If I Could Just Hear Why She Came to Hate Me
I woke from a food-coma nap to find only Min-ah sleeping softly at my side, her breath rising and falling in a gentle rhythm. A glance at the clock told me it was two in the afternoon. Late checkout was almost upon us.
"Hey... Ah-rin...?"
We needed to check out and leave, which meant I had to wake everyone. I looked around for Ah-rin. Something was off. Every trace of her had vanished from the room.
"What... what's going on?"
I tore through every corner of the room, checked the bathroom, checked the balcony—but Ah-rin was nowhere to be found. She and her luggage had vanished without a trace, as if she had never been there at all.
"Ugh... Dad, what are you doing?"
Min-ah had woken up. She'd been asleep, so she probably wouldn't know anything—but asking was still the right order of things.
"Have you seen her? Ah-rin, I mean."
"Ah-rin...? Um... I was asleep, so I wouldn't know."
My daughter didn't know either.
"What is this...?"
I called her on my phone.
"The number you have dialed is not available to receive calls..."
"What...? Incoming calls blocked?"
As of yesterday, it had been a number I could reach just fine. Thinking I might have gotten it wrong, I punched the digits in myself. It still wouldn't connect.
"Something... is very wrong."
I picked up the hotel phone and dialed. The line began to ring.
A click.
"Who...?"
"Ah—! Ah-rin, it's me—"
The line went dead.
"Huh?"
Ah-rin had rejected my call. She had hung up before I could even finish speaking. I dialed again.
"The phone you are calling is turned off..."
She had switched the thing off entirely. I sat there, stunned. What on earth was this? Until this morning, nothing had been wrong. We had confirmed our love for each other and sat down to a happy breakfast, as if we were already a complete family. So... why? Why was Ah-rin suddenly doing this?
She had come on this trip in my car, and now she had packed her things and left by herself without a word. She wouldn't take my calls. She had blocked me. My head was a snarl of confusion—irritation, bewilderment, a raw and rising panic. Everything had gone to pieces.
A pair of arms slid around me from behind.
"Dad... what's wrong?"
Min-ah's soft skin against my back helped, a little, to quiet the frenzy in my chest. How was I supposed to explain this to my daughter? That Ah-rin had vanished and wouldn't even pick up the phone.
The whole morning had been so warm, so easy...
"Min-ah... about Ah-rin..."
"She disappeared?"
"Yeah..."
The back hug tightened.
"Maybe something urgent came up? Like something serious at home."
She nuzzled closer, her face shifting restlessly against my back. Of course—Min-ah had to be feeling just as unsettled as I was.
"You... you think so?"
"Ah-rin wouldn't have done something like that for no reason."
"R-right...! You think so too?"
"So maybe the thing to do is understand, and wait a little?"
Unlike me, spinning in panic, Min-ah was almost unnaturally calm. It felt as if my daughter were holding my frantic heart in place with both hands.
"Haha... you're so much more grown-up than I am."
"That's because you taught me everything, Dad."
Yes. That was it. I gathered myself.
"No. I just got lucky with my daughter."
"Hearing you say that... thank you, Dad."
Little by little, through my daughter Min-ah, I was able to recover from the shock of Ah-rin's disappearance.
I have no idea how I managed to drive us home. It was a miracle we didn't crash.
"Dad! Look out!!"
If Min-ah hadn't shouted a warning from the passenger seat—more than once—we would have been in an accident.
"I'd be dead without you, sweetheart."
"See? You'd be lost without me, huh?"
"Yeah. Thank you."
I was grateful, too, that Min-ah kept watching my face and urging me to pull over at rest stops. Thanks to her, we made it back in one piece.
The problem was everything that came after.
Monday arrived. Ah-rin did not come to work. She still would not answer her phone.
Tuesday arrived, and with it, a letter. A letter of resignation.
I hereby submit my resignation.
No reason given. A single, flavorless sheet of paper—and with it, she declared an end to a bond that had lasted more than ten years.
I couldn't understand it. I couldn't understand this behavior from Ah-rin at all. I had loved her. I had wanted her. We had been one last step away, and that made it all the more unbearable. I couldn't focus on work. I couldn't do anything. I could barely manage to put a meal on the table for Min-ah.
The message Ah-rin had sent me was unmistakable.
It was a Ghosting Breakup. The kind that offers no reason at all. I couldn't make sense of it. Ah-rin was not that kind of person. She had always told me everything—the good and the bad. That was precisely why her behavior now was so impossible to understand.
How much must she have hated me, to do this?
The thought arrived unbidden. There might have been something I had never even noticed—something Ah-rin had loathed with a terrible intensity.
Then... it's my fault, isn't it.
