Chapter 9  I Pity You

 

 

I walk up the street to my house. 

I see him lounging against the gate.

He uncoils his long frame from the gate and straightens.

He walks a few steps toward me, till he reaches me.

"Look at you," he says softly, and smiles wryly. "Look at you; you're perfectly fine."

He laughs derisively.

"You ruined my entire day, and you turn up, looking perfectly fine."

I don't say anything.

He takes another step forward, so close that I can see every feature of his face clearly; and the searching eyes fill with that odd look of puzzlement again.

His eyes fall before mine, and he turns away.

"That look again," he mutters, as if to himself. "That look of pity."

A car draws up.

Cho rong gets out of the car.

He's all boyish eagerness and self-conscious awkwardness.

It's such a relief to see him.

Moo young has walked off.

Good.

"Do you want to go out for a meal?" he asks shyly.

He's adorable.

"Sure," I say, and he looks like he's about to pass out from joy.

We drive to a restaurant nearby, and get a nice table at the side.

"My mum made this," he says, and passes a container wrapped up prettily with a huge bow to me. "It's beef bone soup."

"Beef bone soup?" I say. "I adore beef bone soup."

"Really?" he says.

He looks like he's about to burst from happiness.

Our bowls of noodle soup arrive, and we tuck in.

The door bell rings to announce a customer.

I glance up, and almost choke.

It's Moo young.

OMG.

He flops into the chair at the table behind us.

Cho rong's sitting back to him, and I'm facing Moo young directly.

He leans a little to the side to look at me because Cho rong's back is obscuring his view of my face.

OMG.

His eyes are boring into mine.

He's mouthing silently to me.

He looks like he's saying, "Eat up" because he's making eating gestures.

I used to like this show that I watched on TV, where you have to guess what the guy in front of you who's gesturing like mad is saying, and the guesses were hilarious at times.

Why am I even thinking about that now?

And why am I feeling so guilty, as if I'm cheating on Cho rong?

Poor Cho rong.

He's oblivious to the whole thing, and talking animatedly to me.

Moo young listens in, and nods his head every now and then to Cho rong's prattling.

This is  bizzare.

Moo rong's bowl of noodles arrives.

Why do I even care?

I have totally lost my appetite.

Chorong's phone rings.

It's his mother; I see her name flashing across the screen.

He looks as if he's going to die from embarrassment.

He lets the phone ring.

"Aren't you going to pick up your call?" I say.

Behind me, Moo young shakes his head reprovingly.

If this weren't so nightmarish, it'd be laughable.

Cho rong picks up the call reluctantly.

I hear his mum's voice chattering excitedly on the other end.

"No," he says, squirming. "I haven't."

I can hear her prattling on, and then the call ends.

He looks flushed and worked up.

"What was that about?" I ask.

Behind him, Moo young has inclined his body even nearer to Cho rong.

"Er, she was asking me whether I've caught a criminal," he stutters.

He gets a text message on his phone, and reads it. He looks alarmed.

Boy, is he jumpy today.

"Let's hurry up and finish our noodles," I say. "It's getting cold."

Moo young nods in agreement behind, and slurps his noodles noisily.

I can't take this anymore.

We stroll leisurely back to my house.

It's dark already; night has fallen.

I turn my head very, very slightly.

He's following us, a tall, dark, shadowy figure.

It's like a horror movie, where the girl is always so dumb, and doesn't have the sense to not walk along a dark alley at night.

Why am I even thinking about this?

But then he suddenly turns into an alley at the side.

I'm so relieved.

Instantly, my heartbeat slows, and I stop digging my finger nails into my palms.

Cho rong and I are strolling along the alley, and it's quiet and peaceful. The horror vibe has disappeared with the villain of the piece out of the picture.

Our hands brush against each other, quite by accident. Or, it could have been deliberate on his part.

Whatever.

He reaches out his hand and holds my hand tentatively.

The next minute, he's dropped it like a hot potato.

Those finger nails that were digging into my palms must have roughened them up a bit.

Just kidding.

It's good that I'm regaining my sense of humour.

"Sorry, sorry," he mumbles. "I've got sweaty palms."

"Sweaty palms are fine," I say.

