However, Again
Cha Jun-jae showed no signs of coming down from the second floor. Now that I was left on my own, my conscience would no longer allow me to stay in the lodging paid for with his money. That the desire to work had vanished after Cha Jun-jae disappeared was secondary. I had no idea what feelings I should hold in my heart when I looked at his face. I would endlessly use every trick to dig out what he was thinking, and he would keep hiding his heart and respond with defensive walls. If that was how things stood, the only thing left for us was ruin.
Perhaps Cha Jun-jae had changed how he felt about me after this incident. Perhaps he had decided that staying by each other’s side would only mean neither of us could give what the other truly wanted. I closed my laptop and headed to the usual restaurant to order a mango smoothie. It was the exact moment I absentmindedly slid my card across the counter after realizing I had run out of cash.
“The card payment isn’t going through.”
The one credit card I could actually use had been suspended. Of course I had other cards. The problem was that the money inside them was never supposed to be touched. That was the emergency fund I had scraped together, penny by penny, for my next film. After setting aside the money I had sworn never to touch, only the price of a plane ticket back to Korea and a few living expenses remained.
This was right after I had unexpectedly lost the reasonably priced accommodation. When I tried to book it again, there were no rooms left. I dug out every last coin and barely managed to order the mango smoothie. Lying in the hammock that had become my usual spot, I called the person responsible for canceling the card.
“Hello.”
Her voice was sunken and gloomy, exactly as I had expected. My mood soured from the very first word. They were the ones who had barged into my daily life without invitation, yet here I was—the unfilial daughter—cast once again as the offender.
“You only call now that the card is gone, huh?”
“Mom.”
“Your dad and I are leaving the island tomorrow morning.”
It was a curt announcement, but not unexpected. I felt sorry toward my parents. After everything that had happened with Cha Jun-jae, I hadn’t had any mental space left to think about anyone else. Once I barely pulled myself together, I had been completely swallowed up by work. The reality that arrived as payment for that euphoric time was exactly as predictable as I feared. My parents were leaving the island tomorrow. Yet that was not my doing. This ending that felt like a ritual meant to ruin their daughter was not a good one.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t pay more attention to you two. But you know why I’m here. I came to work. I went out to greet you, introduced you to restaurants, and the two of you even got to go on dates. I…”
“We came here to take you back to Korea.”
I could understand my mother’s disappointment to some degree. Ever since I was a child too young for blood to have dried on my head, I had never been the daughter they wanted. Three years ago, I fought with Mom and Dad almost every other day. The daughter they believed would attend college, realistically abandon her film dreams, join a normal company, and live modestly had spent every won she saved to shoot another movie, and they opposed it with everything they had. Mom and Dad told me a hundred times over to find another stable job. Their words were more than enough to plunge me into despair. Because that was the moment I finally saw clearly what the two of them wanted from me.
“Come with us tomorrow. Go back to Korea, do some blind dates, meet some prospects, and if you get bored, look for a job again.”
The words that naturally drew out a sigh poured into my ears. Once the word “disown” had been spoken, my parents offered a hand of reconciliation, suggesting we find a compromise. But it was nothing more than them taking one step back from the rebellion of their only daughter—the one they thought would always listen. Their plan for a proper job, marriage, grandsons, and granddaughters was still very much in motion. I realized through this very phone call that it had never stopped. I swept a dry hand down my face and let out a hollow laugh.
“Mom.”
“Stop rebelling. If you really don’t want a regular job, come work at the jewelry store. That solves everything. Do you have any idea how rare it is to find parents who do everything for their child the way we have? Why are you suddenly so obsessed with film, something that wears out your body and is nearly impossible to succeed in…”
“I understand.”
“So you’ll come?”
“No. Cancel the card. You’re right, Mom. I’m an adult who graduated college, who has a career, who has even made a film, yet I’m still using Dad’s card. What independence could I possibly be hoping for?”
“Kid, why are you even using the word independence? Just come back to Korea…”
“Come back to Korea and get married? Have grandchildren? Mom—or rather, Dad must be listening too. The two of you fell in love in high school, had such a passionate romance, and had me. So why are you telling me to marry a man I don’t love and have his child?”
“Song Eun-dam.”
“I’ve done everything I can. I made another film without asking you or Dad for a single thing. Even if I didn’t win any awards, everyone said it was a good movie. Do you know how rare it is to hear words like that these days?”
“Who cares about that? Huh? It’s not like you filmed it by yourself.”
“I care. I acknowledge it. Money and fame aren’t everything. It may not be something to brag about, but it’s not something to dismiss, either. I’m your daughter, Mom.”
“Eun-dam, we weren’t dismissing it…”
“If this is how it’s going to be, my pride won’t let me go back. I won’t. Even if I have to survive by hunting fish here, I won’t go. When my visa expires, when the deadline I set for myself is up, I’ll leave.”
“Even Aunt Su-young’s family left the day before yesterday, and it looks like Jun-jae has gone too. Who exactly are you relying on to act like this?”
The news that Aunt Su-young’s family had left hit me slowly but with real force. The day before yesterday, Cha Jun-jae had said nothing about them leaving. Had he not come down from the second floor because he had already left with his mother? Even the thought that Cha Jun-jae was no longer on the island brought me no relief. The phone that had carried only my mother’s voice finally ended the call. Her tone was utterly triumphant, convinced I could not survive on the island without their money.
I slung my bag over my shoulder and ran back toward the accommodation with the sea at my back. It wasn’t as if Mom and Dad had only treated me like a child for a day or two, so there was no reason to feel wronged. I would not shed tears over something like this. As I ran, the weather threw a tantrum. A sudden downpour, as if in spite, made me gradually slow my steps until I stopped running altogether.
I had thought I saw signs that something was about to resolve itself. Instead, it slammed me face-first into ground where not even a single blade of grass grew. I wiped the raindrops clinging to my eyelashes. Even when I was a snot-nosed child, whenever I tried to do anything difficult or encountered failure, my parents would raise a fuss as if the sky were collapsing and immediately urge me to quit. They claimed it was for my sake, but in truth it was for their own.
They intended to tame me into a fragile lamb until the day I died. It was their greed; they simply did not want to let me out of their fence. Suppose I followed that easy path. Would they remain my fence until I became an eighty-year-old woman? After my parents passed away, the world would teach me reality as if taking revenge. A moment would surely come when I wanted to quit but could not. By then it would be far too late to realize I could no longer afford to remain a fragile lamb. Accepting Eun-i’s suggestion to make a film had been the beginning. It was the first footprint I left upon the world.
Yet my parents treated me like a lamb set down beside the water. They made me feel as though my efforts to live well without help had been the mistake. Lost in thought, I walked and walked until I stood in front of the accommodation. I opened the gate, sticky with fallen raindrops and flower petals, and stepped inside.
Why did everything go smoothly when I stood beside him? Why did I gain confidence in the work I was doing? Only now, standing in the empty house Cha Jun-jae had left behind, did I feel I finally understood the reason.
He was the only person who had ever acknowledged me as myself. The fact that a man like Cha Jun-jae saw me as a director, and as a woman, had filled me with boundless joy.
Half of my urge to test his heart and provoke him had come from anxiety. Simply hearing him say “stay by my side” had not been enough. I had wanted Cha Jun-jae to see me as a woman and, going one step further, to confess that he loved me. If that happened, it felt as though the sense of inferiority I held toward him would be wiped away and I would be reborn as someone new.
What a pathetic thought it had been.
“Song Eun-dam.”
A voice rang out in the empty house where no one should have been. I stood drenched in front of the swimming pool. Across from me was Cha Jun-jae, his eyes bloodshot.