AER 14

Chapter 14

“Wait.”

Hyeryeon slightly furrowed her brows.

“Don’t tell me you…”

She looked at Jiwan with disbelieving eyes.

“Listen to the end of what a person is saying.”

Jiwan snapped in an irritated tone.

“…Alright, talk.”

He soon made an abrupt stop on the shoulder.

“So what I want to say is… that you also have a certain amount of responsibility for this problem.”

“What?”

What on earth had she just heard?

“When I was twenty-one… After doing it with you, I can’t sleep with other women. Of course, I never slept with other women before that either… so I can’t know for sure if it’s entirely your fault.”

He continued while dry-washing his face.

“Anyway, I’m at the point where I want to grab even at straws.”

“…At all?”

Hyeryeon was dumbfounded. Was something like that even possible? She had never heard of such a thing anywhere.

“Have you… tried?”

“As if I wouldn’t have.”

A scolding voice followed, asking if he had been waiting only for her with longing. Hyeryeon felt troubled and worried. Yet… she didn’t feel bad. And because of that, she felt sorry toward him.

What on earth was this contradictory emotion?

“But a few days ago you… several times… like that…”

When she recalled it again, her face burned so much she couldn’t finish the sentence.

“That’s why. Fuck. It only works with you. Only with you.”

He spoke in an agonized voice.

“Help me.”

Jiwan looked at Hyeryeon with desperate eyes. They were eyes as hot as if they had swallowed fire. Hyeryeon’s heart pounded uncontrollably.

It wasn’t even a confession of love. He was asking her to help him have sex.

“…How am I supposed to…”

She asked back in a frail voice.

“Any way you can.”

“A sex friend… I can’t do something like that.”

“That’s something only beasts in heat do. This is for medical purposes.”

That was Jiwan’s specialty. Making anything sound plausible.

But Hyeryeon was not someone to be easily swayed either.

Perhaps because she had gone through all sorts of hardships, she was good at seeing through the essence hidden behind flashy words. So she rarely got carried away.

In other words.

If she summarized and organized Jiwan’s words, in the end it was no different at all from proposing a “sex partner.”

“If it’s for medical purposes… shouldn’t you go to the hospital first…?”

She carefully offered her opinion. Then Jiwan glared fiercely at Hyeryeon.

“Are you telling me to go to the hospital and declare that I’m impotent?”

“……”

“And with my own mouth at that?”

The man who had asked back muttered like a curse that he would rather just die.

“Still, Jiwan-ah. People who aren’t anything to each other shouldn’t just keep mixing bodies like that.”

Jiwan found the her who was suddenly acting like a Confucian girl extremely annoying. Because he knew well what kind of lewd face was hidden behind that demure expression.

His lower body was stirring again. He clenched his molars tightly.

“…I told you. That’s why I’m asking for help. It’s not like I’m spouting nonsense just because I want to sleep with you…”

Jiwan was good at lying without changing his expression when necessary, but in her eyes right now he didn’t look like he was lying.

“I’ll… think about it.”

With that, the conversation seemed to come to a temporary close.

But Jiwan didn’t like Hyeryeon’s lukewarm answer.

Easy, my ass. He felt a strong urge to demand why everything was always so difficult with her. But he held it in.

Still, looking at her face made him feel like he could live.

Before he knew it, the car had entered a narrow alley. Soon the navigation announced that they had arrived at the destination.

Jiwan rolled his eyes through the front windshield and looked around. The neighborhood was so bleak it looked like something out of a crime movie, and he couldn’t help being inwardly shocked.

“Where the hell is your house?”

At Jiwan’s contemptuous tone, Hyeryeon bit her lip.

“I won’t suddenly visit or do anything like that. So tell me. Where is it?”

He pressed her once more. Anyway, once he saw her go up to her house, he would find out too. Instead of speaking, Hyeryeon pointed with her finger at the sign of a raw fish restaurant.

“Bangja Raw Fish Restaurant? The Bangja from *Chunhyangjeon*?”

Of all things, why did they have to name the restaurant like that? It had nothing to do with her, yet she felt strangely embarrassed. Hyeryeon nodded and added quietly.

“I live in the private residence above there.”

“Ha…”

“I’m going.”

Then Hyeryeon quickly got out of the car. She couldn’t stand the embarrassment. As she put her foot on the outdoor stairs, she heard the sound of a car door opening behind her. An *oh no* feeling came over her.

“There are plenty of clean studios—why do you live in a place like this?”

The look in Jiwan’s eyes and his attitude as he asked that were exactly like those of any noble facing a slum for the first time in his life. Even without adding any more words, it was obvious what he was thinking.

If it had been the old Jiwan, he would have shown enough sense not to make her embarrassed, but the current Jiwan was not particularly kind.

“Why do you live in a place like this?”

The voice that pressed her again, as if her circumstances didn’t matter at all, felt heartless.

But Hyeryeon had to admit it.

The status gap that had widened incomparably compared to before, and her own appearance that was all the more shabby in comparison.

