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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 50
Chapter Title: The Revealed Truth
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Kang A-jin entered the room without turning on the light.
She didn't even have the strength to turn it on, nor the mental capacity to press the switch.
In her right hand was the cell phone Jun-woo had fixed for her, and in her left, the necklace he had given her.
All this time, keeping secrets from Cho-hee and making Jun-woo wait had been a huge burden for her.
Still, she had put off refusing him.
No, she had wanted to put it off.
In truth, she didn't think she wanted to refuse him at all.
She felt sorry for Cho-hee, but she had liked that Jun-woo liked her.
Why of all people did he have to like me?
There were so many pretty and charming girls at school.
There were more days when she couldn't believe it or understand it.
As her own feelings for him grew, she kept wondering.
Wouldn't Cho-hee understand?
She took the phone he had fixed and checked the backlog of texts.
Among them, she checked Cho-hee's first.
[I came on a trip with Mom. Won't be at school for a few days.]
[About that favor from before, please don't tell Jun-woo's mom. Or Jun-woo.]
Even if she paid back all twenty million won, it seemed she wanted to preserve her pride at least.
To no one else but Jun-woo, whom she liked.
After seeing her texts, she couldn't accept his confession.
It was foolish, but it was the best choice she could make.
He said the necklace was a gift, so she should just keep it.
As she watched his retreating back, tears nearly poured out, but she held them in and came home.
The moment she flopped onto the bed in the pitch-black room, the tears came flooding out.
They poured endlessly, as if they would never stop.
Unable to let go of what she held in her hands, she covered her eyes with her arms.
Only after refusing him did she realize.
That she liked him a lot too.
* * *
It was a peaceful morning.
Birds perched on the trees in the garden chirped away, and the sunlight felt warmer and brighter than ever.
The weather was so nice that Hee-jin thought she should do laundry for once in a while as she entered Jun-woo's room.
As she came out with pillow covers and blankets, she spotted a hoodie shoved into the corner of the bed.
When had he ever treasured it so much, folding it neatly into the drawer? How could he just toss it like this?
Hee-jin set down the blankets she was holding and unfolded the hoodie.
The T-shirt was all crumpled up.
For some reason, she had a bad feeling that something had happened to Jun-woo.
“What are you doing?”
Just then, Jun-woo came into the room, shaking out his still-damp hair after showering.
“I thought I'd do some blanket laundry for once. But son, should I wash this too?”
Hee-jin asked, waving the hoodie.
“Yeah.”
Jun-woo answered indifferently and sat at his desk.
Something was off, so Hee-jin asked again.
“Really… it's okay to wash it?”
“Yeah.”
“Seriously?”
Jun-woo looked at Hee-jin with an expression that said why do you keep asking.
“No, you treasure it so much.”
“Doesn't mean I can't wash it.”
“True, but aren't you meeting that friend you ate with anymore?”
Hee-jin was curious if he was seeing A-jin again.
“…….”
Jun-woo didn't answer, and Hee-jin instinctively felt something had happened between them.
“Did you two fight by any chance?”
She hoped they would work out, but Jun-woo's mood lately didn't look positive.
He had always been curt and quiet, but these days he didn't even leave his room except to eat.
That might be why she had that feeling.
“Mom. I need to study.”
Jun-woo's expression showed he didn't want to talk anymore.
“Got it. Need anything?”
“No. I'm fine.”
“Okay. Then study hard.”
“Yeah.”
Jun-woo turned on an online lecture as if telling her to leave the room quickly, and Hee-jin had to exit, regretting the questions she couldn't ask.
* * *
A few weeks passed. There were some changes in that time.
Cho-hee returned to school after her trip, becoming a brief topic of conversation on her first day back, but interest in her quickly died down.
The student teaching practice ended, and Kwang-hyun left the school.
But this time, unlike before, he seemed more reluctant to leave than A-jin did.
Seats changed too.
A-jin was paired with Ho-jin.
The good thing was that Ho-jin didn't smell as bad as before.
Finally, Jun-woo and A-jin had become people who didn't even greet each other.
He neither spoke to her, looked at her, nor showed her any attention.
Their seats were far apart, so they didn't even bump into each other.
There was no connection between them at all.
* * *
“You're going to try on all of these?”
Cho-hee was organizing the clothes for the afternoon shoot.
A-jin asked in surprise at the outfits stuffed into five large shopping bags.
“Yeah. I'm the one earning the hard cash.”
“But why do you have all the clothes?”
“My sister from the agency brought them yesterday to check the fit in advance, but she forgot to take them back. I have to return them.”
“Can you carry them?”
“She said she'd send a taxi. Hey! What do you think of this?”
Cho-hee pulled out an oversized knit vest and showed it to A-jin.
It was patterned with harmoniously blended bright colored yarns.
“It's pretty!”
“It'd suit you well. I'll give it to you after the shoot.”
“You can just give it away?”
“It's fine. She said after the shoot, I can take a few pieces I like.”
“Okay, then I'll gladly take it.”
A-jin smiled brightly, expressing her gratitude.
“But…….”
Cho-hee started, as if she had something on her mind.
