Honeymoon (3)
They were afraid.
They could not accept that Oh Hae-in might send them away and go on to forge new bonds with someone else. Still reeling from the aftershocks of their bitter wounds, their hearts trembled the moment they saw him with their own eyes, getting along so easily with another girl. Faint, drowning feelings swept them under.
The victims… once again…
embraced the one who had hurt them.
“Could you stop hugging me for a second…? Just ease up a little… No. Keep going until you’ve had enough. I don’t mind…”
I was sinking under the gentle weight of the three girls piled on top of me. I wanted to cry. Not long ago they had told me I was out of my mind and demanded an apology. Now they were nestled in my arms, breathing soft and even as they drifted off to sleep.
I never should have lain down on the sofa.
Gong Na-rin kept trying to nibble me in her sleep, which was honestly terrifying. Cha Sang-hwi was as quiet as an angel, but the nicotine scent clinging to her made me feel like I was suffocating. Lee Ga-rang held on so tightly it just hurt.
I tried to lift my arms and free myself, but their grip only tightened, and in the end I could only stroke the heads of the girls who had somehow become my lovers.
“How… did it end up like this?”
All I had felt for so long was loneliness. I had cried and told everyone it wasn’t me, but the only answer I ever got was that the truth of what I’d done had finally come out. The entire universe had decided I was the perpetrator and crushed me under that verdict. Still I had protested desperately, and a long time passed. Forced transfer became the final decision.
The girls who were smiling so brightly under my hands now… I had missed them so fiercely it hurt.
Everyone else had abandoned me the second those meticulously fabricated pieces of evidence appeared. The three of them had looked at me with eyes that said they hated me and yet still longed for me. All they had wanted from me was one thing.
An apology.
I had given them one, of course—but only a formal one. I could never offer a real apology that came from the heart. Because I had never done it.
During the long stretch of isolation, my language had gotten rougher. Crude words I had never used on anyone started growing inside my mouth and slipping out without a second thought—aimed at the people who couldn’t wait to be rid of me. I had told them I would send them away too, delivering farewells with words that went far past the line. When I met Ga-rang again in the rain, anger had flooded me so completely that I answered her a little roughly. I had dumped a whole bucket of curses on her over nothing. Any sense of dignity had left me long ago. That once-brilliant dignity was gone.
I finally managed to peel myself free and sit up.
It wouldn’t be over the moment I received word from the man calling himself the Shepherd Teacher, but we would have to settle things eventually…
“Haa…”
All I could do was sigh.
— Ding-dong.
The doorbell rang. I checked the intercom and saw Lee Ga-rang’s and Cha Sang-hwi’s parents, along with Gong Na-rin’s uncle.
Ah… so it had finally come.
“I never gave anyone the apartment door code. How did you get in?”
“We know someone who lives in this building. We asked them for a favor. Open the door so we can talk. The adults are… very angry.”
Lee Hyuk’s voice was completely free of humor as he demanded I open up at once. And someone they knew lived here? I couldn’t rule out the possibility that it was a White Flame Cult follower.
“That would be difficult. This is private property—our home—and I’m alone right now… Would you please leave?”
“Alone…? You… I know Sang-hwi and the others are all inside your place! You gaslighting bastard!!”
Cha Sang-hwi’s father’s drunken voice exploded through the speaker. Sato Ayaka, clearly finding it unbearable, covered her ears and hid behind Lee Yul, which only made the shouting drag on longer. Because of that, the girls woke up.
“Dad’s here? Mom too. And Ga-rang’s parents and Na-rin’s uncle?”
“Sang-hwi! What do you think you’re doing in there…? Come home right—”
“I’d rather live here than in that moldy basement studio.”
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
Under the barrage of fists demanding the door be opened, I finally gave in and unlocked it.
