SM Ch 7

When I opened my eyes, it was night, and then sometimes it was day. Because of the blackout curtains drawn without a single gap, that difference was not distinct.

When I woke up and my throat was burning with thirst, I drank the water poured beside me. When the glass was empty, I fetched water from the kitchen, or groped through the darkness to go to the bathroom.

When sleep would not come, I relied on sleeping pills. My flickering consciousness hazily crossed the boundary of sleep. The inside of the narrow bedroom with its door locked was unventilated and suffocating. A damp, sour stench lingered like the sediment of prolonged sleep.

For about the first day, the cell phone emitted a blue light with occasionally incoming contacts. Since I hadn’t even submitted a resignation letter in the end, it was an indefinite absence without leave. With my head filled with water-soaked cotton, on the screen I looked into while groping, text messages and missed calls were piling up. The department head, Assistant Manager Kim. Holding the screen with eyes barely open from the glare, I pressed and held the power button with sweaty fingertips. The cell phone turned off without resistance. After that, there was nothing to disturb me, nor anything to scoop me out.

A long dream continued delicately. Outside the window, the sound of rain was heard occasionally, then subsided. Clouds gathered pale white, then cleared.

And I suddenly opened my eyes. I looked up at the ceiling without blinking.

I slowly raised my upper body. I lowered my legs, which lacked strength, down the side of the bed. I set my bare feet, weakened like a newborn animal, onto the lukewarm floor.

I completely emptied the remaining water on the nightstand, picked up the cell phone, and connected it to the charger. As soon as I turned on the power, I deleted all the late messages that poured in. January 6th, Friday. It was just past nine o’clock at night.

Without hesitation, I placed a call. On the third ring, he answered the phone.

— This is Han Juwon.

It was an incomparably brief greeting. I inhaled once, and exhaled.

“I… will do it.”

A long silence flowed. And the man somewhere in the world outside my room asked back in a low voice.

— Are you saying that seriously?

“Yes.”

— Do you have the confidence that you won’t regret it?

“…Yes.”

Silence crossed over through the receiver. The cell phone took away my body temperature and became lukewarm. For so long that I thought the call was disconnected, he said nothing at all. I hugged my knees and closed my eyes. Like a dream, the waking moments melted vaguely, softly.

— Mr. Lee Seodan.

He called. It was a firm voice from which all traces of laughter had completely vanished.

“Yes.”

— Have you ever slept with a man?

“Yes.”

I answered without hesitation. A short sound of exhaling breath was heard.

— Warning you in advance, my sexual taste isn’t particularly mild. I won’t injure you severely, but you will have to be prepared for a certain degree of pain and difficulty. Is that still fine with you?

“It’s fine.”

I wondered why he was stating the obvious. Where was there sex that wasn’t painful and difficult? When I answered nonchalantly, another brief silence flowed.

— Really… you get more and more unpredictable.

A low trace of laughter was mixed in. In the softest voice I had ever heard from him, he continued:

— Fine, then. Let’s do that.

— The official start date of the project is the 16th. Until then, go to work with your original team and finish the handover.

“Yes.”

— And the Saturday before that… on the 14th. See me at the hotel.

It was a clean voice devoid of any physical lust. I kept my mouth shut, nodded my head once, and then realized the fact that he couldn’t see me.

“What should I prepare and bring?”

— …Are you planning to come on a picnic or something?

“It’s not that, but…”

— Just brace your mind and come. It won’t be as easy as you think, Mr. Lee Seodan.

It was a neat voice, but the leftover reverberation was rough like sandpaper. Breathless, I closed my eyelids tightly. Moist breath was caught in my constricted throat.

— And.

Before hanging up the phone, he added as if he just remembered:

— Just because I attached you, Mr. Lee Seodan, through an expediency doesn’t mean you don’t have to work. Make sure to pull your own weight as a project member. I won’t say this twice.

“Yes.”

— See you on the 14th.

