Tae Pyung hated himself for finding beauty in everything about her, including the way her silhouette boldly stood out against the reddish glow of the sun setting that afternoon. He was a lost cause, for instead of avoiding her, he was inevitably gravitating towards her again.
And although he was aware that it was her who saved him from drowning in the river that night, at that moment he knew he was not ready to meet her yet. He intended to talk to her — and thank her, of course — but whatever motivation he had in him was overcome by the feeling of being betrayed. Sadly, it was indeed foolish of him to strongly cling on to her promise that there would be no secrets between them, only to be disappointed in the end.
Yet, part of him was also looking forward to seeing her after what already felt like a lifetime.
“You do know that it’s prohibited to park on the sidewalk,” he grumbled.
Eon Jin, who was standing beside her car which was indeed parked illegally by the fence of the police station compound, turned the moment she heard his voice, although a little too quickly for her liking.
“Feeling better, I assume?” she asked as he took several steps towards her, at the same time trying to restrain the smile that was breaking out on her lips.
However, Tae Pyung made sure to keep a safe distance from her — a subtle warning that what happened during the night of the accident indeed disrupted whatever dynamics was formed between them. And him drawing an invisible line stung Eon Jin a little more than she cared to admit.
“I know you have questions,” she told Tae Pyung upfront, wanting to cut to the chase and get over the aloofness as soon as possible.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said with a biting tone in his voice. “Without honesty, we would be wasting our time talking anyway, right?”
Eon Jin wanted to yell at Tae Pyung and call him out for his stubbornness, but she took one long and deep breath instead in order to have this conversation with him, especially since she knew that she was partly at fault for not being completely honest from day one.
“Come on, Kim Tae Pyung. It isn’t fair to say that I did not keep my end of the bargain,” she justified. “Do you remember that I promised to answer your questions truthfully? You must know that I have done that thus far.”
Tae Pyung’s reply was to dart his eyes towards the opposite side of the road, away from her face. And Eon Jin took this as a sign that she had a good shot at winning this argument.
“Give me another chance to keep my promise,” she told him, exerting her best effort to sound as if she was asking politely.
Unfortunately, it ended up like she was giving him orders per usual.
She added the word ‘please’ when he did not answer, hoping it would do the trick.
Tae Pyung knew that the moment he said ‘yes’, he would be abandoning all reason and rationality at the door because: one, he was to give her his full trust for the second time; and two, he was certain that he would most likely believe whatever she told him. Nevertheless, he decided to throw caution to the wind as he realized that logic started to matter less to him the day he got drawn into that woman in his déjà vu.
He closed his eyes for a few seconds, then told her, “Come into my office and let’s talk.”
Tae Pyung was already on his way back to the building when Eon Jin reached for his other good arm.
“I would appreciate it if we could talk somewhere else,” Eon Jin said with a firm resolve that was reflected in both her voice and her eyes. “Somewhere private.”
Half an hour later, Tae Pyung found himself opening the doors of his house to Eon Jin.
It was a medium loft-type unit in a high-rise condominium. As soon as they arrived, she allowed her eyes to wander around the first floor of his home — from the small kitchen and dining room on the right, to the living room facing the ceiling-to-floor window, and lastly, the spacious bathroom on the left. With minimalist interiors in a color scheme of black, white, gray, and teal, everything about it had a touch of him.
The house even smells like Kim Tae Pyung , Eon Jin immediately thought to herself. Fresh and crisp — but not at all like antiseptic — with subtle notes of mint and pine.
“I’ll just go and get changed,” Tae Pyung said while she was in a daze and was absentmindedly taking her shoes off in the foyer, brushing past her on his way to the bedroom on the mezzanine.
The instant he was gone, Eon Jin loosened the collar of her black turtleneck thermal-knit long sleeves and walked towards the window. She parted the sheer white curtains and was treated to a spectacular view of the city’s skyline at dusk. Below her was an ordinary scene of the boulevard at rush hour, which basically was a throng of motorists and commuters desperately wanting to get home at the end of another long day.
In solitude, she permitted herself to get lost in her thoughts and ponder on the memory that she recently chanced upon. She kept herself on a standstill as she recalled the past events that flashed before her eyes the moment she touched Tae Pyung’s face and pleaded that he breathe for her that night at the river bank.
In the flashback, Eon Jin was kneeling on a bed of fine, damp sand; behind her was a picturesque sea and a late afternoon sky. It felt as if she just came from the water since her hanbok and her braided hair were dripping wet. She was thoroughly drenched that even the warm summer breeze made her shiver.
Then, she saw a pair of small hands nervously reach out to the boy lying in front of her. And before the current milieu could register in her mind, she cried.
“Breathe for me, Tae Pyung,” she begged between sobs with a voice that seemingly belonged to a little girl. “I told you to breathe for me.”
An old woman who was standing in front of her chided her at once.
