Author's Note: This was an exceptionally difficult chapter to write. I hope you enjoy the sadness – there's something beautiful about it.
Eleven
I wish I could lay down beside you when the day is done
And wake up to your face against the morning sun
But like everything I've ever known, you disappear one day
So I spend my whole life hiding my heart away
Spring melts into summer and her anger mellows into muted despair.
It happens gradually, sometime between Seoul's blooming pink cherry blossoms and muggy summer rain. Sorrow drapes itself around her like a cloak, engulfing her like a familiar friend, and it almost makes her miss the anger. There was something fearless about the anger, a sense of recklessness that made her feel superhuman. When being in her suite at the Victoria Jungfrau made her body ache – the place that was beginning to feel like home suddenly becoming a prison –she fled the Interlaken like a wounded bird, escaping the air because it smelled like him. She powered through the closing ceremony of the program and raced to the airport, flying to Seoul on a private jet that cost way too much but was worth every penny.
Those first few weeks back, the rage sent her paragliding on windy days, in the same spot where a tornado had twisted her away years ago. When three times didn't do the trick, she drove to Ansan and went on a tandem skydive, but the adrenaline still did little to scratch at the numbness inside her. Every day for weeks, she skipped breakfast and had too much coffee as if he could see her and disapprove, as if she could spite him by doing all the things she knows worry him.
Instead, her mother worried, and so did Manager Hong, who babbled nervously at her before every one of her paragliding sessions. The wind is too strong. I don't think I could handle another disappearance, Ms. Yoon. Please don't go. What if you end up lost again. He didn't know how much she wished that would happen, so she just smiled at him and reassured him. And then she took flight. She always came back to solid ground just where she expected. Nothing sent her hurtling back into Ri Jeong-hyeok's world, where she could find him, give him a piece of her mind, and kiss him senseless.
That was the anger. After it came the revelation, and the revelation brought the despair. Umma now says an unforgiving sadness lives in her eyes, and Manager Hong has started treating her like she's seconds away from a breakdown. She feeds them both half-lies and offers unconvincing smiles. It keeps them off her case, and July doesn't remind her of him. Little does anymore, besides Park Min-ji and the revelation. The former Se-ri sees once a week, and last week she started a new hard-earned job as a kitchen aid at one of the best Italian restaurants in town. It turns out Min-ji is a chef in the making with a passion for pasta. The latter lives inside her, and she's never quite without awareness of its presence.
"Ah Se-ri-ya, I'm sorry to keep you waiting. This interior designer remodeling our bedroom is driving me insane!" Umma huffs as she strides into the living room on a pair of burgundy stubbed-heel Ferragamo shoes.
Shaken out of her thoughts, Se-ri comes to her feet and warmly embraces the older woman, who presses a motherly kiss to her cheek. "I don't mind waiting," she says honestly, held in place by her mother's hands gripping her elbows. Her dark gaze studies Se-ri's face, and if the frown that mars her features is any indication, she doesn't like what she finds there.
"How have you been?" she asks and reluctantly lets her go. There's a brief lull as Se-ri ponders the question and they settle side-by-side on the four-seat sofa in her parents' mansion on the hill. Everything is so beautiful and well put-together in the vast living room. Despite how close she has grown to her mother, these walls still feel cold and forbidding. Her parents never loved each other, and it left her and her brothers with few pleasant childhood memories. There were no displays of affection growing up, no love to aspire to. Funny how you turned out to be such a hopeless romantic, she muses to herself.
"I'm fine," she tells her mother. "We're launching the Paris store next week. I've been preparing for my trip."
Umma nods attentively, hands clasped in her lap, and she looks incredibly elegant in her forest green and pristine white floral dress with a simple strand of pearls around her neck. "How exciting! The store looks absolutely beautiful. I was just looking through the photos you sent me last night. I'm proud of you, Se-ri-ya." The genuine proud smile Jeong-yeon beams at her is heartwarming, and Se-ri finds herself smiling back.
"Thank you, Umma. That means a lot. I'm excited," she affirms. She says the right words, but her tone falls flat. She knows her mother can tell.
As if on cue, Jeong-yeon narrows her eyes incredulously. "Really?" she scoffs. "You don't sound like it."