Click, the call was disconnected. With the greeting I had reflexively tried to offer lingering on my tongue, I let out a long breath. Since it was likely a phrase ill-suited for the situation, like ‘Sleep well’ or ‘Good night,’ it was rather a relief.

Setting the cell phone down, I stretched my body straight and lay on the bed. I covered my face with a pillow and pressed down. I didn’t move for a long time in that state. Until the trembling that started from my fingertips covered my entire body like the crest of a wave, and slowly subsided into small ripples.

∞ ∞ ∞

Upon entering the hotel room, what was visible right in front was the view from the 16th floor. Through the rectangular window that filled the wall, countless lights of the bustling downtown area could be seen looking out. In the far, distant place, there was dark running water, and above it, the lights of skyscrapers hung upside down like chandeliers. It was a scenery like a souvenir postcard.

On the table by the window were a wine bottle and two wine glasses with voluptuous curves. Pulling an empty glass, he casually tilted the wine bottle. It was a neat hand movement without unnecessary motions.

“Come sit down.”

Only then did he turn back to look at me, who had stopped at the threshold. With an expression as if asking why I was still standing there.

His tone and expression were no different from what I saw at the company. As if there were nothing particularly strange about this situation. Spellbound by that nonchalance, I brushed past the large white bed. I sat down on the sofa by the window, facing him.

He, who was organizing documents on the table into his bag, was dressed in a large navy bath bathrobe. Hair with lingering moisture covered his forehead and was messily disheveled. Whatever that was, I looked away in embarrassment as if having invaded a terribly private domain.

Clack, he pushed the wine glass he had filled toward me.

“I don’t need any.”

My lips were parched dry. If it were water rather than alcohol, I would have accepted it. From the sloshing red color, nausea surged up first.

He did not offer a second time. He simply said briefly while clearing away the wine bottle that was blocking my view.

“Set down your bag. Take off your coat too. Aren’t you hot?”

Without even needing to think, I shook my head. Having the bag, and the coat, was better. While my ears were burning hot, my fingertips under the table were cold frozen. He stared with narrowed eyes at me buried in a black winter coat inside the room where the heater was running, then said briefly:

“Well, as you like.”

After those words, the silence stretched out long. With him wearing a bath bathrobe, and me dressed up in a suit under my coat. Leaving the bed alone and sitting across from each other at the table as if there were some other business was laughable.

Even so, having no courage to head straight to the bed on my own feet, I silently kept my mouth shut. Because the tensely stretched air became unbearably uncomfortable, I reached out my hand and picked up the wine glass. The thin glass pressing against my lips was cool and sharp. The liquid held in a single sip was bitter at first taste, to the point of numbing my tongue. Around the time it passed down my throat, a faint sweetness was felt, and my inside grew hot.

Just then, twirling the slender neck of the glass languidly with his fingertips, he blurted out without warning:

“Do you know what your face looks like right now, Mr. Lee Seodan?”

“…”

“An expression like a kid riding a roller coaster.”

Thud, he set down the glass.

“It’s just about to depart, but it’s too late to get off. So closing eyes tight, holding onto the handle for dear life. Repeating to oneself that if you wait, it will end.”

His gaze lingered briefly over my hands still gripping the bag strap. Forcing off my knuckles that had turned pale white without sensation, I lowered my hands onto my knees.

“When you ride an airplane, isn’t there something called the point of no return?”

It was a nonchalant voice.

“I feel like that is right here. You haven’t even taken off your clothes, Mr. Lee Seodan. And I haven’t laid a single fingertip on you yet either, Mr. Lee Seodan. Just say the word. If you want, I’ll pretend this never happened.”

It was a subtle way of speaking. Passing the choice over to me, and binding my ankles. By opening an escape route, it was something like the notice section of a contract that helplessly made me an accomplice. Beneath that, my name is written in the blank space. Signature, seal, fingerprint. The position of Party B, unable to resist or complain about future events.