"I adore sweaty palms," I clamp my hands tightly over my mouth to stop the words from gushing out.

What is wrong with me?

Deliberately, I reach out and hold his hand.

He draws in a sharp intake of breath, then he tightens his fingers over mine. They're nice fingers, long, gentle, warm, like the rest of him is.

We stroll, hand in hand, all the way to my house.

"Jin kang, I've decided something," he says, looking at me earnestly, his heart in his eyes. "I've decided that I'd really, really like us to be dating officially."

He's so sweet and adorable.

I smile at him.

"Okay," I say.

His face fills with blinding joy.

He likes me so much, and I feel a pang of guilt, that I can't like him back as much. I mean, I like him, I do, it's impossible not to like him, but he doesn't drive me wild, or crazy, and I hardly think of him when he's not there, unlike...unlike...well, never mind...

He takes a step toward me, his face filled with new courage and determination.

He's A Man with A Mission.

The Mission is To Kiss The Girl.

He leans in toward me.

I incline my head helpfully, and angle it so that he can just move his face forward, and downward, and his lips can make contact with my lips.

If I don't do my part in The Mission, he could end up kissing my nose.

That would never do.

It's his first kiss, after all - don't ask me how I know - and I'm thinking that if it's disastrous, it could traumatize him, permanently.

Just kidding.

See, I'm positively bouncing with good humour.

His face comes nearer and nearer. I close my eyes  just a fraction, but actually, I'm peeping at him through my eyelashes.

Yes! You can do it! Just a bit more, Cho rong! You're almost there!

And then I hear it.

A loud intrusive sound behind us.

STAMP STAMP STAMP

Cho rong jumps, and recoils from me so fast that my head spins; I swivel my head.

It's Moo young.

OMG.

He's stamping his sneaker so hard over and over, crunching the sole against the gravel.

We stare at him.

He crouches down, his face hidden from our eyes.

He's on one knee, pretending to tie his shoe laces.

Cho rong looks at him, then at me.

He looks crestfallen.

"I'll make a move," he says awkwardly.

"Bye," I say.

Moo young is still crouched at Cho rong's car, and Cho rong has to squeeze in through the door to get in.

He drives off, dejectedly.

Poor Cho rong.

Mission abort. Mission abort.

Moo young straightens and looks at me.

"What were you doing?" I yell.

"He was going to kiss you," he says. "I didn't want him to kiss you."

"Are you disappointed?" he asks, looking interested. "Did you want him to kiss you?" 

"Yes!" I yell.

"Then I guess you'd better talk to me tonight, or I'll be back to interrupt your next date," he grins. 

I look at him.

His grin dies.

"You're looking at me with those eyes again," he says. "I pity you, I pity you, I pity you; that's what they're saying," he says.

"Why?" he asks, looking at me, and his eyes are questioning. "Why do you pity me?"

"Is that it? Is that why you're here?" I ask.

"No, it's not. That's not why I'm here," he says. "I'll tell you why I'm here. I'm here because I'm miserable."

His face is serious, and his eyes look bleak, unhappy.

"Good," I say. "You play with other people's feelings all the time, so yes, it's good that you're miserable. You should be miserable. You deserve to be miserable."

"Is this the first time that someone has looked at you with pity?" I ask him.

"No, it's not the first time that someone's looked at me like that, or talked to me like that, like they pity me," he says. "But I didn't bother about them. They said that I didn't have parents, and that my arm is burnt. They said that so that they'd feel better about themselves."

He looks at me, and his eyes are floundering, confused, searching for an answer.

"But I don't know how to interpret your words. They bother me. You really meant what you said, didn't you? You, you really pity me, don't you?"

"Yes, I pity you," I say.

"Why?" he asks, and his eyes are lost, unsure. He really wants to know why I pity him.

"I pity you because you're really pitiful," I say. "If you have this much time to think about this, then you should think about the reason yourself, about how you treat others."

I walk into my house.

Jin kook comes home almost immediately after me.

"Did you just meet Kim Moo young?" he asks. "I drove past him on the way home."

I shrug.

"We're not friends," I say, and open the fridge.