Se-ri leans back into the soft caramel-colored cushions, diverts the other woman's knowing gaze and decides to feign ignorance. "I don't know what you mean," she says dismissively as the housekeeper walks up to them. She's thankful for the diversion and smiles in welcome at the middle-aged lady who's been with the family for the past two decades.
"Good afternoon, Miss Yoon. Can I get you some coffee or tea?" she offers with a kind smile.
"Water is fine, Kim Chae-won-ssi. Thank you."
"I'll have a water too please," her mother says from beside her.
Kim Chae-won bows courteously and disappears back into the hallway leading to the kitchen, leaving a barren silence in her wake.
Umma sighs loudly into the silence, drawing her attention back to the topic at hand – her excitement, or lackthereof. Without preamble, Jeong-yeon unleashes the words she's been holding in since April. "Se-ri-ya, from the moment you came back from Switzerland, I've been watching you first shut me and everyone out, and proceed to act like a rebellious teenager. Now you seem more tired and miserable every time I see you," she observes and pins her daughter with a hard look. It would have made her cave as a child. "When are you going to tell me what's going on?" she prods.
Umma's hands are slightly cold when they reach across the space between them and envelope her right hand, but her touch is reassuring, as only a mother's touch can be. Se-ri glances down at where their joined hands sit now on her mother's knee. The tears that spring into her eyes are hot. She tries to hold them back, but she's been an emotional mess lately and a single tear slides down her right cheek unbidden.
"Se-ri-ya," Jeong-yeon says gently. "What happened?"
Se-ri lifts her eyes to find a universe of acceptance in her mother's concerned face. She draws in a shuddering breath and steels herself against the inevitable. Try as she might, the revelation cannot be hidden, and it's time. "I'm pregnant," she says at last, and the confession is so freeing, it feels like she can finally breathe again.
Her mother's frail-looking hands tighten noticeably around her own, her eyes rounding in surprise. "Ahhh," Umma whispers and squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, and when she reopens them, they're wet with unshed tears. "I – how?" she whispers feelingly.
Se-ri feels her face grow warm and looks away, self-conscious. She doesn't really want to get into the logistics of the how. Especially not with her mother. "It's Ri Jeong-hyeok's," she says by way of explanation, her voice somber. It's the first time she's allowed herself to say his name since he left her. The last time she'd said it, he was in her bed, moving inside her, one hand tangled in her hair, tugging urgently, lips pressed to the side of her neck. "I just finished the first trimester. I found out a few weeks ago. I was already almost seven weeks along. I thought I was late because I was so stressed…"
Umma gasps, cuts her off. "But all the paragliding and the skydiving…"
And the coffee and the abysmal diet. "I didn't know at the time." It all makes her cringe now, too, because from the minute she found out about the baby – their baby – he or she has become the single most important thing in her life. This little human-in-the-making, now just a black and white blob on an ultrasound image she keeps in her purse, makes the future feel both daunting and infinite. Hearing the rapid, fluttering heartbeat that first time changed her world, and it made her cry every time she remembered it for days afterwards. Until that moment, she thought it was impossible to miss him more than she already did. Missing him has become a constant ache in the center of her chest. It hurts a little more every time she thinks of something she'd like to tell him or show him or ask him or share with him.
Chae-won walks in, places two tall, perspiring glasses of water on a pair of matching coasters on the thick glass coffee table before them and excuses herself.
"Does he know?" Jeong-yeon prompts softly.
Se-ri shakes her head, reaches for her glass and takes a small sip of water. "How could he? It wasn't exactly planned." It was an oversight, a moment of passion that carried them both away, that last night when he was preoccupied with leaving her and she was lost in him. They'd forgotten about condoms again that night, and in the wake of his devastating disappearance, she hadn't considered the repercussions of that momentary lapse in judgment.
Umma sighs, a touch of sadness to the sound, and she pats her hand before releasing it. "He has a right to know, Se-ri-ya," she murmurs.
She knows that. Just like she had a right to know he was leaving. She buries the thought away; it's not the time to keep score or hold grudges. She has more important things to worry about now. "I'll find a way," she says thoughtfully. "Somehow, I'll find a way to let him know." Fate has always been a willing participant in their game of hide and seek. She'll figure this out. Maybe it's time to dig out that phone he left for her in Switzerland.
