Myung Soo (Part 9): Survivor
Paris: The City of My Heart
I observed the envelope. My name and the address of our apartment were typed on a piece of sticker. I knew immediately who the sender was. To hide our friendship, we never wrote letters in our own handwriting. We typed them. The content of the letter was always brief and cryptic.
I opened the letter to find:
ZPV OFWFS DBNF. XF BSF TUJMM XBJUJOH. DPOUBDU NF.
We had made two ways to encode our messages. One was to replace each letter in the message with the letter preceding or following it in the alphabet. The other was to replace the letter with that before or after it on a computer keyboard.
I got my pen and decrypted the message by changing the letter with that preceding it to get:
WMS LCTC
That doesn’t make sense.
I tried the letter following it.
WMS LCTC
YOU NEVER CAME. WE ARE STILL WAITING. CONTACT ME.
A searing lance of remorse tore my chest. My heart beat seemed to slow down, but it felt heavy and my insides felt like they were being squeezed. My mind went blank as the pressure intensified. When I gasped, I realised I had been holding my breath.
The way Min Ho wrote the message was very clear. He was expecting me. He was expecting us. But I didn’t make it. Amber never made it either.
My five senses switched off. I didn't even hear the sound of Mr Park, the gardener, tending the garden anymore.
What happens now?
She’s gone. She’s not here anymore.
Dead. Gone. Forever.
As these words dawned on me, the heaviness squeezed my lungs. My eyes fell on the watch she gave me. The second hand kept ticking. Not knowing the giver was gone. Forever.
~✡~✡~
When Hyun Ah came back, I was in bed. I had my hoodie jumper on and my blanket covering me. It was somewhat slightly comforting to be wrapped up like that. I wanted to hide, far away from everyone else. I wanted to run and scream. But I couldn’t. The guards watched me relentlessly and the old man was downstairs all the time.
Hyun Ah took the blanket off me and demanded me to get up. I yanked her hands away and plopped myself back onto the bed.
“Oppa! Get up!" she barked.
“Go away, Hyun Ah,” I said tenuously. “I just want to be alone.”
“No,” she enunciated and grab my shoulders to shake me awake.
I opened my eyes and glowered at her. “What do you want?”
She was taken aback for a second, but she composed herself. I noticed she had Min Ho’s letter in her hand.
“Listen to me,” she beckoned. “I know and I understand this is so hard to take right now, but you can’t be like this! Life has to go on! Your life doesn’t revolve around her!”
I shoved her away, grabbed my blanket, and went back to bed.
“Don’t be stubborn!" she yelled at me. “You’ve only been with her for like what? Not even three months! Why do you have to let her hold you back? I’m sure you’ll be fine without her.”
“But I won’t be!" I heard myself shouting at her. “You don’t understand! She died because of me! I killed her!”
“No, you did not!” she argued. I could see the veins on her neck appearing. I looked away and my eyes landed on the piece of paper in her hands. The text was smudged. I wondered how they were smeared. I didn’t remember shedding a tear. She sat down next to me after she calmed herself down. “Uncle and Appa did…” It almost came out like a whisper.
“I did,” I insisted. "Look, I'm fine. Just leave me alone."
I felt her comforting hand on my shoulder as I felt my eyes beginning to blur and suddenly warmth washed over the area...
I bit my lips and held the liquid threatening to fall. I would not show that man how much he had torn my world apart, but I would show him that I would never forgive him. Not even when hell freezes over.
“I know it hurts, Oppa,” she said softly. “It’s going to hurt for a while, but you’ll get over it. Time will help you get over it.” She tried to encourage me.
“I don’t think I’ll get over it…” I whispered, more to myself than to her.
“I’m sure Amber would want you to be strong and move on,” she tried to motivate me as she rubbed my back to console me. I took a deep breath as she spoke again, “Even if it means finding another girl.”
“No. I will never find another girl for the rest of my life. I only want her,” I stubbornly countered.
She stiffened and pulled away. “Oppa! How could you say that?! You know she’s DEAD!"
“I know she is!” I sat up and hollered angrily. “You don’t have to remind me! I know she is not here anymore, I know she’s gone forever, but I want her!"
“But she wants you to be happy!”
“That doesn’t mean I have to find somebody else!” I retorted, clenching my fists. Our voices were getting higher every time. I noticed this, so I lowered my voice. “I can’t be happy without her...”
