The Hypocrite
My body moved faster than my mind.
I sprinted like a madman toward Teacher Baek—no. Toward Arin.
Splash. Splash.
The water shoved back against me with brutal force. I paid it no mind at all.
"Arin!!!"
Maybe age had softened the muscle in my thighs. All I felt was shame that I couldn't drive through the water as fast as I needed to.
Splash. Splash.
Spray flying. Her figure drawing closer with every stride.
Hair tamed by the wet. Eyes that looked even sadder for being soaked. And on that milky canvas that hadn't lost its color even drenched—a pair of pink peaks, neither too small nor too large, so beautiful they had to be covered.
Something so beautiful it demanded to be hidden.
"Arin, what's wrong?!"
There was only one thing I could cover her with.
Instinct.
I covered her with my whole body.
No—I held her.
Arin and I. Heart to heart. Chest to chest. Pressed together there.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Two hearts screaming their existence at each other in a frenzy.
"Arin...! What the hell are you thinking?! You know this is a problem, right? You know that?!"
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
And then, strangely, those two separate rhythms became one—falling into the same pace, beating as if they belonged to a single heart.
Click.
A camera shutter.
This was...?
Of course. Arin was holding a waterproof phone in her hand. That was how she'd been firing off texts even from inside the pool.
"Wow... sunbae, look at this. Don't we look perfect together?"
She turned the phone toward my eyes.
Two figures locked together in the water.
A perfect couple.
Nothing more. Nothing less.
It was a photograph of the two of us holding each other. A picture. I had no idea how she'd managed to take such a clean shot in the middle of an embrace.
A perfect couple. Nothing more, nothing less.
"We look this good together......."
Arin's slender hands slid around my waist. She wasn't gripping hard. Those lightly clinging arms brushed my body, and a shiver ran through me.
...No. It wasn't a shiver.
It was the raw, overwhelming force of her fertility, rolling off her in waves.
"Why do you keep rejecting me, sunbae?"
Her hands clasped together over my stomach, locking tight. The phone, warmed by the heated water, settled against my belly. A will that refused to let me go. The snare her hands had made was proof enough of that.
My mind went white.
I didn't know how to answer. I didn't know how to even begin making an excuse.......
Right. Excuses were useless here.
Arin was a woman. Her instincts were sharp enough on their own. And even if they hadn't been—she and I had spent ten years in the same space. Anyone with even a shred of sense would see through whatever flimsy story I cooked up on the spot.
Just be honest.
Yes. There was nothing left to hide. And it wasn't because of her, anyway.
"Because I'm... a divorced man."
"...I know."
"Teacher Baek—no. Arin, you're still young. You don't understand."
"Don't treat me like a child!!"
A high note that nearly split my eardrums. A cry packed with fury, nothing like the low voice from a moment ago.
"I know you're divorced! I know you have a daughter!!"
The snare of her arms began to tighten.
"Because when I heard you'd gotten divorced... I was happier than anyone!!!"
"...What?"
My mind went blank.
"Because there was a place open beside you again!!!!"
What did she just say?
"Because there was hope that I could carry your child!!"
Arin... me.......
"Because I thought the chance I'd never let slip away had finally come!!!!"
She'd liked me? From the beginning?
Everything went white. My vision. My thoughts. The entire inside of my skull turned to wet plaster.
A dizzying rush hit me and I staggered. My sense of balance felt like it was crumbling out from under me.
Yes. Everything was plaster. Plaster couldn't stand upright.
The things in my sight. My body. All of it felt like it was melting.
But I didn't fall.
Because Arin was there, holding me fast, planted like an anchor.
"Sunbae."
I didn't answer. I couldn't. I was too far gone. Of course I was.
"You can feel it, can't you? Your heartbeat... right now."
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Gently, the press of her chest eased off mine, and her hand came to rest against me.
"I worked until I could match my heartbeat to yours."
...What?
That was something you could do by trying?
"I tried that hard, and you still... wouldn't look at me."
The palm on my chest curled into a fist.
"I waved my hands at you, begging you to see me as a woman......."
A small fist. It bumped against my chest.
"I worked in silence, telling myself that empty place... was mine......"
Thud. Thud.
"I matched myself to everything you wanted...!!"
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud!
