Chapter 7

Considering my reflection in the mirror, I made sure I'm turning into someone I've hated someday.

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How hard to look at the sky at night without feeling pain invading your heart. How hard night unnoticed by some people without taking a piece of your soul, your joy, your desire to live.

How strange the night was. It can sent sorrow in your body but… but it's strange. It can spread out in your body a strange feeling of ecstasy which you've never imagined it's inside you before.

The feeling of closing your eyes, letting your legs touch the ground like a little child still trying to take his first steps in this life. You'll feel cold running through your body, but by the time, it will make you feel alive, that there's a part of you is still alive, suffering. There is a part of you have in it a little feeling that can be restored.

How beautiful it is to unleash your silky hair to dance with you, and to let the sik of your dress fly around you like a gypsy who doesn’t care a whit about that life.

You just want to dance, dance until your feet bleed.

It's a delightful feeling cannot be experienced, but it exists with a person. Your feeling that you weigh nothing.

Just the world around you, my gypsy lady, falls apart by the falling of your feet on that music that no one around you hears, thanks to the so-called earphones invention.

At that time, her desire is to feel that she is a woman, not just an ordinary girl. A woman that can move her body in a way that make men fall at her feet. Even if she doesn’t have that magic, but if she closed her eyes, if the right music started to mess with her ears while she is in a state of charm and pleasure, music has the magic to turn you into a ballerina naturally with no need to learn.

When your feet rise and spin so your head is going numb nicely.

Yeon Hee was swaying to the melodies of the soft music that make her feel she is the only woman in the world. A woman who deserves to get love in every sense of the world, even if she thought so only in her world of illusions.

She kept moving smoothly with no well-defined dance as if she was dancing with somebody or spinning alone.

It wasn’t difficult for her to escape from the routine family gathering that was divided into 3 sections: men talking about work, women gossiping about gross stuff, and lovers section.

We can add the 4th section which about Kyungsoo who doesn’t belong to them. He was a very successful doctor in spite of his young age. He didn’t care about the family's business and decided to make his own way to the speciality he found himself in, despite the opposition of all.

She went out of that place when she felt that usual feeling; that she doesn’t belong here. She only belongs to him. She only belongs to this one's embrace who makes her feel she is in the corner of his mind; if she were in his mind in the first place.

The bond she made alone between him and her became stronger everyday though he has no idea how much she loves him. He doesn’t know she made those bonds.

Why do they become stronger while nothing happen to this love to make it stronger like passion, words he tells her, or kisses he steels from her to become like the effect of alcohol in her mind and the drug on her wounds.

Her feeling of the strong belonging to that chest, which she to rest on at her last rest before leaving that barren world, powerfully increases. Each day steals from her life a whole year.

A flower waits for spring to bloom but it didn’t know that winter will last longer. It will last indefinitely.

The song was over, so ended with it those dreamy moments she was in few minutes ago, each song threw her to the other as they plunged her in a whirlpool.

She stopped a little to adjust her dress which began to slip away of her shoulders to show more of her body and she adjusted her reckless hair. She wore those shoes again to head outside in a slow pace. She found it as it was before going out as if time had stopped and resumed again.

She didn’t know what to do in such atmosphere, so she followed the same habit she had done in many previous family gatherings.

She walked quietly towards Kyungsoo who focused on some papers before him in order not to make him flinch by her sudden move. She slightly put her finger on his shoulder and pressed down on it. He quietly turned to her with his papers in his hand; looking at her with his warm smile. She had no idea whether it was a child's smile or a manly one.

Kyungsoo wasn’t that close to her to the degree that anyone imagined but, for her, he was one of those she saw them in your life just to.. smile. To feel that you have a place in this crowded world. He was like a cool wind came at noon to make you feel good.

" Can I sit next to you as usual?" she said in embarrassment in a low voice, so he nodded and his smile still adorned his lips.

She remained turning around herself left and right, hopefully, just maybe she would find him at least looking at her, but no way.

No one lives in a heart by force or get out of it with his consent.

She didn’t want to disrupt Kyungsoo from what he was doing but she felt him looking at the papers for seconds then he left them to focus all his attention for her. She smiled for his action; at least he didn’t ignore her.

" So, how are you doing? Do you still feel fatigued?"

I wish you just know that it would be weird if I didn’t feel fatigued.

