Chapter 83
Several of them whispered my name. Manager Yoon protectively wrapped around my back and made a threatening expression toward them.
The more upscale an establishment, the more thoroughly the information and private lives of its patrons had to be protected. Having been instructed to pretend not to see even when they saw, to pretend not to hear even when they heard, they soon turned their eyes away from us with faces that realized their mistake and shut their mouths.
Only after we came out to the hall grandly decorated like a resort lobby did Manager Yoon, with a relieved expression, scold me.
“Even if you don’t feel like it, at occasions like that you should smile and chat a bit… Ah, fine, forget it. It’s not like I don’t know that’s not your personality. Just sitting there matching the atmosphere this much is already tremendous progress.”
Should I apologize and say I’m sorry? While I was thinking that, a man who appeared to be one of the establishment’s managers appeared with quick steps. With an excessively obsequious attitude ingrained in his body, he asked if I needed a taxi.
When I declined, the man brought over a waiter this time. Several more minutes were delayed as I had to stop him from instructing the waiter to properly escort me until I got in the taxi.
After parting with Manager Yoon at the counter, I got on the elevator as if escaping. When I reached out to the panel to press a button, I realized I didn’t know exactly where he was. I roughly pressed B1 and sent him a message.
《I’m coming down. Where are you?》
《B3. It won’t be hard to find once you get off the elevator.》
When I got off the elevator and exited the hall, there was a vehicle that briefly honked and flashed its headlights a couple times. It was his SUV.
With humidity from the weather added on top, the underground parking garage was unpleasantly muggy. But perhaps because I’d been exposed to excessive air conditioning all along, I felt neither the humidity nor the heat at all.
His car, having been rained on, sparkled more than usual. Though I couldn’t accurately gauge his eyes or mood due to the tinting, he was hunched over as if embracing the steering wheel, his gaze fixed on me.
Without realizing it, my steps slowed. But no matter how much I slowed down, it was useless. His car was too close.
When I opened the passenger door, he straightened up and looked this way. He was wearing glasses—black horn-rimmed glasses. They were a trendy style often worn as a fashion item, making him look younger than when he wore thin wire frames or titanium frames.
He was dressed in just a shirt without a jacket, and wasn’t particularly neat. His hair too was disheveled as if he’d messed up what had been fixed with wax, strands flowing down over his forehead.
Even after I sat in the passenger seat and closed the door, we couldn’t easily open our mouths. We just stared at the bleak parking garage scenery where there wasn’t a single moving object in sight.
“Did the meeting end well?”
While feeling his gaze on me, I nodded without looking back at him.
“Business drinking sessions with clients are tiring, right? Many people think other countries don’t have such things, but America was the same. They’re called parties but they’re all extensions of work. Human desires are the same everywhere.”
“I’m sorry I can’t go to Hongcheon.”
“……”
He who had been trying to continue speaking in his usual tone closed his mouth and looked back this way again. I stubbornly faced forward. A group of people who had poured out from the elevator hall were noisily laughing and chatting in front of the hall. Completely drunk, they had differing opinions about which direction their parked car was—this way, that way.
Following my gaze and watching them, he took a big breath. Then with a long exhale, he said:
“I heard you need time, so not being able to go to Hongcheon… that’s… nothing to be sorry about.”
It was a dry voice, as if he’d given up pretending to be calm. He continued as if sighing:
“You’re going home, right? I’ll head in that direction first. When we arrive… we’ll talk then.”
The raindrops themselves weren’t thick yet. But perhaps because the typhoon was gradually moving north, the wind had gotten stronger than before, making the rain’s direction erratic. Even when falling straight down properly, the raindrops would suddenly attack the car as if to destroy it, pelting the windows from the left, from the right. It was rain that made umbrellas useless.
Being Saturday with weather like this, it took quite a while to get out of Gangnam.
Naturally, the atmosphere was nothing but awkward. However, neither of us opened our mouths. Rather, we willingly accepted the silence as if grateful we could postpone the moment we’d have to face the problem even a little.
Time passed painfully slowly amidst the music he’d turned on at low volume and the sound of rain drumming against the car body in ever-changing rhythms.
