71. I’ll let you go
“… It’s meaningless. I’ll pretend that I never heard it.”
Sun said, suppressing her emotions.
“Sun…..”
Ojae felt frustrated and tried to speak something more.
‘Bang.’
Then, with the sound of the door opening, Gyeonhui entered the room.
“Gye, Gyeonhui…”
Gyeonhui looked at the two of them alternately when he saw Ojae’s awkward body language.
“You didn’t say anything stupid to her, did you?”
“No, I would never do that, you know me.”
Ojae responded urgently, looking at Sun.
A gaze from Ojae communicated that it was a secret between Ojae and Sun.
“Oh, I’ve got some work to do. I’ll let you talk.”
Ojae departed awkwardly and left the room.
When Gyeonhui heard the door closing, he slowly turned his head and looked at her.
“… Mrs. Shin is gone. You can leave now.”
He struggled to speak with his pale face, but she only looked at him without moving an inch.
His left cheek was swollen and blushed like he had been hit.
She unwittingly clenched her hands while holding the scarf.
Gyeonhiu soon noticed the red scarf in her hand.
“That’s…” His face slowly sank.
“… Why didn’t you throw it away?” Sun asked in a brazen tone.
Looking at her scarf, he slowly raised his head and looked at her.
“I couldn’t throw it away. I thought that it was you.”
Hearing him, Sun’s eyes shook, but she soon put her scarf down on the bed.
“… Throw it away, please.”
She walked and tried to pass him after saying the end of her words.
“I have just one question.”
Hearing him, she stopped.
He slowly started speaking toward her back as she froze in place.
“… On the day of the accident, you said you wanted to be with me.” His words instantly made her remember everything about that day. “Did something happen to you on that day?”
The anniversary of her father’s death, the rain, and the dark, depressing atmosphere surrounded her.
When she calmed her mind by closing her eyes, she slowly started speaking again.
“… No. Nothing happened.”
“Lies…”
Her eyes fluttered.
“Something is going on with you that day. Why didn’t you tell me?”
He cried out, frustrated.
Her expression was even more hardened.
Sun had never spoken to him about her father.
She didn’t know how he found out about her father, but it didn’t matter.
Sun slowly turned and looked at him. “… If I were to tell you that, would we have acted differently?”
Seeing her painful eyes, he could not say anything.
“We’re already irremediable. There’s nothing left between us to fix. It’s best to stop here.”
“Well, then why did you come all the way here? You could have just not come.”
Hearing him, she stopped.
“… I’m regretting it.”
She hurriedly left the room like she wanted him not to see her shaking eyes.
His expression sank heavily as he watched her leave.
***
Sun came out of his house like she was running away.
She walked down a dark alleyway for a long time, but her steps were frantic.
It was only when she arrived under a broken street light that she stopped.
“Hah…”
She couldn’t remember how she left the stairs, the gardens in his house, and the alleyways.
She leaned back on the street light while hiding in the dark.
‘I couldn’t throw it away. I thought that it was you.’
She knew that he meant it, so it felt even more painful, and her heart grew heavier.
She pounded her chest.
“Why is it still painful, why is my heart so painful like a fool… why…”
Under the unbearable pain, she struck her chest continuously.
Her chest and her heart were getting more and more bruised.
She tried not to cry while biting her lips until she started bleeding.
Her breathing started to become unstable like it had lost its own rhythm, and she struggled with it even more.
A raindrop began to fall over her head while she was struggling to breathe.
***
‘Shuaa…’
Gyeonhui looked out the window like a statue.
After a while, Ojae stepped inside and carefully asked,
“… Where is she?”
Gyeonhui didn’t answer, but when Ojae saw his expression, Ojae understood the situation.
In an attempt to shift the awkward atmosphere, Ojae started speaking.
“Oh, you have no idea how on edge I was. I came inside here with the vice president, and I saw a pair of girl’s shoes at the entrance. I instinctively knew that they were hers and hid them. It would have been perfect if her phone hadn’t vibrated.”
Ojae continually talked, but Gyeonhui’s expression seldom unraveled.
Ojae asked him with a bitter expression while exhaling a slight sigh.
“… But how did Sun come here?” Gyeonhui slowly started speaking with a firm expression.
“… I called her.”
“What?!”
Ojae’s eyes widened in amazement.
“I thought it was a dream.” He exhaled a shallow sigh while furrowing his eyebrow.
“But did she really come here because of your call? Is there any change going on in her mind?”
“… No, it’s not like that.”
Gyeonhui shook his head while recalling her heavily sunk eyes.
‘… If I were to tell you that, would we have acted differently? We’re already irremediable. There’s nothing left between us to fix. It’s best to stop here.’
Gyeonhui could feel that she really meant it.
“Hah…”
Then his body stumbled because of sudden dizziness.
Gyeonhui exhaled a shallow sigh, but soon, he frowned after feeling the sudden pain
“Are you okay?”
His head was too dizzy for him to hear any of the words that Ojae was urgently asking.
Gyeonhui looked even more unstable since he was so tall.
He then grabbed his chest.
Kung, kung, kung.’
It felt like somebody was hitting his chest with a sledgehammer.
The pain was terrible. He could not breathe properly.
“… It’s okay if it is just me that’s sick, but why are you in more pain than me…”
He clenched his teeth to endured the terrible pain.
His pale face became even paler
He barely turned his head and saw the scarf she had left behind.
Looking at it for a moment, he reached out and grabbed it.
It seemed like he was determined to do something, and he slowly turned around to leave the room.
“You have to rest…”
Gyeonhui left the room without answering Ojae.
“Gyeonhui!”
Only Ojae’s urgent voice echoed through the room.