Chapter 15: The Woman Who Used to Shine Like Summer

It wasn’t the first time he had seen Sayoung act.
In fact, Yoojun had found Sayoung’s past acting quite impressive.

He hadn’t kept up with her debut work, which was currently playing, as the piece itself wasn’t to Yoojun’s taste, but he vividly recalled thinking at the time that she truly gave a heart-stirring performance.

If Sayoung had continued her acting career, he might have even thought he’d like to meet her in a project someday.

However, Sayoung had subsequently, in a loud and sudden manner, gotten into a relationship with Han Jaewoo, married, and retired, and thinking that perhaps she didn’t have as much passion for acting as she had talent, Yoojun had quickly erased Sayoung’s existence from his mind.

After that, as was already known, she had become someone he didn’t want to get involved with in the slightest, thanks to his antipathy towards Han Jaewoo.

“She looks like a different person…”

Yoojun muttered, clearing the numerous thoughts that flashed through his mind.
He was talking about the Sayoung on the screen.

The woman smiling with tears welling in her eyes was as fresh as the summer sunlight filtering through green leaves.
Her eyes were full of life, and she was the kind of person whose very existence seemed as warm as the spring sun.

It wasn’t that she looked different simply because she was playing a character with that kind of personality.

It was a more fundamental quality, the essence that the person named Yoon Sayoung herself possessed, something like, to put it abstractly, the color of her soul.
What Yoojun was referring to was that kind of thing.

Naturally, the image of Sayoung in a patient gown in the hospital room came to mind.
The Sayoung Yoojun had met again was a person like the incarnation of winter.
A being whose very sight awakened the sensation of the biting midwinter wind.

“Of all the roles, to play something like that…”

Yoojun, suddenly recalling Sayoung’s body, which was like a dry tree branch, finally turned off the TV.
Her lines, where she threw away all her pride and everything else to cling to another, were particularly grating on his nerves.

The living room instantly fell silent, but in the midst of that heavy air, Yoojun recalled a voice.

‘Anything… I’ll do anything you tell me to do…’

It was a line similar to, but not the same as, the one from the drama just a moment ago.

‘So please… please don’t leave me…’

It was the life that Yoojun had never heard of directly.
It was an imagination as real as reality, and a fragment of the past blowing from Yoon Sayoung.

‘Please… please, Jaewoo…’

‘In front of Han Jaewoo, who had deceived her, betrayed her, and in the end, betrayed her in the most wretched way, had Sayoung begged like that?’
‘Had she endured the misery alone and clung and pleaded, just as the character in the drama had?’

“Just let me stay by your side…”

‘Had she really loved Han Jaewoo that much?’

As his thoughts reached that point, Yoojun quickly ran his hands roughly through his hair and rose from the sofa.
He didn’t know why he was imagining the past of someone who had nothing to do with him.

In the first place, it was a mistake to have thought of watching Sayoung’s past drama now.
Just because he had briefly agreed to her ridiculous plan didn’t mean he had to understand her misfortune.

Yoojun came to the kitchen, drank a glass of cold water, and then, before entering his room, glanced back at the living room.
Just thinking of Yoon Sayoung for a moment seemed to make winter linger in that spot.

Yoojun tried not to recall what on earth she had gone through to change from being like the summer sun to like a dry winter tree, and turned off the light that had been softly illuminating the living room.

The space, instantly plunged into darkness, seemed cold for a moment, but that was all.

****

Sayoung closed the book she had been on the same page for a while now and sighed softly.
Seeing as she couldn’t concentrate, she thought that emotions were truly tenacious things.
To still be able to disturb a person’s heart so much even after going through all that.

After tracing the cover meaninglessly with her fingertips, she turned her head and looked out the window.
Even though it was quite late, the city’s night view was still as brilliant as ever.

Gauging the stars in the universe, invisible, hidden by those bright lights, Sayoung lowered the back of the bed she had propped up to read and lay down, looking at the ceiling.

‘I’ll play along with your childish tune, just this once, as if I’m being deceived.’

Yoojun’s voice pierced the quiet room, which was cut off from the world outside the window.
Sayoung blinked her eyes meaninglessly, feeling an ambiguous emotion, not knowing whether she wanted to cry or laugh.

