Six
Ironic BindHyun Ae glanced at her wristwatch; it was 7:30 in the evening.
As planned, she had visited the department store that she had targeted to buy the clothes that she wanted. On the previous night, she had texted Ricky to tell him that she wanted to go to the department store after her classes and bring him along, but he did not reply promptly. Hyun Ae took it as him already sleeping; after all, he already told that he was an early sleeper. It was until that day’s noon that he replied ‘okay’.
Now, she was standing in line at the fitting room area. All female fitting rooms were occupied by the time she arrived there. In her hands, there were five pieces of clothing. She glanced at them, before gazing solemnly at the racks of clothing in the female section.
She had taken thirty minutes to decide which clothes she wanted to pick out. With her current budget and the price range at the department store, she could only pick two pieces of clothing – three, maximum. Upon landing her eyes on the wide range of choices, her eyes shone with delight. With the mindset to pick out summer outfits, she picked a bright yellow T-shirt, a cute pink floral dress, and a light blue sleeveless blouse among others. She felt tempted to try them on, and do mix-and-match with the rest of her clothes.
However, she still did not feel confident to pull off such bright colours, no matter how endearing they looked in her eyes.
Soon after, other shoppers joined the waiting line at the fitting room area. Hyun Ae could see that the department store was more crowded now; it was the end of working hours, after all. She was grateful that she was early to visit the department store; even in the waiting line, she was the second one to go into a fitting room once any of them was emptied. Otherwise, she would have to go through the discomfort of being in a crowd while doing her errands.
Hyun Ae could feel her stomach grumbling out of hunger. She tried to control the sound so that other people could not hear it.
‘Phew, it would be embarrassing if people hear it. I should make this shopping quicker. Ricky Oppa might be hungry too,’ she reminded herself. At the thought of dinner, she let her mind wander on what to get for her and Ricky’s dinner. ‘Samgyeopsal sounds fantastic,’ she thought, while silently gulping at the thought of grilled pork bellies.
However, she just remembered that getting samgyeopsal would require grilling, and would also mean their clothes and belongings smell like a samgyeopsal shop too.
‘I don’t want my newly bought clothes to smell like samgyeopsal!’ Hyun Ae protested at her initial option. ‘Okay, change of plans. Hmm… how about fried chickens? Argh, it’s been a long time since I had fried chickens! I should look up the nearest fried chicken shops. Pretty sure there are some good ones nearby.’
As soon as Hyun Ae took out her phone from her bag to search for nearby fried chicken shops, the leftmost fitting room’s door was opened, signaling that the current occupant was done using it. The lady who was waiting before Hyun Ae got ready as well.
Hyun Ae, despite being preoccupied with her thoughts to search for dinner, was attracted to look longer at the person who just left the said fitting room. The lady was petite and looked around Hyun Ae’s age. A mount of clothes, presumably the ones that she just tried in the fitting room, covered her entire left arm. Almost covering her side body was a huge handbag that was slung on her right shoulder; it can be seen that it was left ped. She was holding a phone in her right hand. Even since she stepped out of the fitting room, her eyes stayed on her phone screen. Her eyebrows furrowed while reading something from the said device. It could be seen that she was in a hurry, seeing how quick her steps were. Her huge steps left everyone in awe, seeing how she was also wearing a pair of high heels. Her long, black hair swung left and right, mirroring her long strides.
After gazing at the petite girl who was fast approaching the waiting line, Hyun Ae brought her focus back to her own phone. However, not long after she diverted her focus, she realized that there was a dangling piece from the mount of clothes that got in the petite girl’s way. Seeing how occupied the girl was with her phone, Hyun Ae could tell that the girl would not realize about the situation. Hyun Ae felt the sense of urgency to warn her about the situation before it became worse.
However, it was too late.
The worse scenario happened.
The petite girl stepped on the dangling piece, causing her to stumble forward. Not being able to gain her footing, especially when she was donning a pair of high heels, she fell face first onto the floor. The mount of clothes on her left arm also fell. Due to the pressure, the content of her ped handbag jumped out and was scattering on the floor of the fitting room’s corridor. Even her right hand lost grip on her phone.
Other shoppers loudly gasped at the incident, mirroring their shock at the loud thud the incident had produced.
Hyun Ae, being among the nearest, reacted quickly and came to the girl’s rescue. “Are you okay?” she asked as she helped the petite girl back to her feet.
The staff members who were in the area quickly gathered the clothes that were on the floor. Some shoppers who were in the waiting line also lent a helping hand by collecting the content of the girl’s handbag.
