***
“Is it already time to go home?” Eunyoung said after confirming the time.
“Yes, it’s time to go home,” Ari said, pouting her lips like she still felt terrible about getting yelled at a while ago.
Watching Ari doing so, Eunyoung smiled. She then slowly approached and held her shoulder.
“Why are you doing this?” Ari said.
“Because I like you.”
“Don’t lie to me. I’m the one who causes trouble all the time.”
“No, you’re not a troublemaker. I’m so happy to have you here.”
“I don’t believe you,” Ari complained about it, but she seemed to loosen up a little. Her tone softened a lot more than before.
“I’m honestly worried about Sun so much. All I did was just try to help her. I’m not sure why you are always hard on me all the time.”
“I know. I understand.” Eunyoung said while stroking Ari’s head. “But when it comes to someone’s wound, you need to have more patience. If you try to fix it, they get hurt more.”
“Hmm…”
“Just give her some more time and wait for her until she gets over it herself.”
After a moment of thought, Ari nodded slowly, agreeing with Eunyoung.
“Well, why don’t you go home and rest? I still have some work left.”
“Okay, then I’ll go home without refusing your generous suggestion.” Ari grabbed her bag quickly and tried to leave the office. “Oh, wait.” Ari stopped for a moment at the door and then turned to look at Eunyoung.
“In that sense, I hope you can overcome yours too. Quickly. You can do it!”
Ari clenched her fists cutely and disappeared like she was running away.
“You little…!” Eunyoung smiled and sat down again. “Hah…”
There was no one in the office other than the sound of a ticking clock.
Eunyoung felt her mind had emptied at that moment. While smirking, she shook her head and went back to work, looking at the monitor.
‘Knock. Knock.’
Eunyoung was surprised by the strange knocking sound, so she looked up.
The person who came in when the door opened was Ojae.
“Hmm. Hmm.” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Are you alone?”
“Yes, how can I help you?” Eunyoung didn’t even look at him and asked him in a blunt tone.
“Well, do you have a minute to talk?”
“No. As you can see, I’m busy.”
“Oh…” Ojae nodded, feeling rejected. He paused for a moment, and suddenly, he approached her. “Well, take this. It will warm you up.”
He put a paper bag on her desk and fled the office.
“Hey, hey! Mr. Kwon!”
She called him when she saw the bag, but Ojae had already left the office.
With a slight sigh, Eunyoung looked inside the bag he had left behind.
It contained a Korean sausage soup with rice that had just been wrapped to be taken out.
“Really? Sundae-kukbob?” Eunyoung smiled incredulously. She shook her head and looked back at the door that he had left. “Why are you doing this…”
Looking at the soup for a moment, she sat down, unwrapped the soup, and lifted the spoon.
As the hot broth went into her body, her whole body felt warm.
“… I’m sure I’ll be warm like you said.” A slight smile formed on her face eventually.
***
When Sun left the taxi, she walked down the alley slowly and weakly.
Gyeonhui’s wound was all about him being abandoned by his mother and his troubled relationship with his grandfather and mother.
His wounds that she had known about for just over a few days were more awful than the time she had spent during the last three years of their relationship.
“Hah…” She sighed for a long time.
Then headlights fell upon her. She looked at the car while covering her eyes.
A short time later, the car door opened, and a tall man came down. He slowly approached her.
“… Cheonsun.”
The only man that would know her full name. It was Gyeonhui.
She looked up at him silently with a firm expression.
“I told you to wait. Why did you leave…”
“I’m tired.”
Gyeonhui frowned when she interrupted his words.
“What?”
“Waiting for you. I’m tired of doing that. I don’t want to do it anymore!”
Realizing the true meaning of her words, he clenched his molars.
“This is different than before. There was a situation I had to go to… Hah…” Hearing his own words, which sounded like an excuse, he quickly shut his mouth. “Get in the car. I need to talk with you.”
He tried to hold her hand, but she refused. “If you want to say something, do it right here.” She looked up at him and asked boldly.
He struggled to press down the anger in his mind and slowly started to speak again.
“Let’s have a cup of coffee. That’s it.”
“Coffee?”
“Yes. Coffee.”
“… Do you really want to have coffee in this situation?”
She said, unable to grasp his logic.
He paused for a moment, and he looked at her again. He strengthened the volume of his voice and struggled to speak to her again.
“… I’ve been thinking about you.” His calm voice was conveyed to her. “Dealing with this breakup was the most challenging thing I have ever done. I miss the times when we had a cup of coffee and talked!”
Her eyes shook because of the honesty that he conveyed to her without missing anything.
He looked at her with his eyes welling up.
“I thought drinking a cup of coffee with you felt like a routine. When I spent my time with you, it felt like you depended on me at that time… at least that’s what it felt like to me.”
He seemed to be lost in his thoughts and blurred the end of his words. He quickly spoke again.
“When I broke up with you, everything that we did, all of it turned into nothing.” His bitter smile clearly reminded him of his regret.
With the feeling of his sinking heart falling endlessly, a burning sensation consumed his chest.
84. It’s so easy for you
“It was so obvious… but…”
His words kept hovering in her ears.
There was a particular time in their relationship when meeting, talking, and spending time together was an obvious thing for them to do whenever they meet.
Once she woke up, she would check her phone, and the text he had sent the night before always made her heart warm like the bright sunshine in the morning.
‘Gyeonhui, did you sleep well last night?’
Whenever she asked, his answer would always be the same.
‘I’m getting ready to go to work.’
Even his careless answers every day still became a happy memory.
Listening to his voice every morning was a part of her schedule every day, and it was the few happy moments she would do to start the day. However, the things she had once expected to make her happy would all crumble into dust.