“What do you think you were doing, playing in the water without any of our servants in sight and taking Tae Pyung along with you?” she hissed at Eon Jin. “You both have not learned how to swim yet!”
Eon Jin looked up at the woman as her tears continued to race down her cheeks, then struggled to speak through suppressed hiccups.
“We were not supposed to go far out, halmoni,” she tried to explain. “But all of a sudden, the water was already waist-deep. Then, a wave washed over us… and when I looked over my shoulder, Tae Pyung was gone.”
In spite of her frantic weeping, the boy in front of her remained lying still, prompting her to pull him up to a semi-sitting position and shake his shoulders violently.
“Kim Tae Pyung!” Eon Jin bawled. “I told you to breathe! Why aren’t you listening to me? I’ll flick your forehead if you —”
All of a sudden, the boy coughed several times, thus expelling the remnants of water in his chest.
“I’m breathing! I’m breathing, alright,” he assured her in a hoarse voice.
The elders around them let out a collective sigh of relief — especially Eon Jin’s grandmother who, just a few moments ago, appeared as if she was about to have a heart attack.
The young boy named Tae Pyung turned to Eon Jin and said, “I was just holding my breath a while ago because you looked so funny when you cry, so you don’t need to — ouch!”
She flicked his forehead regardless, then repeated it twice for good measure.
“What did you do that for?” Tae Pyung protested, but then he saw that the girl started crying again.
It was just as bad as the waterworks earlier, and at that point, Eon Jin felt as if her nose already vanished because she could no longer breathe properly through it due to its congestion.
To her surprise, the boy raised his arm and used the sleeve of his jeogori to wipe the tears that continued to flow from her eyes, as well as the dripping snot from her nose.
“Hey, Son Eon Jin. You told me to breathe, and I obeyed your bidding. Everything should be good now,” he told her. “Stop crying.”
Eon Jin sniffed a few times, then nodded as she squeezed her eyes shut in an attempt to empty out the tears and the sadness that was still lodged in her young heart.
“Stay close to the shore next time,” Tae Pyung reminded her as he continued to dry the tears on her cheeks. “Or else, I would have to follow you even if I don’t know how to swim.”
She bit her lip and looked down on her fists which were tightly clutching her red chima, feeling guilty as she wrapped her mind around the fact that she was the reason why Tae Pyung almost died that afternoon.
“I promised to protect you always, didn’t I?” the boy spoke gently as he leaned his face closer to hers, both of their foreheads eventually touching. “But please, don’t ever chase after danger again. Do you understand?”
Eon Jin barely nodded her affirmation.
“Hey, Son Eon Jin…”
“Son Eon Jin?” Tae Pyung repeated, successfully pulling her back to the present.
He was standing behind her, offering a steaming mug of coffee that he held with his right hand. He already changed into a white cotton shirt and a pair of dark gray jogger pants, while his dark hair gave him a more laid-back vibe as it fell softly below his eyebrows and behind his ears.
Eon Jin carefully took the drink from him and mumbled a word of thanks.
“How’s your injury, by the way?” she asked as she stared at his left arm which was still in a cast.
“The doctors said that it’s just a small fracture,” Tae Pyung replied in a nonchalant manner as he looked out the window.
“Ahh... I see.”
In the moments that followed, they stood side by side facing the glass window as they quietly watched the night lights across the city come alive, starting from one building to another. It was such a calming sight, although on the contrary, they were also getting anxious by the minute as they anticipated the inevitable conversation that was already long overdue.
“Shall we start with the interrogation?” Eon Jin, who was hiding her smile behind the mug, asked using a callback from the night they first met.
Tae Pyung only replied with a sidelong stare.
“Being a moper does not suit you, Kim Tae Pyung,” she complained. “Stop it already.”
Tae Pyung sighed and went to sit on the teal-colored couch behind them. As if acting on instinct, he tapped the space on his right side — a gesture he figured he adapted from that déjà vu at the coffee shop.
A fleeting look of recognition flashed in Eon Jin’s eyes as she was able to recall that motion, too. Instead, she decided not to comment on it and simply took careful steps forward to sit at the far end of the sofa.
“Why did I find you there that night, Son Eon Jin?” he asked a few heartbeats later with a voice so soft she thought he was mumbling to himself.
“I was on assignment,” Eon Jin kept her answer concise as she held the mug with both of her hands, resting them on top of one knee while sitting cross-legged on her side of the couch.
“Care to expound on that ‘assignment’?”
She snorted at his poor attempt at holding her in derision, which resulted in Tae Pyung giving her another rebuking side-stare that she easily brushed off anyway.
“I serve a specific purpose,” she told him matter-of-factly soon afterwards, her face lacking any trace of emotion other than desolation. “Do you believe in fate, Kim Tae Pyung?”
Photo by Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash
Comments (0)
See all