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

14

Five years of not seeing each other and raising two fingers was the best he could do.
Oh, for fuck's sake, Do-il. If there hadn't been so many people around him and both sisters staring at him, he would have slapped himself so hard in the face, for real this time.

At the same time, In-kyung had pulled herself up and was watching the exchange of glances between the two. From an outside perspective, it could almost be mistaken for a comic scene, but In-kyung could imagine what was going through her sister's mind at the moment. Do-il-ssi had his usual inscrutable look, while In-joo had become something close to a marble statue, with her eyes wide open and lips slightly parted in a tiny 'O'. She was beyond shocked. In-kyung tried to gain her sister's attention once more.
"Unni?" She poked In-joo's left thigh with her finger, "unni what do we do? Do we yell at him, or do we flee again?"
The question seemed to snap the older sister out of her trance-like state because she turned around again, completely facing the reporter. The light in her eyes had changed: her pupils were fixed into In-kyung's and her forehead wasn't smooth anymore, deep thinking lines marred her skin.
"In-kyung-ah, hear me out," she began, "we are going to say hi. Then... are you okay with leaving on your own?"
"Of course I am. I don't need a babysitter anymore."
"Then... you'll fake a forgotten date, and you'll leave. I need to do this alone. I have to do this alone, for goodness' sake, I'm 35 years old, I can manage. I'm independent. I'm strong enough. I've come to love challenges. I just need to think of this situation as one, right?" Her eyes darted toward the floor for about a millisecond. Still, her sister noticed the movement.
"Right. Then, let's go, or the wait will just make this weirder." She was getting up from the stool when she was reminded of something she'd said just a few days earlier, so she stepped in front of In-joo again and grabbed her wrist. "Unni, just promise me that this doesn't change anything. You still need to move on somehow to find your happy ending. I don't care how or with whom, just make sure to leave everything that happened in the past where it actually belongs. Alright?" In-joo gave her a little smile, took her hand, and squeezed it.
"Let's go."

She was much more regal than he remembered. His memories didn't do her justice. Her back was straighter than he remembered it, and she looked taller, too. When Do-il saw that the two sisters were coming closer, he stood up to greet them. That was the right thing to do, right? He wasn't sure, but he guessed that a polite greeting was better than outright ignoring them. Why was his heart pumping so furiously against his chest?
"Long time no see," quipped In-kyung. Her tone was already speaking volumes, and if she was pissed – the girl had barely had anything to do with the ex-money laundering expert back in the days – he couldn't even begin to imagine how In-joo might be feeling.
"Indeed, In-kyung-ssi," he quickly replied, then greeted the silent sister, "In-joo-ssi." Only then did she raise her head, and his eyes met with hers and stayed there.

He was there, like really there, and he was talking to her with his usual deep voice, he had not changed one bit. The man who had save her life. The man who had made her think he was a friend, and perhaps something else. If she closed her eyes, she could still feel the warmth of his hands hovering over her skin. But he was also the man who had only cared about money at the very end. He was the man who had disappeared from the face of the earth in less than a minute, but In-joo couldn't really blame him for that. In fact, she was probably the one who had imagined every single moment of their closeness. Neither of them had ever uttered a word about it, so her anger found no real justification. Suddenly she felt as insecure and flustered as she had felt the first time he'd come into her old office.
"Choi Do-il-ssi."
In-kyung tightened her grip on In-joo's hand and then let go. She looked at her watch and told her sister, "Incoming call, sorry," and started rummaging through her bag to find her phone, which was obviously not getting any calls.
"Forgive her, she's always busy." Do-il smiled at her, but the sweet expression was soon washed away by surprise as In-kyung loudly gasped into the phone and said, "Oh my, I'm so sorry, I completely forgot! I'll be there in," she took a look at her watch again, "15? Would that work? Okay, perfect. Thank you. And sorry again!" In-kyung then turned around, putting her phone away, and with a clenched jaw, so as not to let herself giggle, she announced that she had to go. She had a story in the making, and a witness had been waiting for her for 20 minutes already. In-kyung bowed her head just slightly toward Choi Do-il-ssi, hugged her sister goodbye, and made her way toward the exit. In-joo was on her own now, and she highly hoped that he would start that conversation because she sure as heck didn't know how or where to begin.
"Want to join me while we finish these bottles?" he asked her.
"Sure."