"Cho rong's mum made some beef bone soup for me. It's in here," I say.

"Cho rong's mum made beef bone soup for you?" Jin kook's jaw almost drops.

He comes running to me in the kitchen

"Do you like him?" He's a good guy, isn't he? Do you want to date him?"

He fires a barrage of questions at me, a huge smile pasted on his face.

"Stay out of my dating life," I say.

Jin mook looks overjoyed.

I push past him and go into the bathroom to brush my teeth.

I stare at my reflection in the mirror.

"You really pity me, don't you?"

"You really mean it."

He had said those words to me, as if it had mattered to him, as if the idea that I pitied him had affected him, had got under his skin.

I get a call from Seung ah the following night.

She's crying and slurring over the phone; she sounds drunk. She tells me that she's at the Arts Brewery, and I rush there.

She's passed out on a sofa in the office. 

Moo young is with her. He's pressing a white folded towel on her face and around her neck when I walk in. I stand silently behind him, and watch. He hands the towel to me without turning his head.

Hee jun enters at that moment, and says, "You're here."

Moo young looks up, and sees me.

We look at each other for a moment.

"I'll take care of her," I say.

He gets up, and I take his place, sitting down next to her, and wiping her damp face.

Moo young and I are in Seung ah's car. She's sleeping in the back seat.

He glances at me, sitting next to him.

"Your eyes have changed," he says. "They're softer, gentler, today."

"It's boring," he says, and sighs.

He smiles at me.

"You were happy to see me just now, weren't you?"

I glare at him, and he starts laughing.

"That's the look," he says, grinning. "It makes my heart skip a beat. It almost gave me a heart attack."

"Just drive," I say wearily.

We reach Seung ah's house.

"Wait here," I say. "I'll talk to Seung ah's mother."

He gets out of the car, and walks over to my side, and opens the door.

"Get out, and wait," he says.

"Her mother will be angry when she sees you," I protest.

"That's why you should let me handle it," he says.

I stand beside the pillar of the gate so that ajumma would not be able to see me.

She comes out, and looks at Moo young coldly.

"I brought your daughter home. She's passed out drunk in the back seat," he smiles.

She doesn't say a word.

She gets into the car and drives it into the porch.

Moo young walks off and joins me.

We walk away together.

He smiles at me.

"Were you anxious for me?" he says. "Were you afraid that she'd slap you again?" 

I sigh.

"Are you doing this on purpose?" I say. "I really don't get you."

"I don't understand what you're trying to say," he says.

"Why do you pretend to be mean when you're nice?" I ask.

"Am I nice?" he muses. "I'm not sure."

"I think that you are," I say. "You do a lot of nice things; like what you did back there, that was a nice thing to do."

We have reached the main street.

Moo young wants to hail a cab.

He steps right into the street.

"You're stepping too far out," I say nervously. "It's dangerous."

He ignores me  and steps further into the traffic. Or, maybe he can't hear me because the cars and the vehicles are honking noisily at him.

A car swerves, narrowly missing him. I almost scream.

I'm a bundle of nerves.

I can't take this anymore.

I take two steps forward.

I reach out and clutch the end of his shirt, and pull him back to the curb with my fingers.

He turns, and looks down at me.

He stares at my fingers, clenched around the edge of his shirt, so tightly, that the fabric there is creased up, wrinkled, stretched to breaking point.

He raises his eyes slowly to mine.

He allows me to pull him back, unresisting, to the sidewalk.

We stand there at the side of the road, on the sidewalk, with the cars and the trucks and the buses roaring past us, the noise and the lights and the smell of the fumes retreating to a distant, remote, faraway place.

We stand there frozen, gazing into each other's eyes for a long, long moment of time.

Everything else, and everyone else has ceased to exist.

I am standing so close to him, that if I reach out my palm, and lay it against his heart, I would be able to feel it beating; is it beating as fast as mine, I wonder, is it racing as erratically as mine?

If I stand on tiptoe, could I stretch my fingers just a fraction, tentatively trace the contours of those lips that hover so dangerously close to mine, trail them lightly over the softness of that upper lip, perching so beguilingly, pouting ever so slightly over the firmness, the uncompromising hardness of that lower lip?

