case 01

chapter 11: a little like destiny

Wendy trudged down the pavement, feeling the cold, end-autumn wind bluster through her hair. In her hands was a clipboard, with a long, overcompensating list pinned onto it. “What do you guys think of doing a special on destiny?”

“Destiny? As in, ‘un-myeong’, ‘un-mei’, destiny?” Yuta accentuated the words in his three different languages, as though there was something he had lost in translation.

“Yes, that kind of destiny,” Wendy nodded. “I’m thinking – the red string of fate, the one who got away, the right person at the wrong time. The kind of songs, stories that would really tug on heartstrings, because it’s all about being so close, but so far–“

“Jesus, Wendy,” Jungwoo grimaced. “We’re doing a radio program, not filming a melodrama.”

As Wendy sprung into a long-winded monologue about the hand of fate and lost love, Seulgi chuckled and shook her head. Next to her, Jaehyun watched her resume burying her nose in her stack of notes.

“Aren’t you a cynic?” Jaehyun nudged her.

Seulgi looked up. “I mean, Jungwoo has a point. We’re not in the era of Romeo and Juliet. These days, it’s all about choice and free will – the whims of fate don’t have that much power anymore. The world’s a lot simpler.”

Jaehyun raised his shoulders. “You never know,” he said a-matter-of-factly. “Two people could love each other and still spend years skirting around, never actually getting together or even admitting how they feel.”

“And you think that’ll happen because of fate?” Seulgi threw him a wry, skeptical look.

“It could be,” he shrugged again.

Seulgi returned to her notes, unfazed by his baseless claims. “You’re oddly sentimental for someone who spends most of his time breaking hearts,” she noted. “Maybe if you stop being such an , I’ll actually believe it’s fate and not boys like you who bring about lost love.”

Jaehyun burst out in amused laughter. “Touché.”

They stopped in the middle of the courtyard, in between the diverging paths leading to their different faculties. Johnny and Seulgi waved to their friends, heading in the direction of their law school. As they walked away, the others watched Johnny start a new conversation with the previously distracted Seulgi, smiling as brightly as the sun.

“He’s so obvious,” Yuta observed, folding his arms.

Wendy’s head was bobbing vehemently. “I know, right!”

Jaehyun poked Jungwoo in the shoulder. “How’d you feel if Johnny became your brother-in-law? It’s a little like destiny, no?”

“Oh, gross,” Jungwoo shuddered. The other three doubled over in laughter.

“An outdoor wedding?”

Five loud voices echoed through the café, turning heads and raising eyebrows. They cast dumbfounded looks at each other, before averting their eyes to the glass windows, where they could see coated passersby hurrying into the building and escaping the end-autumn cold.

Wendy set her phone on the table, whirling it around and sliding it to her friends. They huddled up, scanning the picture on her screen. “I found Sooyoung a wedding hall with a lot of glass windows and surrounded with greenery, so it gives off that outdoor feel without the wedding actually having to be outdoors,” Wendy said, looking immensely proud of herself.

“Not bad,” Yuta nodded. He could give recognition where recognition was due. “I understand having me and you there – but why are the others also invited?”

“They aren’t. They can come as my plus-ones.”

Jungwoo snorted. “Last time, having a ‘plus-one’ meant you could bring one more person, not four.” He took a loud, exaggerated gulp of his iced coffee. He could see the irritation rising on Wendy’s face, just as he had intended for.

“You don’t have to come!” Wendy sniffed. Unappreciative brat!

Johnny elbowed Yuta. “Hey, dude, could you lend me one of your new tuxes? I don’t have time to get a new one tailored, and you know, weddings mean ladies,” Johnny winked.

“Sure, man.” Yuta looked at him conspiratorially, giving him a fist-bump.

“You guys are so–“ Wendy gaped. She didn’t know which disgusted her more – that they were such ist flirts or that such ist flirts were her friends. “Anyway, lend me a dress too, Yuta.”

“Absolutely not.”

Wendy’s eyes widened, bewildered at how she was shot down so quickly. “What? Why? You just said ‘yes’ to Johnny!”

“Because you’ve borrowed my dresses more than twenty times now, and I haven’t received a cent in rental fees,” Yuta said, arms crossed imperially. “You are a non-performing loan. I have no inclination to continue your disbursements.”

“What? That’s not fair! I just–“

As Wendy launched into a lengthy monologue in self-defense, constantly punctuated by two fools out to annoy her, Seulgi chuckled and buried her nose in her laptop. She had a tall stack of documents beside her, all of which had to be processed and finalized by the end of the day, and she didn’t know how Johnny had the time to be lounging around. She could bet that he was going to be an anxious ball of stress come midnight.

Jaehyun leaned his head on her shoulder, peering at her work. “Are you going to go for it?” he asked.

“Why not?” Seulgi said unaffectedly. She was clicking and clacking away at her laptop. “I can see Taeil-oppa afterwards too, instead of Friday night.”

“Oh, right, Taeil-hyung,” he remembered. “We can still go on Friday night, stay over at Taeil-hyung’s, and then head to the wedding directly from his place. What do you think?”

She tilted her head, finding her face only inches from his. “I might be out pretty late on Friday, though,” she said, quickly turning away. “I have quite a few evening meetings.”

Jaehyun chuckled and took the cue to shift away, straightening himself. “That’s fine,” he replied, smiling softly. “We can take an evening trip, go for a night drive.”

Seulgi half-sighed, half-smiled. Jaehyun could be strange, at times. “Alright,” she relented. “Why not.”

“Hey, you two!” Johnny called. “Why’re you two whispering about, huh?”

Wendy poked her nose in. “For people who are coming as my ‘plus-ones’, you guys are making me feel very excluded,” she complained. “I want to see Taeil-oppa, too!”