“By any chance, did something happen with Jun-woo?”
A-jin flinched at the sudden mention of Jun-woo.
“Huh? No. Why?”
“You two don't even greet each other these days.”
Cho-hee had been curious about it.
Ever since she got back from the trip, they seemed distant.
Jun-woo was giving her the cold shoulder, and A-jin was watching his reactions.
She didn't know what happened, but it was clear something had gone wrong between them.
“When did we ever greet each other?”
“You two were pretty close, though.”
“We were just seatmates.”
“Not anymore?”
“No. Seats changed.”
“Oh?”
Either way, it was good that they weren't close.
Cho-hee smiled to herself.
No, she smiled outwardly too.
“That vest really suits you. I'll make sure to set it aside.”
* * *
“Time's already this late.”
The shoot was less than an hour away.
Cho-hee checked the time and hurriedly packed her things.
In the process, she knocked over the water cup on the desk.
“Oh no!”
Fortunately, it didn't break.
Just the water inside spilled on the floor.
“Be careful.”
“Ow, I'm swamped here.”
“I'll clean this up, so you go on ahead.”
A-jin looked for some tissues.
“Thanks.”
Cho-hee rushed out, and A-jin wiped up all the spilled water from the floor.
Just as she finished wiping most of it, her phone buzzed.
“Hello.”
-A-jin.
It was Hee-jin.
“Hello, ma'am.”
-How have you been?
“Yes.”
She hadn't been well, but she told Hee-jin she had.
-Why haven't you come over even once?
“Well…….”
-I really wanted to invite you, but I held back thinking it might burden you. Want to come over tomorrow if you're free?
Tomorrow was Sunday.
Jun-woo would surely be home too.
“I'm sorry. Tomorrow is a bit…….”
-Oh? Um, by any chance…… are you getting along well with our Jun-woo?
Her chest tightened at Hee-jin's question.
She wanted to at least be friends, but he didn't seem to want that.
She felt really hurt by how he treated her like a complete stranger.
“Yes…….”
But she couldn't say anything to Hee-jin.
-That's a relief then. Come over whenever you're free. I'm good any time.
“Yes. I'll call before coming.”
After finishing the call with Hee-jin, she threw the wet tissues from the floor into the trash.
With Cho-hee gone, she gathered her things to head home.
But there on the bed was the knit vest Cho-hee had meant to give her.
“She forgot this.”
A-jin opened the window and looked outside.
But Cho-hee had already taken a taxi and left.
“I should take it to her.”
Worried it might disrupt the shoot, A-jin immediately headed to Cultural Park after her.
* * *
The fine dust was gone today, and the weather was great.
Maybe because of that, the park was bustling with people.
Some had spread out mats to sit on, others rode bikes, and some were jogging.
There were especially many families with young kids.
A-jin walked along the track, scanning around for the shoot equipment.
“Where's the camera……?”
After walking for about five minutes, she spotted a group of five or six people in the distance.
Seeing the reflector and camera, she figured that must be the shoot location.
A-jin quickened her steps.
As she got closer, she saw Cho-hee striking poses among them.
Her long, slender frame looked so refreshingly tall.
She thought to quietly hand the vest to the manager sister without interrupting, so she tiptoed closer, minimizing her footsteps.
But there was an unexpected person.
A-jin's steps halted completely.
She even took a step back.
A man with a huge tattoo covering his entire forearm, a man with long hair tied up in a bun—
They were the men she had seen at the studio.
“No way.”
Her legs trembled, tears welling in her eyes.
Memories she thought had faded, though not forgotten, came crashing back over her.
The voice of the man banging on the changing room door and threatening her.
The smell of the man who covered her mouth and evaded the police.
The oppressive feeling from back then as they chased her while she fled.
She nearly collapsed right there.
“Let's take a short break.”
The shutter clicks paused for a moment.
‘I have to avoid them.’
It was hard to move, but she needed to pull herself together.
A-jin hid in the nearby restroom.
Her heart pounded like a hammer slamming against it.
She couldn't calm down at all.
A-jin pressed hard on her chest with her own hand against the painfully racing heartbeat.
“Man, Han Cho-hee really is pretty. If she weren't underage, I'd try to hit on her.”
Voices came from the men's restroom.
A-jin steadied her breathing as best she could and listened to the men.
“Forget it. What's the point of being pretty? The kid's rotten to the core. From that time she asked me to take weird pictures of her friend. I surrendered to capitalism, ouch!”
“From her Instagram, they still seem close. That friend probably doesn't know. It was Han Cho-hee who put her up to it.”
“You think she'd stay friends if she knew?”
She had suspected, but hoped they were just acquaintances.
Her mind went blank from the shock.
“Why? Why would she do that? Why?”
The word “why” echoed in her head dozens of times.
No matter how she thought about it, she couldn't understand.
“We're friends.”
Even when other friends said negative things about Cho-hee, she alone had believed in her.
There had been many suspicious actions this year especially, but still, she alone believed.
All the time spent together felt invalidated.
The thick trust she had shattered into fragments, scratching wounds into her body.
The betrayal hurt even more because of how much she had believed.
