A Day of Quiet Lies
Chapter 18: A Dangerous Deal and the Woman Next Door
Grimacing, I clutch my throbbing head and sit up. My throat is parched. I must have drunk too much again last night. Every day passes with me filling my wife’s empty spot with alcohol. I rise from the bed and open the door. Clattering sounds echo from the kitchen. My wife… I move my feet slowly. A woman stands at the sink.
“Yoo-mi?”
“Oh, you’re up?”
Yoo-mi is in our house. Wearing an apron, she’s clearing away the dishes I’d carelessly left scattered. Is this a dream? The scent of cooked rice, something I haven’t smelled in so long…
“Su-heon.”
Yoo-mi stands before me, wiping her hands, as I linger there dazed.
“How did you…”
“Yuri called. She asked me to bring over some side dishes for you.”
“I see. Thank you.”
“You should eat.”
“Ah, right.”
We sit at our dining table. Without a word, I spoon the kimchi stew she made. It’s delicious. My rice bowl empties in no time.
“Heh, you must have been hungry, Su-heon.”
“Yeah, I guess so. Haha.”
Yoo-mi turns to scoop more rice into a bowl. Her short hair is tied up cutely at the back. The pale line of her neck is beautiful. A leisurely morning.
“Today’s Saturday, right?”
“Heh, so you’ll sleep in, Su-heon.”
Yoo-mi hands me the bowl of rice. Her skin feels soft. After my shower, she comes out of the kitchen carrying two cups of coffee. I sit beside her, towel-drying my hair. This is the first time I’ve seen her since the room salon, yet it feels as comfortable as if we’d met yesterday.
“Is your husband home?”
“He left for Japan on business yesterday.”
“On a weekend?”
“Apparently a buyer wanted to meet urgently.”
“I see.”
“On the way back from the airport yesterday, Yuri…”
Yoo-mi trails off.
“What about Yuri?”
“She called me.”
“……”
“She asked if I could cook for you over the weekend when I had time.”
“Thank you.”
“Su-heon.”
Yoo-mi stares at me quietly, coffee cup in hand.
“Yuri…”
“Yes. I told her.”
“……”
“It’s fine, Yoo-mi.”
“Still…”
“It’s all my fault.”
“……”
Yoo-mi sets her cup on the table and gazes out the window.
“It’s wrong. What we’re doing.”
“No, what I meant was—”
“It is wrong.”
“Yoo-mi.”
“Because of me and him, you and Yuri…”
“That’s not it.”
When my voice rises, her slender shoulders flinch.
“Ah, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“……”
“No, never mind.”
Yoo-mi keeps her eyes fixed outside, unmoving.
“I didn’t want to lie to Yuri.”
“……”
“I didn’t want to deceive the wife I love.”
Yoo-mi’s head slowly drops. A single tear falls from her chin onto the living-room floor.
“I’m sorry.”
She whispers softly.
“Yoo-mi.”
I slowly approach her side and turn her face toward me. Meeting her sorrowful eyes, I wipe the tears streaming down her soft cheeks.
“Yoo-mi.”
“Su-heon.”
I bring my lips to her trembling ones. Slowly extending my tongue, I taste her lips. Her salty tears linger on my tongue.
“Yoo-mi, you love me, right?”
“Yes. I love you.”
“I love you too. So don’t worry.”
“But we’ve already…”
“We’ll definitely be okay. There has to be a way for us to be happy.”
“……”
I press my lips to hers again. There probably isn’t such a way. We both know it. From the moment our feelings stirred…
“When is he coming back?”
“He said about a week.”
“That long?”
“Yes.”
Changing the subject, I sip my coffee. She answers in an equally bright voice.
“Then stay with me today. Just the two of us.”
“……”
Yoo-mi looks at me, lips touching her cup.
“Is that strange?”
“No, it’s just…”
“Just what?”
“I’m happy.”
She blushes, still holding the cup.
“Your husband…”
“……”
“Does he know about us?”
“Yes. That day, when he came home, I told him. About what happened with you at the motel.”
“I see. Did he say anything about my wife and…”
“Yes.”
“What did he say? About us, at the motel.”
“Nothing.”
“So things are okay between you two now?”
“Yes. We haven’t mentioned that day since.”
“Was that Yuri?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
“She’s coming on Monday. She knows you’re here too.”
“What did she say?”
“Huh?”
