Eon Jin wondered as she sat by the window overlooking the main street why the café she usually visited whenever she met with clients for major transactions was now blasting upbeat, bubblegum pop music. But she only needed to take a look around to figure out, as she noticed that the crowds that filled the establishment were mostly teenagers. This was highly unusual given that the customers who frequented the place were middle-aged people. The youngsters avoided the coffee shop like a plague; she heard that they even called it the ‘Oldies’ Place’.
It didn’t take long for her to spot Tae Pyung, who was carefully making his way through the group of chatty teenagers while holding a tray of their coffees and pastries. Eon Jin saw him smile and apologize a few times to some young ladies as he returned to their table. She scoffed as she saw the girls he passed by giggle and squeal in all giddiness — as if the man was a celebrity. She admitted to herself though that she probably would think the same way if she didn’t know that Tae Pyung was a police officer in real life.
Eon Jin took a good look at the man in front of her. The boyish charisma was full-on as his hair gently bounced as he walked, his fringe falling comfortably on his forehead and slightly covering his eyes. He looked absolutely effortless in a thick zip-up hoodie over a light gray sweatshirt, regular jeans, and a pair of chucks.
As for herself, Eon Jin was wearing her usual mix of monochromatic pieces: a white high-neck sweater, skinny jeans, and dark gray low-cut boots. Her matching dark gray sleeveless coat hung on the arm of her chair.
The girls who gaped at Tae Pyung a while ago were eyeing her with interest, which made Eon Jin wonder if they thought they were on a date.
“I’m sorry it took quite a while,” Tae Pyung said as he carefully placed their orders on the table. “It was really busy at the counter.”
She took a sip of her iced coffee, then frowned.
“They didn’t get my order right,” she sighed, then quickly checked the receipt that was lying around to verify.
Tae Pyung also took a sip of his drink — a hot cup of espresso with a tablespoon of brown sugar — before explaining.
“I did tell the person at the counter that you wanted the ‘CEO’s Blend’ — which you didn’t even care to expound on before you left me there, by the way — but it seemed like the barista’s new,” he told Eon Jin. “Surely, it doesn’t taste that bad.”
Eon Jin shook her head as she looked at the coffee in her hand, disappointed, yet still continued to drink it.
“Anyhow, I hope you don’t mind that I asked the logistics company for your shop’s address,” Tae Pyung said while cutting his sandwich in half.
“Not really. It’s not as if you’re stalking me or anything, right?” Eon Jin teased. “Or else, you would be reading the Miranda Rights to yourself right here, right now.”
It was good timing that Tae Pyung had not taken a sip of his coffee yet, or else he would have choked. How she deftly caught him off-guard before he could even throw his first question was a reminder that the answers he needed would not come easy.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized profusely. “That wasn’t my intention.”
“Nah, it’s all good. I have given you my name so you could have looked me up on the internet anyway,” she replied lazily, then picked at the slice of cheesecake Tae Pyung served her. “How about you? No cases to investigate?”
“There are quite a few, actually,” he told her. “Do you remember that day when we met by chance for the second time?”
Eon Jin looked thoughtful for a bit, then nodded.
“Were you there because of a dead person or something?” she asked innocently, making sure her voice sounded with just the right amount of curiosity.
Tae Pyung took a huge bite of his sandwich, then dusted off his fingers after putting the bread down and leaned back on his chair as he leisurely chewed.
“Unfortunately,” he confirmed shortly after. “A middle-aged man, probably in his fifties. It caused a bit of commotion that day. Good thing you arrived after the police was able to disperse the crowd, or else you would have been stuck in traffic.”
“Ah, I see,” Eon Jin said in a relaxed manner. “I think someone at the logistics company cautioned me that there was a fuss by the river. They said it was an accident, though.”
Tae Pyung shook his head and leaned closer.
“We thought it was,” he told her. “But two days after, we found out that it was murder.”
Eon Jin kept her face impassive.
“Was it?” she asked.
“Apparently. Some cousin of his plotted the murder to get his insurance money,” Tae Pyung replied, then took another big bite.
“Interesting,” Eon Jin mumbled, then took another sip of her coffee.
An awkward silence ensued. Tae Pyung took a deep breath as he sat up and turned to the window, seemingly admiring the view while Eon Jin continued to pick on her food.
“You know what’s more interesting?” Tae Pyung asked, his eyes still looking at the busy street outside.
“Hmm?”
“It’s that you probably figured it out before we did.”
