Tsunami Advisory
Chapter 19
Trudging along, Hae-il returned to the front of the restaurant with footsteps as heavy and lifeless as his slumped shoulders. The gathering seemed to be winding down, the entrance already buzzing with colleagues who had finished their meals.
Even among the disorderly crowd, two silhouettes stood out with agonizing clarity. As if deliberately flaunting it, Danbi was standing right next to that guy from the Planning Team, Suhyeon.
Why had he never once considered it? That in the span of more than a decade—time enough to change the very face of the earth—her feelings for him could have turned stone-cold. That another warmth might have already settled into her heart.
He had been fooling himself. Believing that just as he had sprinted breathlessly along a single path, she, too, would have remained in that very spot, waiting only for him through all the weathering storms of time.
Yet it seemed all of it had been one colossal delusion. Throughout those years, she had looked ahead, looked to the sides, and even lovingly tended to the tiny wildflowers blooming beneath her feet, cultivating a garden of her own. So many new memories had blossomed there that she no longer seemed to hold their faded, worn-out past as anything special.
‘A long time ago, just for a very brief moment. I only had a silly little crush because I was young and immature. Back then, you were the only friend I had.’
Her casual, feather-light voice echoed endlessly in his head like a broken phonograph, cruelly clawing at his nerves.
Then what was that look in your eyes, that expression on your face back then? What on earth was that overwhelming emotion that seemed to hold all the love in the world?
What kind of love is that? So light, so trivial—what good was it? If you dismiss it that easily, then what does that make me, who was driven all the way here by that single, worthless memory?
“Well, we’re screwed.”
As if answering his desperate inner question, the sharp voices of his team members cut in.
“Not just screwed, totally fucked.”
“Ugh, seriously, what a miserable project. I just wanted to bury it quietly.”
“Everyone had completely forgotten about it, and yet the Team Leader just had to dig it back up.”
“Talk about a bolt out of the blue. Just how many days of overtime are we locked into now?”
“If the users are just a little inconvenienced, the developers can have an easy life, but…”
Their voices felt like a volley of poisoned arrows aimed straight at him. Even more so now that he had confirmed Danbi harbored no feelings for him whatsoever. His hollow gaze shifted toward Suhyeon and Danbi, who stood slightly apart from the rest of the team, talking intimately as if enclosed in their own private, transparent room.
“Danbi-ssi, you really live there? That’s literally five minutes from my place. That’s insane.”
“Really? Wow, we were practically neighbors all along? That’s so neat.”
“Then let’s share a cab. It’s late, and it’s dangerous out.”
“Oh, no, I have my bicycle…”
“Come on, you can ride your bike tomorrow morning. If we take a cab together and drop you off on the way, it’d be perfect.”
To anyone watching, it sounded like a conversation between a man and a woman who were clearly fond of each other. And still, Danbi’s eyes never once turned toward him. The surrounding murmurs of ‘Oh, you’re here? We were waiting… Team Leader…’ faded into a distant blur.
Having lost all reason, Hae-il’s feet moved mechanically toward them, closing the distance to Danbi step by step. His mind was consumed by a single, uncontrollable impulse.
He wanted Danbi to focus only on him.
He wanted those clear eyes to reflect no other bastard in the world—only him.
“Ah, then should I…”
Before Danbi could finish her sentence, Hae-il snatched her wrist with force. Only then did her startled eyes turn toward him for the first time. The gaze that once clung to him so fiercely it made the back of his head prickle could now only be seized through physical force. And even then, it held neither affection nor excitement, but only bewilderment and displeasure.
Even so, he couldn’t help it. He would rather die than stand by and watch her head home smiling beside another man.
At the sudden commotion, every eye around them locked onto the pair, and a chilling silence descended. Yet Hae-il only tightened his grip on her wrist. He couldn’t let go. Not ever.
“Team Leader…”
You’re going home with that drunk guy right now? Are you out of your mind? Are you sleeping with that bastard tonight? While I’m standing right here in plain sight, you’re going to do on top of another man the exact same things you did in my dreams?
A sickening surge of imagination twisted his gut. Ugly, wretched words he could never dare voice seethed within his head. Hae-il stared straight at Danbi with eyes trembling as if caught in an earthquake, barely managing to squeeze out his voice.
“I’ll…”
“…Pardon?”
“I’ll… take you home.”
