Sun struggled. After calming down and looking at Gyeonhui again, she spoke, “We have to break up precisely because we have no reason to continue it any further.”
Hearing her cold words, Gyeonhui’s eyes were shaken.
“… It’s easy for you.”
“No, it was never easy.” She looked at him with calm eyes. “You have no idea what I was going through while I was walking the trail in Santiago. I wanted to die, but I still hung in there and went through the pain all by myself. I walked all the way until the end with all my might to forget about you. How dare you tell me that it was easy for me. It’s easy for you to tell me to break up and start the relationship again.”
Hearing her resentful words, Gyeonhui also felt frustrated.
“Let’s make one thing clear. Deciding to break up with me was easy for you. I only told you to wait…”
He accidentally said although he didn’t mean it.
He shut his mouth quickly, but it was too late.
“Haha.” She was outraged and burst out with a smile. “You told me to wait until you return to me, but that’s worse than telling me to break up with you. You have no right to accuse me. What you did to me stabbed me and forced me to bear the pain. You waited for me, hoping that I would get impatient and finally tell you to break up before you do so because you don’t want to get the blame.”
“…. That’s not what I meant.”
“… Maybe you didn’t.”
She tried to be as calm as possible. After catching her breath, she started speaking again. “No matter what happened, I’m fine now. I’ve forgotten all about you, and I’ll be moving on, so let’s stop this.” She grabbed her bags and said, “I appreciate what you did today, and please don’t call me anymore.”
She stood up from her seat without hearing Gyeonhui’s answer.
‘Dring.’
She left the cafe with the doorbell sound.
He wanted to stop her at that moment, but he couldn’t.
“Hah…”
He felt his heart shatter as he struggled to breathe.
“Why did I say that to her… aww…”
He terribly regretted what he just told her. However, he couldn’t take it back anymore.
He just wished to stop her suffering. He was so frustrated and took out the doll from his bag.
The doll that didn’t know anything was smiling at him.
It seemed like he could see her smiling face over the doll’s face.
He clenched the doll by biting his lower lip painfully.
However, at the moment, he heard some strange sounds from somewhere near him.
“Ah, ah.”
Hearing the clearing of his throat, he was surprised and took a look around in the cafe.
However, he was the only one there in the cafe.
“What was that?”
It was like a ghost was possessing him.
“Ah, ah.”
He heard the same sound again. This time, he figured out where the sound was coming from. It was from the doll that he was holding in his hand.
He looked at the doll quietly.
It was a doll that had a recorder on its chest with a button. Since he squeezed it so hard, he must have accidentally activated the recording.
“No way…”
Gyeonhui carefully reached out to the doll and pushed the button.
“Ah, ah. Hello Gyeonhui, it’s me.”
The quality of the sound wasn’t excellent, but it was definitely her voice.
His face became grave.
“When you hear this voice message, I’m sure the coffee flower has bloomed? How much more will we love each other at that time?
He recalled her happy face. While he was listening to the voice message and he exhaled a slight sigh while closing his eyes.
‘Waiting for you felt like you’re stabbing me with a knife and forcing me to bear the pain.’
She only expected love and happiness from him, but what he did in return was something awful.
He felt so sorry for her.
“Wait, you said, you wanted to know the hidden meaning of the coffee tree? I’ll tell you now why I wanted to see the flower so bad.”
After pausing a moment, her voice flowed. Gyeonhui paid attention to the voice recording after exhaling a shallow sigh.
“The language of the coffee flower is ‘love even your pain.’ I would like to love you, even your pain, for many years to come.”
While listening to her voice, his face became even more hardened.
“I don’t want to forget my love for you, so I’m putting it into the time capsule. Am I still loving you in the future?”
He couldn’t answer the question that had just been flung to him. At that moment, he recalled something that Sun had told him in the past.
“Was this the reason…?”
He didn’t know what to say; he could only clench his fist. His face distorted because of his memory that came to mind in hindsight.
When he raised his head up, he ran out of the cafe.
He started running towards her.
68. Even your pain
Last year, winter.
“It’s been more than 1,000 days…”
Sun mumbled to herself while looking at the coffee tree for a while.
It had been more than 1,000 days, but there was no sign of a blooming flower from the tree at all.
“Is the flower really going to bloom? Are you sure?
Hearing Gyeonhui’s careless question, she slowly nodded.
“I really wanted to see it…”
She had a sullen face as she spoke to him. Gyeonhui did not really care about it much, and he was only looking at the documents in his hand.
“Didn’t you say that the coffee flower has a special meaning to it?”
After hearing his question, she became excited and approached him quickly with a smile.
“I didn’t realize that you still remembered it.”
“Well, you said it was very important to you,” Gyeonhui answered nonchalantly.
She then started speaking slowly with a smile on her face. “The language of the coffee flower is to ‘love even your pain.’
“What kind of meaning is that?”
“Why? Isn’t that so cool?”
Gyeonhui only furrowed his eyebrows like he couldn’t understand it.
“Like ‘loving someone forever’ or ‘loving someone until the day I die,’ I really couldn’t feel anything from them because they sound like something impossible. However, ‘love even your pain’ sounded like something I can start doing realistically. That’s why I liked it.”
She wrapped his arm with her arms and looked at him with affection.
“… I love you, even your pain. I really mean it.”