In the living room, a meeting of the victim parents and the perpetrator took place for the first time in a long while—or rather, something that looked like a formal introduction. The difference this time was that my own parents weren’t here. My father had once pulled me out of crisis by doing the impossible…
Across the table, the victim parents glared at me. On my side of the table stood the victims themselves, guarding the perpetrator.
Gong Na-rin’s uncle spoke first.
“In the end, Na-rin… you were always destined for this. You were a child who never should have been born.”
He wasn’t blaming me. He was cursing her. The other parents froze at the unexpected words. Lee Ga-rang and Cha Sang-hwi immediately wrapped their arms around Gong Na-rin and glared at her uncle, but the venom refused to stop.
“A tiny little thing like that… I never imagined she’d mistake pesticide for juice…”
Lee Hyuk and Cha Sang-hwi’s father hurriedly tried to cover his mouth, but he shook them off and the vicious remarks kept coming.
“Na-rin, every time I look at you I get so tired. When you were little, out in the countryside… my younger brother and his wife took the glass of pesticide you handed them by mistake and said you were being a good daughter… I still can’t stop seeing that. Both of them drank it without knowing—”
“Uncle. Shut your mouth.”
I told him to stop talking. Even though Lee Ga-rang and Cha Sang-hwi covered Gong Na-rin’s ears so she wouldn’t hear, silent tears still rolled down her cheeks in waves.
“Shut my mouth? Because of that pretty little niece of mine, I lost my parents, my sister-in-law’s parents—my own blood. And instead of showing any remorse, she turns on the person who exposed that fact? I’m exhausted from looking after a child like her… You take her. Do whatever you want with her…”
Gong Na-rin’s uncle simply announced he was giving up on his niece and left, utterly irresponsible. The atmosphere, already far from what I had expected, grew unbearably heavy.
Cha Sang-hwi’s mother stayed hidden behind Lee Yul, reading the room. Cha Sang-hwi’s father tried to go after the uncle, but Lee Hyuk held him back.
I had expected a complete mess, but instead the stage had twisted into something that only gouged one person’s wounds deeper.
I quietly went over to Na-rin and patted her. She immediately buried herself against me and sobbed. Lee Ga-rang and Cha Sang-hwi faced their parents and refused to back down. All I could do was soothe them.
Cha Sang-hwi’s father, still drunk, only spouted nonsense until Sang-hwi herself drove him out. Sato Ayaka tentatively asked whether she might live here too, then wilted under the girls’ stares and hurried after him.
Lee Hyuk and Lee Yul were about to leave with weary sighs when Lee Hyuk leaned in close to my ear.
“The beating I took last time… really did hurt for a long while.”
“I hit you so it would hurt.”
Lee Hyuk’s face showed clear displeasure.
“Originally I came here to make an issue of Ga-rang and the other girls being in your house… but that uncle of Na-rin’s went and spat poison at his own niece and threw everything into chaos, so I’ll just tell you this.”
“Tell me what?”
“Using that Choi Byung-su bastard to get close to the Shepherd Teacher… impressive. But if you try to settle things by recreating the same punches you threw at me and aiming them at the Shepherd Teacher… I can’t guarantee what will happen. Keep that in mind.”
“Depends on how it goes.”
The smile vanished from Lee Hyuk’s face. He answered with a completely serious expression and delivered one last remark.
“The fact that my daughter has been completely head-over-heels for you since she was little… has always gotten under my skin. Even when we framed you for hurting her, all she could think about was you. It drove me crazy. So I was told not to touch you… but I plan to touch you anyway.”
With that, he warned his daughter and her friends not to cross any lines, said they would meet again later, and left.
Because the victims were standing guard over the perpetrator who had supposedly hurt them, the plan Lee Ga-rang’s parents had been cooking up—something like the ambush at the restaurant—along with the fact that he intended to ignore the order not to touch me for the time being… all of it had been smothered today by Gong Na-rin’s uncle’s unintended venom.
