Tsunami Advisory
Chapter 18
Hae-il walked toward her without hesitation. The sharp click of his dress shoes cut through the quiet night, and soon his shadow fell directly alongside hers. How long had it been since they had stood this close, completely alone? Ever since they reunited, Danbi had always been busy either hiding or running off first.
Just then, Danbi broke the silence sooner than expected.
“Why did you come out?”
Her question was still laced with distance. Hae-il hesitated, unsure of what expression to wear, before replying from behind his mask of ‘Team Leader.’
“Just needed air. It was getting stifling inside.”
A heavy silence settled between them at his reply. In the past, Danbi used to grow quiet with a shy look whenever they were alone, but the silence flowing between them now was unmistakably different from that old flutter of excitement.
“You worked hard today…”
“Hard on what?”
“Um… Slogging through dinner sitting next to the nagging Director? Well, I doubt he gave you much grief, though.”
It sounded like standard pleasantries between a boss and a subordinate. An intolerable irritation flared inside Hae-il at the realization that they had truly been reduced to nothing more than that.
“So you did notice who I was sitting with.”
A barb crept into his voice despite himself. He had no energy left to play along with this exhausting charade. If this kept up, it felt as though they would remain boss and subordinate forever. He hated that thought.
“And yet, instead of me, you sat someone else next to you. Our team members did, and so did you, Danbi-ssi.”
Rage surged up his throat. The fact that she prioritized some other guy over him, that she was so busy looking after that bastard she didn’t even care about him—all of it infuriated him beyond endurance.
“Ah, I just assumed you’d naturally want to sit with the other team leaders…”
“Meaning you didn’t even consider me.”
Was it the alcohol? His surging emotions threatened to paralyze his reason.
“Shouldn’t you have seated me there by default?”
Hae-il stepped forward slowly to stand directly in front of Danbi. As she avoided looking straight at him, he forced his way into her gaze.
Under the faint moonlight, her face felt remarkably vivid. Those deep, dark eyes that still glistened with moisture. It felt as if he were being pulled right into that abyss. Standing so close he could feel her breath, the illusion seized him that everything had rewound to when they were seventeen. Back to when she was seventeen, looking at him as though he were her entire world, like a frightened baby rabbit.
“I’ve tried to understand, but I just can’t wrap my head around this.”
“…What?”
“I mean, look at it. Does that make any sense? I’m right there beside you, but you’re so preoccupied with some other bastard…”
As the intoxication rushed to his head, the words festering in his chest spilled out without any filter. He was frustrated with everything; he wanted her to acknowledge him right now, and he wanted to tear down this suffocating distance in a single breath.
“The Lee Danbi I know likes me.”
At Hae-il’s provocation, Danbi seemed visibly flustered for a moment, but soon looked back at him calmly.
“Team Leader, you’re very drunk.”
Her voice was strangely steady and resolute, as if trying to dismiss everything he said as mere drunken babble.
“Don’t talk to me formally. It creates distance.”
Hae-il snapped irritably. Every time she called him ‘Team Leader,’ it felt as though an invisible wall was being built thick between them, and he couldn’t stand it.
“Ha… You really are drunk.”
Danbi sighed softly and muttered. Casual speech. Only then did Hae-il close his eyes and let out a dry chuckle. Finally, the real ‘Lee Danbi’ seemed to be standing in front of him.
“You should’ve talked like that from the start. Took you damn long enough.”
“Why did you drink so much?”
“Again. Formal again.”
“Ha, fine. Why did you drink so much?”
Just like the Danbi he used to know, she adjusted quickly. Hae-il poured it out honestly, without bothering to skirt around it.
“Because of you. Because I was so annoyed.”
“About what?”
“You’ve been pretending you don’t know me for a whole month. If I were you, I would’ve greeted you the very first day we saw each other. Said I was glad to see you, that I missed you. Then we would’ve eaten together, gotten coffee, watched movies, grabbed drinks… done everything we wanted to do.”
Hae-il’s voice was thick with genuine regret and deep resentment.
“And you just threw all that precious time into the wind.”
Danbi simply blinked up at him. Every time she did, her eyelashes fluttered like butterflies, captivating him. He was drunk, making him endlessly soft-hearted, and if she truly repented even now, he was more than willing to forgive everything.
It was fine. It wasn’t too late yet. So hurry up and say you’re sorry.
As if everything had finally fallen back into place, Hae-il waited for her atonement with a generous smile playing on his lips.
“…What am I supposed to be sorry for?”
Yet she asked back with an innocent expression, as if she genuinely had no clue, or like someone living in a completely different world. At her words, Hae-il let out a deep, deliberate sigh right in Danbi’s face. Out of the sheer generosity of giving her just one more chance, he kindly supplied the correct answer.
“Pretending you didn’t know me.”
From the moment they first met until now. Acting so stiff, pretending she didn’t have a shred of interest in him.
Just say you’re sorry now and I’ll forgive it all. You look pretty cute today, after all.
