Chapter 15: Cold Hands, Warmer Lies

After running away from Miryeong, who had told her to give up Siheon, she had gone to the house in question.

But she couldn’t even set foot inside.

She had waited outside the door for three hours, but no one had come out.

While working at the school cafeteria, she kept making mistakes because her mind was elsewhere.

People who were worried about her pale face had suggested she go to the hospital, and thanks to their consideration, Kangeun was able to leave during her work hours.

After leaving the cafeteria, she sat blankly for a long time, enduring the dizziness, and then headed back to the humanities building.

Not even realizing that her body was starting to heat up, she had sought out the professor’s office.

She had visited the professor who had always thought well of her and had recommended she go to graduate school, but,

“Have you eaten?”

“…No, not yet.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be of help.”

Clutching the thirty thousand won he had given her to buy a meal, Kangeun had to leave the professor’s office.

On the off chance, she had also visited the school’s administrative office.

She had looked into bank loans for students within the school and knocked on the assistant’s office door, but it was all in vain.

“What do I do… Sob, what do I do…”

The cuffs of her worn-out coat were already soaked with tears and stained dark.

Kangeun wiped away the tears that were wetting her hot cheeks and dragged her heavy-feeling feet.
She had to come up with the money by midnight tomorrow at the latest.

But there was no plan.

There was no way to escape this frustrating situation.

Her swollen eyes from crying caught sight of a business card-sized flyer that had been thrown haphazardly on the ground.

It had been scattered by a man on a motorcycle who had passed her just a moment ago.

“…”

University student massage club.

As she stared blankly at the red letters written on the flyer, a hand appeared from somewhere and snatched the flyer, throwing it away.

“Why are you looking at that crap!”

“…Siheon-ah.”

“Are you really going to call that place? Do you even know what they do in places like that?”

“No, it’s not like that. I was just…”

She had picked up the flyer without thinking.

She had just picked up a piece of paper that had fluttered in front of her while she was feeling lost and troubled, an act without any meaning.

‘Can you really make a lot of money at once in places like this?’

‘That can’t be right.’

‘I’ve never heard of anyone who succeeded by working in a place like this and making money.’

That’s all she was thinking.

She hadn’t thought about calling or going there at all.

But Siheon, who was grabbing her shoulders and pressing her, was already half-crazed.

“Are you crazy, Noona? Do you know what kind of place that is?”

“Siheon-ah, I was just. I was just looking. It was just on the ground.”

As if to cool his anger, Siheon slicked back his disheveled hair.

Seeing his red, chapped hands and the carelessly worn coat, it seemed Siheon had been wandering the streets for a long time looking for her.

“And your phone is broken so I can’t even contact you!”

“…I’m sorry.”

“You left without saying where you were going and didn’t even come home until after the sun went down!”

“Sorry…”

Siheon’s face, as he got angry, looked pained, as he knew what Kangeun had been doing wandering the streets so late.

The anger soon subsided, turning into sadness and pity.

Siheon, who had been looking down at Kangeun with sad eyes for a long time, wrapped the scarf he was holding around Kangeun’s neck.

“And you’re dressed so lightly.”

“…”

“And your body is weak.”

“What do you mean…”

The force of his nagging, which he poured out while tightening the scarf, had subsided a little.

Kangeun was about to look up at Siheon but suddenly remembered that she had been crying just a moment ago and quickly lowered her head.

“Noona.”

“Yeah…”

“Look at me.”

“What’s there to see. It’s ticklish…”

“Is looking at me ticklish?”

“…Why are you being so creepy.”

When Kangeun wouldn’t lift her head, a sigh escaped from above her.

And with the sigh, a weight settled on Kangeun’s shoulders, which were tightly wrapped in the scarf.

Siheon had rested his forehead on her.
He was holding one of Kangeun’s arms tightly with his uninjured arm.

“I’m sorry, Noona. I should have held back.”

“Don’t say that.
It’s not something you should be sorry for, Siheon.”

Siheon, with his large build, bent down and buried his head on Kangeun’s shoulder as if rubbing his eyes.

Even though her senses were dull from the scarf wrapped several times around her neck and the thickness of her coat, she strangely felt Siheon’s warmth being transmitted.

Kangeun, who was quietly accepting Siheon’s whining as he rubbed his face against her, raised her hand and carefully wrapped it around his injured shoulder.

For a long time, sleet began to fall on the shoulders of the two people who were silently comforting each other for their tiring day.

Kangeun, who was watching the ice particles that melted as they touched her hand, stroked Siheon’s hair with her fingertips as if to brush it off.

“…Noona.”

“Yeah…”

“Just a little, just wait a little longer.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll do everything for you. I’ll really do everything for you.”