“He doesn’t want to see you, though,” Jaehyun shot back. As the entire table erupted in laughter, Jungwoo smiled politely. He took another sip of his coffee, more quietly this time, and turned his eyes away before he could meet Seulgi’s.

Seulgi: Sorry, give me ten minutes.

Jaehyun: What’s your excuse this time?

Seulgi: We had a round of drinks with the interns to wrap up the case. As usual, Johnny got a little heavy-handed with the drinks. It’s alright, though – he’s napping at Changmin-sunbae’s.

Jaehyun: You left him with… your boss?

Seulgi: He said he wanted to make Partner. Perfect opportunity to make his case.

Jaehyun: LOL. Alright. I’m already downstairs. See you in a bit.

Seulgi arrived home to an empty, relatively dark apartment. The light by the doorway was on, courtesy of Jungwoo. He was responsible enough to be an early sleeper who made sure they were conserving energy by keeping unnecessary lights off, but he knew a clumsy Seulgi would trip over herself in the dark while attempting to locate the switch.

While she slid off her heels, her eyes grazed the large, framed portrait hanging at the doorway. Unlike most family portraits, it wasn’t taken at a studio, and it didn’t have all of her family. She was sitting on an outdoor bench, flanked by the cold-eyed Taeil and the forcibly smiling Jungwoo, who were in turn next to her father and Jungwoo’s mother, respectively. In her last year of college, someone –probably her dad– thought it would be a great, relatively apolitical bonding event to head to Everland for a safari tour.

“It’s only the place he knows where people spend more time sitting down than standing up,” Taeil had muttered begrudgingly, at the time.

At the end of the tour, they had been offered a picture by the amateur photographers hired by the zoo. One of those overpriced gimmicks they sold to tourists who cared more for memories, even shabbily-taken ones. In the spirit of commemorating Taeil’s first time out and about in months, her father had kept both the physical photograph and the digital copy. Years later, when she and Jungwoo moved in together, she had gotten that picture from her dad, got it enlarged, and hunted around five different Ikeas until she found the perfect frame. It wasn’t a great picture, but it was the best she had of all the people she loved in one frame.

She left her bag on the living room sofa, heading to her bedroom. As she shoved her sad excuse of a formal dress into her duffel bag, she scanned through her room, making a mental list of all the things she had to bring to Taeil’s.

She hated it – choosing. Driving to Taeil’s on Friday nights and rushing back home before the end of the weekend to have at least a few hours of quality time with Jungwoo. Taking Jungwoo’s gifts to Taeil and Taeil’s side dishes to Jungwoo. She didn’t even want to get started on her parents, who lived on opposite ends of South Korea, and how her holidays were mostly on flights skedaddling between them both. Whenever her clients settled for shared custody, she wondered if that was how their children would feel. She wondered if she should have told them to start collecting their flight miles, or if that was too insensitive a comment to make.

But Seulgi was a lawyer, a mediator, a bridge – in both her career and her personal life. So, she held her silence, and counted both her miles and her blessings that she had a friend who liked driving up to Incheon. For sweet-and-sour chicken, for Taeil, or for whatever.

She trudged out of her room, duffel bag slung over her shoulder. Her gaze flickered in the direction of Jungwoo’s room. Expectedly, his door was closed.

“Jungwoo?” Seulgi tapped softly on his door.

He was probably asleep. Jungwoo always slept early to compensate for the weeknights he worked late. Paying off his sleep debt, he always said. Her and Taeil used to say that all the time when they were younger, one cramming for med school and the other, law school. It was funny how they were all more alike than not, though most –including themselves– might have claimed the opposite.

She slowly pushed the door, peeping through the crevice. Streams of light spilled through the dark room, plausibly from Jungwoo’s bedside table lamp. She crept inside, figuring she would switch it off.

Seulgi stopped.

Jungwoo was convulsing. He was heaving heavy, erratic breaths, writhing in his bed. The blankets were discarded on the floor, probably subconsciously kicked away. He was gripping the sheets with balled-up fists, clinging onto them like they were the only things keeping him from falling over to the ground, too.

“No, no, please, don’t–“ he muttered, turning his head.

“Jungwoo!” Seulgi paled. She darted towards him, shaking his shoulders and praying that he would wake up, that everything would be alright if he just woke up–

His eyelids flew open, his eyes red and bloodshot. His face was splashed with unadulterated fear, like he had just escaped from somewhere, or someone. His chest rose and fell, gasping for air. It was like he was being asphyxiated, and there was nothing she could do to help him breathe.

He stared at Seulgi. For a moment, Seulgi knew he couldn’t recognize her.

“Jungwoo,” she said, sighing in relief. She threw her arms around him, holding him as tightly as she could.

“S-seul… S-s-seulgi…” he sputtered.

She pulled backwards, pressing her hands on his cheeks. “You’re okay, Jungwoo,” she said, looking him in the eyes. “You’re okay.”

“I’m… I’m…” he tried to repeat.

“You’re okay.”

Choking back a sob, Seulgi hugged his shuddering form, her hands caressing his back reassuringly. “You’re okay. You’re okay. You’re okay,” she said, again and again. She didn’t care how many times she needed to say it.

“I’m…okay.” She felt him exhale slowly. His hands reached upwards and grasped at her. He pressed his face into the crook of her neck.

He was coming back. He was coming back to himself.

Seulgi closed her eyes. A lone tear slid down her cheeks.

Seulgi: I’m sorry. I can’t make it. I’m sorry.

Jaehyun lowered his phone to his lap, leaning his head back against the leather of his seat.

Jaehyun knew Seulgi. One apology meant that she had everything under control. Two meant she didn’t. Something