at the appearance of an unwelcome visitor.
It was an uninvited guest.
Chapter 18
It was a dream.
Despite being in a dream, Junghyun was clearly aware of it.
That nightmare of standing alone on a street lined with gray buildings with no doors or windows.
But today, he didn’t run.
He no longer felt the need to run.
He was too tired, and no longer felt that he needed to escape from that place.
There was no exit from this world anyway. It was designed that way.
The end of these maze-like, tangled paths was a cliff regardless.
So there was no need to struggle to escape this place.
A dream is just a dream anyway.
Trying to escape would only drain his energy pointlessly.
Simply waiting for morning to come was the best option.
Waiting for the sun to rise, and to be able to escape by waking up soon.
As he looked at the sky waiting for his body to wake, the world began to collapse, perhaps because time was almost up.
And soon his body began to fall.
Into an endless darkness.
* * *
Waking to the loud alarm sound, Junghyun quickly rolled his eyes as if trying to confirm where he was.
Low ceiling, the small sofa and table visible right in front of him. And unfamiliar sliding closet doors.
It was an extremely strange and alien scene, but clearly part of reality.
Once he confirmed this in his mind, Junghyun let out a long sigh.
Although he had slept and woken up, various parts of his body felt stiff.
It was because of that nightmare.
He usually didn’t dream while sleeping, but recently he had been having the same nightmare day after day.
The nightmare itself wasn’t surprising, as it was a dream he’d had since childhood whenever he felt emotionally troubled.
It was just a bit concerning that he was anxious enough to have such dreams.
No, that wasn’t really something to worry about either.
The doctor had said that having nightmares due to hormones and psychological anxiety was common in early pregnancy.
So it was nothing.
Everyone goes through this.
Reassuring himself that it was nothing, he lifted his heavy body, but the alarm was still ringing.
At that particularly noisy sound, he grabbed his phone and quickly deactivated the alarm.
While at it, he checked the time and saw it was already well past 1 PM.
“I’m screwed…”
Junghyun sighed at his dissolute lifestyle that had continued for nearly a month.
Whether due to the change in environment or lack of proper sleep, his daily rhythm had become a mess.
This wasn’t good, even considering his pregnancy.
He needed to establish a daily routine.
Thinking he shouldn’t dawdle any longer, he hurriedly got up and headed to the bathroom.
After quickly washing up in the space just a few steps away, he changed clothes hastily, grabbed only his phone and wallet, and was about to leave the house when he felt something was missing.
“…Keys…”
He hadn’t locked the door.
Grumbling about why this country still used keys, he went back into the house, took the keys from on top of the shoe cabinet, and came back out to lock the door.
Then, just to be sure, he turned the doorknob to check it was locked before heading to the elevator and checking his phone notifications.
It was simply a habit.
Just before leaving Korea, he had borrowed a new phone registered under the detective agency’s name and was now using it with roaming activated.
By now, Hyung Yoonho would have found the phone he had been using.
In the drawer of his desk.
So currently, only the detective agency and the old man knew this number. He was only contacting other people through a newly created email.
For this reason, there was no one who would contact him through this number.
Nevertheless, checking his phone every morning was like an instinct.
Although he knew there wouldn’t be anything except app notifications since he hadn’t signed up for anything or left this number anywhere, he still checked the notification panel just in case, and today there was one email.
When he casually tapped the notification, the email opened immediately.
As he boarded the elevator that had arrived in the meantime and pressed the button for the first floor, he checked the screen again to find an extremely businesslike email.
[Today in the afternoon, we received a contract termination agreement and divorce agreement from Cha Jaehyuk’s side.
The proposal is to agree to the termination but to delay the submission of the divorce agreement until June.
After that, we plan to proceed with the divorce immediately through agreement between the lawyers.
If you have any other opinions, please email us.]
The email, which briefly stated only the essential business, was from a law firm.
At the news he had been anxiously waiting for, Junghyun leaned against the elevator wall and let out a small sigh.
It seemed that Jaehyuk had finally made his decision, although it had taken a bit longer than expected.
That was enough.
Everything was settled now.
This was the ending that suited both him and Jaehyuk best.
If it was to be in June, the timing was also good.
It was a bit tight, but there was still some leeway.
With the timing well within his expected range, he quickly moved his hands to compose a reply.
[Please proceed as stated.
If there are any other requests from their side, please accommodate them.]
After composing the email with just two sentences, he immediately pressed the send button.
As if it had been waiting for this, the elevator doors opened.
At this perfect timing, the moment he took a step out of the elevator, he felt warmth.
Even though he was still inside the building, the air was noticeably different.
It was full spring.
Winter had disappeared without a trace.
Along with the memories of winter.
As if it had never existed…
* * *
The sunshine was particularly good today.
Walking under the bright sky that belied the gloomy days of the past few days, Junghyun let out a long sigh and deleted one item from the checklist on his phone screen.
There were five places left now.
Despite meticulously searching this area for nearly 20 days, visiting places on his list, all results had been failures.
Perhaps because of this, he was becoming increasingly anxious.
Since he hadn’t been sleeping properly lately, he often dozed off or fell asleep without realizing it, which meant the time he could move around each day was limited.
Roughly from 1 PM to 7 PM.
A total of 6 hours.
Outside of those hours, he had to stay at his accommodation since he never knew when he might fall asleep.
For this reason, progress was already slow, and there were too few clues.
In fact, he hadn’t planned to stay here this long.
He thought it would be three days at the shortest, a week at the longest. At the very most, ten days.
His plan was to stay here for a maximum of ten days, then go directly to the United States, and once the divorce papers were processed, return to Korea at an appropriate time.
For this purpose, he had even obtained an employment visa.
Although one needed to go to family court in person for a divorce, there was a risk of his pregnancy being discovered if he delayed awkwardly, so his plan was to go abroad first and use employment as an excuse for lawyers to handle it on his behalf.
And once the divorce was finalized, he planned to return to Korea depending on the situation.
He intended to live peacefully with his child in a small city with neither sea nor mountains, where he wouldn’t encounter Jaehyuk.
Like that time they spent together.
Suddenly stopping in his tracks at the memory that surfaced, Junghyun quickly shook his head to clear his idle thoughts.
He shouldn’t keep recalling these memories.
Obsession and lingering feelings consume one’s reality.
He needed to focus on the task at hand now.
There were five places left. One of them had to be visited today.
Closing the checklist and opening the map application, Junghyun looked for the closest location among the remaining five, excluding the place he had visited today.
Fortunately, there was one place he could walk to.
The moment he confirmed its location, he started walking again.
He couldn’t delay here any longer.
If the divorce was to proceed in June, he needed to enter the United States before then.
Since it was an employment visa obtained with some difficulty, he needed to show up for work.
So, there was no more time.
The maximum time he could stay here now was just three more days.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