Perhaps because this was already the third time coming here, he didn’t get lost at all and slowly drove up the road leading to the lodging without any help from navigation.
On a late night in a residential area with rain like this, traffic was extremely light. He turned at a closed franchise coffee shop and stopped the car at the foot of the uphill slope.
When he turned off all interior and exterior lights, the only light around was faint fragments of light falling from the streetlight up the slope. Even that was blocked by another SUV parked right in front, making me feel like a detective lying in wait for a suspect in the darkness.
He unbuckled his seatbelt and picked up one of two water bottles stuck in the cup holder. While twisting off the cap, he offered me the remaining one too.
Unlike me, who wasn’t drinking but just spinning the bottle around in my hand, he swallowed several large gulps that made audible swallowing sounds. Then while closing the cap, he opened his mouth.
“I was going to wait until the weekend like hyung said… but I felt like I’d die if I did that. A person has to survive first, right?”
“……”
“But hyung… looks like you’d die from seeing me.”
It was a voice mixed with a helpless bitter laugh.
“I came thinking that seeing my face might shake you a little… but you really don’t want to see me right now.”
That wasn’t it. He was misunderstanding.
I’d been scared that seeing his face would shake me, and even at this moment I was repeatedly rebuilding resolutions that kept crumbling down.
“Your face looks a little damaged.”
At the careful, gentle voice, I finally slowly turned to look at him. His face too was quite different from when I’d last seen it.
His gaze filled with pity caressed every part of my face as carefully as his voice.
“After saying that, hyung was also somewhat tormented. Is it okay for me to interpret it that way?”
As if afraid that his looking might leave wounds on my face. Eyes that were careful not to press me too strongly even with his gaze…
Completely different from his hyung who had exploited me without reserve.
“……”
I bit down hard on my lower lip and hurriedly turned my gaze away.
What I’d feared was happening. While facing him, not recalling the incident with his hyung seemed… absolutely impossible. The disgust and unpleasantness of memories that surfaced every time I encountered the words “Knox Hotel” could only barely be hidden from distorting my expression—that was about all I could manage now.
At my defensive attitude of avoiding his gaze, he sighed as if heartbroken.
“Hyung told me not to contact you, but… I was also scared to contact you. No matter how much I used all my imagination… I couldn’t understand why hyung was doing this, and not knowing the reason meant I couldn’t prepare, so I didn’t know what to do… Eventually I became more afraid of losing hyung without trying anything than hearing a cold voice. That’s why I asked to meet.”
He seemed to struggle even to make sounds. As if every time he spoke, a thorny rope was strangling his neck and piercing into his skin.
“What’s the problem? Tell me.”
Despite having emptied a third of his water bottle just moments ago, his voice felt completely dry.
“Do you hate that I was that kid back then, or… do you hate that I’m from Hanseo Group?”
“It’s not that I hate it…”
“Is it troublesome?”
“……”
“I’m always troublesome to hyung.”
He was gradually losing his composure. Even while asking me to tell him, the act of blocking me when I actually opened my mouth proved his intense anxiety.
He gripped the top of the steering wheel and buried his forehead against his hands. His broadly developed shoulders and thick torso heaved greatly as he took deep breaths, trying to control his intensifying emotions.
Though he appeared calm on the outside, inside was not the same.
How much was he holding himself together? To not pressure me, to not run wild. To not approach this problem emotionally.
I wanted to touch his back.
I wanted to pull his shoulders and ask him to show me his face.
I just got a little confused when you suddenly said you were from a chaebol family—that’s all. I wanted to say that, then touch his face and end this scene with a kiss.
But no matter how much he was in desperate pain right now, compared to the pain he’d feel after learning about what happened between his hyung and me… this moment’s pain would be nothing.
If I could end it with a minor fender-bender, I could prevent a collision with an 8-ton truck traveling at 130km/h.
Still slumped over the steering wheel, he caught his breath and spoke slowly.
“After hanging up on hyung like that… do you know how it was? Even now I don’t know how I’m maintaining my sanity while facing hyung like this. Afraid something might go wrong, afraid the word ‘over’ might come from hyung’s mouth… I’m really… going crazy right now.”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
