81. Keep in Mind
In the afternoon at the café on the first floor of the Consencio building.
“Does Eunyoung not want to drink coffee?”
Sun brought two cups of coffee that Ari asked.
Ari nodded slowly, furrowing her eyebrows.
“She looked so serious today. Maybe it’s because of Ojae. I don’t know.”
Sun sat down with a shallow sigh.
“Hmm… what’s going on with her…” Ari repeated, not realizing the situation.
“… There are probably some special circumstances that we don’t know about.” Sun said like she understood Eunyoung.
“Yeah, I’m sure you are having a hard time too.”
Ari looked at Sun and clicked her tongue.
Sun turned her head with a bitter smile and looked out of the window.
“I want to know something.” Ari said.
“… I hear that a lot today.” Sun mumbled to herself weakly.
“From who else?”
“… No, nothing. What do you want to know?” Sun asked Air, changing the subject quickly.
“What part of Mr. Woo did you like?”
“What?”
“For me, the only thing I consider when I look for a man is the appearance. Unconditionally. However, I know that’s not what you would look for…” Ari looked at her again, seemingly bewildered. “What part of him exactly did you like?”
Ari looked at Sun and asked carefully. Sun was briefly locked in her thoughts and started speaking with a blank face.
“… He looked unhappy.”
“What?”
“He was handsome and pretended to be strong, but somehow, he looked as unhappy as I was.”
Sun continued, recalling Gyeonhui’s face when she met him for the first time at the meeting.
She remembered him yelling, screaming, accusing people, and treating people wrongly as if he were being chased by something.
“I just felt he was pretending to be okay like I was, but he was struggling to push the misery out of his way.” After pausing for a moment, Sun struggled to speak again. “So I thought maybe he would want at least one person in the world to know the pain that he held in his mind. Just like what I always wanted…”
Hearing Sun’s hard-to-speak words, Ari could no longer say anything.
“… but, I was mistaken. I wasn’t even able to handle my own pain.”
Smiling bitterly, she slowly turned her head and looked out the window.
The sunlight of the late afternoon caressed her face.
Because of that, her struggling expression unraveled.
Whenever she stayed still, her mind would be filled with thoughts about him.
To stop herself from doing so, she had to focus on work without thinking.
“… Let’s go back to the office.”
Sun rose from her seat, struggling to hide her sad expression.
***
‘Geeek.’
Gyeonhui carefully opened the door and entered the information center of the park. There was only one male employee inside of the center.
“Hello, welcome.”
The male employee looked at Gyeonhui and greeted him with an accommodating expression.
“I came here to check my time capsule, but I’ve forgotten the exact location of it,” Gyeonhui asked with an awkward look.
“Oh, okay. Wait a minute. May I have your name…”
“It’s Cheonsun.”
“Cheonsun… Cheonsun…”
The staff repeated her name and searched it through the system.
“I’m sorry, sir. There is no capsule under that name in the system.”
Gyeonhui shook his head in wonder.
“I don’t think so… Can you confirm it one more time with ‘Gyeonhui Woo’?” He asked again if there was any chance.
“Gyeonhui Woo…. Oh, yes. Here it is.”
Hearing the staff, Gyeonhui bitterly smiled.
“It’s here.”
The staff gave him a map and explained the location of the capsule.
“Thank you.”
When Gyeonhui checked the location, he turned and left the information center.
In the middle of the large park, there was only one large pine tree standing tall. The pine tree that had seen him three years ago still looked the same.
Stroking the pine tree with a bitter smile, he slowly stepped forward and headed to the circular marble area on the floor.
On top of the marble that was supposed to be pushed in, there was a small hole where keys could be inserted.
When Gyeonhui found the location where the staff directed him, he knelt down and inserted the key into the hole, and slowly turned it clockwise.
‘Geeek.’
Since it had been there for a long time, the keyhole was so stiff despite his firm grip.
After a while, as the lid opened with a loud thud, Gyeonhui carefully pulled out the barrel from inside.
Looking at it for a moment, he held up the barrel and headed to the bench next to the pine tree.
‘When the coffee tree blooms later, let’s come back here again together.’
Suddenly he remembered what she had said in the past.
“… I have not kept my promise again.”
In retrospect, she often used to say, “Together.”
Sun used to say that she would always be with him when she was eating something delicious, and when she saw something funny, or when she went to a good place.
Smiling bitterly, he closed his eyes and exhaled for a long time.
After calming down, he slowly opened the lid of the barrel and pulled out the small box she had put in the barrel.
He carefully opened the box and saw a small crocodile doll in the barrel.
“This is…”
It was a character doll that they designed and made together in the past. With a bitter smile, Gyeonhui looked back into the barrel.
“Huh?”
However, there was nothing inside of the barrel other than the doll.
He looked back at the doll while furrowing his eyebrows.
“Well, is that it? Is it the hidden meaning?”
It was a character that they designed and made together, but he didn’t know what it truly meant, or why she had put this in the barrel.
He rushed all the way to Gangwon province with a slim chance to find the hidden meaning, but he felt like he just obtained another puzzle to solve.
“Hah…”
Looking at the doll, he was outraged and sighed for a long time.
When he looked up at the sky, he realized that it was already going to be late in the afternoon soon.
With a firm expression, he was forced to return to the parking lot with the doll.
To be on time and not late for the dinner appointment with her, he had to diligently return to Seoul now.