ENM 10

Chapter 10

Thinking back to the dinner where she had not been able to breathe comfortably even once, Wooyeon became absent-minded again.

Why was she like that yesterday?

It was not her first time having dinner with a client. And because of the nature of her job, where she had to work with all kinds of people, it was not as if she had difficulty getting along with others.

Yet every moment had felt unfamiliar and uncomfortable. She had been tense the entire time, as if she were sitting on a bed of thorns.

As soon as she got home, she had forced some digestive medicine into her mouth and collapsed without even removing her makeup. She had slept until morning, and the moment she opened her eyes, she had come straight to Okcheon.

She needed a place where she could feel comforted.

She needed a place where she could rest.

“I don’t know. I guess I’ve been working too much lately.”

Wooyeon whispered as she gently stroked Samsik’s head with warm eyes.

Perhaps he understood how she felt, because Samsik stopped licking the ice, lifted his head, and barked.

“Woof!”

When she held out her hand, Samsik came walking over with little steps. He soon buried his head in her hand and acted cute.

“Live a long time, Go Samsik. I’ll come more often from now on.”

Just then, the tightly closed window slid open, and Grandma called out to Wooyeon loudly from inside.

“Wooyeon, what are you doing? It’s hot. Come inside.”

“I’m coming.”

Wooyeon answered loudly enough for her voice to echo through the yard and got up.

“I’ll eat a little and come back out. Rest here.”

“What is this? Are we having a feast at our house today?”

The kitchen was incredibly busy, as if they were preparing for a neighborhood festival.

It was all because Wooyeon’s grandmother and mother were making a huge meal since she had come home.

The sound of soup boiling and knives chopping against the cutting board continued long before Wooyeon arrived and even after she had been there for quite some time.

The savory smell of seasoned vegetables and the appetizing smell of freshly cooked rice filled the kitchen.

The smells she had missed so much made her stomach rumble already.

“Oh, my baby. How hard must you be working for your cheeks to become so thin? You’re nothing but skin and bones. And you don’t even come home often. That gallery, or whatever it’s called, is going to work my baby to death.”

“No, Grandma.”

“Eat this first.”

Her grandmother, Eunja, piled a bowl high with bright red plums and handed it to Wooyeon, still worrying about her.

Wooyeon picked up a ripe plum, rubbed it against her clothes to clean it, and took a bite.

Sweet juice spread throughout her mouth.

“Wow. It’s sweet, Grandma.”

“Eat lots. Put on some weight before you leave.”

“Mom, then Wooyeon will go back up and starve herself again because she wants to lose weight.”

Her mother, Myeongsuk, who was cooking in the kitchen, poked her head out and shouted.

“That’s right. Whenever I come to Grandma’s house, I gain three kilograms before I leave.”

“Gain what? Every time you come, you’re thinner than before. At this rate, you’ll turn into a stick. You need to put on some weight to look pretty. Oh, my poor baby.”

Her grandmother gently stroked Wooyeon’s cheeks, which were puffed out as she chewed the plum.

To her grandmother, Wooyeon was still a child, it seemed.

She was already thirty-one.

Myeongsuk watched them happily, smiled, and went back into the kitchen.

It had been a month since Wooyeon had last visited her mother’s family home in Okcheon.

Normally, if nothing came up, she would come down every weekend and stay for a night. But recently, she had been so busy with work that she had barely had any free time.

She had too much work. She was tired. She would come next time.

As she kept putting off the trip, Myeongsuk and Eunja slowly began coaxing her.

‘I’ll make your favorite braised pork ribs if you come home.’

‘I made a whole pot of kimchi stew. Come and eat. Who else is going to finish it if not you?’

‘Your mother made apricot jam. Come get some. You like this, don’t you?’

Come home and I’ll make you something.

I’ll make anything you want to eat.

If you come this time, I won’t ask you to come again.

With Myeongsuk and Eunja taking turns trying to tempt her, she had eventually ended up here.

But after coming down, she was glad.

The quiet country roads surrounded by mountains, the blue sky, and the gentle breeze.

Even the sunlight that had felt unbearably harsh in Seoul felt healing here.

The warm house was full of the feeling of people living together, busy and lively.

Wooyeon had first come down to Okcheon when she was a senior in high school, right after her parents divorced.

In the spring when she was nineteen, her parents, exhausted from years of fighting, finally divorced.

“Wooyeon, Mom wants a divorce.”

She had always thought it would happen someday, but she had never imagined it would happen right then.

That spring felt especially cold.

The reason for the divorce was her father’s long-term affair.

Her father had always been kind and devoted to her, but apparently, he had not been such a good husband to her mother.

When she was young, Wooyeon had not known any of this and loved her father, who took her to the mountains and the sea on weekends.

In winter, she would hold her father’s hand and go skating.

In summer, they would suddenly leave for the sea to play in the water.

