“What do you think? Can you stop thinking about the elephants?”
“… Oh, that’s… the more I tried not to think about it, the more they just kept appearing in my head.” Sun smiled awkwardly and answered honestly.
Eunwoo smiled at her and nodded like he had expected it.
“That’s how thought works. It comes back to you stronger the more you try to force it out of you.”
Sun looked at Eunwoo as he calmly explained to her.
“The more difficult the memories you have or the more people you want to forget, the more clearly you think about them.”
“Hmm…”
It was only then that Sun could see why Eunwoo had talked about an elephant all of a sudden.
With a bitter smile, Sun nodded slowly.
“… You’re right. Hah…” She said.
Sun exhaled a shallow sigh unwittingly. Eunwoo gave the leash that he was holding to her.
“Well, here it is.”
“Huh?”
“Sometimes, it would be more helpful to focus on some other things.”
Reading his intentions, she slowly nodded.
“And Labong needs to walk more because Labong is so energetic.”
“Ruff, Ruff!”
Labong barked as if he had answered. Sun looked at him with an apologetic expression.
“… Thank you. Always.”
“I’ve got only one friend, you Sun.”
“I feel sorrier for you,” Sun said with an awkward smile.
Then, Labong tried to run in excitement.
Because of that, Sun’s arm was pulled away from her body since the leash was dragged away.
“Ouch…”
She felt a sudden pain in her shoulder and screamed at that moment.
“What’s wrong? Did you get hurt?” Eunwoo asked, worried.
“Oh, no, it’s nothing. I was hit by something, but I’m fine.”
Sun quickly hid her expression of pain and showed him that she could stretch her arms easily.
She still had slight pain, but she smiled and tried to relieve his worry.
“Ruff, Ruff!”
Labong continued to bark toward her, seemingly expecting to go for a walk for a long time.
“I have to go. I don’t want to wake all my neighbors.” She said, smiling awkwardly.
“Go on.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She turned after she said goodbye to him.
Eunwoo stood there and watched her back leave his sight.
“Hey, go slowly, Labong.”
Such a small dog was leading her and almost ran down the alley because of Labong’s quick pace. She could have pulled on the leash to force Labong to walk slowly next to her, but she didn’t do that. How she treated even small animals well was all conveyed to Eunwoo.
Eunwoo watched her back with a smile as she went away.
“… The more I see you, the more I can’t give you up.”
Eunwoo exhaled a slight sigh toward the sky, seemingly frustrated.
He tapped his cheeks and went into the hospital.
***
‘Eeerk!’
On a secluded road, Gyeonhui hurriedly pulled over his car after feeling the pain on his shoulder.
“Ugh…”
He frowned and massaged his right shoulder with his left hand.
He almost let go of the steering wheel when he suddenly felt a soreness, but he was more concerned about what had happened to her.
He picked up his phone and looked for his contacts as if he were calling her right away.
He saw the number that was stored in his phone as number sixteen. He was only looking at the phone, but he couldn’t make the call.
“Hah…” He was distressed and frustrated, but he could only hold his fists while clenching his teeth. “… It’s right to let her go.”
It was his determination that made him promise to himself more than a thousand times in the past week.
It was the commitment that he had made within his mind every night when he visited her place. However, the more he tried, the more her memory filled up his mind.
“… I just have to put up with it for a week. Just a week.”
He mumbled to himself like he had hypnotized himself.
Her pain might have disappeared after a week if he just had the blood transfusion.
“If that happens, I will be able to forget… Hah…”
He couldn’t say the last word.
He had never acted without knowing the right answer. However, this time, it seemed much more challenging to do the right thing.
“What do I have to do…”
He put his head on the steering wheel and sighed deeply.
Then, a memory that came to his mind.
***
Two years ago, in the living room of Gyeonui’s place.
Sun was moving a large pot.
“What are you doing?” Gyeonhui was dressed in a shirt to go to work as he looked at her and asked.
“I’m replacing the pot for this tree.”
“Replacing?”
“Yes, the pot looks too small.”
With a smile on her face, Sun moved the coffee tree from a small flower pot into a bigger one.
“Let Ojae do it.”
“No. I want to do it.”
She covered the tree with soil very carefully as if she were caring for a child.
“Why are you so devoted to the tree?” Gyeonhui asked in doubt.
“Hmm,” she said. She paused for a moment and caught her breath like she remembered her old memory. She then started speaking again, “When I was in my first year of high school, my biology teacher suddenly gave me the beans and said. ‘The coffee tree is also known as the thousand-day flower because it blooms only once every three years. Maybe by then, you’re going to be a senior in high school. Until then, I hope your life will bloom just as the flowers bloom on this tree’.”
Sun said, mocking the teacher’s voice.
“… You’re silly.” Gyeonhui frowned.
“I know, but it looked great to me. Since he was the only male teacher in the school, I have raised it carefully since that day. However, no matter how much I cared about other trees, they died without even a single bloom or leaf. You have no idea how much I cried at that time… It was like I was rejected by a boy after I had confessed my love to him.”
Sun smiled as she recalled herself being silly and childish.
“So, I finally gave up on it.”
“So, do you raise this tree because of the teacher?” He asked, seemingly disgusted.
“Wait a minute, are you jealous of him?”
“What? No!”
“I guess you’re not.” She smiled and looked at him. She soon started speaking again with a shallow sigh.
“But a while ago, one of my dad’s friends contacted me. He said he cleaned up the farm that my father used to manage. When I asked him about the farm, I still didn’t know about it. My dad secretly raised coffee trees for me. My dad wanted to show his daughter the flowers of the coffee tree.”
Sun’s eyes were tearing up because of the old memories.
“My dad’s friend said that he couldn’t send the whole tree to me, so he only sent the fruit to me because the trees just had come to fruition.”
“Well, then this is…”
“… Yes… This is my dad’s love for me…” She smiled bitterly and looked up at him once her face brightened. “And there’s another hidden meaning to it.”
“Hidden meaning? What’s that?” He asked.
“I’ll let you know later.”
“Later?”
“We’re supposed to go to the city of Jeongsun soon. I’ll tell you when we go there.”
Sun smiled and held his arm. She leaned her head over his shoulder and started speaking again.
“If the story about the coffee tree that my teacher told me is true, then this tree will bloom a flower after a thousand days. I really hope to see and enjoy it with you when the time comes.”
With a happy smile, she held his hand tightly.