“Yes, you can!” she snapped at me in frustration. “Your happiness doesn’t depend on anyone else! It depends on you!” I gave her no reply as I looked down at the bed. She inhaled deeply to calm herself and let it out. “You have to keep living, Oppa. You have to keep going without her. You’re still young, you still have a long way to go. You can’t give up now!”
I remembered Uncle's last words to me and my heart hurt.
"I’m not sorry to say that whatever happens to that girl is of no importance to me. Whatever happens to her... is on you.”
Everything Hyun Ah said makes sense, but it’s not that easy. Amber didn’t die from an illness or an accident, but because of me. I was too stubborn.
Amber’s words echoed in my mind.
"If love is about stubbornness, then all the love in the world is fake.”
Maybe I never really loved her. I just wanted her for myself that I didn’t think about her safety. I’m so selfish. I deserved it. I’m a selfish bastard.
“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Hyun Ah was still trying to encourage me, but her voice seemed so far away. “You’ll get over it.”
I don’t think I can do that.
I seemed to have spoken it out loud or Hyun Ah could read my mind because the next thing she said was, “You can. You just don’t want to. When there’s a will, there’s a way.”
She's gone.
I hate him. I’ll never forgive him. He killed everyone I love. He just thinks about himself in this whole damn world.
I’m so pathetic. Taking her away from Paris would solve the problem? How stupid. I was too optimistic. I should’ve been more realistic.
“It’s going to take a long time.”
“We have all the time in the world,” she said.
Get over her? I can’t do that.
Is this karma? I’m the one who should have died. She didn’t deserve it. I deserved it.
I was stupid. There’s no reason to keep fighting now. I should have died in her place. But what should I do? I can’t die. I’m too young.
She was too young too. And she died in your place!, a voice screamed in my head.
If Sung Yeol was here, he would accuse me of behaving like a crybaby and hit me because I wasn’t acting like a man.
But what’s acting like a man like? Someone died because of me. She died because I was too selfish. Is pride really important now?
I don’t want to go back to Paris. Maybe it’s a good thing that I’m in Korea now. But I don’t want anyone with me. I just want to be alone.
~✡~✡~
Now that Hyun Ah was here and I accepted received Amber’s news, Old Man thought I would stay in the house, sulk for a few days, and move on with life.
Well, he’s wrong. Everybody’s wrong.
Everyone was asleep. I put my jacket on and took my phone with me. I made sure my phone was on flight mode, so nobody could contact me. I quietly left my room and found two guards sleeping outside. I walked down the stairs in silence, strode past the living room, and stopped before the door. I turned the key slowly to minimise the sound as much as possible and squeezed myself out of an adequate opening. Three guards were dozing off at the veranda. I looked around gingerly and realised that I hadn’t been outside for two months. It felt so good to breathe in the outside air again.
Yes, I couldn’t speak Korean. Yes, I was in a foreign country.
But who the cared? That night, I made my smooth escape.
~✡~✡~
I woke up with a vigorously throbbing headache. Although my eyes were still closed, I knew I was lying down on a bed. It felt warm and comfortable. No sound was heard from around me. My stomach burned, my throat was sore, and the inside of my mouth felt bitter.
I tried to remember what happened last night. I left the house and made a visit to FamilyMart. I gathered twenty cans of alcoholic drinks of several types. I never drank Korean alcoholic beverages, so I just took whatever I could. I used my French credit card to buy them since I had no South Korean Won. Old Man could probably track me, but by the time he did, I would be gone. After that, I walked down the street of South Korea to find a secluded place. I found a park far enough from the Old Man’s house and settled down there to start drinking. Two cans were gone in less than five minutes and I thought I should’ve bought more. I rarely drunk alcohol, even in Paris it was limited to wine and champagne at parties.
I rubbed my temples as I took in a deep breath. I could smell the scent of moisturising creams—what else could it be?—and soap. Lux. That was what Amber used. Funny.
“You’re awake,” a girl’s voice entering the room made me jump and I sat up cautiously.
I saw a girl with long wavy black hair before me, holding a tray with a white bowl on it. She sat down next to me and I moved back towards the headboard of the bed as I stared at her.
“Krystal, is he awake yet?" A soft voice from the door was heard and a blonde girl came in. She had her hair put up in a bun and her side fringe resting neatly on her forehead. They looked alike, thin lips and similar brown eyes. I assumed they were sisters.
“Yes,” the girl next to me answered as she turned to blonde girl.
TO BE CONTINUED. . .
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