Yoo-mi stares at me with wide eyes. Maybe because of the news that Yuri is coming, I find her expression amusing and laugh.
“What is it?”
“Nothing. She just said to enjoy our date.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Yuri must be having a hard time right now.”
“That’s why I’m saying, let’s go out. It’s stuffy in here. We can go to the park or something.”
“Just the two of us?”
“Who else is there?”
Yoo-mi’s face lights up instantly.
“Then I’ll just pop home for a bit.”
“Sure. I need to get ready too.”
Yoo-mi hurries out. I lied to her. Neither Yuri nor her husband exists right now. We’ve all been struggling these past few days. For today, at least, I want to make Yoo-mi happy.
A little later, we leave the house together.
“Where should we go?”
“I don’t know. Whatever you want, Su-heon.”
“Then we don’t need to go anywhere.”
“What?”
I cover her questioning lips with mine.
“Mmph, mm, Su-heon.”
She pushes against my chest.
“Why? You said to do whatever I want.”
“You beast. Is that all you ever think about? What about you?”
“Not just my head. My whole body wants to taste you, Yoo-mi. Heh.”
“Stop joking around and let’s go somewhere. Anywhere.”
“Hmm, then let’s just head out first. We’ll figure it out on the way.”
We drive without a plan. We just drive. In the moving car, we stare in different directions, saying nothing. Yoo-mi sits in the passenger seat, chin propped on her hand, gazing out the window. A smile forms on her lips. We keep driving like that.
On the way back, we stop at the mart to shop for dinner. Yoo-mi picks out items carefully. I feel like I followed the wrong person. She’s extremely meticulous. She reads every label front and back. My wife doesn’t check anything. Sometimes she even brings home expired items and has to exchange them. I thought the two women had similar personalities, but apparently not.
We arrive home and enjoy a delicious dinner. Yoo-mi and I act naturally, like a married couple. Thinking back, we’ve only been intimate twice. And one of those times, I forced myself on her. One night of sex beats ten dates. Sex really is a gift from the gods.
“Yoo-mi, about that Jae-geun guy you mentioned before.”
“Yes.”
After dinner, we lounge on the living-room sofa and sip coffee leisurely.
“Did your husband tell you? That he ordered it?”
“Yes.”
“Then it must be true. You haven’t seen him since?”
“No. Not since then.”
“Yoo-mi.”
“Yes?”
“That day your husband… the day I forced myself on you.”
She can’t hold back her laughter.
“Forced yourself on me? Heh.”
“What?”
“Now that you mention it, you were a rapist. I’d forgotten. Pfft.”
“Are you going to report me?”
“Yes. I suppose I should.”
“That’s too much.”
“Hoho. So? What about that day?”
“Ah, had he ever said anything like that before? Your husband.”
“Yes. A few times.”
“……”
“I refused every time.”
“……”
“If it hadn’t been you that day…”
“Then you’d already been thinking about me before?”
“Well, just that you seemed gentle.”
“Did the gentle guy forcing himself on you turn you on? Heh.”
“Ah, seriously.”
Yoo-mi glares and pinches my arm.
“Yoo-mi.”
“Yes?”
“That guy Jae-geun.”
“Yes.”
“He’s this big.”
I grab my own forearm and tell her, just like her husband once told me.
“What is?”
“What else? This big. Heh.”
“Oh my, really.”
“Why? Are you disappointed?”
“Stop it.”
“And apparently there are beads embedded in it. As thick as a child’s arm, with beads inside, like a goblin’s club. They say once a woman tastes it, she can’t escape. Heh.”
“I told you to stop.”
Yoo-mi puts on a genuinely angry expression. That look on her face drives me crazy. I get excited by an angry woman’s expression and tone. It might be another form of perversion. I have a fantasy of making an enraged woman cling to me, panting, just by fucking her senseless. In that sense, Yoo-mi is close to my ideal type. Rather than women who laugh easily, I’m drawn to cool, haughty women like her. The first time I saw my wife Yuri, too… I fell for her arrogant pose, legs crossed, looking down at me. And in the end, I made her mine.
“Fine. Why get so worked up over something like that?”
“Don’t talk about that anymore.”
“Okay, okay.”
“Su-heon, sometimes when I look at you…”
“What? Sometimes I look like a rapist?”
“Su-heon.”
Yoo-mi, her face full of anger, pinches my entire body.