No cold hostility had been poured over me, yet it was clear they would use this excuse to pressure me whenever they wanted. Letting the girls stay in my house any longer was becoming too much. At the same time, I couldn’t simply send Gong Na-rin back to that uncle of hers…
I pushed the complicated thoughts aside for a moment and simply looked at the three of them. Memories of our time together wrapped around me once more. The surging emotions were becoming hard to bear. I was already on the verge of falling apart because of the cult business; protecting them felt nearly impossible…
And yet they came and clung to me again. All three of them.
I opened my arms and held them, but my feelings were hollow. Compared to the memories, nothing about this felt particularly beautiful. I didn’t especially want to go back to the past either, and yet…
They had been beautiful.
Their faces…
Or was it the memories themselves?
The next morning.
As if nothing had happened, the girls prepared breakfast and welcomed me. I didn’t look at them. I turned toward the aquarium instead. The school of Bipa Fish inside the tank were exactly the same as always… You guys are better, honestly.
“Hae-in.”
Gong Na-rin hugged me from behind. I only nodded without a word.
“You’re not looking at me? Then I’ll slice every one of those fish up like sashimi.”
It wasn’t a joke. The Bipa Fish seemed to understand; their movements froze as if they had stopped completely.
“Na-rin, let’s try not to say such harsh things. It’s too strong…”
“You have to look at me. You’re only looking at the fish instead of us, Hae-in.”
Even then I didn’t turn around. I was exhausted from soothing them endlessly the night before. Lee Ga-rang and Cha Sang-hwi, still preparing breakfast, seemed to be silently protesting from behind, telling me to look at them already. Gong Na-rin’s hands grew firmer, as if she meant to control me… no, she was already restraining me.
“Oh Hae-in. My uncle abandoned me. Because when I was still in kindergarten I committed an unforgivable sin against Mom and Dad, and it’s still in his heart…”
“That was… just a mistake. Someone put pesticide in a drink bottle, and you were so little you didn’t know… You only wanted to cheer them on while they were helping with the farm work out in the countryside… You didn’t know…”
“See? Even you think of me as a monster who killed her parents. Of course it wasn’t on purpose, but I’m still the infamous girl who sent her own parents away…”
“No… don’t blame yourself…”
She pressed me with self-harming words until I finally looked at her. Gong Na-rin’s face wore a dazzlingly bright smile, yet she was pointing a sharp blade at me.
“Th-that’s dangerous! What are you doing…?!”
“If you leave our side, I’ll carve you up like the fish you love so much. Sashimi. You understand?”
She gently pressed the kitchen knife against my stomach. I had no choice but to fall backward. Lee Ga-rang and Cha Sang-hwi simply watched with tender eyes that seemed to agree with her—don’t leave us.
Gong Na-rin dropped to her knees, still gripping the knife, and threw herself into my arms.
“Oh Hae-in. Say you love only us. Forget that fake Na-rin, that Eun Na-rin. You’ll do that for us, right?”
“Snap out of—”
The blade hung in the air. Gong Na-rin still held it, as if deciding where it should go next…
“Please… put the knife away… okay?”
“I already got punished so much worse because people who didn’t even need to know found out… and you went and told everyone about my irreversible mistake, then met a new Na-rin and tried to forget us right away. You’re the bad one… No. I’m the unfilial daughter who sent Mom and Dad away in pain. That’s why you hated me, isn’t it?”
“Hate you? Right now I hate the way you’re acting even more. Cut it—”
I couldn’t finish the sentence. The blade shot upward… and thankfully slammed into the floor instead.
“I’m sorry… I did something unforgivable to all of you!”
I poured out the truth along with a sigh. Gong Na-rin clung to me desperately, crying. Lee Ga-rang and Cha Sang-hwi looked at me with eyes that said we are the only ones for you…
Yeah.
I’m sorry.
If only I had never met you in the first place…
I wanted nothing more than to offer up a desperate prayer, but there was no weeping woman left who could lower a sail for me so that I could pray.