It was a phrase Siheon had been saying like a habit for some time now.

When Kangeun stayed up late studying not only for her own classes but also for her tutoring sessions, when she came home with a tired face after a particularly difficult class and smiled to hide it, and when she turned around after crying in the kitchen to hide her sadness, Siheon would promise her with his eyes shining.

That he would grow up quickly. So to wait for him.

Each time, Kangeun would smile and reply that she would.

Kangeun nodded her head again this time and patted Siheon.

But she couldn’t bring herself to smile, worried about their reality.

‘What should I really do.’

‘The house is already mortgaged to the bank, but is there anything more I can do.’

Just as she was lost in thought again, looking up at the sky that was shedding half-frozen raindrops,

“I solved the money problem.”

At Siheon’s unexpected words, Kangeun’s eyes widened.

“What…?”

“I solved it.
I gave them the money and got the settlement agreement.
So don’t cry anymore.”

Kangeun pushed away Siheon, who was still burying his face in her shoulder.
Anxiety filled Kangeun’s eyes as she looked up at Siheon, who was saying something unbelievable.

“How did you? Where did you get the money?”

“Noona.”

“Tell me.
Where did you get the money?
Where did you get that much money!”

“Don’t look at that crap.”

“What…?”

“Only look at good things.
You have to, Noona.”

“Siheon-ah, aren’t you going to tell me quickly?
Where did you get the money…”

The corners of Siheon’s eyes, as he looked down at Kangeun, were tinged with red.

At that moment, only one thing came to Kangeun’s mind.

“You… you, don’t tell me…”

“You always held back, trying to buy me something even a little better.”

“Siheon-ah…”

“To feed me even a little more, Noona…”

“No.”

“I knew. That you took a leave of absence, that you work at the school cafeteria during the day, that you increased your tutoring sessions. I knew but pretended not to.”

“…”

“It’s because of me. If I wasn’t here, you wouldn’t have had to go that far.
You could have afforded tuition with your tutoring fees.
What was too much for you to handle was,”

“No, it’s not.”

“Me.”

Kangeun’s nose turned red as she took a sharp breath.

The sound of the world disappeared.

All she could see was a black and white world that had lost its color.

Siheon’s handsome eyebrows, which she was always proud to see, his deep-set eyes, his prominent nose, his sharp jawline, his beautiful lips, were all distorted in sadness and wet with tears.

A tear fell from Siheon’s reddened eyes, which were looking directly at Kangeun, and flowed down his smooth cheek.

His always-straight lips were trembling.

Sadness washed over Kangeun’s entire body as she saw this.

Kangeun clenched her fists to endure the terrible weight, but,

“Sob…”

Finally, the tears she had been holding back burst out and blinded her.

The sleet had turned into rain.

The piercing cold, the biting wind, began to hit the two of them.

Kangeun and Siheon, standing in the falling rain, endured the pouring sadness with their lips bitten.

What had been coldly and damply soaking them began to pour down painfully, as if to make them admit that they couldn’t endure it.

****

“I was wrong, I was wrong…”

“Sob… Mom…”

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry, Siheon-ah…”

“Dad, don’t cry… Dad, please…”

“Siheon-ah, sob… Siheon-ah…”

“No… You can’t, you can’t have Siheon… Don’t take him…”

Kangeun moved her fever-cracked lips, not knowing what she was mumbling.
The fever that had started that evening after being soaked in the freezing rain wouldn’t go down.

While suffering from a high fever, she called for her mother, Siheon, and begged her father.

She would tell Imo Miryeong that she couldn’t, and then she would continuously beg an unknown someone that she was wrong.

In her dream, Kangeun returned to being a child.

So, in her hazy state, she thought that Siheon’s hands, which were changing the ice pack on her forehead, wiping her limbs with a lukewarm towel, and taking off her sweat-soaked clothes to change her into dry ones, were her father’s.

“Dad…”

She rubbed her cheek against the broad back that was carrying her to the hospital.

She leaned against the warm chest that was giving her medicine and feeding her water with a spoon.

Kangeun whined to her father like that.

To the hands that were as big as her father’s, to the comfortable embrace, to the reliable back, she complained that she was actually having a hard time.

But she was happy that she had Siheon, she was glad.

Kangeun smiled faintly without even opening her eyes.

“Siheon-ah…”

The dream took her back to a summer long ago.

It was a day when she was lying on her stomach reading a book while eating ice cream with Siheon.

As she tapped her feet to the music flowing from the radio, Siheon smiled brightly.
Kangeun smiled back at him.

Kangeun was now dreaming a dream that was so happy it brought tears to her eyes.