“Are you hurt anywhere?” Hyun Ae asked again, as she quickly scanned the girl’s ankles, legs, and hands. The girl’s long, black hair was disheveled by the time she got onto her feet, covering a part of her face.
Instead of verbally answering Hyun Ae’s questions, the petite girl quickly shook her head and yanked her hands from being touched by Hyun Ae. The other shoppers who had gathered her belongings approached her and returned them to her. Keeping shut, she quickly shoved them into her handbag. She was about to step away, but a department store member halted her. The latter offered the girl the mount of clothes that she had brought out from the fitting room. Again, she shook her head. The department store member understood the sign that the girl was not taking the clothes with her. The petite girl trudged away hurriedly while slinging her handbag over her left shoulder, leaving the fitting room area in just a matter of seconds.
Hyun Ae was left bewildered by the situation.
Naturally, other shoppers shifted their attention to her because she was the first one to help the petite girl, but received no expressions of gratitude in return.
To dismiss the feelings of awkwardness that suddenly engulfed her, Hyun Ae bowed to other shoppers who had helped gather the petite girl’s belongings, expressing her thanks.
She was about to return to the waiting line when a staff member addressed her, “Miss, please, it’s your turn.”
Hyun Ae looked at the staff member briefly, before noticing that the latter was politely pointing at an emptied fitting room. It was possibly left vacant during the chaos earlier.
Hyun Ae lightly bowed to the staff member and said ‘thank you’. As she entered the room and closed the door behind her, she felt grateful for the timing, for she no longer had to endure being in such awkwardness.
*****
Around fifteen minutes later, Hyun Ae pushed open the fitting room door.
The staff member who ushered her earlier came to her aide. “Are there any clothes that you wish to put back?”
Hyun Ae shook her head. “It’s okay, I’ll put them back myself,” she said, declining the staff member’s offer.
As she stepped towards the women's section of the department store, she looked again at the mount of clothes in her left arm. In the end, she still picked the colours that were close to earthy tones of her existing wardrobe clothes – a dull green plain dress, and a warm pink checkered loose blouse. Hyun Ae felt like laughing at herself; she knew she was too ambitious with the initial selections.
She was nearing the clothing racks as she saw Ricky’s side profile from afar. He was still within the women's section, standing in front of a clothing rack that displayed casual outfits. She was planning to put the clothes back to where she got them from before approaching Ricky, but she changed her course. She decided to form steps towards Ricky first.
Because Ricky looked...strange.
He could be seen fixating his eyes towards a direction. When Hyun Ae followed the direction of his sight, it was towards the elevators that were not far from the women's section. His facial expression was the one that Hyun Ae never saw on Ricky before.
‘He looks... angry?’ Hyun Ae whispered to herself. ‘Is there someone whom he knows?’
“Oppa?” Hyun Ae called out to her partner anyway. They were about three metres apart. Coincidentally, Ricky could be seen about to form steps towards the elevators when she spoke.
Looking like he was snapped out of his trance, Ricky halted, before promptly turning his head towards Hyun Ae’s voice.
Hyun Ae quickened her steps towards Ricky before placing herself beside Ricky. She saw that Ricky still looked confused; his eyes were out of focus.
“Oppa, what happened? Are you okay?” Hyun Ae tugged lightly at Ricky’s long sleeve, worried at her partner’s condition.
‘Does he feel hot?’ Hyun Ae wondered.
She honestly found it odd that Ricky wore long-sleeved tops, even though it was already summer. Hyun Ae quickly scanned if he was sweating, but it turned out that he was not sweating nor gasping for air. He only looked out of focus; his eyes were on her face but she could tell that the focus was somewhere else. So she patiently waited for Ricky to collect himself.
After a few minutes, Ricky quietly released a sigh. The focus in his eyes returned.
He cleared his throat before he uttered in a low voice, “I’m fine, Hyun Ae-yah.” The addressed lady was about to ask another question when Ricky gestured to the clothes in her left arm. “How are they?”
Now that they were standing side by side, Hyun Ae realized that Ricky was holding a cardigan that was hung on the clothing rack in front of him. A mint-green cardigan.
She paid the matter no heed though, so she answered his question, “Oh. Yeah, they’re fine.” She grunted as she adjusted her hold on the clothes because she noticed that a few of them were almost falling.
‘I don’t want a similar incident to happen, so I better be careful,’ Hyun Ae whispered to herself. Her mind flashed at the fiasco at the fitting room earlier that was caused by a dangling piece of cloth.