She remained looking at him, wishing she could say that sentence but she reassured him she was okay instead.

Sadly, their conversation didn’t last long. Just seconds before she heard a strong voice asking them to go as making dinner was over. But they remained sitting for a while.

She doesn’t know why she doesn’t want to stand up unless Kyungsoo does in order to go after him.

She feels her soul is naked. She feels how fool she is. She is afraid to do anything or else she would make a mistake that proves how stupid she is.

She remained sitting but she felt heat hitting her body. Her body began to tremble widely as she saw him heading to the dining room behind her. He passed by her without even giving her one look. Some laughters, that she watched over, adorned his face while he was sitting with his brother but they disappeared when he sat with his father and grandfather.

He didn’t give her a look. How she felt she was nothing on this day, at this place. He didn’t bother himself to deceive the family and ask her to go with him to the dining table.

She got distracted by all those thoughts that bgan to ravage her head. She didn’t notice Kyungsoo's eyes that were watching the situation in great pain apparent on his face. When she turned her face to see that look, their eyes had a long talk: exhausting, silent and no one ever dares to utter it in words.

He quickly stood up without torturing her more with these looks and told her in a husky voice:" let's go, Yeon Hee" he said to go with him like a little child walking behind her father in a gathering full of strangers.

She remained walking without looking at anybody till Kyungsoo suddenly stopped. She felt her body stiffened after her face crashed into him lightly.

She didn’t get why he suddenly stopped like that until she found all seats beside Jeon Soo were full. The grandfather was sitting on the head of the table and Jeon Soo at the beginning of a row with one of the family girls next to him. She seemed to like him.

She sensed Kyungsoo's anger was rising as he turned his face quickly towards her, for it she noticed. He said in a quiet voice never showing the slightest bit of what was on his face:" come sit beside me".

He moved his palm back to hold hers and they sat on the only place left away from everyone.

That silent dinner started as it wasn’t a custom to talk except in necessities.

How envy and victory looks on the face of the girl sitting beside him with boast burned her!

How much Kyung felt that heat coming out of her so she became angry as well.

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The dinner was over.

How happy she was. These gatherings and family occasions always suffocated her.

She sid goodbye to Kyungsoo. Oh, how she wished to stay with him much longer as she felt he was her cure from snakes venom spread due to some looks even if it was delusional.

She didn’t forget that he pressed on her hand and whispered:" Don’t forget I'm like your elder brother if you need anything"

She nodded emphasizing his words.

Her eyes started to sparle with tears. It wasn’t tears of sorrow but gratitude. Huge gratitude that no noe understands.

However, she didn’t understand why Jeon Soo insisted not to go until the end of the family gathering, yet she silently agreed till everyone left.

He started walking outside the palace and she follwed him silently. Deserted silence.

Everyday she realizes the distance between them. May he know that he is closer to her than herself, than her vein where her blood run in. but he's always been like that.

The familiar stranger.

The most remote stranger.

They were barely going to his car till she knew the reason for not leaving the palace before everone..

" I'll go to San Hee's tonight. You can take a taxi to return home"

The cat caught her tongue out of shock. She didn’t realize what he'd said. All she knew that her legs prevented her from moving to get in the car.

She couldn’t utter' can you drop me in your way'. She remained silent for a while until her eyes widened in surprise and shock when she saw him already in the car and went away from her sight quickly.

She remained watching the back of his car as it drove away.. away.. and the numbers kept moving before her wandering eyes.Few minutes till she accomodated the situation he put her in.

Kyungsoo had left. God, if he had told her earlier, she would have asked Kyungsoo secretly to give her a ride. She forgot she didn’t bring money with her.

" Don’t cry, don’t cry. Just take a deep breath and calm down. Don’t act like a fool when you're nervous as usual" she said as her voice rose up from whisper as if she was talking to someone.

Will she return to the palace? But what would she tell them? She couldn’t think about anything for minutes but she found herself holding her phone and calling her saviour:

" Hyung Min, I need you quickly".

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She remained staring at the dark surrounding them. She didn’t know why she was afraid. Afraid of him? or for fim, or what?

The situation remained calm, calm in a frightening degree. She told him what happened through the phone, so he hung up on her and became in front of her in half an hour.

He quickly got out of his car to check on every part of her. He feared that something bad happened to her by anyone as a result of standing here alone.

That bastard, that jerk.