Once she showed it as it was, how he thought about it was entirely up to him.

The more disappointed he was, the better, probably.

“Because it’s cheap.”

Hyeryeon answered concisely. Not wanting to show that her pride was hurt, she deliberately pretended to speak in a calm voice.

Jiwan frowned.

“How shabby.”

It was a tone that carelessly threw a stone. Yet a frog can lose its life from even a single stone throw.

A long knife wound was left on Hyeryeon’s heart.

She had lived hard without anyone’s help. That was something he, who had grown up in an environment where money never dried up, could never know.

How much of her blood and sweat had gone into this “shabby” house as well.

“Thanks for the ride.”

Hyeryeon said dryly and went up to her house. Every time she climbed, the prefabricated stairs rang hollowly. As always, they also creaked a little.

Jiwan stood there and watched until she roughly closed the third-floor front door.

“…Temper.”

Jiwan leisurely headed toward the stairs. Then he carefully examined the joint parts of the iron stairs. They were a mess with rust here and there.

“Why is this so shoddy.”

Irritation began to rise again. Safety ignorance?

If it weren’t a thin woman like Hyeryeon, the stairs looked like they would collapse at any moment. He looked up at the third-floor house again. If one set one’s mind to it, it seemed one could invade without difficulty.

A scaredy-cat of a girl.

Instead of carrying an electric stun gun, she should move houses first. Jiwan looked around the old red building.

The gas pipes climbing the wall like vines showed how indifferent the building owner was to aesthetics, not to mention safety.

“The things people do.”

Jiwan took out his phone and called someone.

“Ah. How’s your body?”

—Did you call because you were worried about me? You don’t have to… I’m perfectly fine…

“That’s good. Oh right, I have something to instruct you about.”

He decided to attribute the brief silence that followed to his imagination. When Jiwan said something, Secretary Ahn’s unwavering answer came back.

After hanging up, Jiwan raised his gaze high again. White light could be seen leaking through the window. A sigh flowed out on its own.

***

The weekend arrived. As expected, holidays were good. Hyeryeon put on earphones that played the sound of rain and slept straight until the sun was high in the sky. When she woke up, she was hungry. She searched the refrigerator and cupboards, but there was only instant noodles and microwave rice.

“……”

The thought of needing to go to the supermarket came to her.

Last night, the fact that she had been treated as worthless by Jiwan suddenly made her feel sorrowful. A strange impulse to at least take good care of herself—whom no one valued—moved her.

She pulled up her hoodie and stepped out the front door. Just then the phone in her kangaroo pocket vibrated. It was her aunt Sangsun. Hyeryeon hesitated for a moment, then swiped the green phone icon.

“Yes, Aunt.”

—You’re coming for Chuseok, right?

An inward sigh of relief came out. Today at least her aunt’s weather seemed “sunny.”

“Of course.”

—Yeah, the house only gets a bit lively when you come.

“Is there anything you need?”

—It’s fine. You’re having a hard time helping with Juyeon’s academy fees.

“Ah…”

Hyeryeon felt a little awkward. It was rare for her aunt to acknowledge her efforts. Even so, the answer “it’s okay” didn’t come out readily.

—Ah, and about that.

When she had almost finished going down the stairs, Sangsun opened her mouth again as if she still had something to say. Hyeryeon said “just a moment” and crouched down to examine the stairs. Today of all days they felt strangely stable.

“Huh…?”

It wasn’t difficult to find traces of new welding.

What is this?

When she first got the house, she had told the landlord that the old stairs made her uneasy. The landlord said his own circumstances weren’t ample either, so if she raised the deposit a little more he would fix the stairs. Hyeryeon couldn’t answer that she would. In the end the stair repair was left unresolved, and as she lived she grew numb to it.

But why…?

She hadn’t particularly heard any construction noise. Hyeryeon turned her gaze to the side. Customers coming out of the first-floor raw fish restaurant while picking their teeth were visible.

Ah.

Because she had slept with earphones in her ears today, she hadn’t heard any noise at all.

—Hyeryeon-ah. Are you listening?

Suddenly Sangsun’s voice came crashing down like a thunderbolt.

—Sigh, what on earth are you holding the phone with your mind on?

“……”

—So what Aunt is saying is…

The moment Sangsun was about to speak again, a man entered Hyeryeon’s field of vision. Do Seongwoo. He waved his phone and faintly furrowed his brows.

Hyeryeon immediately checked the screen. One text message icon was floating. It was a notification text that a call had come in during the call. Instantly a chill swept over the back of her neck.

“Aunt.”

—Hmm?

“I’ll call you back right away.”

—It’s fine. We’ll talk when you come for Chuseok.

After hanging up, Hyeryeon raised her gaze. Seongwoo, who had approached with heavy steps, spoke.

“You kept being on the phone. Fortunately you were home.”

There was no need to ask how he knew her house and found it. There was also no need to ask what the matter was.

Because it was obvious.

“If you’re not going to give me a cup of coffee, let’s talk in the car.”