Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Lee-yeon staggered back from the door in surprise. She covered her mouth and tried not to scream.

“Where are you going? Come closer.”

When she looked down, the shadow of his feet appeared again through the crack beneath the door. Perhaps Kwon Chae-woo was also watching her shadow as she moved away.

Then what’s the creak I heard earlier…. Lee-yeon tried to calm her racing heart.

“Come closer to the door. I can’t smell you.”

“W-what?!”

“Did you not know? You smell like wet grass.”

Bam!

The door shook. Lee-yeon stepped back. The light bulb flickered from the force. Her palms were wet with sweat.

“I don’t even know who I am without you.” Kwon Chae-woo spoke quietly with his forehead against the door. “Although my legs and arms are attached to my body, I can’t really feel whether I’m alive or not.”

She heard something scratching against the door and realized, horrified, that it was his fingernails scraping on the door. The bedroom felt like a trap. The man was constantly trying to terrify and deceive her. She felt scared.

“So, tell me I’m not in my dream—”

He hit his forehead against the door once again.

“Tell me I didn’t go insane.”

“Tell me about my past. Anything’s fine. Just convince me that I existed.”

Bam!

His breathing was rough. Lee-yeon had a momentary thought that he could easily break the old door down. She was petrified. But he didn’t break it down. He just scraped the door and hit it again. Cold sweat trickled down her spine.

Kind, gentle, polite…

She had uttered those nonsense to Kwon Chae-woo to save herself. The evidence was in front of her. He was far from anything like it. Lee-yeon was just grateful it had worked. Her lie had worked.

“Kwon Chae-woo.”

The metallic doorknob rattled again at her voice. She held her hands together and took a deep breath.

“I’m not wearing anything because I was taking a shower,” she said. She wondered if he would believe her. “My eyes sting because of the shampoo. Can we talk another time? This isn’t a very good time…”

There was complete silence for a moment. Unlike the wild and violent door rattling, he had stooped everything at that moment. He changed in the blink of an eye.

“Okay.” She could hear his low, heavy voice. “Good night.”

It was something she had wanted to hear so much, but she felt unconvinced. Lee-yeon rubbed her cold hands together, still on edge.

“Remember to keep the door locked.”

His words were the exact opposite of how he had been acting moment before. Lee-yeon scratched her forearm reflexively in uneasiness.

Creak.

Finally, Kwon Chae-woo was leaving! As she watched the shadow move away from beneath the door, she tried to relax her stiff shoulders.

“I’m telling you just in case, but please don’t come up to the second floor.”

“What? Why?”

“I’m thinking of shaving my lower part after a long time.”

Lee-yeon blinked in confusion. She could tell somehow that he was smiling.

“Then Lee-yeon, see you later.”

He spoke like someone who knew that he would not see Lee-yeon for a while. Lee-yeon couldn’t sleep properly. On the contrary, Kwon Chae-woo couldn’t wake up for more than a week after that night.

* * *

Lee-yeon had a horrible dream. She woke up drenched in sweat. Her eyes were out of focus and sleep deprived.  She only remembered what day it was when she felt fully awake.

Ah, it’s ‘that’ day…

She felt all her energy seep out of her body even before the day started.

“Director So!” When she checked her watch, it was way past the time she usually worked. When she got out of bed in a hurry, her vision blurred.

“Are you having a fever?” Choo-ja asked. She had just come into the room and helped Lee-yeon up. She touched her forehead to get a temperature, worry lining her forehead.

“Why is every day so hectic for you?” said Choo-ja. “Take a rest today. There’s not even much work to do.”

Lee-yeon frowned and pushed Choo-ja’s hands away and stood up. She clenched her hands to help her tingling hands. “That is when I have more work to do,” said Lee-yeon.

“I told you not to! Why are you so stubborn? Take the day off!” said Choo-ja sternly, with her hands on her waist. “You should just look at your plants on the second floor for today!”

Lee-yeon veered towards the bathroom. She paused at her reflection in the mirror and turned the faucet on. The woman in the mirror looked slender. The kid with the tangled hair was long gone. It was as though she never existed.

I was born wrong.

The girl in the dream wrote it again and again with her tiny hands. I was born wrong. I was born wrong.

She had had to write that nonstop. The stack of A4 papers far exceeded the height of young Lee-yeon. It was Lee-yeon’s reflection letter that she had to write whenever she had spare time until she left home at 17.

“But Director So, there is something I forgot to ask,” said Choo-ja. “Our plant son-in-law has been sleeping the whole time… how does he even pee?”