Every dirty word about Jeon Soo from in every language he knew kept echoing in his head until cut off that silence around them in the car by a violent hit on the steering wheel. He was shouting furiously:" That jerk, I swear I'll give him a lesson he won't forget his whole life"

" Hyung Min, calm down. You will cause an accident, calm down" she said in panic but Hyun Min continued his loud yelling.

" How could he, how could he, even if he carried envy and hatred against you, to leave you alone in these clothes? To say the least, he is inhuman. That heartless rude!"

She remained looking at him with wide eyes while seeing his exploding anger. She opened her mouth wide while watching his screams and threatening.

He quickly turned his face to her then back to the road when she met his talk with silence instead of encouraging him to attack him more.

" Girl, why don’t you talk for God's sake?" he said in an acute accent, so she tried to regain letters to her mind to speak.

" What do you want me to say?" she answered in a trembling voice so he laughed ironically.

" You love him, you still love him after all this?!!"

" Hyung Min, please. Don’t make me regret that I told you" her voice intensified with each word came out of her lips which surprised Hyung Min. How does she love him while doing all this?

He always has considered her as his little sister and knows how kind-hearted she is, weak and fragile. Lucky is the one who wins her heart because he will get bliss itself for her excess feelings.

But she made a mistake; she fell in love with someone who doesn’t even see her. Hyung Min was about to swear that Jeon Soo forgot her face for not looking at her all the time.

Yeon Hee talked to him ending the discussion, defending Jeon Soo. She is still fool. He sees that she is very fool and she is the most sincere fool in that world.

He and Tae Yang talked too much behind her back about her condition until Tae Yang told him one day that she would try to make Yeon Hee date soeone. It's her right as that jerk brings his girlfriend to his marital dwelling.

He had humiliated the soul of the lady of the house but cherished just a mean who accepted to stay in the house of a married man, even if this marriage was on paper.

" You look so beautiful today" said Hyung Min quietly in a voice hardly heard and his hands holding the wheel. He tried to put her in the mood a little but he didn’t expect her to say:" really?" in surprise.

Surprise, as if everyone told her how ugly she was until someone came and she tried to find some honesty in his voice.

He stopped the car on the roadside and turned to her in order to knock her up.

That diseased marriage. That blind man, heart and eyes, caused her to lose her self-esteem more each day. The broken trust originally inside her he tried to build before even she got married.

No man ever came close to her. She didn’t date. Her experience was like newborn babies. And suddenly, she found herself married,suddenly she fell in love for the first time and it was the harshest and the most faliure one.

" Yes, Yeon Hee. Why do you say' really' in that pathetic way? You're beautiful, yet gorgeous. Your dress, hair, lips. I don’t know how that lout beared to stand like a cold fridge quietly beside your flame"

He slapped her with his words. He really did. While she was shocked, he was taking his breath and panting due to annoyance. He turned to her with fear on his face.

" Please don’t tell Tae Yang,ok"

She silenced to understand then she began to laugh loudly until her eyes watered.

" God, Hyung Min, don’t be that afraid. I won't tell her. Damn my friend became able to praise me and cheer me up" she said in a raspy voice like men, so he laughed and drove his car.

" Hyung Min, you told me you're going to get Yeon Hee. Where is she?"

" Tae Yang, one more word and I'll hit you, for God's sake" said Yeon Hee sharply while throwing her bag on a couch then threw herself carelessly on the cofortable chair she loved in Tae Yang's house.

Seconds passed till she heard an admiration whistle from Tae Yang.

" OMG, where did this feminine and beauty hide?" she kept praising her but the latter with white dress put her arms on her knees playing with her fingers in nevous about to kill her.

" Uh, I .. he didn’t like me" she said quietly as if she was about to receive a punishment because she knew what would happen.

1

2

3

Hyung Min's shouting.

" You, nuts, I told you don’t listen to him, just us." He said and pointed to Tae Yang who qyuickly nodded in front of her.

Yeon Hee leaned back and whispered with bitter irony:" it's weird I'm like that only in your eyes. Maybe you had a disease. It's strange no one looked at me, even the one I loved. And you are the opposite"

They both looked at each other before Tae Yang asked Hyung Min to go for now in order know what's inside her.

" Have you cried yet?" she set her sentence like a one fired a mercy bullet.

At that time, she remembered she hadn't cried. She had many chances but her eyes were dead. Is it because bshe didn’t accommodate the whole situation or what?

