04. EMPTY HOUSE

KRIS

There are four things I learn about love. Did I mention love? I guess I did.

First, love comes in one most unexpected moment, in one most unfamiliar way, and you need to be smart enough to notice it.

Second, love doesn’t promise you anything. It doesn’t always mean happiness. It doesn’t always mean sadness either. It never offers you an eternity. It is you who decide when it begins and how it ends. But be careful, one simple mistake can ruin everything.

Third, love is irrational. You don’t need logic to understand love or to describe how it makes you think because love isn’t something you need understand. You just need to feel it.

Fourth, love is completely and exceptionally unfair. Well, love is not a game after all. There is no rule to keep it fairplay. There is no winner and there is no loser. One thing you need to remember; not everything can be happening the way you want it to be.

I don’t have many experiences with love but I guess, she taught me many things about love that I have never known before and I never regret to fall in love with her though she didn’t love me back. As I said before, not everything can be happening the way we want it to be.

I personally thought that love would never hit me or even though it does, it would not hit me this hard. I never expected that there was actually a day where I met someone who could make me fall at the very first sight. Choi Soojin was a miracle. She did wonders I never thought can be happening in my life. When everyone says that you only fall in love once, I beg to differ, because every time I saw her, I fell in love all over again. But then, it’s my stupid mistake to not admit this much earlier.

I was not familiar with that L things when I was younger. I can say that I chose to avoid it. My reason? It’s simply because I didn’t see anything good about love and it’s probably because I didn’t get any good impression from my parents’ relationship. They married because of business matters. There is no love between them even until now. My father has a mistress and my mother knows it. But she doesn’t see it as a problem because she doesn’t love him. They are not good role models, right?

Another reason is because my wife is not someone I can choose by myself. My life path has been created by my parents since the very beginning and I have no right to decide what I truly want to do. Then what can I expect?

I have been very careful from a very young age to live my life this way. I left all the emotions at the door and replaced it with numbness. It’s much easier because letting yourself to feel would just make you vulnerable and weak. Every time I saw someone crying and losing sleep after a break up, I couldn’t really understand it.

The women that are worth for that kind of heartbreak won’t let you penetrate them so easily. They won’t spread their legs widely open for you in a dirty bathroom stall or allow you to charm them into your bedroom after only a quarter hour of talking where you won’t even remember their name on the next day because you don’t even bother to stay after you finish with them.

Play hard to get and literally hard to get are two different things. Do you get me?

I always dream a kind of soul that not depend on anyone; just wandering around, worrying about her own business and trying to get through every trouble without pulling everyone else down with her own needs and selfish habits.

Strong. Brave. Bright. Original. Determinant. Challenging.

I really never thought that there was actually a woman who could meet my standard. Not until I met Soojin. She is like the edelweiss. Noble purity and independent. She is like the roses. Beautiful but it can prick your finger if you try to touch it. And the definition is endless because there are no words can perfectly describe her. Soojin is beyond words. So if people say that nobody’s perfect then I will put her as the ‘nobody’ because for me she is perfect. She is… flawless.

But sinfully, I was the one who tainted her.

I don’t know how I can love someone this much. My world stopped when I saw her. It stopped and all that existed for me was her and my eyes staring at her. There was nothing else. No noise, no other people, no thoughts or worries, no yesterday, no tomorrow. The world just stopped and it was a beautiful place with her in it. Only her and my eyes looking at her.

And when she’s gone, my world starts again. I can live in it but I don’t like it. I just walk around it and wait to see her again, waiting for it to stop again. I love it when the world stops because it means I see her. But now she’s gone forever and my world will never stop anymore.

Why was I so stupid, selfish, and such an back then? How I wish I can go back to the past; to the part when she was still alive, when she told me that she was carrying my baby. No, I had no regret making her pregnant. I didn’t want to go back to the night before we committed the sin. I just wanted to go back to the time where I could tell her that I would take the responsibility, that I would protect her and our baby.

Knock knock knock

I glare at the door. Didn’t I tell my secretary that I’m not expecting anyone right now? Does she want to lose her job? I lose count of the number of secretaries I fired in the last three months and to add another one to the list is a ing simple thing to do. But then, I will have Kim Jongdae barges into my room the next morning and scowls the out of me because he needs to hire new secretary for me again.

Oh damn you, Jongdae. It’s your ing job as the personnel manager.

“I think I told you that I–”

My words are cut off by a familiar face. How the hell she resembles Soojin so ing much? Oh yes, she is Soojin’s sister. No wonder they look alike. And I loathe her to death. Why? Because it’s Soojin who was originally planned to be my wife.

It was a business marriage. Like I told you before, my life path has been created by my parents since the very beginning and it includes the woman who would be my wife. But I never imagined that my parents would merge their company with the Choi’s and it definitely had the same meaning with marrying the Choi’s heiress. What I mean here is if only Soojin wasn’t dead, it was her whom I should have married with.

How I hope my parents told me about that earlier. And if they did, maybe in the last two years of my life and many years ahead, Soojin’s face would be the first thing I see every time I wake up in the morning. What a perfect life.

“What are you doing here?” I ask her coldly, clearly irritated by her unexpected presence in my office right now.