Wind of Change (Crash Landing On You fanfic)

Part 5

It might have been some consolation to the Malaysian cellist to know that Jeong-hyeok had forgotten his colleague. He was not, at that moment, thinking about anything or anyone except himself.

While everything had been going on, it had not hurt. He'd experienced this before with injuries – when you were in the midst of the fight, adrenaline protected you from feeling their full impact. It was only now he was alone, freed from the obligation to perform, that the pain hit.

It was overwhelming. He paused to steady himself against a wall, but this proved to be a mistake. He was in the city centre, surrounded by a stream of humanity, and a passerby stopped to ask if he was all right.

"I'm OK," said Jeong-hyeok. He tried to smile. This was another bad idea.

The passerby was a middle-aged woman with a kindly, worried face. She looked even more worried.

"Can I help you in any way?" she said. "I could call an ambulance?"

"No, no, I'm fine," said Jeong-hyeok. "Thank you. You are very kind."

He kept walking, since that seemed the best way to avoid drawing attention, though he had nowhere to go. Normally, he would be off to their house by now, like a homing pigeon.

Their house? Se-ri's house. He would have to start thinking of her as a separate being, and of himself simply as someone she used to know.

He couldn't make sense of the cruelty of it. That was what hurt the most, even more than knowing their love was at an end, that Se-ri had moved on. She had always been, to him, everything that was most tender and honourable. The idea that she was not the person he'd thought her was intolerable.

He'd told her before that he would be fine if she forgot him, so long as she was happy, but Jeong-hyeok knew this for the pitiable lie it was now. Se-ri was the bedrock of his life. That she loved him gave everything meaning.

Se-ri had to know this. And yet she had flaunted her new man in front of him, displayed the product of their love – when a family was all Jeong-hyeok longed for, when he had grieved over the fact he would never have a child.

No. He was being unjust. They used to talk about their future, as lovers do – the house they would live in, what they would do, the number of children they would have – but that sort of conversation had been forbidden for a long time. Jeong-hyeok had never told Se-ri of how the sorrow of their childlessness crept on him, growing worse year on year. It was one of the many things he could never put into words, that their fragile equilibrium could not bear the weight of.

Who was he to blame her for what she had done? What kind of love had he offered her, after all? He told her not to be lonely, then left her alone for most of the year. He could promise her nothing more than the two weeks they had here. Those two weeks were ecstatic – for Jeong-hyeok, they were worth living for – but they were not life. That took place in Se-ri's everyday, the existence she chronicled in the diaries she wrote for him – an existence from which he was barred.

He had been blocking her from having a normal life for years.

It was becoming easier to think, the first frenzy of pain subsiding. It wasn't like Se-ri could have left the baby behind, Jeong-hyeok told himself. It could not be more than three months old, at most – because she hadn't been pregnant when she came to Switzerland last year. He would stake his life on that. Se-ri wouldn't have come to him from another man. She would not have betrayed him that way.

It must have happened after their last meeting. Immediately afterwards? Yes, because she would have been sad – hollowed out, the way Jeong-hyeok was when he had to leave her. It was harder to part from her every year.

Se-ri suffered too, he had never doubted that. What was more natural, more understandable, than that she should have sought comfort?

She didn't need to bring along the man in whom she'd found it, Jeong-hyeok thought. But here, too, there was a ready answer. Se-ri needed help with the baby, of course. Probably she had not even known Jeong-hyeok was going to be at that event.

Remembering, he saw again the light in her face as she looked up at the man. The agony this provoked was savage, as physical and inescapable as a bullet tearing through flesh.

Se-ri would not have meant to rub her new happiness in his face. He clung to that. She had come because she thought he deserved a proper farewell, in person. She could have left a message for him, but Se-ri wouldn't have wanted to do that. She would have wanted to respect their time together.

That was like her. It must have been a considerable journey to undertake with an infant, and she would hardly have been looking forward to its end. She must still care for him, to some extent. She would know how hard he would take the news.

Jeong-hyeok was calmer now. Not having to think ill of Se-ri was so much better than the alternative that it felt like relief.

Only now that internal battle was over – now he'd succeeded in justifying her to his satisfaction – it left Jeong-hyeok with nothing to do but face the fact that Se-ri did not need him anymore. It was time for him to pass out of her life.

He should have known this would happen some day. Their relationship made no sense on any level. It was only the best and most beautiful part of himself – the secret joy at the heart of his life, that illuminated all the rest. And it was over.

When his phone started buzzing in his pocket, it took him a couple of tries to get it out. His body didn't seem entirely to understand that it was not dead.

Evidently the phone had decided to start working again. There were multiple new notifications for texts and emails that appeared to have been sent hours ago.

And then he saw the messages from Se-ri. It seemed she had received his text after all.

Can't wait to see you. What's your itinerary? I could come and meet you if you've got a free slot?

You looked great just now. We would've arrived earlier if I knew you were going to be at the party.

Home now. What do you want for dinner? We need to talk.