Chapter 22

 

"Jin Hye?"

 

I felt a small shook on my body as slowly opened my heavy eyelids. The blurry image dissolved and Mr. Park was standing outside of the car right next to me. He was kneeling down by the side with concern written all over his face.

 

"Where..." I rubbed my eyes slowly, trying to pull off the drowsiness from me but didn't seem to work.

 

"At my house." He answered and stood up. "I received a call from your friend saying that someone was looking for you at your house and I suspected it was probably him." He continued without waiting for me to ask why the hell he was bringing me to his house.

 

"No." I said and tried to get up by holding the car window. "I need to go home."

 

"No you're not." He insisted. "You're staying here for the night. I'll send you home tomorrow."

 

"You don't understand." I replied and finally fully stood on by my own feet. "Send me home."

 

"I'm not sending you home! It's not safe there!" His voice rose.

 

"It's not safe anywhere!" I screamed back at him. "There is no where safe." I said with a obvious trembling voice.

 

He don't understand.

No one is.

 

He knew where I am, where I lives and I've been living with the thoughts of that he might be dead already that's why I manage to continue my life. Now that he actually didn't die, one thing I should know for sure is that he'll never leave me alone. Never. He'll continue to hunt me down and repeat what happened all over the year when I just lost my parents.

 

"Jin Hye," He calmed down and held my shoulder, bent to my height and stare deeply into my eyes.

 

"Just, just stay for the night. Just one night. Okay?"

 

"No. You do-"

 

"Yes! I don't understand. In fact, I don't understand it at all. I know that. I really do but for your safety please! Please just, don't make this so hard." He sighed and looked down to his feet while his hands were still on my shoulder.

 

I looked at him for a while with so much questions playing inside my mind.

 

"I," He spoke softly. "I feel guilty for leaving you behind. I do." That's gotta be it. For a second, I thought, maybe, just maybe that he actually cared. But it just guilt.

 

"Okay." I said and looked away. "Fine."

 

His eyes softened and he exhaled slowly with a slight nods. "Right. Now let's get you in."

 

*

 

I'm not surprised at all to see how big house he got over here. It wasn't a tiny little bit surprising that he lives here alone. There's no even a maid or butler around since I got inside this house so pretty much the typical life of a rich guy. I could even picture how rebellious he was when he was child and that his parent had no control over him and all. Duh, this kind of drama making me sick.

 

I was sitting at the edge of a bed in a guest room Mr. Park lead me in. I looked around the room while clasping my thighs together in discomfort. The images when I was little flashed in my mind and it send shivers down my spine. It was almost impossible. The key was almost. I thought he was dead or moved out to another country or in the prison or something. Turned out none of that was true and yet it was a lot worse. He found me. There are currently what 50 million people living in this country now? And he found me. Among the 50 million he able to skipped the rest and found me.

 

I've been running for so long. So long. 20 years to be exact. 20 years of training myself not to be paranoid over who was walking behind me or keep looking back to see if someone was following me. 20 years of teaching myself to get over him, to be ready just in case that if he resurfaced under my nose, I'll be ready, I'm not gonna wind up before his eyes again. 20 years and I saw myself collapsed right in front of his eyes. What am I expecting? I'm never gonna be able to defend myself. Never. He always got that power to get me down. Maybe I should just continue running

then?

 

Mr. Park knocked the open door to get my attention. I looked up at his emotionless face as he walked toward me. I have to admit I missed his concern gaze. It made me feel safer.

 

It made me feel someone actually care.

 

"Here," he handed me a long-sleeves blue sweatshirt along with a trousers. "You can sleep here."

 

"Okay. Thanks." I took the clothes and took off his coat and put it on the bed. I excused myself as he still stood there and walked to the bathroom. I counted my steps since he was eyeing my movement.

 

I changed to the clothes he gave me and washed off my face that was smeared with make up due to the crying happened about an hour ago. I held onto the sink and sighed as I watched the water dripping from my face.

 

I took another couple of splash to my face before walked out the bathroom with a towel around my neck. At my great surprise, Mr. Park was there, sitting beside the spot I used to sit on the bed. I walked uncomfortably toward him and sat down a little bit far from him.

 

Just because I'm emotionally vulnerable, and it was just two of us inside this warm and comfy bedroom, the last thing I wanted was making out with my boss. So a little distance would do.

 

What? For God's sake, we are grown ups.

 

The silence thickened in the air for some another minutes since I settled down until Mr. Park spoke up.

 

"So," He looked at me. "Are you gonna tell me who that guy was?"

 

I hesitated on telling him. Of course I should be hesitated on this matter. He is my boss. I wouldn't want to mix things up between personal and work. I know that better. HE should know that better. He was always that professional man who knew well to distance things so why now?

Why he wanted to know? As far as I'm concern, there wasn't like anything he could do about it anyway. Oh, maybe there was.

 

He could just fired me since I'm so incapable of keeping my problems to myself and dragged my boss in it.

 

"I don't know." I lied. "He just came out of nowhere. I never met him." The lie came out smoothly and I avoided his eye contact once in a while to prove that I'm telling the truth.

 

Mr. Park stared straight into my eyes, probably waiting for my pupils to shake but to no avail. He broke the intentional staring contest and looked away before taking a deep breath.

 

"Listen," He started. "I'm not gonna do anything about it. Either you or that man you claimed not to know anything about which is obviously not true. I'm not. I just wanted to know so I'm gonna ask you one more time, who was that guy?"

 

The emotion resurfaced. Again, I saw the concern flashed inside his brown orbs. The emotionless features changed to sincerity in a split second and I felt protected. I felt safe. The eagerness of telling came rushing to me. I wanted to. I wanted to tell him about everything that happened to me.

 

Everything. The consequences doesn't matter as long as he would be there for me.

I forgot the feeling of being protected by someone. The feeling of someone actually cared. So it doesn't matter how the world as long as there actually a person bearing with all of my tears and sadness, it would be okay. Eventually, it would be okay.

 

But I knew deep inside, it was too good to be true.

 

"I don't know him." I answered. As fast as the concern greeted his eyes, they left pretty quick too. He shot me with his professional blank face before getting up.

 

"I'm sorry. I just don't want to mix work and perso-"

 

"Okay then, Ms. Oh." He cut off with his usual solid voice. "Good night."

 

With that, he left me alone in this room and closed the door behind him.

 

Suddenly I felt like crying.