12. To Eat, or Not to Eat
After Siwoo promised he would help her, Kim Hayun let herself hope. She set aside the resolve she had made to die and decided she would try, just once, to live.
"Hayun, I was worried at first, but you've settled in fast."
"Thank you, ma'am. For trusting me with the work."
When she came down from Seoul, she had almost no money left. All of it had gone to Go Woojin's gambling, or to the interest on his loan-shark debts. The moment she scraped together enough for a studio apartment, she knew she would starve if things stayed as they were, so she went looking for work at once.
Hayun had graduated from a cosmetology program. Her hands were skilled, and her reputation had been solid enough, but in a conservative country town people balked at trusting their hair to a woman who looked the way she did.
"I'm the one who should be grateful. We were already buried, and without anyone who actually knew the work, it was nothing but suffering."
While everyone else turned her away, an offer came from a salon that had only just opened in the area and was already drawing a crowd. The pay couldn't match what she had earned in Seoul, but the simple fact that she could work was enough, and Hayun started at once.
She didn't just trust me with a job. She even advanced my wages...
When the owner learned that Hayun was pregnant and unmarried, she made every accommodation she could—sharing daily necessities, even bringing side dishes from her own home and telling her not to go hungry. It had been so long since anyone had been kind to her that the tears nearly came, but Hayun held them down. She had already cried more than enough. From here on, she was going to live properly again.
I want to be someone who can face Siwoo without shame.
She knew that however he pretended otherwise, he was conscious of other people's eyes whenever the two of them crossed paths. Once she had saved some money, she would dye her hair first, and after that she would have the tattoos removed, one by one. Even if Siwoo never took her back, she could accept that. She only hoped the tattoos would not be among the reasons.
"All right. You can head out now."
"There's still work left, though."
She tried to insist she could see it through to the end, but the owner said a pregnant woman shouldn't push herself and urged her to go home and rest. Hayun meant to refuse even then. The thought of the child in her belly filled her with guilt, though, and she left first, promising to come in early tomorrow.
Stroking a stomach that was still flat, she turned the question over.
An abortion... I should get one, shouldn't I?
It wasn't as if she had never considered it, not from the moment she fled until now. Even if this child were born, the world waiting for it would be far too cruel. And still Hayun could not bring herself to decide. The procedure frightened her, yes, but more than that, she still could not quite believe there was a living thing inside her.
"What am I supposed to do with you?"
She would have to choose within the time she had left. But how could anyone decide a thing like that so easily? She hated Go Woojin enough to want him dead, and yet half of this child was still hers. In the eyes of society, a baby raised by an unmarried single mother would be born into a brutal world—and she had no money to spare. Was that reason enough to end the child's life? Was it right to erase, like this, the fate of a child who might have wanted to be born?
"...The doctor did say I shouldn't stress myself too much."
She checked her phone. What was Siwoo doing right now? She wanted to know. If she was going to talk to anyone, she wanted it to be him, because even if he hated her, she knew he would never say anything that could do her harm. She was thinking that when a text suddenly arrived from Siwoo.
"...It's that woman again."
The message was a single photograph: the woman who had been beside Siwoo that day, the same woman who had come to Hayun and told her that if she had any conscience, she ought to give him up. In the picture she wore a victor's smile beside a Siwoo who had passed out drunk, the two of them posed side by side, alone.
Hayun bit her lip and kept searching, desperate to learn where they were.
Not here either. Not this place...
She searched and searched, but in the end she couldn't find it. The place Park Ara had chosen wasn't in town. You had to drive to reach it. And there was one thing Kim Hayun didn't know.
Unable to connect....
That the block Lee Siwoo had lifted, Park Ara had put right back in place.
"Why won't the call go through...!"
Lee Soyoung received the same photograph. She was every bit as angry as Hayun, but she stayed rational.
If she's sending a picture like this, she must feel threatened.
If anything, Soyoung was curious. This was Lee Siwoo. There were bound to be bitches circling him on the quiet. But she had gone to school in Seoul, and five hours of road lay between them. They had only followed each other back a little while ago, and Siwoo never bothered putting anything from the office on social media. She hadn't known who was after him, and she had already been thinking she would need to make a move soon.
