High on You (Choi Do Il x Oh In Joo - Little Women 작은 아씨들)

11

He couldn't be.
He couldn't be there, right?
It couldn't be him.
In-joo blamed the three glasses of red wine she had drunk at dinner, they made her see things. But damn it, those things were as clear as day, and, most importantly, she wasn't drunk. Three glasses of wine had never been enough.
Before she knew it, she gathered her strength and bolted down the stairs, already on the lookout for a taxi. Her head was throbbing; if she'd had to imagine the state of her brain right now, she would've pictured it as a liquified substance inside a bone box sloshing like ocean waves trapped inside a glass pool. Every collision against the walls of the box felt like a punch. Eventually, she saw a driver approaching the sidewalk, she got in, told him the address, and went home.

She got into the elevator that led to her apartment looking like a ghost. It had been him. She quickly accepted that fact. She wasn't drunk. She wasn't high on anything. She would recognize Choi Do-il everywhere, even in a sea of people. He had come back, and he was probably staying at Gilded hotel, no less. Two years ago, she would have considered herself lucky because of that coincidence, but now? She wasn't that sure anymore.
In-joo had lost precious time while waiting for some sort of sign from him. If only he had been clearer about his intentions of not coming back anytime soon, she would probably have moved on earlier. Or probably not. She slapped her face. What am I gonna do if I see him again? The girl had reached her front door and leaned her forehead against it to find some refreshment. Perhaps a cold shower would make her see the situation from a different point of view, or it would only make things worse. What she was sure of was that she had to talk to someone about it. She pulled her house keys out of her clutch and opened the door. She set the bundle down on the rack in the hallway, took off her heels, put her slippers on, and untied the bracelet she wore around her wrist as she headed to the bedroom to change clothes. She gently placed the dress back in the closet – strangely enough, it hadn't gotten dirty. Then she threw herself onto the mattress with the same energy with which a child throws a stone into a lake, and she sank in exactly the same way too, given how soft the bed was. She paused to stare at the ceiling for a few minutes in an attempt to block out all thoughts and make a clean slate of the evening. Five minutes later, there was a knock at the bedroom door.
"Unni? Are you in there? Are you decent?"
"In-kyung-ah, c'mon in." In-joo had an arm over her eyes. In-kyung got near the bed and sat down beside her frame.
"You didn't say a word since you got in. How was the date?"
"Good, very good," In-joo admitted both to herself and her sister.
"I was afraid something had happened, you're... usually more talkative."
In-joo was wondering if her sister could be the first to know about her encounter or if she'd better wait for her therapy session.
"Something did happen, actually." In-kyung raised a leg over the edge of the bed, making herself more comfortable. She kept on watching her unni hide behind a wall made of her own flesh.
"Do tell."
"Choi Do-il-ssi is back."
"He's what now?" In-kyung asked, turning completely towards her sister, legs now entirely crossed on the bed. The scene made her think about when they were 14 years old, and she would listen to In-joo's first love stories.
"He's back. I saw him."
"Wh- How? Why?"
"I have no idea."
"You didn't talk, I guess then."
"I fled. As fast as I could."
"Oh, unni." In-kyung brushed her sister's forehead and gently moved her arm from her face to get a better look at her. She was red, and her eyes shone bright. The whys, however, could be many, and as a reporter, In-kyung had to think of all the possible implications. The redness could have been due to a rush up the stairs, after all, it had been a few minutes since she had entered, maybe In-joo still needed to calm down. But at the same time, it could have been anger – a fury so intense due to images of violence running through her sister's head. Or...
"What did you feel when you saw him, unni?" This was definitely a good question, which, however, In-joo could not really answer. Disbelief – that surely had been the first wave of feelings. Shock had followed shortly thereafter. And then.
"Embarrassment."
"How so?" her sister asked her genuinely.
In-joo finally sat up, taking the same position as her sister right in front of her. She began rubbing her fingers, then her fingernails, then she picked at a couple of hangnails, and a few drops of blood came out. In-kyung then, grabbed her hands and pinned them between her own.
"Unni."
"Because... Because he definitely saw me with Du-joon."
"And that's bad because..."
"Because I am stupid, In-kyung-ah." She forcibly removed her hands from her sister's lap and brought them back to her face. In-kyung couldn't tell if it was because she was crying or simply to avoid looking at her. "I shouldn't care. Yet, here I am. And the thing is..." she stopped, because what was going on in her head couldn't find a way out in the intelligible world. Words weren't enough to describe what she was feeling, but she tried anyway, because she felt like a ticking time-bomb about to explode.
"Thing is, I'm... exasperated. I'm hating my feelings. One moment I'm angry as hell, the next one I can't help but remember how close I felt we were, and then I just think about the fact that it was me thinking we were close and that I never knew any of his real thoughts. I know he helped us, but he'd always said he was there just for the money. Money drove him. Money was why we trusted him, In-kyung-ah. And I really don't understand how I got to the point where I thought we could have been... friends."
In-kyung had no reply to give her. She knew well enough how feelings worked or did not work. She scooted closer to her unni and wrapped her in a bear hug.