It took Eon Jin an effort to keep her head down and avoid looking at the man in front of her, as she was not a hundred percent confident that her face would not betray her surprise. Instead, she focused on the condensation forming on the surface of the tall glass in front of her.
Tae Pyung was fast enough to catch the slightest hint of her uneasiness from his peripheral vision, but pretended to be oblivious as he turned the tables on her.
Eon Jin cleared her throat after a while and said, “How is that even possible? Like you said, I wasn’t even in the area when you started investigating.”
“That’s why I find it curious,” Tae Pyung said as he turned his face towards the woman sitting in front of him. “You even mentioned a description of the victim in passing.”
Eon Jin quickly replayed their conversation at the parking lot several days ago, trying to find the part where she slipped.
“You told me that nothing is more charming than meeting up in the middle of a pre-meditated murder, something to that effect,” Tae Pyung reminded her. “You also joked that an image of a bloated body would make my daydreams about you more interesting.”
Good job with your flirting , she scolded herself. I told you it was a bad idea.
“The descriptions were pretty much on-point, if you ask me,” he added. “I wonder how a person who wasn’t in the vicinity and did not see the scene up close would be able to come up with such imagery.”
Moments later, when she realized that an outright denial would not grant her a way out of this mess, Eon Jin swallowed, then lifted her eyes to look straight at Tae Pyung.
“Seriously though, are you under the impression that I might have something to do with that incident?” she challenged him.
“I’m not,” Tae Pyung answered. “I told you, it was the man’s cousin who plotted the murder.”
All of a sudden, it was a staring match between Tae Pyung and Eon Jin: her trying to figure out his motives, him waiting for a momentary faux pas.
“What are you trying to imply, then?” Eon Jin asked eventually.
Tae Pyung rested his arms on the table and leaned closer, their faces a few inches apart.
“That this must not be plain coincidence as you said,” he told Eon Jin, his words soft and measured.
Just as he said it, Tae Pyung’s focus shifted as he sensed that a similar conversation already happened between them in the past. He closed his eyes for a moment as his thoughts started to become disoriented.
When he opened his eyes, he saw that in front of him stood a much younger Son Eon Jin — around the age of fifteen — from a long, long time ago. They were in a clearing in the woods in the late afternoon, possibly in the height of summer. He could feel the warmth of his breath as it bounced back from what seemed to be the surface of a mask covering his face.
The teen-aged Eon Jin looked angry, her eyes were glaring and her lips pouted in contempt. Her hands were restrained at her sides, clutching her red chima.
“What must it be, then?” the young lady asked, her voice a little louder than necessary. “Is it destiny? Do you really believe it’s destiny that we met here when the truth is that you have waited for me in this clearing knowing that this is the path to my home?”
He felt like laughing for no reason since in reality, he didn’t have any idea what the rendezvous was all about. Oddly, he actually still did — like he was bound to do so — but he reduced it to a chuckle as he was afraid that it might drive the teen-aged Eon Jin mad. Luckily she didn’t, but she let out a gust of air in frustration.
“You annoy me — you and your childish ways,” she groaned. “Just look at that mask you are wearing. Do you really think you could scare me with that?”
He sat on one of the big rocks lying around and gestured for Eon Jin to sit beside him, but she did not move an inch. He wondered why that made him feel disappointed.
“I told you to stop following me around,” she scolded him. “Why is it difficult for you to understand that?”
Tae Pyung felt as if the world stopped upon hearing that from the younger Eon Jin. Various emotions stirred within him at that moment — hurt, loneliness, anger, helplessness — and he wanted to let her know about it. He wanted to tell her that he could not accept it. Instead, he only let out a sigh.
He saw that the young Eon Jin did the same and her shoulders dropped as if exhausted from carrying a heavy burden.
“I will be married next month,” she murmured, her eyes glued to her feet while her fingers fidgeted at the daenggi tied at the end of her braided hair. “Even as friends, meeting like this would no longer be proper, don’t you think?”
Tae Pyung gazed at Eon Jin with a heavy feeling he could only surmise as longing, although he did not understand where it was coming from and why he felt it right there and then. All he knew at that moment was that he badly wanted to close the distance between them and wrap her in his arms, a gesture he perceived to be overly familiar to the two of them for a reason he did not know yet.
His fingers latched on the edge of the mask he was wearing, ready to remove it and face her with all honesty. However, someone suddenly placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Excuse me,” a young man who was apparently standing behind him said. “Are you Son Eon Jin’s friend, by any chance?”
Photo by Iva Rajović on Unsplash
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