After Story 29

After Story 29

"Isn't Haneul acting strange recently?" Jiyu asked as she looked at her friend sitting next to her.

"What do you mean?"

"She's been so quiet. It's about time she starts saying she wants to go traveling together."

"Maybe she's planning to go with her boyfriend."

"So you haven't heard yet, huh? Those two broke up."

Jiyu pulled back her hand, which was getting nail art done by the shop unni. A wave of purple flowed on top of her fingernails. It was a nail art that made her feel good just by looking at it.

"They broke up? Then I guess Haneul was dumped huh? I knew that would happen. She's too timid, and yet she gets jealous and obsessive easily, so it's not strange that the boy gave up on her," said her friend.

Jiyu corrected her. "The man didn't dump her, she dumped him. I saw Haneul's boyfriend a few days ago when I met up with our high school friends, and he asked me what Haneul was up to lately. I was wondering what happened so I asked…."

She couldn't help but chuckle when she thought about what Haneul's ex-boyfriend said.

Her friend urged her to speak quickly.

"She apparently dumped him after having become a totally different person."

"A different person?"

"I haven't heard the details. He wouldn't tell me. But from what I saw, it didn't seem like one of those iffy breakups. In fact, it looked like the boyfriend's side still had attachments."

"That Han Haneul dumped a boy? Was she ever daring enough to do that?"

"That's why I'm saying it's strange. She doesn't contact us at all lately too."

"Now that I think about it, you're right. She gets really uneasy if she doesn't hang out with us, so she used to send texts and calls frequently."

The unni at the nail art shop said that she was done and took her hands off.

Jiyu spoke to her friend as she looked at her pretty fingernails, "Since we're at it, shall we go see her?"

"Shall we? Haneul worked in a café nearby, right?"

"She should be working today as well. She said she was going to work weekend shifts once the holidays were up. Let's go to the café. We can get some coffee that she buys for us."

"Our kind Haneul will buy us cake too, right?"

"Of course. Her friends are going to meet her, so she should at least buy us cake."

After applying sunscreen to her hands, they left the shop. On their way to the café, they also set up a schedule for a trip. They planned to go to Busan on a train. They looked into famous fish cake shops, bakeries, and good restaurants. There was no need to worry about travel expenses as the 'kind' Haneul would take care of the transportation and living costs after all.

"She quit?"

"Yes. Haneul-noona quit after June. It's already been two months."

"Oh, okay."

They were greeted by unexpected news when they went to the café expecting ice-cold coffee and sweet chocolate mousse cake.

Haneul quit her part-time job? This was as puzzling as her dumping her boyfriend.

Haneul, who treated her friends like her masters, always lacked money. Moreover, she lived by herself, so they thought she would never quit her part-time job.

"Did she get another part-time job?" Jiyu's friend tilted her head.

"She said she would never quit since cafés pay her well. She even said that this one was near her house."

"It's a part-time job. Maybe she got a new, better one. Let's try calling her for now."

Jiyu took out her phone. She looked for Han Haneul's number and pressed the call button.

-Hello?

"Hey, did you quit working at the café?"

-Oh, it's Jiyu. Yeah, I quit.

"You should've told me."

-Why? Do I have a reason to tell you something like that?

Jiyu felt so flabbergasted and was about to retort, before realizing that she didn't have anything to say. After all, there was no obligation to report that she quit a part-time job to a friend.

However, the 'kind' Haneul would have reported to them about everything. She would have said the reason she was quitting as well as when and that that they should call her first if they wanted to see her.

That was Haneul's usual attitude towards them, not asking why.

"We came here to see you, but you weren't here so we left with nothing."

Haneul's unprecedented retort got on her nerves. They went to look for her in this heat, but she wasn't there. Shouldn't she be apologizing first?

She felt like there was something wrong with her thought process, but Jiyu didn't mind. After all, the usual Han Haneul would have apologized; the 'Yes Girl' Han Haneul should have responded like that.

-Why did you leave with nothing? You should've gotten some coffee since it's hot and all.

"But you aren't here."

-Does that have anything to do with you not being able to drink coffee?

"That's not it!"

She almost snapped out and shouted. She just barely managed to hold herself back after realizing that she was in the middle of the street.

Her friend looked at her with a questioning look, but she was so flabbergasted that she didn't even have room to explain.

-If it's hot and doesn't feel good, then go to the café and drink some cold coffee or something. You'll feel better if you receive some air conditioning.

"How can you be like that?"

-How can I be like what? People might misunderstand that I might be in the wrong. If you called to vent your frustration, then do it somewhere else and call me back later. If you have something to tell me, then do it now.

Jiyu recalled when she got into a traffic accident with a motorbike when she was young. She couldn't think about anything because of the pain that shook her entire body.

Right now, it wasn't pain, but shock that stiffened up her neck.

What the heck? Why was she like this?

-Kim Jiyu. Do you have something to say? Or not?

"I-I heard you broke up with your boyfriend."

-Yeah, I did.

"Why didn't you tell us that?"

-This conversation isn't going anywhere. Let me ask you again: do I have a reason to tell you any of that? Before that, did you even care?

"Of course! We're friends."

-If you were curious, why didn't you ask first? You could've asked me in passing. I would've told you if you did. Right?

"That's…."

She suddenly had this thought: Is the person on the other side really Han Haneul? She was way too different. The only thing that was the same about her was her voice. Not to mention her style of speech, even the stress behind her words was not the Han Haneul of before.