" Not yet.. the ghosts that came to me at night before snoozing won't leave me alone today untill I cry, don’t worry"

She said her words in trace while Tae Tang was listening sadly with terrible bitterness. She can't do anything. She thought of many solutions but it just needed Yeon Hee's approval. She had no idea what to do.

" Listen, sweetheart, Jeon Soo is just angry and hurt as you say but this doesn’t give him the right to do whatever he does to you at all. But listen to me girl, the man sees the woman beautiful and attractive only when she is the one destined to him from the moment he's born in the world. For it I tell you, whether time will come and he will discover your captivating beauty or someone else willand this is the one for you".

" I don’t wait for destinies. I want him, Yang or I'll die without him" she said strongly with burning eyes. She'd never seen her like this before.

She rushed before turning to the one sitting:" Can I sleep here tonight? He went to her house today"

" Oh God" Tae Yang whisperly sighed" fine, Yeon. Go get some rest now and note that we're going shopping and strolling tomorrow"

The latter tried to object but..

" No, no no. I won't allow you to object. Come on, go, good night"

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" You came, didn’t you say there was a family gathering today?" she said before running to throw herself in his arms that received her with a kind smile and lifted her off the floor.

He whispered beside her ear" I missed you" and shut her up with a small kiss before she answered him. So she smiled without saying anything.

" I'll sleep here tonight" he said messing up with her hair while she laughed happily.

" Few seconds and I'll get you your clothes you left here. You go and take a warm bath" San Hee finished to run quickly.. but wait a minute!

He will stay here tonight? Not the first time but.. but Yeon Hee is home alone?

She realized what happened when her memory flashed what happened that morning. She fainted; she looked ill and pale.

What if that happened again without finding anyone home to help her? It's the weekend and the sevants are not home.. oh God.

Jeon Soo took off his jacket while looking at the house waiting for San Hee but he noticed she was still here, standing in her place bending her shoulders and her back faced him.

" What's wrong San Hee?" he said a little loudly so she turned to him and her face to the ground. Should she tell him to go back to her? He will get mad but!

She came closer slowly until she reached him and still looking ant the floor.

The so-called Hyun Ree warned her not to tell Jeon Soo a thing.

" Is.. is it right to leave Yeon Hee alone in the house? It's a little dreary when it is empty" she said with a fitful voice looking down. She didn’t want to meet his eyes.

His eyes widened strongly for her words. Does she ask him to go to Yeon Hee?

" What's wrong, babe? She used to stay alone" he said so she raised her to his in shock .

Right, she didn’t think of it. Does this mean the blackouts reoccur a lot?

"Tell me, San, what's wrong, you're hiding something?"

She felt him trapping her with that question. Her hands began to press on each other intensly. Her legs moved nervously to knock lightly on the ground.

"a..a..actually"

" There's something then. Are you afraid of me? Come here" he held her hands and they sat next to each other on the couch. She remained looking at the floor so he held her shoulder in order to lean on his chest. Her breath hit his neck exposed from the unbuttoned shirt.

" What's wrong?"

" Today.. in the morning"

" yeah?"

" Hyun Ree came this morning to the house, and he asked for Yeon Hee" she uttered as if she was leaking information slowly, so he frowned firmly due to what he'd heard.

Hyun Ree and Yeon Hee?

He remembered when they danced together. He scanned his expressions that were looking at her ans see throughher while she was shy and didn’t look much at him.

At that time, his instict told him that it wouldn't stop here so he siled ironically at the ball, like now. But that smile disappeared when San Hee continued:" I already went to tell Yeon Hee he waits for her but…"

Whenever she remembered how she was lying on the floor as she entered, her body trembled till this trembling reached Jeon Soo who remained holding her bare shoulders before he lulled:" calm down, what is it? But what?"

" I found her on the floor… it wasn't fainting but she was very pale and sweating hard and…"

At a certain point, she silenced. At a certain poinr, she couldn’t carry on but silenced at the wrong time. At a time Jeon Soo felt there was more that he wouldn’t like to hear.

While was trying to absorb she had fainted, at moments, it came to his mind that it might happen to happen to herv again tonight when she was alone.

" When I tried to wake her up before I scream calling Hyun Ree, she was calling your name anxiously"

Silence… silence…

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" My arms and legs can't bear those bags, Tae Yang. Have mercy on me, girl. What's this wasteful?"

