Chapter 23
“Because I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to accept a single penny from you.”
Cheong-yeon removed the wedding ring he was still wearing and forcefully handed it to Do-heon.
He stared blankly at the ring that had fallen into his hand. Unlike Cheong-yeon, Do-heon still wore his wedding ring.
“The jewelry box in your room.”
After a moment of silence, Do-heon spoke again.
“What about it?”
“I thought you would take it.”
What is he talking about now? Do-heon’s words and actions today were particularly unpredictable.
Cheong-yeon frowned at his incomprehensible muttering.
“You’d need money to leave.”
“…”
“If you’re going to live like this, come and take it even now.”
“I said I don’t need it!”
Cheong-yeon couldn’t hold back and shouted.
“Did I ask you for money? Did I ask you to buy me a house? Do you pity me now that you see me living like a beggar in a cobweb-filled house after the divorce? Who do you think you are?”
Under Do-heon’s rude gaze that still seemed to look down on him, Cheong-yeon instantly felt short of breath, and his throat burned as if he had swallowed embers.
“No matter how much you pity me, I like it here. I never want to go back to that house again. I don’t need money, I don’t want it! While clearly knowing I’m uncomfortable, you come into someone else’s house and treat them like a beggar? Who are you to treat a complete stranger…”
“Are you and I strangers?”
Do-heon’s low voice interrupted Cheong-yeon’s words. Faint blood vessels were visible in the whites of his eyes, which he had strained.
‘I understand he hasn’t been sleeping well.’
Suddenly, Secretary Shim’s recent words came to mind. Indeed, Do-heon’s eyes looked more worn than usual. It might have been his imagination, but his face seemed thinner too. His already cynical face now projected an even sharper impression.
Momentarily hesitant at the sight of his eyes, Cheong-yeon returned from his thoughts to reality.
“We are strangers, what else would we be?”
“Did you forget we visited grandmother together today?”
“…”
Of course, they had still pretended to be married in front of grandmother. But that didn’t make them anything more than strangers now.
Even though they had visited grandmother together as if they were still a couple, Do-heon and Cheong-yeon were complete strangers. Cheong-yeon couldn’t believe Do-heon was denying this fact.
Why would he, after having a lawyer prepare the paperwork and signing it himself? Or was he forming some sort of one-sided internal intimacy, thinking they couldn’t be complete strangers since they were once spouses, even though they were divorced?
“So what? Does that mean we’re not strangers? I went to see grandmother’s face, not to see you, Director…”
“And can you stop calling me ‘Director’? Why am I your director?”
Do-heon moved closer to Cheong-yeon, cutting off his words with a voice that seemed to be suppressing something as he placed one hand against the wall. Unconsciously, Cheong-yeon froze like someone backed into a corner.
At a loss for words, his lips moved but no words came out for a while.
“…Please leave now. Honestly, this is scaring me.”
A few seconds later, Cheong-yeon swallowed dryly and spoke as casually as possible. But his voice trembled slightly at the end.
Do-heon’s brow twitched upon noticing this. He immediately withdrew his hand from the wall and obediently stepped back.
By now, Do-heon and Cheong-yeon’s pheromones were irregularly intertwined in the small house. While Cheong-yeon’s had always been difficult to control and erratic, Do-heon was definitely not his usual self.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you. I apologize.”
He compulsively straightened his clothes and tightened his tie neatly.
“I’ll go.”
“…Ah, here. Take this.”
Cheong-yeon, who had been anxiously watching him while leaning against the wall, took something out of his pocket. It was the credit card Do-heon had given him previously.
“…”
Do-heon didn’t immediately take the card, instead staring at it silently for a few seconds. Soon noticing that Cheong-yeon’s fingertips were trembling faintly, he took the card and put it in his inside jacket pocket.
Then with efficient movements, he walked through the entrance, opened the door, and left.
Bang.
As soon as the sound of the door closing was heard, Cheong-yeon’s body, which had been tense with nervous energy, went limp.
“Haah. Crazy bastard.”
A sigh escaped involuntarily. Although Do-heon was gone, the expression he had worn moments ago and his words remained vividly imprinted in Cheong-yeon’s mind.