She used to be a girl who poked her head around if they planned to go traveling by themselves and always did what they told her to do. She had zero self-confidence and could only breathe by being next to others.

Was this really her?

-I do feel somewhat grateful that you hung out with me. Without you, I wouldn't have been able to do anything. But now, I don't have any of those feelings left. I've been waiting for the past two months for any of you to ask me how I was doing, even in passing, even if it was just a single meaningless emoji. Heck, even a game invite would've been fine. But no one looked for me.

Jiyu felt like there was a wall in front of her. A sturdy wall she could neither break through nor overcome.

Just what happened to Haneul? Back in June, when they last contacted each other, she wasn't like this. Back then, she was their 'Yes Girl' and 'Kind' Han Haneul, who listened to everything they asked her to do and everything that they didn't ask her to do.

-Had I gotten a single thing from you, I would've done my best to maintain our relationship. I would have called you all in order to set our twisted relationship straight and spent quite a lot of time doing so. We've been together for too long of a time to just let you all go. We have memories together. But now, I feel like it's all useless. I feel like my old friends are just meaningless.

"Uhm… Haneul, the thing is."

-And then you call me for this, annoyed that you couldn't get coffee off me. I wanted to hold onto this cheap friendship. You were my only friends after all. But now you're cutting off that last bit of regret in me.

That was the end of the call. There was no goodbye, even though Haneul was someone who waited for the other party to hang up.

"Hey? What's going on?" her friend spoke.

"What do you mean?"

"You seem like you were hit on your head. Did Haneul say something?"

Jiyu didn't know how to express her frustration and puzzlement. Should she say that Haneul has changed? Should she insult her by saying that she has become a total bitch?

"We didn't say anything."

She couldn't say it. She recalled Haneul's dry voice again. The victim of this relationship was clear. Haneul was always on the side of being exploited.

It wasn't like this from the beginning. There was a time when everyone hung out together. However, they started giving up on persuading Haneul, who always acted so servile, and became no longer uncomfortable getting treated by her. They did not force themselves to find the problem in their relationship. They just accepted that that was Haneul's way of living.

"Hey. Has Haneul ever got angry at us?"

"Her? Angry? I don't think that will happen for the rest of our lives." Her friend chuckled.

"What should we do if she does get angry at us?"

"Who's she to get angry at us? What's so good about her?"

"I'm just talking about what if."

"Tell her to get angry if she wants to. We're fine without her, but she isn't. She doesn't have any friends other than us, does she? Moreover, she even broke up with her boyfriend, so she'll be clinging to us even more."

"Right?"

Jiyu stopped thinking there. She had gotten her nails done prettily, so she didn't want to keep feeling iffy. Just as Haneul said, even if they were in the wrong, they didn't have anything to lose. If she wanted to turn her back on them, she could do so for all they cared.

"Hey, let's go visit that place."

Her friend dragged her by the hand. They arrived at a cosmetics shop. It was a brand shop that targeted students with low-cost products, and it was pretty popular because of the good price-to-value ratio. They went inside and looked around.

"Jiyu, take a look at this."

There was an aroma product right next to a soothing product. Jiyu put her nose closer to the stick on the diffuser. She smelled something pleasant that blew away all the stuffy smell of summer.

"This one's all the rage because it was in a drama recently. Kim Suyeon Aroma. I'm sure it's not the same thing though."

"Kim Suyeon's products are really expensive though. But this one's really good considering the price."

"Right? Jiyu, this one smells really good too."

An employee approached them when she was smelling the fragrance that her friend recommended.

"Both of you are in college, right?"

"Yes," Jiyu responded.

“Many college students have gotten into aroma therapy recently, thanks to its relaxation and pleasant sleep effects. Air fresheners are too strong and they disappear after a while, but aroma oils like this are good because they stay for a long time.”

“Right. That’s why I don’t use air fresheners that much. It sounds too artificial,” Jiyu said as she picked up a small bottle. There was aroma oil contained in a small, brown, bulb-shaped bottle.

“This line of products is the one we have signed an agreement on. It’s not a brand that we produce ourselves, but we decided to go with them because they have great feedback.”

“The bottle is really cute.”

“It’s becoming popular among the ladies that come to our store without a single word. The product itself was actually out for a long time, but recently, the fragrance became really good after they changed their blending methods. The bottle is cute, and the cost is consumer-friendly, so they’re great gifts too.”

“Can I have a sample?”

“Of course.”

The employee dipped a towel in the oil before waving it. First, there was a smoky coffee fragrance followed by something sweet that she was used to smelling but could not pinpoint what it exactly was. The peculiar scent gave her a sense of rejection, but she felt okay after a while.

“It’s quite experimental, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it’s quite peculiar. I don’t dislike it.”

“Some people say it’s a daring kind of smell. These days, people say that fragrance design is important in interior design. Don’t you think this is good?”

Jiyu nodded and grabbed a few bottles of oil. She felt good when she thought about the scent that would spread in her house. Her heart, iffy from Han Haneul’s remarks, calmed down again.

She went to the counter to buy it. The employee gave her a small paper card. The card had the image of a hairpin and a URL of some kind. The brand name written on the bottle was on the card as well: Friendly Aroma.

The URL was written right below it. Find out more uses – it also added.

“Let’s try visiting. I want to see if there’s a massage method,” her friend said as she looked at the card.