Although not smoothly, things were proceeding as planned.
And yet, Sayoung still felt the sensation of both her legs being stuck in a deep swamp.

“One step…”

Sayoung whispered quietly, like a person chanting a spell of unknown effect.
Literally, she had now taken one step into the ‘new life’ she had planned.

Ambiguous emotions that could not be defined washed over her like waves and receded, again and again.
Anticipation, catharsis, fear, excitement.
It was a feeling that could not be expressed with any of those words.

To be honest, Sayoung hadn’t expected Yoojun to listen to her story so readily.
‘Was this not just some ordinary crazy talk?’
If the roles were reversed and she were Yoojun, Sayoung would never have associated with such a crazy person again.

Sayoung still couldn’t understand why Yoojun had accepted her proposal.

She even wondered if it was actually a dream.
Not only coming back to life but also traveling back in time, and drawing Yoojun in so easily—it was all too unrealistic.

Perhaps none of this was real, and she was still lying on that asphalt, bleeding, and thus, seeing a final vision before she died.

Sayoung squeezed her eyes shut.
And she tried to feel the body dying on the winter road.
If this was a dream.
A vision.
If it was something like a final daydream before crossing the river of death.
Then she wanted to wake up before seeing a more futile future.

She didn’t want to have the kind of experience one often has in dreams, waking up just before eating one’s favorite food, just before kissing one’s crush.

If it was a dream she would wake up from anyway, she would rather wake up now.
Sayoung desperately wished to stop here, not right before picking the sweet fruit of revenge.

“……”

But Sayoung’s body did not grow cold.
Even when she opened her eyes, the high ceiling was the same, the world outside the window was still brilliant, and Sayoung was still alive.

Realizing the false tranquility of the night, not knowing whether it was a blessing or a curse, Sayoung could not fall asleep for a very long time.

****

‘Because of you, my life is so miserable, you f*cking idiot! Do you understand?!’

Of all the abusive words she had heard from Jaewoo, those words had hurt the most.

The most miserable words were when he had confessed that he loved someone else, but the words that had hurt Sayoung the most were, more than anything, the ones that said her existence made him miserable.

Sayoung had done anything for Jaewoo.
She could do anything.
In Sayoung’s mind, he was a very good actor who was just a little unlucky, and she was proud of the fact that she had become the handful of luck he so desperately needed.

She had willingly put aside her acting, which she had loved so much, for Han Jaewoo.
It was because she felt sorry that a talented actor was saddened by the tag of ‘Yoon Sayoung’s lover,’ ‘Yoon Sayoung’s husband.’

Until he could break free from the name Yoon Sayoung, Sayoung had willingly chosen to hide from the public.

She was happy every time she saw the shining Han Jaewoo after he had met a good project.
Every time she saw him gradually being recognized as an actor.
Sayoung also wanted to act, and she missed the feeling of bringing non-existent characters to life in the world with her fingertips, but it was okay.

If she just held on a little longer.
If she just waited a little longer.
Then she too would be able to stand proudly as an actress by Han Jaewoo’s side.
By then, Jaewoo too would have shed his sorrow, and then they could truly support and cheer each other on as actors, as partners, and move forward.

Sayoung had silently helped with everything of Han Jaewoo’s from behind, waiting only for those days.

And yet.
Sayoung had wanted to protect Jaewoo with everything she could.

“I’m so sick of hearing that I’m using you, and that you’re too good for me. Do you have any idea how that feels?”

But Han Jaewoo himself said that all of it was terrible.
That your existence makes me miserable.
Because of you, I’m not recognized, I’m ridiculed, and I’m still being ignored.

‘So I’m sick and tired of you being in my life.’

Sayoung should have known how ridiculous those words were.
She should have been able to see how shameless, petty, and impudent they were.

But at that time, Sayoung was isolated, had been exposed to Han Jaewoo’s subtle emotional abuse for a long time, and loved him so much that she couldn’t be confident in front of any of his words or actions.

So Sayoung had believed Jaewoo’s words at face value.
She was disgusted with herself for hurting him, and felt guilty for not wanting to leave his side despite that.

Han Jaewoo had thus, little by little, made Sayoung the perpetrator in their relationship.

And in the end, what Sayoung had gained in return was a death met on a cold road.

All of this sordid revenge drama would be alright.
Sayoung thought she was well-deserving of that much revenge.