The moment I thought it was my fault, the ache deepened. No—a corner of my heart felt as if it were being torn apart. Because I had liked her. Because I had loved her. That was why it hurt this much.
Why are you doing this, Ah-rin...
I would have rather known the reason. Even if I couldn't accept it—I wanted to hear it said plainly, whatever it was that made this impossible.
Just once... please, if I could see her just one more time...
Whatever I had done wrong, I would drop to my knees in front of her and apologize. I couldn't go on without her. My life until now had not been a happy one, because unlike other people, I had never had a complete family. She was the person who was going to make that happen.
A single, fleeting moment. Sunday morning. Breakfast for three. That was the first time, and it was the last. A happy family meal. I had let myself believe that every day from then on would look just like it. But not anymore. Like a mirage, Ah-rin had vanished. My happiness, my dreams—all of it gone with her.
A week passed. I made a decision. I would go to her home. I knew it was a serious imposition. Handled badly, I could be treated as a stalker. But if I didn't do at least that much, I had no way of quieting the feelings that were driving me out of my mind.
Once... once should be all right, shouldn't it?
I would not ask her to start over. I simply wanted to hear why she had come to hate me. That was all. I needed that much if I was ever going to look at myself honestly. As I was now, I could only curse her name. But Ah-rin was the woman I had loved. I did not want to hide behind that love and spit venom at her. For that, I needed a reason. The reason she had come to reject me. That was all I needed to know.
My heart hammered against my ribs as I made my way to her building. It was pounding so hard I thought it might burst. But I had to press the button. If I was going to pick myself up from the wreck I had become, I had to.
Ding-dong
· · ·
Ding-dong
"Who is it?"
That was not Ah-rin's voice. It wasn't a woman's voice at all. It was a thick, gravelly man's voice.
What... she found a guy...?
It wasn't as if I had never considered the possibility. But to collide with it like this—so suddenly, so viscerally—was almost more than I could take.
The door opened. A short, potbellied middle-aged man stepped out. Ah-rin was seeing a man like this...?
"No way..."
"What? What's no way?"
"Do you know Ah-rin?"
"What?"
"Baek Ah-rin. The person living with you."
"The hell is this guy?"
Crude swearing spilled out of him. Given the way I had come at him with questions, it was a natural enough reaction.
"Honey, who's Ah-rin?"
A woman appeared behind him.
"...Huh?"
It wasn't Ah-rin. It was a completely different woman. Of course. Ah-rin had moved out, and this couple had moved in. I hadn't known, and I had mistaken him for Ah-rin's man.
"The fuck are you saying to a married man?!"
A fist closed on my collar.
"Who the hell are you?? You trying to ruin my marriage?!!"
"Kyah! Honey!! What are you doing!! Stop it!!"
"I-I'm sorry. I mixed you up with the person who used to live here..."
"Sorry doesn't cut it?!"
A tremendous impact exploded across my jaw. I went down where I stood.
"Honey!! Why are you so violent?! Huh???!"
"This bastard's trying to get mixed up with some woman I don't even know."
"You can't just hit a stranger like that! Have you lost your mind?"
Without meaning to, I had wrecked this couple's happiness.
"I'm... I'm sorry. I came looking for the woman who used to live here. I truly apologize for the intrusion."
Though I'd been hit, I stood up as if it were nothing and bowed at a full ninety degrees. That, at least, seemed to take some of the heat out of them.
"Honey... is this guy telling the truth?"
"Y-yeah... that's what he's saying?"
"I'm sorry for causing a misunderstanding. Would you happen to know where the previous resident went?"
I kept my manner carefully polite, and the man's face grew somewhat more cooperative. His wife having cleared up her suspicions about him probably had something to do with it.
"Ah... the landlord was pretty pissed, actually. The previous tenant took off like she was running from something... went overseas, apparently? Caused a bit of a headache, from what I heard."
Overseas. A friend who had never even been on an airplane had gone overseas...
How much must she have hated me...
"Yes... thank you."
I turned away from the people I had nearly driven into a marital fight and walked off, my steps drained of all strength. I left the apartment building. My feet felt like lead.
I went back to the hospital. Everyone had already gone home. I went to Ah-rin's room. It still hadn't been cleared out; everything was just as she had left it. The instruments her hands had touched. I used them to disinfect the place I'd been hit.
"Haa..."
I sat down in her chair.
"This seat is... still Ah-rin's..."
A drop. Then another. Tears began to fall, one by one.
"Why... did you disappear?"
I could feel it—that this was really the end. No. No, it wasn't. It wasn't too late, even now. I picked up the phone and dialed her number.
"The number you have dialed is not in service..."
She had cancelled her phone. It was over. It was really over.
The tears that had been falling one and two at a time began to pour down my face. The only thing that filled my heart was despair.