Dry Monsoon

There was a fine crack that appeared in her straight brows. Ji-Eun said with her arms pulled out.

“Well, I’m exhausted.”

“Then, all the more why you should spend the night here.”

“How far are you going to interrupt my precious weekend? It’s still 9pm. If I go now, I can watch a movie and go to sleep.”

Kwon Lee-Hyun slowly clenched his fists at her nonchalant reaction. He felt numb as if the blood in his body wasn’t flowing. Something was wrong. Her reaction wasn’t what he had expected, but it was extremely like Lee Ji-Eun.

Lee Hyun, who was complicated by strange emotions, got up from the table and faced her.

“If you have to go, I will go with you. I’ll take you. I can’t let you go alone.”

With that said he walked back to the bedroom. Ji-Eun yelled behind him.

“I’m not a child and besides, it’s only 9…”

Taking off his robe Lee-Hyun took a deep breath as if to keep his rising irritation down and turned his head towards her. Ji-Eun was quick to notice everything. Sensing that Lee-Hyun was annoyed, she smiled awkwardly and said,

“Sorry for being so edgy.”

“We’re not enemies. We are business partners. Earlier…I was overly sensitive. I’m sorry about that.” Lee-Hyun said to her.

She smiled at him with raised brows at his unexpected answer. Her smile was like a flower that had been firmly embroidered about to burst. He almost laughed seeing her reaction.

“When you said that I picked up every word…you’re talking about that?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not a great feeling, but…”

It was unpleasant for Lee-Hyun to skip a shower, but Lee Ji-Eun would definitely leave the room if he were to go and take one. She was different from his men. She wasn’t a doll who would wait around whenever you told her to…

What the hell was he thinking?

Lee-Hyun, who was stunned by the continuous thoughts running through his head, closed his mouth and placed a jacket on his arm.

After he finished getting ready, he approached her. She was standing in front of the painting on the wall in the living room. It was Paul Gauguin’s latest work, a man who admired nature and barbarism. Unlike the attitude of an appreciator, Ji-Eun stared at the woman in a red dress in the picture.

“No matter how I look at it, she doesn’t look like Maria to me at all.” She said.

He closed his cuffs and turned his gaze to the picture hanging on the wall.

“Nothing is more subjective than art.”

“Is this painting genuine?”, she asked.

“I don’t think so.”

She nodded and left the room first. He quietly followed her and noticed she was a head smaller than him.

“I didn’t think you would be here the whole time. I told the secretary to take you back home.”

The footsteps of the two permeate the luxurious carpet. Lee Hyun pressed the elevator button and put his hand in his pocket.

“Oh, I ate all the abalone porridge because it was so delicious, and after that, I was super sleepy. So accidentally I fell asleep.”

Each time she scratched her temple, the bright red dot appeared and disappeared repeatedly. Feeling his scorching gaze, she raised her head and coughed with an awkward look on her face. The silence disappeared only after the elevator arrived.

“Before, you told me not to do anything like pity you.” he broke the stillness.

As if she had thought about it for a while, her voice continued with the topic calmly.

“I did.”

“It may sound like an excuse, but I didn’t pity you.”

Entering the elevator felt like stepping into space. There was a feeling akin to floating in the dark. Lee-Hyun waited silently for her to continue her story.

“A few years ago, I went to the Middle East with Professor Seo Chang-Jae as an assistant. It was a collaboration project between the professor and the office.” She continued.

“If it was Professor Seo, it must have been a reconstruction project for the environmental centre.”

“Yes, it was. But while I was in the Middle East for about ten months, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. However, she didn’t tell me and went into treatment for cancer alone. It wasn’t a big operation because it had only been stage 1 cancer, but she had parts of her breasts removed along with chemotherapy. To make matters worse, her maternal grandfather passed away during her cancer treatment. But I wasn’t there to comfort my mom. I was so busy with work. People like us always say the same thing. Be strong…I’ll be back soon. In the end, my schedule didn’t work out, so I arrived back in Korea on the third day, long after the funeral was over… Well, that day, I met my mom in the emergency room at the hospital, and they said she was brought there because she overdosed on her sleeping pills.”

He clasped her trembling fingertips with his large hand. With a faint smile, she continued, staring straight ahead.

“She wasn’t the same mother I knew. After only a year, she became a completely different person. It wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been so greedy and just stayed in Korea. She struggled with terrible depression, and I was aware of it. I couldn’t express my guilt in words. So, I went to see my father. I knew the underlying cause of her depression. And now, I’m paying the price for using my father’s wealth to enrich my mother’s life. For me, my mother’s happiness is the relief from my guilt.”

The elevator reached the lobby at high speed, floated lightly, and then finally stopped. It felt like time was passing by slowly.