" Shut up, we're about to finish"

" It's the fifth shop where you tell me that. You remind me with shopping with mom. Why don’t I love shopping like you two? At least I would've cheered up"

" You're fool, dear" she said and went to the other shop while Yeon Hee tried to adjust the huge bags on her elbows.

" This stupid forced me to go to a place I don’t want and wear clothes that don’t suit me.everyone is looking at me. Screw you, Tae Yang. That jean shorts are too short, why are my legs chubby? and thus black shirts with this strips. I feel I wear nothing.."

All this is Tae Yang's fault. The girls' clothes were far from each other. Yeon Hee never tried to wear such clothes. Just cotton and sportswear all the time but.. now..

" Stop describing your outfit"

She heard.. a manly.. voice!

She quickly turned her face and met a broad chest as it was the maximum her sight can reach. He was in a black shirt..

She rose her eyes to the owner of that voice who she knew very well. Though she knew it, she winced when she saw his smiling face.

" Hyun Ree" she said in a low voice came out of her throat miraculously.

He took a step backward and leaned his back to see her overall look.

" Why do you walk talking to yourself about your outfit? You look great. Your style is different though I saw you once in a beautiful dress. You were born for such things."

Her face… represents now the very red tomatoes of the harvest season. She heard these words for the first time and tried to absorb them.

He lowered his face down a little to be at her face's level as their breath mingled like honey melting in a glass of warm milk. That's how she felt because of his breath intoxicated her eyes and increased her flushing.

He neither had mercy on her nor cutt theie eyecontact until Tae Yang's voice came:" Oh Hyun Ree, hello" she said in a big welcoming tone so he smiled and greeted her.

As the three standing: the one who is blushing, the one smiling inside maliciously, and the one looking adoringly.

" Well, Hyung Min called and he wants to meet me. I'll leave you together" she said with the most malicious voice in the world to escape quickly before Yeon Hee run after her.

Yeon turned and tried to hold her neck but she failed. She was giving Hyun Ree her back now. She wished to die in a situation like this.

" Yeon Hee?"

She strongly closed her eyes, whishing to disappear. There is no spell for her to disappear now. She turned to him and smile awkwardly so he spoke first:" If you're not busy as I see, can we sit together?"

Will she say no?

Did she swallow her tongue, unable to speak at all. But she didn’t realize until she found him holding her hand to pull her behind him out of the shopping center. So she shouted in wonder" where are we going?"

" I don’t like crowd myself".

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Moments, passing moments she wished to be inside them forever. These moments when she feels she wants to stop time there. She wants to stay there. With no fears, no concerns, no thinking about a thing or anyone. A time when you're carefree.

That what she wanted at this moment, to stop time then. When she got in the drop top car so it was easy to look up at the sky. At sunset, when the purple of the sky is mixed with the firey orange of the sunlight announcing her time to sleep.

He was driving on the highway and her hair was flying announcing it's going far away.

Now she felt the same when she danced and swayed at her favorite melodies. That feeling of serenity and tranquility.

Meanwhile, he was looking at her every second then brought his eyes back on the road again. He was smiling, then this smile widened to a silent laugh when he found her rising her arms and her silky hair flying behind her. The rude wind delivered to him her captivating perfume.

How different today is from yesterday!

She was exhausted in his arms when he left her lying on the couch of the car. Today, however, here she is sitting beside him in a perfect health and blush, like a dtream. She rose her arms up as if she was about to touch the sky.

Her view needed to be photographed or painted but his eyes memorized that scene and wouldn’t leave his sight until he would learn how to paint to bring this out as a living picture or invent a memory camera.

They reached his destination which was one of the bridges underneath which laid the ocean. They got out of the car so she ran quickly towards the bridge railing and hung onto it moving forward and backward cheerfully.

He remained watching her silently. He was watching his painting in great silence that no one interrupted but her.

" I want to tell you something because you, I don’t know.. you're special to me"

All his body was smiling but calm controlled him.

" What do you want to tell me?" he asked so she silenced.

How she wanted to tell him. She would tell him because he seemed to take a little space in her journal. She started to write her words about him. Him of all people she knew in her whole life, he was a stranger for her but also close to her.

Would he also have a letter? Will he have this role in her life?

" I'm sick, Hyun Ree. I have cancer".