He waited for her next words with as magnanimous a look as he could muster. But Danbi merely frowned slightly, still gazing at him with uncomprehending eyes.
“…Why should I apologize for pretending not to know you?”
Her voice rang out dry, devoid of all moisture. Was she really asking because she didn’t know?
“Because you knew who I was and still feigned ignorance.”
Because you ended up turning my insides upside down like this. Before Hae-il could say anything more, Danbi spoke first.
“Um… I don’t really get it, but if it upset you, then I’m sorry.”
It was a strange sort of apology, but just as Hae-il’s heart softened ever so slightly at hearing it, Danbi looked him straight in the eyes and continued.
“But I only did that because I wanted us to just remain a boss and a subordinate. I thought you understood my intention and were treating me accordingly. Was that not it?”
What was she talking about? She only wanted a professional relationship with him?
“…Why?”
His voice came out cracked.
“Because obviously, we met as colleagues at the same company. I want us to keep things just as they are going forward.”
“Just as they are?”
“Yeah. Just like now, as Team Leader and team member. Oh, and I’m only saying this just in case, but I really don’t have any feelings for you anymore, so you don’t need to worry about anything like that.”
“…What?”
It felt as if he could hear his heart plummeting to the floor with a thud.
“I’m just telling you in advance in case you’re concerned… thinking I might still like you or something.”
Danbi parted her lips as if hesitating for a moment, then let out a short sigh and continued with resolve.
“Right. I did like you back then. But how long ago was that? I truly don’t have any feelings for you now. Not even a speck of dust.”
“…Why?”
The question that burst out again was as foolish as a child’s. Yet he could not bear not asking.
“Huh?”
“Why don’t you have any feelings?”
I’ve done so well for myself. I came back before you looking so much better, achieving so much more, and far more of a man than before. How could you not have a single shred of interest in me?
“Um… are they something I have to have?”
“……”
“Well, anyway. I’ll consider this matter closed. And let’s just agree to forget everything you said tonight by tomorrow morning. Tomorrow, we go right back to being Team Leader and team member as if nothing happened.”
She tilted her head slightly as if seeking his agreement. Her soft, long hair swayed and cascaded down prettily, but that only made his stomach churn. In Hae-il’s mind, a Lee Danbi who did not like him had never existed. Then who on earth was this woman standing before his eyes? How was he supposed to treat her now? Thoroughly bewildered, Hae-il asked as if to verify once more.
“Seriously… you really have no feelings for me at all?”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m telling you. So don’t feel uncomfortable around me. It was just for a very brief time back then. An immature childhood crush that didn’t last. After all, you were the only friend I had back then.”
Danbi spoke lightly, as if talking about a minor mistake from her foolish childhood days long ago. Then was he the only one who had carved that fleeting mistake, that momentary juvenile whim, so deeply into his heart, reminiscing over the scenes of those memories all by himself to reach this point?
Danbi’s casual words dumped a bucket of ice water over Hae-il’s boiling head. His hot blood cooled in an instant, and a chill assaulted him, numbing every sensation in his body. In the midst of the nauseating twist in his gut, the image of the man from the Planning Team he had seen at the restaurant suddenly flashed through his mind.
“Back there… with that guy, are you close?”
“Who? Ah, Suhyeon-ssi?”
“…Suhyeon?”
“Yeah, the person from the Planning Team. His name is Park Suhyeon. Ah, right. Didn’t we have a kid named Suhyeon in our class in high school too? You know, the one you didn’t get along with…”
This bastard’s name had to be Suhyeon too? It was an absurd, rotten coincidence.
Danbi casually chatted on with favorable impressions about the man named Park Suhyeon, but none of it reached Hae-il’s ears properly. Only the fact that she was showing interest in another man instead of him—and of all people, one named ‘Suhyeon’—burned with agonizing clarity, bringing a pain that felt as though his very viscera were being twisted.
When Hae-il remained in silence without saying a word, Danbi spoke up as if to wrap up the awkward atmosphere.
“Anyway, let’s just get along well as boss and subordinate. Well, I feel pretty relieved having talked it out openly like this today. It was good to see you, Hae-il.”
“……”
“Please get some more air before heading back inside. I’ll go ahead in first.”
Looking remarkably unburdened, as though a long-standing indigestion had completely cleared, Danbi even gave a light wave of her hand before walking past Hae-il and leaving the alley. Hae-il stood rooted to the spot, blankly watching her retreating back. It wasn’t the frantic, flustered sprint he had seen before.
Her slow, composed stride even carried a sense of ease he had never felt from her before. It felt like stark proof that she no longer harbored any intense emotions toward him—not even a sliver of tension.
Hae-il slammed his forehead against the wall where Danbi had been leaning just moments ago, lingering with her warmth. A dull thud was accompanied by a short groan. If he didn’t lean on something, his legs felt ready to give out, sending him crumbling to the ground.
An indescribable, colossal sense of loss bore down upon his entire body like a block of cold lead, dragging him down into the deep darkness.
