So Long For Now, Summer
Chapter 15
Broken Machine
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2. Home
(T/N: back to the present)
[Lines said by Woo Jin-ha will have (J) and lines said by shim will have (S)]
She opened her eyes in the dark. She faintly could hear the air conditioner on the ceiling turning quietly. The familiar silence greeted her. It’s a house without him in it. The fire is already out, and the curtains are closed.
It seems like after Woo Jin-ha put her on the bed, he went to work right away. There had been no other words exchanged in the car last night.
He will do it one day anyway, so his silence might as well be his confirmation. He didn’t even try to hold on to her or persuade her.
He has nothing to regret. On the contrary, it’s always her side that has the regret. She couldn’t even sleep but instead only stared at Woo Jin-ha’s face for a long time. She regretted loving him, mourning those past few reckless moments they had spent together in the same bed that night.
But now she doesn’t feel sad anymore, perhaps because It’s already expected or simply because she’s so tired. Her chest was as hard as a rock.
She laid still for a long time, hugging her empty stomach.
‘Let’s get divorced.’
She thought he’d feel happy if she said that. She had once imagined it.
A dream-like scene of her abandoning Woo Jin-ha first, how horrible his face distorted together with her pipe-dream that he would somehow hold on to her.
She couldn’t remember what kind of expression he made then. For certain, it won’t feel great anyway. No matter to the one who spoke nor to the one who listened, none of it matters anymore.
It was all an inevitable result. No matter how far you try to walk, you won’t be able to find your destination if it was the wrong way from the very beginning.
No matter how hard you try, in the end, all of it would be in vain.
That is the reality.
It’s the wrong path from the very beginning.
The child simply showed me the fastest way.
And like that when you came onto the wrong way, it’s best just to go back the way you had come from again.
She found her cell phone in the dark.
That imaginary divorce of her was just a scene from a drama. Thus, she won’t imagine anything anymore, and just straight ahead declare, ‘Let’s get divorced.’
Reality always needs certainties. For the first time, she found the information she needed for the divorce. Originally, she thought it would be very troublesome. It’s a very simple one instead.
It is not complicated from the beginning to the end. She came to a new realization again. It’s great that she could do it any time.
She put away her cell phone and turned on the light.
She was in a mess. She didn’t want to feel drowsy because of the medicine, so she washed up. She felt like she was hurting herself while washing up, but It made her feel a bit better afterwards.
I’m going to sort out all this mess now, so she tried to sober up.
These unwanted furniture, broken things, as well as bruises. Flustered memories are still everywhere. Woo Jin-ha wouldn’t arrange these with his precious hands, and he didn’t have the time. And so all she saw was a wrecked house.
Without even remembering how comfortable she lived in this house and where the mop was, she had to search for a long time. Then, she found some dry dusters in the lounge used by housekeepers. After, she wiped the blood, removed the glass, and wiped the water from the vase.
Doing so made her think nothing of it.
Everything that had happened at the hospital was like a dream. No more the moment where she felt out of control.
Life seemed to leave her in a trance. The child who showed its face in the ultrasound photo has disappeared. But her life remained the same. She was so scared that she was going to die, but she eventually survived. Now the previous pain felt like an illusion.
She looked down blankly at her hand with a piece of glass on it. It didn’t hurt even if the blood flowed out. Half the glass in front of her was already in the trash, and she was squatting in front of the rest of the glass fragments, like someone who’d lost in thought.
Not moving to clean, not getting up to get the medicine box, looking lost, not knowing what to do.
Her heart thumped unpleasantly. A dull sound rang like there was a cotton pad in her ear. And when her vision was about to go blurred as well, she heard a sound from the porch.
“…….” (S)
Woo Jin-ha was back.
When she managed to wake up, she squeezed her other hand that was holding the trash can. And likewise, as if her senses awoke at once, her hand with pieces of glass in it was aching painfully. She opened her hand wide like a broken machine, then closed it again. Her blood-soaked hand was shaking.
“…what are you doing?” (J)
The moment she wanted to pick up that large piece of glass with her uninjured finger, he suddenly lifted her hand into the air.
“What is this?” (J)
Anger buried within his voice before he repeated his question.
“I ask you what is this?” (J)
“I got hurt while cleaning up.” (S)
He grabbed the glass piece, threw it away, and forced her to stand up.
“Why would a sick person be doing this?” (J)
Woo Jin-ha gritted his teeth and made her sit down on top of the table. She thought about where the medicine box was, but he walked and right away found it and brought it over.
The piece of glass stuck within her finger was not that big.
He simply said it would be better to accurately pull out with tweezers first, disinfect the wound before going to the hospital but she ignored his words, applied ointment, and put on a bandage. But when it instantly got soaked with blood, he looked displeased again.
But she just looked at his face and didn’t do anything. Nonetheless, the silence became uncomfortable, so she got up from her seat.
“Go and lie down. Don’t think about cleaning up.” (J)