Change in the Rain
I had been certain Cha Jun-jae had left on the boat. The moment our eyes met, he bit down hard on his paper-white lips. He looked terrible. Rainwater streamed endlessly from his clenched jaw. His face was a mess, yet his eyes burned with life.
Right now, I wanted him here. The fierce, flame-like emotions of the past had faded in an instant. Soaked in rain, Jun-jae looked like a lost child. He wouldn’t be able to say anything forceful. He was probably just waiting for me to make the first move and change the situation.
“I wasn’t hurt, actually.”
Just as I was about to tell him to stop standing out there and come inside, Cha Jun-jae spoke first, too hastily. He said he had wanted to peel back my shell with words he didn’t mean, to see what treasure I was hiding inside. He hadn’t realized his own sharpness would wound me. He had thought I would just smile and let anything he did slide. Maybe there was a gap between his imagination and reality, because the Cha Jun-jae he pictured wouldn’t wander around in the rain looking for me. But before he could say even half of what he wanted, he kept going, words tumbling out in a rush.
“You can say things like that. That was the promise. I was an idiot.”
“……You weren’t hurt? You can say things like that?”
“But you didn’t leave. I thought you had……”
It wasn’t a situation for laughing. Cha Jun-jae roughly wiped the rainwater running down his face with his wrist. For a moment I felt like my common sense was about to flee. My bangs, heavy with rain, kept poking my eyes. I swept the annoying hair back. Then, absurdly, I smiled. Suddenly everything—every worry, every feeling—seemed pointless when I looked at Cha Jun-jae smiling just because I had come back.
It might be a ridiculous dream or an illusion, but first we needed to get out of the rain and into the lodging. I took the lead and walked inside. At the entrance I grabbed one of the fresh towels stacked by the door and rubbed my hair. Hearing footsteps behind me, I turned. Cha Jun-jae stood there, hands at his sides, still getting drenched. There was something eerie about the way he simply watched me, as if he would follow wherever I went.
“Why don’t you come in?”
The words came out far gentler than I expected, startling even me. I could feel how much softer I had become toward him. Cha Jun-jae’s eyes widened slightly in surprise, then he stepped forward calmly. Like a doll on strings, he followed me in, took off his shoes, and entered the first-floor living area. The sound of the rain pouring down was its own kind of music. I had just sat on the floor to dry my legs when, to my surprise, Cha Jun-jae plopped down right in front of me as well. He watched me with limp limbs, as if he had no hands or feet of his own. His eyes held an unresolved question: why hadn’t Song Eun-dam left?
“Wait here.”
I leaned back, grabbed another towel, and held it out. Cha Jun-jae simply stared at it, as though he wanted me to dry him instead. Sighing, I took the towel and ruffled his hair to help it absorb the water. He sat still, neck exposed. While shaking the towel over his black hair, I spoke.
“Cha Jun-jae.”
“Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you tell me your parents left?”
Cha Jun-jae’s eyes, hidden beneath the towel, darted left and right. Startled myself, I fumbled for words.
“You…… didn’t know? You really didn’t know?”
How disappointed and exhausted Eun-i’s parents must have been to leave without a word. They had probably assumed the two of us had already gone. This wasn’t some survival island where only the strong made it. Only we two young people remained. I smiled at the feeling of an aching tooth finally being pulled, but across from me Cha Jun-jae had gone deathly pale. I set the towel down on his head and studied his expression.
“What’s wrong? Is there a problem?”
“……No.”
“There is. I can see it on your face. Did you fight with them too?”
Cha Jun-jae’s dazed face turned toward me. He avoided my eyes as if dizzy, then suddenly stretched out his tired limbs. His ragged breathing filled the warm air. On a whim I pressed my palm to his forehead. Heat radiated through my hand.
“Strange. You really are weak.”
My hand stayed pressed against his forehead. While I looked at him with concern, Cha Jun-jae’s head dropped as if it had snapped. I stood up, hurried into the room, and rummaged through my bag until I found the emergency medicine kit. I grabbed a fever reducer and returned to the living room.
“Cha Jun-jae.”
He was lying on the floor, unconscious, as if he had simply fallen asleep on his side. The hand holding the medicine slipped into my pocket. I didn’t want to wake him. I just wanted to let him sleep.
The thermometer I had brought from Korea slipped from his ear. 38 degrees. That was dangerously high. I shouldn’t have let him sleep in the living room earlier. Even with a blanket over him, I couldn’t leave him like that while he was still wet.
He had woken briefly, washed up, then fallen asleep again. In the meantime I had sneaked into his room to check his temperature. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I was looking at the thermometer again when the rain-soaked Cha Jun-jae, still asleep, opened his eyes. Startled, I jumped to my feet.
“You’re awake?”
His unfocused gaze couldn’t even recognize me, though I was only thirty centimeters away. Panicking, I rushed toward the wardrobe. One fever reducer clearly wasn’t going to bring his temperature down.
“Get up. We’re going to the hospital.”
“Why?”
His voice was hoarse, yet still pleasant to hear. In the past I would have mocked him for staging even the moment he woke up. Seeing that I no longer felt jealous, I must have achieved some kind of enlightenment.
“Get up, Jun-jae.”
“No.”
“What?”
I didn’t want to argue with someone who was sick. He acted as if it didn’t matter what happened to his own life. He rolled over and closed his eyes. Only his back flinched occasionally, as though reacting to the sound of me moving.
“I hate hospitals.”
“Because you’re scared of shots?”
At that, Cha Jun-jae opened his eyes as if he had heard something unbelievable. A moment later he gave a faint smile, as if telling me to relax. The smile didn’t last long because of the pain. Laughing while sick, then sleeping—everything was chaos, and it was making the person nursing him anxious.
“Why would I be scared of shots.”
Sorry, but my eyesight must have been affected by the rain. The face saying something weak looked almost seductive. In the end I completely gave up on taking him to the hospital. I settled comfortably into the single leather sofa, propped my legs on the footstool, and waited for his answer.
“Jun-jae. I’m the one who’s scared. I still hate them.”
“Again.”
“……What do you mean, again.”
“The things you hate. Again.”
His voice was coaxing, and his eyes were slowly regaining focus. My words probably weren’t doing anything medically, but I opened my lips slowly, hoping the patient would regain some energy.
“The things I hate again, huh……”
As I traced my thoughts back, one memory suddenly surfaced. Something from long ago.
“That strawberry drink you advertised.”
It had been sold at the school store. The moment it launched, its cute character song made it wildly popular. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say it had relieved the stress of exam season. I drank one bottle every single day. Eventually even kids from other classes were saying, “She drinks that strawberry thing every day.” The little strawberry seeds that popped between your teeth were so refreshing and delicious. I kept it up for about three months.
The reason I stopped drinking it was because of the advertisement models. Photos of the four students chosen—two boys, two girls—had spread online. Word reached me that Cha Jun-jae was among them. Unfortunately, the drink that had once turned my stomach inside out was still going strong to this day.
“Then it was all for nothing.”
Cha Jun-jae, feverish and delirious, didn’t seem to know what he was saying. I had been staring at the raindrops on the window when his words made me turn my head. In a sleepy voice, he murmured,
“All that pointless auditioning.”
Cha Jun-jae’s words slurred as he slipped into a deep sleep. The rain, still falling steadily, filled the night with noise. That night, I stayed by his side the whole time. It felt as though the talkative rain was falling inside my heart as well.