“I’m sorry for keeping you waiting. I’m paying now. So we can have our dinner afterwards! You’re hungry, right?”
She kept the two clothes of her choice on her right arm, before placing the rest back to their racks. At times, she wandered around a few racks, trying to remember the place where she took the clothes from. ‘Ah, I should have taken the staff member’s offer,’ Hyun Ae blamed herself, knowing full well that she would not be able to remember the places herself.
After trying her best to put back the clothes in what she believed to be their original places, she headed to the counter.
However, she stopped in her tracks when Ricky called her. As she turned around with a raised eyebrow, Ricky approached her before stopping in front of her.
He was holding the mint-green cardigan. “Why don’t you buy this, too?” Ricky asked.
Hyun Ae hesitated.
First, the colour mint-green was never her choice of colours. She deemed that it was an ambitious colour, and she felt that she could never pull off mint-green. Second, she honestly felt something about this colour, but at the moment, she could not place what it was.
She reached out for it anyway and matched it to her body. At her height, the cardigan could cover her bottom. The arm part draped at her shoulders. Since it was an open-front cardigan, it would not cover her front body. It would be hot to be worn during summer – seeing how it was a knitted piece – but it could be paired with a sleeveless shirt if she wanted to wear it in hot weather.
Lastly, she glanced at the price tag. ‘Hmm, I can buy this. It’s within the budget.’
When Hyun Ae was immersed in her thoughts, Ricky voiced out, “It looks good on you.”
Hyun Ae smiled at his comment. ‘All the more reason to buy it, then.’
“Alright, I’ll take it.”
*****
The digital alarm clock on Hyun Ae’s study desk showed that it was 10 in the evening. Hyun Ae just finished showering, and now she was drying her hair with a small towel while humming joyfully. She was already in her pajamas, ready to go to sleep in a matter of minutes.
She briefly recalled Ricky’s and her dinner after her shopping errands.
Ricky had requested if they could have jjajangmyeon for dinner. Hyun Ae frankly found the request strange; Ricky usually left the final say to Hyun Ae – on what and where to eat, and what to do. She gave in to the request anyway, because she was still reminded of the said man’s odd antics in the department store earlier. Thankfully, he seemed okay throughout their dinner; he even savoured his bowl of black bean noodles to the last bits.
For that, Hyun Ae felt relieved.
After she got home, she decided to have a shower first. She simply placed her belongings on her bedroom’s floor, before snatching her towel and heading into the bathroom. Now that she was done with showering, she could not wait to unbox the shopping bag and give a new home to her newly bought clothes.
Soon after drying her hair, she took the shopping bag and pulled out the two clothes that she had bought. She brought them in front of her full-length mirror and matched each cloth to her body to give them a final look before she hung them neatly in her wardrobe.
Hyun Ae was about to put the shopping bag away, but she could feel that it was still heavy. She peeked into the bag.
‘Ah, how could I forget about this?’ She wondered as she took out the mint-green cardigan that she had bought in the last spur of moments in the department store. ‘It’s also the one that Ricky Oppa complimented on me. Aish!” She lightly hit the side of her head using her palm, lightly scolding her forgetful nature.
Just like how she treated the two clothes earlier, she brought the cardigan in front of the mirror and matched it to her body. To be honest, she still did not feel confident to pull the colour off, but she would try it anyway. After all, and most importantly, Ricky liked it.
As she took a hanger to hang the cardigan, her mind flashed on something. It was the feeling that she could not place when Ricky suggested her to buy the cardigan.
‘Wait.’
She took a good look at the cardigan. And then she calmly tried to recall what she felt about it. Her eyes stayed up, as if trying to turn the pages of her memory.
After a few minutes, she clicked her fingers.
‘I knew it looked familiar. It’s the same colour as the one on the girl’s nails!’
The girl. The one whom she had helped in the fitting room area. When Hyun Ae scanned the girl’s body for any possible injury, she briefly registered that the girl had painted her nails with mint-green colour.
‘Interesting,’ Hyun Ae thought, ‘What a coincidence.’
Hyun Ae hummed again as she hung the mint-green cardigan together with the new clothes in her wardrobe.
Little did she know, it was the beginning of everything.
[29.10.2021]
I just finished looking at the previous chapters and made a few additions and changes. I'm having a brief hiatus soon, but I'll try my best to post at least a chapter before November ends.
I just finished looking at the previous chapters and made a few additions and changes. I'm having a brief hiatus soon, but I'll try my best to post at least a chapter before November ends.
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