The moment the words left his mouth, the world spun violently before his eyes. The uncontrollable drunkenness finally snapped the last thread of his remaining reason, and all the strength drained from his muscles.
His knees buckled first. With a dull thud, Hae-il collapsed right onto the pavement. Even as his world faded to black, his hand instinctively refused to loosen its grip on Danbi’s wrist.
“I said… I’m taking you hoooome…”
That was Hae-il’s last memory.
‘Oh no, the Team Leader must be completely wasted.’
‘Man, I thought he was drinking way too fast earlier.’
‘Tsk, tsk, why does a young man drink like that… Ahem…’
‘Someone call a taxi, quick!’
Amid the distant, echoing noise, a single voice pierced through with absolute clarity.
‘Team Leader… Are you okay? Open your eyes. Ha… Seriously, you’re driving me crazy.’
His eyelids were as heavy as lead, making it impossible to open them, but at least in that fleeting moment, all of Danbi’s attention, every bit of her concern, seemed entirely focused on him alone.
Yes, this was enough. With a faint trace of satisfaction brushing his lips, Hae-il sank completely into the fathomless darkness.
✶ ✶ ✶
The next morning, Hae-il woke up in his own bed. A splitting headache hammered at his skull as if driven by an awl.
The moment he groaned and clutched his forehead, the memories of last night struck him without warning, like the lingering fragments of a vicious nightmare.
‘Oh, and just so there’s no misunderstanding, I really don’t have any feelings for you anymore, so you don’t need to worry about anything like that.’
‘I’m just telling you in case you thought… in case you were worried I still liked you.’
Those words, which he desperately wished had been nothing more than a bad dream, revived with vivid clarity in his mind. It felt as though he had been wandering through a sweet, endless dream, only for someone to suddenly grab him by the collar and slam him mercilessly into the center of harsh reality.
A world where Danbi—the Danbi who used to look at him as if he were her entire universe—no longer cared for Han Hae-il in the slightest. It was so impossible to adjust to that he wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and sink back into unconsciousness.
Just then, another fragment of memory pushed its way into his mind, fluttering unsteadily like wet film.
‘Earlier… Are you close with that guy?’
‘I said… I’m taking you hoooome…’
What on earth was this horrifying memory? The image of himself gripping Danbi’s wrist and clinging to her with a slurred, alcohol-soaked tongue branded itself into his brain like a freeze-frame.
Wasn’t this practically making him look like some pathetic mess, desperately begging because he couldn’t let her go? Looking for all the world as if he had missed her every single second, chasing her all the way from the distant United States by any means possible, only to drip with pathetic lingering attachments toward a woman who didn’t give a damn about him.
A horrific sense of shame washed over him, accompanied by a wave of heat as if all the blood in his body had reversed course and rushed straight to his face. Unable to bear lifting his head, he buried his face deep into the pillow and rolled across the bed. But the more he struggled, the sharper the memories became, and the runaway shame expanded uncontrollably, consuming his heart.
How could you do this to me, Lee Danbi?
He wailed inwardly. The Danbi he knew had never been like this. She was a girl who had always flushed and fidgeted before him, rejoicing at his every word as if she had won the world, looking at no one else but him. Yet last night, she had been ruthlessly cold, decisive, and had even… shown a hint of finding him annoying.
Hae-il pushed himself up against the crushing ache in his chest. Far more agonizing than the splitting headache was the unidentifiable sense of loss and betrayal lodged like a boulder beneath his sternum. He could neither comprehend nor accept the fact that the radiant memories he had cherished and hoarded like treasure were nothing more to her than ‘a passing, silly childhood episode.’
Stumbling, he made his way to the bathroom. His reflection in the mirror was an absolute wreck. Sunken eyes, dull skin devoid of any vitality, and above all, a gaze so hollow it looked like an abyss. Without Lee Danbi’s love, Han Hae-il did not shine.
Splashing cold water onto his face, he tried desperately to pull himself together, but Danbi’s icy voice and indifferent expression clung to his consciousness like a curse that refused to peel away.
‘I really don’t have any feelings for you anymore. Not even a speck of dust.’
That single sentence wrapped around his windpipe like a noose on the gallows. Hae-il slumped powerlessly onto the cold tile floor, staring blankly into empty space. A crushing despair swept over him, as though the solid world he had painstakingly built his entire life had collapsed into sand in a single instant.
“Ah, damn it… Lee Danbi… Lee Danbi…”