And the fool went and showed her face herself.
She studied the woman smiling at his side, the one who had sent the text. This woman was her enemy. If Soyoung had her way, she would hunt down that bar this instant and tear Siwoo out of the damned woman's hands. But really, how was she supposed to find a place like that? And judging by Siwoo, already dead to the world, even if she did find it, the odds were good she would be too late.
I'll endure it. For now.
Yes. She had to endure. Rage was piling up over whoever had poured enough drink into Siwoo to wipe him out, but still.
"You fucking bitch..."
But could she really hold herself back after seeing Siwoo laid out on what looked like a motel bed? Soyoung called his phone at once—again and again, until he answered.
"She's actually insane, isn't she?"
Watching Siwoo's phone buzz without end, Ara let a short laugh slip.
"She's going to keep calling until somebody picks up."
One of them kept texting—where was he, who was he with—while the other rang as if she meant to call until the phone was answered. Ara found both reactions thoroughly satisfying. The way the two of them reacted made her feel as if she had already taken Lee Siwoo entirely for herself.
"Siwoo really is a troublesome man. How did he end up tangled with women like these?"
Her gaze drifted to him, asleep in his drink. A very faint snore reached her, and even that struck her as cute. Looking at him utterly defenseless, Ara licked her lips. Right now she could devour him, and not a single person could stand in her way.
"What should I do?"
A few buttons of his dress shirt had come undone. Staring at the pale line of his nape, Ara felt the heat climb in her as well. She had been drinking, though even she didn't know her own limit. Never once in her life had she been drunk, and yet in this moment she felt as if she might be.
"I wonder. If I bit that neck hard, what kind of reaction would my Siwoo show?"
Would it be all right to try, just a little? Only a little? She had paid for the drinks, and for this suite—all of it. So tasting him once ought to be fine. Riding that impulse, Ara drew in close beside him. A pleasant scent met the tip of her nose. Siwoo probably had no idea.
"Hnn... haa."
"Mmm..."
No idea that whether she got to breathe in this scent decided the whole shape of her day. She had never disliked weekends before, but after becoming a civil servant she had come to hate them. She had wanted to get to the office as fast as she could, just so she could smell this man. Looking at those soft pink lips, Ara wanted to take them—roughly, greedily. There was really nothing to hesitate over. This man was going to be hers anyway, so doing it a little early would be fine. That thought was just settling over her when—
"Ara noona..."
Her own name left Siwoo's mouth. Had he woken? Ara's whole body locked. And if he had? Then there would be nothing left to hesitate about. She would eat him just like this—as much as she had held back, as much as she had wanted him.
"Thank you... noona..."
The rest of what came from his mouth made her bite her lip.
"That's not fair. Seriously."
How was she supposed to do a thing like that after hearing those words? Cheeks flushed, Ara stared at Siwoo's face, then lay down right beside him. Watching him from the closest possible distance, she felt the corners of her mouth keep climbing, like a fool.
What on earth is he dreaming, to be saying thank you?
Just knowing he was dreaming of her was happiness enough, and he was even thanking her. She had been worried lately that she had teased him too much, that he might be starting to shy away from her. She had forced this night of drinking into being, and she had been afraid he would find it a burden. The moment she heard him say thank you, that worry and that fear melted quietly away.
"I want to stay just like this."
She wanted a moment like this one—sleeping face to face in the same bed—to last forever. She had possessed everything since the day she was born, and never once had she wanted something this fiercely.
"I wonder what kind of face he'll make tomorrow."
She went on savoring the feeling of having curled into his arms, drifting toward sleep, already looking forward to whatever tomorrow might bring.
A chime sounded from the door.
Even in a moment that might have been frightening, Ara rose from the bed at her leisure. The bell kept ringing.
"Hmm~ You found us awfully fast."
She could have ignored it. But Siwoo's brow creased in his sleep, his face tightening as if the noise troubled him, and she had no choice but to go to the door.
"I really am curious which crazy bitch it is."