CH 67.1

Her sneakers were neatly placed on the side of the entrance.

The day she told Woo-hyun at his house that they should now stop, he stood looking at her for a long time and then, without any further stubbornness, silently brought her coat and sneakers out of his room. Despite trying to dissuade her, he put the coat on her himself, and even sat in front of the door and put her shoes on her.

When she had put on both her right and left sneaker, he slowly tied the shoelaces again.

In the butterfly shape she liked.

After finishing tying her shoelaces, he stood still for a long time, covering the knot with his hands. As if he wasn’t confident to take his hands off it. Then, his hands trembled, and tears poured down on them.

Yoo-hwa looked at him for a long time, who was dealing with their parting like that. On top of that appearance, her own appearance when she looked at Woo-hyun’s sneakers overlapped.

The same appearance, at a different time.

Hers and Woo-hyun’s.

If they had met at the same time in the same way, would they look different from now?

No matter how much she tried to imagine it, it didn’t come to her mind. As if it was something that couldn’t be there.

Yoo-hwa’s gaze slowly moved to the sink, as if she had never been lost in thought.

As if she didn’t see the shoes on the doorstep. As if nothing had happened.

***

She really needed to work now.

She opened a bank account after a few days and had that thought.

The faint satisfaction of having a cozy home, the tranquility of being able to live a rich life without thinking about anything, like the dust floating around the house for days, was broken by the naked balance of her account. After spending all the money she had on food, only the living expenses that would allow her to live for barely one month remained.

It was the result of living a messy life for a while, eating if she wanted to eat, sleeping if she wanted to sleep. Getting up, Yoo-hwa put on her coat and went straight out of the house.

Going out after a few days, the air had changed. The unique sharpness of winter had eased, and the sky seemed higher. New life was rising from the branches she could see in the distance.

The whole world was moving quietly to welcome the new season. Yoo-hwa looked at that scenery for a long time, with her eyes wide open.

She slowly raised her hand and spread her fingers. The wind, which had stopped for a moment, immediately blew the moment she spread her fingers, as if it had been waiting for a chance. A pleasant, gentle spring breeze passed between the soft skin of her fingers. The wind that grazed her hair, the sunshine that touched her cheeks, and the trees tinged with green in the distance were perfect to make her excited.

It was very good… but it was strange.

It looked blurry, as if looking at the world through a small opaque glass on the door.

***

Finding a job was easier than expected. It was a coincidence. She thought she should go to an area where there was a high concentration of shops because there were no proper jobs in the residential area she lived in, so she took a bus and got off in the middle of a busy street. Her mind turned foggy while she suffocated in front of a crowd so large that it made her wonder if all the people living nearby came out at once.

However, contradictorily, when her mind turned foggy, she felt like she was going to live without thinking about anything.

What if someone found out about her?

What if they point their finger at her and call her the daughter of a murderer?

She couldn’t think of anything related to Woo-hyun when facing such tense vigilance.

Yoo-hwa, who was looking at the people passing by giving her weird looks and the people in the distance who didn’t even care about her, casually turned her head and saw a paper saying ‘Looking for a part-timer’ stuck in front of a grilled fish store. Without thinking, she walked in and told the owner that she had come to work part-time, and the owner, who looked up and down at her, reached out his hand. Wondering what he was asking for, she gave him her resident card, and the owner laughed as if he was surprised.

“You came here without a resume?”

Only then did she realize that she didn’t even have the basics. She thought she should stop by a PC room to print out her resume if she saw a proper part-time job, but completely forgot about it as soon as she saw the rushing crowd.

“You’re a strange young lady.”

The owner alternated between the photo on her resident card and her face, and then asked her bluntly.

“Can you work for a long time?”

“Yes.”

“This job is hard.”

“It’s alright. I can do a good job even if it’s hard.”

She was even glad to hear that it was hard. She wanted to exhaust her remaining energy from head to toe, so that not a single speck was left.

So that she could forget who she was, who she loved, who she wanted to be loved by, and who she was abandoned by.

“Where do you live?”

“Nearby.”

“The working hours are as indicated in front of you, so check that. I don’t like lateness, so come early. And again, this job is hard, so don’t come here without some decent determination. It looks like you’re tenacious, though.”

“Yes. Understood.”