That Crazy Bitch (2)
At first, I thought I'd misheard her.
"Sorry, what was that?"
So I asked her to repeat it. No sane person would ever say what she'd just said.
"S-Siwoo, you'd never just throw me away. Right? So... I want to start over with you."
Yeah, she was clearly not in her right mind. If she'd been sane to begin with, she never would have cheated. She wouldn't have dated that idiotic delinquent, either.
But that wasn't the real problem here.
How am I supposed to react to this?
The obvious answer, of course, was to get angry. The woman who cheated on me had now been dumped herself, and here she was, crawling back to me asking for a fresh start—while carrying the other man's child. Was there a single scenario on earth more ridiculous than this?
In a drama, the satisfying move would be to raise my voice and hurl the iced americano in her face. That's what people would call the ultimate payoff, probably.
But reality wasn't a drama.
I'm a civil servant.
In a cramped little rural town, nothing ever stays hidden. News of some village head's daughter getting married took exactly two days to reach every corner of the entire county.
So what would it look like if I pulled a drama-worthy scene right now—not on some lonely farm road, but in a café in the middle of town? I'd never be able to show my face anywhere again.
"I'm sorry, but we're over. Kim Hayun."
I felt zero affection for her—not a single shred—but she was still a woman who might someday become a future complainant at my office. There's an old saying about never making enemies needlessly, so I wanted to resolve this as amicably as possible. I figured if I just reminded her of how things had actually ended between us, she'd back off quickly enough.
"I'm sorry. It was all my fault. If you want, I'll get down on my knees right now."
Had her sense of shame been completely severed? Instead of retreating, Kim Hayun only clung to me harder. Shouldn't the person you're begging be Ko Woojin, not me?
I glanced at the time. It was really past time for me to get up.
"I'm sorry. I have no intention of getting back together with you. It should be obvious from the fact that after what happened that day, I never once contacted you—didn't so much as say a single word."
I couldn't understand why she was so desperately hanging off of me, determined to keep me from leaving by any means necessary. But one thing was crystal clear: I absolutely could not leave her even an inch of hope. So I laid out my position calmly. I've forgotten you completely. There's no chance of us ever working out again. So live your life however you please—just like you always did.
"...Could we at least start over as friends?"
Like hell we could.
I had nothing left to say, so I simply walked away. The air felt suffocating, and I loosened my tie.
There were probably people out there who hoped she'd fail, who wanted to watch her fall apart—and I'd once been one of them. But coming face to face with the reality of it wasn't joyful, or satisfying, or cathartic in the slightest.
If she'd left me, the least she could do was thrive. Why does she have to come crawling back in such a pathetic state and pull this crap?
It was one of those days when the phrase jipaljikkon—you weave your own fate—kept ringing in my head.
Left alone, Kim Hayun bit down on her lip.
Siwoo rejected me. Even Siwoo... rejected me...
Truthfully, she had half expected him to turn her down. Of course he would. She was the worst possible woman in his eyes—she'd cheated on him, after all.
And yet some part of her had believed that Siwoo, too, might still harbor a small, very small, lingering attachment. He had been the one to confess first, after all. He'd said he loved her, once.
Why did he reject me?
All sorts of ugly thoughts tangled themselves in her head.
Did he take one look at the state of me and decide I was pathetic?
In fairness, she hadn't expected to run into Siwoo at all. She'd planned to seek him out eventually, once she'd settled back here—but never like this. She certainly hadn't imagined her hand moving on its own before her mind could catch up, reaching for him out of a longing she hadn't even let herself think about.
Kim Hayun studied her own reflection in her phone screen. Bleached blonde hair, clothes so scraps of fabric she was practically naked. Tattoos scattered everywhere. She was a wreck, plain and simple.
"He should have just cursed me out."
Yes—that would have been better. If he'd screamed at her, at least some of the hatred would have burned away. She could have steeled herself against him after that. But Siwoo had slammed a cold wall in her face, and worse, refused to leave her even a sliver of a chance.
Why? She thought and thought about it, until she finally arrived at a conclusion: maybe he was already dating someone, or had feelings for somebody.
Could it be... that woman who was with him?
He hadn't been alone when she'd approached him. The two of them coming to a café together, just the two of them, was suspicious enough on its own.
Siwoo hadn't noticed—but that woman had been watching him, too.
