Thirty-Eight
His ReplySpending the late afternoon until dark in the park is never a bad idea after all. Yoon Jae and I debated over this since I came home. There was so much that we need to make up for. It's more than just the lost time. We missed each other's touches that we both hadn't felt. Being with him again feels like spring- where everything is fresh and new, where I don't have to worry about anything except for the future ahead of us.
He holds my hand and his ice cream cone on the other hand. I also have mine. We bought it at a nearby ice cream shop.
“Should we decorate the apartment?” he asks me.
“I like it plain and simple. Maybe we should add up a little touch to it.” I say.
“Okay, so what do you want?”
I pause for a while to think.
“Uhm...black and white?”
He smiles. “I like that too.”
I eat my ice cream and feel little shiver on the side of my mouth. A little ice cream went there. Yoon Jae wipes it with his finger.
“There you go, it's gone.”
I touch the part where his finger just swept past.
“Thank you.”
“Joon Hee, can I kiss you?” he asks.
“No, not here.
I see sparks in his eyes. “Please?”
“Okay - ”
He closes the gasps between our mouths. His lips make me hungry for more. It's a feather-light feeling, until a loud voice cuts us off.
“Yoon Yoon Jae!”
The ice cream cone in my hand falls to the ground and I break away from him. Mr. Sung's angry face greets us, along with Mrs. Sung's shocked expression.
Yoon Jae looks at the origin of the voice. Before he could react, Mr. Sung walks fast toward him and punches his face.
“You bastard! You ungrateful bastard!”
Mrs. Sung rushes to her husband's side to stop the commotion. Everyone starts to look at us.
Yoon Jae looks up at him. The cone he held in his hand fell on the ground. I drop mine too and hold his shoulder. He rubs the part where Mr. Sung hit him.
“You're flirting with your wife's killer! You don't even respect her memory!”
“Joon Hee didn't kill my wife! It was just a frame-up!”
Mrs. Sung tries to calm her husband down.
“Honey, let's go.”
Mr. Sung's eyes tear through me. He pushes Yoon Jae out of the way and hits me hard on the face. Yoon Jae stands between us and wraps me around his arms. He bites his lip as he receives every blow on his back. I fight back my tears from falling.
“You're both useless! Go to hell!” Mr. Sung exclaims.
Mr. and Mrs. Sung leave us alone after that. I break free from Yoon Jae and walk away.
“What? Aren't you going to do anything?”
I stop from my tracks and look at him.
“I'm tired, Yoon Jae. I thought we can be happy. I just realized it's very impossible.”
His eyes brim with a new found strength.
“We can be happy if you won't walk away from me. I'm tired of chasing you, Joon Hee. Now that you're here with me, I’m not gonna let you walk away. Never again.”
This time the tears fall down one by one. I don't know what to say.
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