"Why...! Why won't you put me in that empty place, sunbae? Why?"
It hurt.
Not because her fists were strong.
I'd misunderstood her. Completely... completely misunderstood her.
What Arin had wanted all this time. I'd been holding it in my hands, and I'd been using that power over her like a tyrant.
Honestly, I hadn't imagined it went this deep. I'd assumed the years of being single had simply made the man she spent her days with start to look appealing. That was why I'd tried to tell her the choice was a mistake. No matter how urgent it felt, a divorced man was a problem.
The hardest part of all was society's prejudice.
Aigoo, what the hell did you do to make your woman run off?
You know divorce takes two, right?
Think you can raise a daughter without her hearing what a piece of trash her father is?
I'd heard every flavor of that prejudice there was. And the woman who loved a divorced man heard it too. Society's prejudice was a terrifying thing.
I hadn't done a single thing wrong in that divorce. Mine was one hundred percent the fault of my ex-wife.
Park Ah-young. The child she'd conceived with another man was my daughter, Min-ah.
From the day I started dating her in college all the way through the divorce—no, to this very moment—I had never once so much as glanced at another woman. I gave everything I had to my family. Every won I earned went home. Every day of leave I could take, I spent on them.
And what I got in return was to be treated as an incompetent husband. A piece of garbage who couldn't earn enough money or spend enough time on his own family.
And then I found out she'd been sleeping with a young, muscled gym trainer.
The thing I'd told myself couldn't be true. The thing that should never have been allowed to happen. Min-ah, the daughter I would have died to protect, wasn't even my blood.
I had done nothing wrong. And yet every ounce of the blame landed on me. The story went that my wife had cheated because I hadn't been enough of a husband.
Dating a divorced man carrying that kind of stigma? That was a one-hundred-percent loss for Arin.
But... if she'd liked me since college......
And if she'd come to me already intending to be with me, the moment she heard about the divorce......
Then the story might have been a little different.
"I'm sorry... I... I didn't know Arin had felt that way... all this time."
"...You really don't notice anything......."
Her face buried itself in my chest.
"Do you know how hard I tried... why... why......"
The rain coming down was cold. But something hot was running down my chest.
Her tears.
I started to put my arms around her, then froze.
Did I even have the right to hold her?
Ten years, at least. I was an idiot who hadn't understood her heart at all. Could I really perform the hypocrisy of wrapping her up and comforting her, knowing that her entire goal had been me?
My hands rose as far as her hair—and then, unable to go any further, dropped back to my sides.
"...I'm sorry....."
"...You're awful......"
Both of her hands caught my arms.
"You're awful... you're awful.....!!"
"Wh-what is...?"
"Why did you stop?"
She lifted my arms and began slowly placing them over her own shoulders.
"You looked like you were going to hold me. Why did you give up again?"
My arms, which had no will of their own, rose all the way over her head.
"Am I that little to you, sunbae? A woman who isn't even worth holding?"
"That's... that's not......"
"Hold me......"
Her hands tugged at my arms, urging them on. Asking me to hold her.
"Hold me... with that broad chest of yours... with those big hands... wrap me up......"
The right to hold her.
I had it now.
I lifted both arms of my own will. The arms that had been held in place by her hands finally moved the way I wanted them to.
Her ice-cold hair filled the insides of my arms. Soft strands, soaked in the acid rain, tangled into a mess. The line of her face pressed into my chest. Hot breath. Hot tears.
Ten years of waiting, and this was the wreckage she'd been given. The grief of that terrible result traveled from her face into my chest.
"Hhhnnn.... haaauuugh......."
She started to cry.
"Waaaaaah!!!"
The most heartbroken sound I had ever heard from her......
There was nothing I could do. From where she stood, I was the villain. The villain who had refused her heart and used her anyway. No different from the father who had kept her in a chokehold. Like that wretched man who had gaslit her and treated her like his personal wallet......
I was nothing but a son of a bitch who had tortured her with the hope that we might be together someday, used her down to the bone, and thrown her away.
"Sunbae... I hate you.... I haaaate youuuu!!! Waaaaaah!!!!!"
The rain grew heavier, but her crying only rang louder in my ears.
It was the sound of ten-odd years of karma, come due.
I was a hypocrite.