Once I'd finally settled my rattled nerves after running into that old nightmare, I remembered something I'd forgotten.
Ara-noona. Oh no. What do I do.
I felt a prickle of dread walking back into the office. If she'd told the team anything, I had a feeling the moment would arrive where I'd be expected to explain myself. I needed to set the record straight before any rumor took hold—rumors were strange creatures, prone to growing more exaggerated with every retelling until they spread through the whole building.
"Oh, Siwoo's back."
"I heard the coffee was Siwoo's treat?"
"Why would the kid buy coffee? He should've just come empty-handed."
The office atmosphere was exactly the same as always. Even after all these years, my seniors still treated me like a kid who'd walked straight in off the high school graduation stage.
My gaze drifted toward Ara-noona.
"I handed out all the coffee for you, Siwoo."
"Oh, thank you, noona."
So she hadn't said anything. I relaxed, relieved. She probably just wasn't that interested.
I sat down at my desk and unlocked my computer, then checked the messenger first for any work that had piled up—and there it was, sitting at the very top of the queue.
Flustered, I stared over in Ara-noona's direction, but she was smiling. She was always smiling, though.
Something about this feels off.
Maybe it was just because of what had happened earlier, but why did that smile seem to carry a faintly ominous current?
Either way, the moment our eyes met, I gave her a nod. It wasn't like I had anything waiting for me at home—just a bit of gaming before I called it a day.
"I'm sorry, Ara-noona. I had a bit of overtime to wrap up."
"No problem, Siwoo. I only just got out myself."
Ara-noona had a car. I hadn't bothered buying one, since my place was a twenty-minute walk away anyway.
While I was still puzzling over why she'd called me out, she spoke first.
"Shall we go somewhere quieter? I know a café with a really nice atmosphere."
"Works for me, noona."
I'd ridden in Ara-noona's car to cafés with her a few times before, so I climbed in without a trace of suspicion. She buckled her seatbelt, started the engine, and pulled out.
I guess it really was just my imagination.
Yeah, it had to be. Something had felt off for a moment, but I must have misread it. We'd be eating from the same rice pot for decades to come, possibly—no point showing each other ugly faces over nothing.
Feeling it was a close call, I let out a breath of relief.
"So, did everything go smoothly?"
It was the after-work rush, the road was thickening with cars, and our speed had slowed to a crawl when Ara-noona asked the question.
"Ah, that? It was nothing. Just an old classmate of mine, apparently happy to see me after all this time and saying hello."
So she did want an explanation, after all. It was a topic I'd rather have avoided, and I felt a flicker of discomfort, but there was no escaping it—so I forced a smile and tried to laugh the whole thing off as lightly as I could.
"Hmm. So that's your type, Siwoo? I took you for the quiet sort, but you're living a lot less wholesomely than I thought."
"Ara-noona?"
Wondering if I'd misheard again, I turned my head toward her. The traffic light was red, and Ara-noona was looking at me, not the road. In that locked gaze, I felt a jolt of bewilderment.
"Who would've guessed Siwoo works at an adult entertainment establishment."
Her usual gentle, mild-mannered image had vanished so completely that I couldn't tell who the person in the driver's seat even was. And more than that—an establishment? I blanked for a moment, failing to process it, until I realized she was talking about Kim Hayun and hurried to defend myself.
"Ara-noona! I've never worked anywhere like that! And she really is just an old classmate of mine—!"
"Don't worry. Noona can forgive you once."
But I never got to finish my sentence. Suddenly she grabbed my tie and pulled me toward her. The cramped interior of the car, the distance between us collapsing in an instant, the scent of mint rising off her skin—in a single heartbeat, it short-circuited every rational thought I had.
"But I won't forgive you twice. Siwoo. So cut things off with her. Quickly."
The light must have changed, because a chorus of horns blared furiously from behind us. But Ara-noona calmly took hold of the wheel and pulled away at her leisure, unbothered.
Blindsided by the whole thing, I couldn't manage a single reaction.
What on earth am I supposed to do?
Setting aside the way my heart was going off like a firework at the sight of this never-before-seen side of Ara-noona—what was I supposed to do about the fact that she clearly didn't believe a word of my explanation?
My luck today is absolutely vicious.
What an absurd day it had been.
But right up until that moment, I had no idea.
No idea what outlandish things were about to erupt into my quiet, uneventful life.