For this man is a study of contrasts; the soft and the hard, the kind and the cruel.

I cannot look away from his eyes; they are very, very dark, and I see heat there, and hunger, and raw longing; I look again, and they are fierce, feverish, wild; blazing, on fire; dazzling me, blinding me, burning me, scorching me.

I can't breathe.

I take a step back.

Instantly, his face changes.

The mask slips back on, and the shutters are up again; he turns and looks at me, and his eyes are impersonal again; kind, friendly, remote.

"We missed a cab because you pulled me back," he says lightly, and it is if the moment had never happened.

"This spot is really hard to catch a cab," he says, almost as if he's talking to himself, and his eyes scan the street; detached, calm.

Had I imagined the moment? Was it the product of an overactive imagination?

But then the light from a streetlamp suddenly illuminates his face as he moves a step back, and I see it. 

Slightly above his lower left jaw, and below the dip of his cheek, right at the edge of his lips, a muscle is working, twitching furiously, the telltale sign of his agitation.

He is as affected by me as I am by him.

The next day, I leave for home after work.

Seung ah is waiting outside my house in her car.

She gets out of the car when she sees me.

"Hi," I say.

She ignores me and opens the car door.

"Get in," she says curtly.

She plays the dash cam recording.

I sit there, and watch, and listen to the exchange between Moo young and me, as she lies, passed out in the back seat of the car.

"Your eyes changed," he says. "They're softer."

"You were happy to see me just now, weren't you?"

"That's the look. It makes my heart skip a beat. You almost gave me a heart attack."

"Just drive," I say.

I turn to her, my heart thudding, the blood pounding in my ears.

I start to babble; like a despicable coward, my words tumble over each other as I search desperately for an excuse, any excuse, to pacify her, to soothe her, to bring her back to me, to make everything like the way it was before.

"I know that you're angry," I say, "but this is a misunderstanding. It doesn't mean anything. I said something to him that made him mad, that's all ... "

She looks at me, with such contempt, such cutting scorn, that I falter, and the false excuses, the lies, die on my lips.

Seung ah takes out her phone and shows it to me.

TEXT: Do you like Jin kang eunnie?

MOO YOUNG: Yes.

She looks at me, and her eyes are hard and bitter.

"What about you, Jin kang eunnie?" she asks. "Do you feel the same? Do you like Moo young? Since when did you start liking him?"

I text Moo young.

TEXT: I want to meet you right now.

He's sitting at a table outside the covenience store.

He looks up at me, and smiles.

"Why did you say that to Seung ah?" I ask.

His smile fades.

He gets up, and picks up a box from the table. It looks like a cake box.

He walks away.

"I don't want to talk about Seung ah with you anymore," he says.

He keeps walking and I follow him all the way.

He's not getting away that easy.

He can't just walk into our lives and destroy the friendship between me and my best friend.

He turns.

"This is where I live," he says. "I bought a cake. You should have some cake with me. It's my birthday today."

"Why should I?" I yell.

"It's sad to spend a birthday alone," he sighs.

"Why did you do it?" I yell. "Why did you send that text message to Seung ah?"

Seung ah hates me now.

I'm on the verge of tears; he doesn't get it, how bad I feel, how torn up I am inside over losing my best friend.

"Seeing you is fun, and I don't get bored at all," he says. "I really like it. I like you a lot. I'm also hungry. Let's eat."

I stalk off.

"If you change your mind, just come back," he says. "You have until I blow out the last candle to change your mind."

I turn back and storm up to him.

"Just tell Seung ah that it was a joke," I say. "It might be a fun thing for you but it's not for me. So tell her that."

He stares at me, then he takes out his phone.

"Okay," he says.

He starts texting.

He says the words out loud as he texts:

"It wasn't true. I was just kidding, because I love you so much. I thought that it would help me to forget you."

I run to him to stop him from sending the text, but he presses the SEND button before I reach him.

My phone buzzes.

I take it out and look at it.

It's the text that he's just read out. The whole thing.

He sent the text to me.

"I get it," I say. "I get it now. I finally understand why I find you pitiful. It's because you never had a heart to begin with."