It felt strange since he had rarely seen Do-heon act so emotionally. Even knowing that Do-heon wasn’t someone who would harm him, his body had instinctively shrunk back in that moment.
Recently, Do-heon’s attitude toward him had definitely changed strangely compared to during their marriage.
Is it that he finds it a waste to give me up? Or is he at a loss because he pities me for living so miserably after having shared a life together?
“Surely he couldn’t have started liking me now…”
Cheong-yeon laughed dryly, surprised at his own muttering. It was the most absurd assumption among all possibilities. If that were the case, he wouldn’t have agreed to the divorce so readily.
Anyway, if it weren’t for visiting grandmother once a week, they would be complete strangers with no points of contact. They were distant enough to ignore each other even if they happened to meet on the street.
Whatever change of heart Do-heon was experiencing toward him, it wasn’t something Cheong-yeon needed to dwell on, as he had already settled his position.
Cheong-yeon decided not to think too deeply about understanding him. He was tired in many ways, having been out longer than usual. To prepare for bed, Cheong-yeon mechanically began to tidy up the kitchen.
After finishing the dishes, as he was about to put the disheveled chair back in place, Cheong-yeon noticed a white envelope on the table and stopped.
It was the Sohwa Art Museum invitation from grandmother.
“He actually left this behind after all that.”
Cheong-yeon glared at the crisp envelope and muttered. Who did he think would go?
Feeling defiant, Cheong-yeon went to wash up in the bathroom without even touching the invitation.
*
Wednesday.
It was the day of the exhibition, but Cheong-yeon had not the slightest inclination to attend.
Even with the invitation from Do-heon’s grandmother, and despite Sohwa Art Museum’s cake being supposedly the finest delicacy in the world.
He didn’t want to face Jeon Jun-ho again, and he even had a photo shoot part-time job scheduled for Wednesday.
Since he had already told Do-heon he wouldn’t go, he decided to casually let it pass, assuming Do-heon would make up some excuse to his grandmother later.
However, on Wednesday, the shopping mall photo shoot ended earlier than expected.
The mall owner was quite moody; on days when his condition wasn’t good, the shoots would drag on with many demands and take a long time, but conversely, when he was in a good mood, he was incredibly lenient and would applaud anything, making him an unpredictable type.
Though sometimes it was difficult to humor him, he never withheld payment or crossed the line with harsh words. Because of this, Cheong-yeon was relatively satisfied with his work.
“Good job today. Every shot was killer.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Hey. That outfit suits you well. Just take it, it’s yours.”
“Oh, really?”
Today, the owner had been in an exceptionally good mood, and the shoot had progressed smoothly, ending in no time. The final outfit was a style that would be more fitting for a club in Hongdae or Itaewon, somewhat perplexing to Cheong-yeon, but the owner said it suited him well and gave him the entire set.
It consisted of a black short-sleeved shirt layered with a thin long-sleeved top, excessively ripped jeans, and a white cap with chaotic embroidery. The short-sleeved shirt had an unidentifiable fabric hanging down to the back of the thighs. It looked somewhat like the curtain-like strips at restaurant entrances. It wasn’t a conventional fashion, but the more he looked at it, the more he liked its uniqueness.
Having received the clothes for free, Cheong-yeon decided to leave work in the outfit he had worn for the last shoot instead of changing back into his original clothes.
The expected finish time was originally six in the evening, but when he left the studio, it was only four o’clock.
And the closing time for the private exhibition at Sohwa Art Museum, as written on the invitation, was five o’clock.
Now that he had time, the cake unnecessarily loomed in his mind.
Cheong-yeon carefully thought it through. If he left now, he would arrive at the museum just as it was about to close, and by then, the unlikable Jeon Jun-ho and the young masters he had invited would all have left, so he could just quickly pick up the cake and leave.
Right. It would be wasteful to simply discard a whole cake worth over 300,000 won. Especially since it tastes as good as its price.
Having just finished the photo shoot and feeling extremely hungry, as if his stomach was touching his back, Cheong-yeon was reluctant to give up the cake that grandmother had gone to the trouble of ordering.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