***

Do-il continued to do what he had come down from his hotel room to do. He had to find something to eat – anything. In-joo had left exactly as she had arrived, in a second it was all over, as if it hadn't even happened. The man began to run down the main street on which Gilded hotel was articulated, and soon he found himself in front of a 24-hour supermarket. He went in and bought a few bowls of instant noodles.
"It's 13,000 won." He took his wallet out of his pocket and handed the money to the cashier, who was already extending him the bag with the bowls inside. He walked out of the store and found himself as if lost in the Seoul night. Kind of like his first night as soon as he returned to Korea, but back then he had purpose: he had wanted to lose himself to appreciate the rawness of the city as if for the first time all over again. But that night? It wasn't intentional at all. He was wandering around, no clear destination in mind. He walked and walked until he realized that he was going in circles. Eventually, therefore, he found himself back to square one, with the only difference that he had lost his appetite.

***

"It's me," said Do-il at his mom's suite door. He still had the bag in his hands. "I bought some noodles, but I'm not that hungry anymore, do you want some late snack?" he continued after his omma had opened the door.
"You're not hungry? That is a first. Is everything alright?" she inquired while letting him in. He headed straight for the piano bar, put down the plastic bag, and went to have some water heated without his mother giving him an answer.
"Do-il-ah, what's going on? Did someone dig up something from... back then? Are you in trouble again?"
"It moves me to know that you have so much confidence in me," he bantered. But the little smile that had sprouted on his face quickly went away, and his eyes lowered slightly, veiled with an unusual sadness.
"What's going on then? Don't make me worry, just talk." The boy turned off the kettle and filled the bowls of noodles with boiling water. He picked them up and made his way to the living room, where he placed them on the coffee table, waiting to give them to his mother. The two of them sat down, his omma on the sofa and he on the cold floor, their backs resting against the couch seats.
"I saw someone just now."
"More like... you saw a ghost rather than a person, look how pale you are. Whiter than your shirt." She tried to make him smile again, but it was no use. Ahn So-young knew that when her son had thoughts on his mind, he could not help but brood over them until those were replaced with others. So she kept talking. "Do you want to talk about it, or shall we pretend you didn't tell me anything?"
"It was In-joo."
"Oh." Certainly, the timing was impeccable. They had only been on Korean soil for two days, and her son had already met the person he would more than willingly run away from.
"She was with someone else. I don't... I honestly don't know what to do, omma. By the way, he works here. He's the receptionist who accompanied us to the rooms."
"This just gets better and better," his mother commented. "Did you talk to her?"
"I didn't have the chance," he answered, but then he quickly added, "I don't know if I would've spoken to her even if I had the opportunity, though." His mother sighed heavily and slowly.
"I didn't raise you like this, you know, young man."
"How do you say 'I'm sorry for having disappeared for five years?' without making the other person furious, exactly?" he questioned.
"You don't. Or better, you do say that – those exact words – but don't expect her to accept them right away."
But Do-il had been positive up to that moment. "What if I meet her again, and I apologize just to have her dismiss it like it was nothing, though?" The possibility was real. She had a boyfriend. She had nice dresses now, she probably lived like a queen. As she should have, really. Why would she bother with him?
"She didn't seem like the type to dismiss anything to me."
But money changes you, thought Do-il.
"I'll figure something out, if that will ever happen again."
"I sure hope you will. You both deserve to know the truth, my boy. Be it good or bad for your heart."
"Omma..."
"Again? I've already told you not to 'omma' me when it's convenient to you, Do-il-ah. You know I'm right. I've watched you. I've watched her too, you know. But I reckon that some things might have changed in five years. If you'll ever see her again, I do hope you'll be brave enough to face the consequences of your actions."
When he had entered his mom's suite, he had expected comfort, understanding. But he guessed scolding a 36-year-old man was his mom's version of comforting him to make up for lost time.