Chapter 68
As Tae-jun frantically kept looking from Yuri in vain, Tae-jun’s irritation grew. Door after door he opened, room after room he checked; the entire second floor was scoured and he found not a shadow of the girl.
He made down the stairs, jabbing his memory about the places she could be in, her former habits. It was then that it struck him that when they’d lived together, she would often spend time in the basement, painting, sketching, or doing something else. She was never the one to rest her hands.
Tae-jun loosened his tie and opened the basement door. He had been using it as a private home bar and wine cellar, but Yuri had used it as her workspace.
The basement was dark, so he turned on the lights but did not see her. He felt a strange premonition just before he turned the lights off, closed the door again, and moved towards the bar at the corner. He saw something in the small space inside the bar table.
Soon he was facing a Yuri who sat huddled, her face buried in her lap.
“I never knew you had a penchant for hide-and-seek.”
She didn’t move until Tae-jun opened his mouth. She slowly raised her head, the man’s eyes narrowed as he saw the tear stains on her face.
“I always won whenever I played hide-and-seek as a child.”
Tae-jun noticed her uncharacteristically vacant eyes and the objects that lay at her feet. There was a half-empty liquor bottle, a glass, and the shredded contract.
“Did you have a drink?” he asked, turning back to her.
“There are days you can’t stay sober.” She replied, nonchalantly.
“If you don’t like the contract, say what you want, and I’ll put it in.”
She only chuckled in response and poured another drink into the glass. Her dry laugh annoyed him, and he held her hand grasping the glass that was en route to her lips.
“Stop. You’ve had enough,” he said, sternly.
“What’s the problem? You’ll be having your way.”
He wrested the glass and put it on the table. He helped her stand up, her weightless body folding into his arms. She tried to break free from him, but he only held her tighter. She would never win in power, she became limp and laughed in self-deprecation.
“I should have listened to Professor Seok-ha Yoo if things would have come to this.”
“Seok-ha Yoo?”
“Don’t you know the painter? He’s the best Western painter in this country, and his works are in middle school and high school textbooks. I liked at first that he was my advising professor and recognized my talent. However, he called me to his workspace before an exhibition and told me to take my clothes off. He then asked me whether I wanted to be his Camille Claudel.”
Camille Claudel was Rodin’s student and muse. Tae-jun’s expression grew stony when he understood the meaning. Yuri continued with her story.
“Had I done his bidding, I would have finished the exhibition and gone abroad to study. I wouldn’t have met you in Jinseong City, and President Jin wouldn’t have threatened me with my father. Then … my father might not have died.”
Yuri broke down, each sob sounded like they were being squeezed out.
“You’re the same as them!”
Her weak fists hit his chest but it was her tears that ripped a part of his heart.
He couldn’t refute her accusation nor could he say he was different from them. If those others were mean, he was vile. Holding her hostage for a year, using her as a toy … no matter her identity was a despicable act and he had no means of acquitting himself from the charges.
He held her even tighter and forcefully as he felt her tears raining on his collar. No one said a word nor did he stop her from crying.
A long while passed, and the girl had cried herself to sleep. Sensing that she had quieted down, Tae-jun carefully held her in his arms and brought her to the bedroom. He gently laid the girl on the bed and stroked her wet cheeks.
“Seok-ha Yoo?”
Tae-jun’s face was livid as he muttered the name in a low voice. He gazed at the slumbering visage for a long time, no one knew what thoughts coursed through his mind.
⸙
“Please eat.”
Yuri lowered the screen of her notebook when she heard Department Head Choi’s voice. The picture of a man waving his hand with a smile disappeared, and a table filled with culinary delights welcomed her.
Yuri took a spoonful of well-cooked rice as Department Head Choi removed the bones from fish and portioned braised beef ribs on her plate. She had asked the woman not to wait upon her, but she wouldn’t listen.
Department Head Choi had been in charge of managing Tae-jun when he was a shooter, and she now acted as if her sole goal in life was to help Yuri gain some weight. After a few days of eating high-calorie meals three times a day along with desserts and snacks in the mornings and afternoons according to a professional menu, Yuri’s sunken cheeks and eyes filled a little. Her pale skin regained some color and sheen.
Department Head Choi brought out oriental medicine after the meal.
“What is this?” Yuri asked, befuddled.