Remember 1999

Chapter 24 - Cry Together

The engine stopped running just before Ye Jin arrived near the old telephone booth, thus forcing Ye Jin to get out of the car. The wind arose with a shriek on her ears while the rain rushed down, slant lines of silver tearing through her skin. The water reached her knees as she descends on the road. She was in a middle of a vast body of water and the sight could have terrified a stranger. Fortunately, she was so familiar with the place that she could spot the road and the field. 

In the process of raising her travel bag above her head to secure it away from the flood, which also served as a shield from the raging storm, she dropped her cellphone accidentally in the water. The old telephone booth served as her mark on what road to ascend and when she turned uphill, the water dropped to her lower legs. With that, she managed to run until she reached the front yard of a house where a mobile patrol was waiting. The house was in a mess when she went inside. A man was trying to assist an old woman while another man was trying to pacify a young woman who was resisting his hold. When the latter saw Ye Jin, she ran to her.

"Eon-nie!"

She clung to her while crying ignoring how wet she was. She was Hyo Jin no doubt, she thought. And the man was Lee Seung Gi.

"Ye Jin! You're all wet! Change your clothes first or you'll get sick," he told her, lines of worry formed on his face.

She smiled at him shortly telling him she would. She lifted Hyo Jin's face from her chest first up and mumbled softly:

"Hyo Jin, everything's alright. Don't cry. Eonnie will dry up first okay? Wait for me."

She left her once she calmed down and disappeared into one of the rooms. Her clothes in her bag were probably wet and so she settled for one of Hyo Jin's dresses and pulled a gray cardigan over. Hyo Jin was fidgeting in the middle room when Ye Jin appeared.

"We have to go now, Hyo Jin. We need to leave this place." 

Ye Jin pulled Hyo Jin's hand but she stayed rooted in her place.

Hyo Jin stared at her intently, "But... are we not going to wait for Tae Pyung-oppa?"

Hearing her mention his name, Ye Jin was suddenly at a loss for words.

"We waited for him every summer, right? This year... he will come this year."

Ye Jin heaved sharply, and when she did speak, it was slow and with a voice, controlled only by an effort to conceal her emotions: "Tae Pyung-oppa... will never come back, Hyo Jin." She was looking somewhere else when she said that. And there was a truth in it.

For ten years...

Every summer...

They waited...

But he never arrived. He had even changed his name. How would he even thought of coming here? she thought. And even if he did, he was no longer Tae Pyung but Hyun Bin. For her, it felt like when she was trying to remember him, he tried to forget. 

"So..." she continued in difficulty, "Let's go," Ye Jin said with an air of finality.

Ye Jin expected her to sulk and cry but to her surprise, Hyo Jin squeezed her hand softly. For the first time in ten years, it seemed like Hyo Jin understood her as if she was a sensible woman, not a wandering child. And it was what Ye Jin really needed that moment.  

Seung Gi passed an umbrella to Ye Jin and she embraced Hyo Jin out of the house while Seung Gi and another man assisted Hyo Jin's grandmother carefully. It occurred to Ye Jin later on, that Seung Gi was with his brother Lee Min Ho. They cramped themselves on the mobile patrol, at least ten of them. The plastic rain shield of the car fought against the wind. The flood was rising dramatically. At this rate, the water down the road would be on above their thighs now.