"That's why you toy with people so easily," I say. "You don't care when you hurt them. You feel happy when you've won."

"And you know what's the saddest thing? You don't even realize how pitiful you are."

He doesn't say anything for a while.

He just stands there and looks at me.

Then he smiles, a crooked, twisted smile, that stretches the creases under his eyes, and narrows his eyes into cat's eyes, sharpening them, tilting them at the edges, making him look cruel, mocking, diabolical.

"Do you want to know why you're so angry?" he says. "It's because you've known all along. You've known all along that I wasn't joking when I told Seung ah that I like you."

"That's why you're so angry," his voice dwindles to a whisper.

He takes a step towatd me.

"So tell me," he says softly. "Did you ever think about me at all?"

"No," I say.

"Did you ever miss me?"

I muster all my effort to answer.

"No."

"Were you happy to run into me?"

My throat is so tight that the word comes out as a strangled whisper.

"Never."

He steps closer to me, so close that we are almost touching.

"Do you truly, truly have no feelings for me at all?"

I struggle to answer, as my breath comes in jagged rasps.

"No."

I can't meet his eyes.

My head is on a level with his chest, and I keep my eyes fixed before me; a sudden wind swells, and wisps of my hair flutter against his neck, his jaw, his chin, his lips.

I feel the warmth of his breath on my cheeks, fanning them, making the treacherous colour rise.

I feel his eyes on me, and slowly, unwillingly, I raise my eyes to his.

His eyes glide over me in a slow, slow caress, starting from my eyes, drifting down my face, and finally, rest, lingering on my lips.

He brushes my lips with his thumb, a light, butterfly touch: soft, feathery-light, like a whisper, a sigh, the fleeting remnants of an insubstantial dream, and then he draws back, his hand drops to his side, and I feel a cold rush of air.

"Okay," he says softly, almost tenderly.

He looks at me, a long, lingering gaze, a faint curve to his lips; and then, he turns away.

He starts to walk away, toward the little rise where the street crests, before it dips again.

He stops just before the rise, and turns.

The wind stirs his hair, and lifts it, as he stands, poised on the crest, his face lifted to me, the moonlight weaving strange, magical patterns across his face, casting it in shadow in parts, and lightening it in others, so that the planes and angles are thrown into sharp relief, and rise, luminous against the shroud of darkness .

"Is it more pitiful to feel nothing, or to ignore the feelings that you have for someone?" he calls out to me, his voice loud enough to drown the wild, clamouring voices in my head, and the frantic, desperate pounding of my heart.

As if in answer, a draft rises, and swirls mournfully; it coils jealously, lovingly around him, and tosses his words back to me, mockingly, knowingly, across the divide.

I can't answer him.

"I'd rather feel nothing," he says, and there is such certainty, such conviction in his voice, and such bleakness, too, and emptiness and loneliness in his words, that I feel my eyes fill with tears.

He turns, and walks on, and disappears down the street.

I turn in the opposite direction.

Two huge black cars pass me, their headlights blinding me.

I walk home. 

I come to a turn, and stumble.

I can't go on.

I  fumble for the steps that lead to a block of houses located up the street.

I sit there for a long, long time.

That look in his eyes, before he walked away, that was the look in my eyes when I looked at him.

Pity.

It was a look of pity.

He pitied me, as I pitied him.

The truth dawns on me in sudden, blinding clarity, and I gasp.

I see it now.

I understand.

I get up.

And then, I'm on my feet, flying, running, to him.

I run past a maze of buildings and side alleys, my coat open and flapping about my knees, everything blurring and dissolving into a dim, hazy world of vagueness, of fleeting  images and lights and sounds, as the chill night air wraps itself around my body, and bites my face and stings my eyes, and the leaves rustle, and whisper, "Don't go, don't go, don't go"; but I ignore them, and I continue to run, my mind on fire, the call of my heart rising above, and drowning the well-meaning and sensible voices of reason and logic.

I have to see him now.

I can't wait.

I walk up to the rooftop.

I reach the top of the stairs, and freeze.

A group of men in black are beating up Moo young. They are punching, and kicking, and pushing him.

Blood is pouring down his face.

He stumbles, and falls.

I back away.