Sometimes, they would go fishing until they were covered in the night dew, only to get scolded together by her angry mother.

Whenever that happened, the two of them would spend the whole day doing housework together, trying to calm her mother down and carefully watching her mood.

She liked her ordinary life.

She had a happy family.

Once a month, her father always took her to an art museum to look at paintings.

She was amazed by his deep knowledge as he quietly explained the paintings to her.

Her father seemed like a treasure given to her by the world because there was nothing he did not know whenever she asked him something.

She loved her father’s affection.

Being in his arms had always felt completely peaceful.

That was why, before she knew the real reason, there had been times when she hated her mother for slowly becoming cynical.

Back then, she could not understand her mother, who would snap at her father whenever she saw his face and raise her voice at him.

Then one day, after years of slowly wasting away, her mother finally opened her heart.

She looked like an old tree, with nothing but skin left over her bones.

“I want a divorce.”

Wooyeon answered her, but deep inside, she did not want them to divorce.

“Do what you want, Mom. If you can’t live like this anymore, then you should.”

But the truth was that she hoped they would not divorce.

Dad is pitiful too.

How is he supposed to live alone?

For a long time, Wooyeon resented her mother’s coldness because she could not understand why she was abandoning her father.

How could a married couple who had spent their whole lives together separate like that?

They had fallen in love at first sight, dated for five years, and gotten married because they could not bear to part.

Her father was a lawyer, so there had never been any problem making a living.

But after she entered middle school, their wealth increased greatly.

The busier her father became, the more comfortable their home became.

And the more comfortable their lives became, the more everything began to fall apart.

The father Wooyeon had thought was the most pitiful man in the world had had another woman for a long time.

Only then did Wooyeon understand the times her mother had stayed awake at night drinking because her father had not come home, using business trips as an excuse.

She understood why her mother had sometimes frantically searched through her father’s study and screamed.

She understood why her mother had sometimes rushed at her father when he came home from work, screaming at him to get out.

“Your father has another woman. He even has a home with her, and they have a child.”

Her one and only father in the world.

Her family.

Her roots.

She had liked him, loved him, and respected him.

That was why the betrayal hurt even more.

She could not believe it.

But after seeing with her own eyes the half-sibling who was twelve years younger than her, everything that had been out of place for years suddenly made perfect sense, like the final piece of a puzzle falling into place.

“Mom can’t live here anymore. Everywhere I look, I see traces of your father.”

“That’s why I can’t live here anymore.”

That night, Eunja came up after receiving a phone call from her daughter.

Wooyeon could not say a single word and only cried and cried.

Eunja took Myeongsuk and Wooyeon back to Okcheon with her that very night.

It was just as summer was beginning.

Without even saying goodbye to her father, they left as if they were running away in the middle of the night.

And that was where she met Kwon Jeongheon.

“For the time being, Jeongheon, show the transfer student around.”

The homeroom teacher told Wooyeon that Jeongheon had never lost the top spot since entering the school and was the class president trusted by all the teachers.

He gave Wooyeon the seat beside him.

The boy had a proud-looking face and gave her a cold glance, as if helping a transfer student was simply an obligation.

“Hi. I’m Go Wooyeon. Nice to meet you.”

“I’m Kwon Jeongheon.”

He briefly looked at her before immediately burying his face back into his workbook.

That was Wooyeon’s first impression of Kwon Jeongheon.

At some point, she gradually began hearing the cruel words people used to describe Jeongheon.

“He’s got nothing but a pretty face. He’s an orphan with nothing.”

“He should at least study hard. He’s a poor bastard without parents.”

Wooyeon felt sorry for him.

Even though she had clearly heard people whispering behind his back, he never changed his expression.

With his earphones in, he simply focused on solving problems in his workbook.

She felt sorry for that boy.

She could not show it, so she would simply stare at the back of his neatly arranged neck for a long time.

He was kind and upright.

He was not gentle, but he was not rough either.

Back then, he had nothing.

He never showed off anything, yet there was still something relaxed about him.

The children at that time must have sensed something different about Kwon Jeongheon.

He had nothing, yet he was elegant.

He had nothing to show off, yet he carried himself with a dignity unusual for someone his age.

Even when jealousy born from inferiority struck him like arrows, he was not easily shaken by other people’s words.

And he did not easily judge others.

It did not mean that he accepted everyone.

It meant that he did not carelessly judge them either.

Wooyeon liked that about him.

She liked his diligence.

Every day, at the same time and in the same place, he was always there.

He had never broken that routine.

She liked his neatly pressed white shirts and the clean, refreshing scent that always followed him.

Perhaps Wooyeon had not been the only one who had feelings for Kwon Jeongheon back then.

He had been admired by girls his age and envied by the boys.

And Wooyeon had liked him so much.

She did not notice summer burning away.

She did not notice autumn fading.

And before she knew it, winter was already coming to an end.

Until the moment she saw what was hidden behind his upright and proper appearance.