"You always do," Umma says with more conviction than she's feeling. There's that tinge of pride in her voice from earlier as if she believes Se-ri hung the moon and came back in time for dinner. "It's the happiest and saddest news I've heard in a long time. I don't know how to put it in words," she admits, and it's not often that the wise Jeong-yeon is at a loss for words.
Bittersweet, Se-ri thinks, but she doesn't say anything. The sadness, briefly shelved in favor of the revelation, comes back with a vengeance. For a moment, she lets herself drift into a daydream of that perfect day in the Interlaken, surrounded by colossal mountains and majestic waterfalls. She remembers his thoughtless kisses, his hungry gaze following her every move, and she wonders if he thinks about it too. She remembers the wistful way he looked at her on the ferryboat as they coasted over crystal blue waters.
Maybe someday.
She wishes she could tell him that someday is today.
The July afternoon sun burns hot and scalding in a cloudless sky on an unusually warm summer day. In his parents' groomed gardens, everything is brimming with life, the blades of grass crisp and shockingly green, the birds chirping loudly, the bees humming hungrily, and it's the only place he doesn't feel completely desolate. It's peaceful out here, and his books keep him company well into the hours of the evening. They keep his thoughts and the world at bay. Ri Jeong-hyeok is about to delve into Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises when a sudden commotion makes him look over his shoulder sharply. The guard ostrich trots past him with a loud hoot. One of the gardeners chases after it, calling its name, but the animal is surprisingly fast and hellbent on its path to the tomato plants.
"Come back!" yells the harassed man, attempting to toss a lasso after the giant bird.
"This is so bizarre."
Seo Dan's familiar voice is so misplaced that he twists all the way around in the cushioned wooden chair to find her standing there with his mother. He places the book on the table and dutifully rises to his feet, but they only spare him a glance before their attention shifts to the comical scene unfolding around the tomato patch.
"Ya! Jeong-hyeok-ah, what's happening?" his mother frets, fingers pressed to her lips.
Jeong-hyeok shrugs. "Don't worry, Umma. I'm sure he'll have it under control soon," he says, and Seo Dan throws him an amused look.
With a quiet huff, his mother deliberately ignores the hullabaloo and turns to him with one of her mild, pitying smiles. He's tired of that expression, but he smiles back, with as much reassurance as he can muster today. "Seo Dan-ssi came by to say hello," she announces. "I'll let you two catch up." She gives Seo Dan a pointed, laden look before she turns around and hurriedly heads back into the house.
"You look terrible," Seo Dan says by way of greeting when his mother is out of earshot. Wrapped in a long, pale blue summer dress with strappy white sandals, she looks young, carefree and happy. A few months ago, he would have been able to empathize with that, to feel warm knowing that she's doing so well, but now he feels nothing at all.
Jeong-hyeok gestures her into the seat beside his and lowers himself back onto the yellow cushions. "Thanks," he mutters sardonically.
Her small purse rattles onto the table beside his book, and she doesn't back down. "Seriously, Ri Jeong-hyeok-ssi, how much weight have you lost?"
He hasn't checked, doesn't particularly care, but his clothes have been hanging looser the past few weeks. Despite being plied with all his favorite foods morning, afternoon and night, his appetite has been poor. "I've been busy," he deflects.
Her lips twist into an ironic half-smile. "I heard you're on a break from the orchestra and the academy." There's a subtle challenge to her voice that irks him.
"I am," he confirms, jaw set stubbornly. "I'm busy with other things."
"Like what?" she presses.
He raises his eyebrows at the confrontational jab, and he stops the angry retort on the tip of his tongue, catching himself just as he's starting to get defensive. The truth is he hasn't been able to play the piano since he left Switzerland, so he's taken a sabbatical from the orchestra. He thinks this all-consuming hopelessness, this loss of purpose, this self-sabotage and the constant aching need to be near her, to breathe the same air as her, is what people call depression. "Reading," he says calmly to Seo Dan. Before she can challenge that too, he stares at her for a few seconds, questioning. "What brings you here?" he asks.
She meets his gaze, holds it bravely, and he knows his eyes are empty. His mother has told him as much on multiple occasions. He feels empty. Then she nods, more to herself than to him. "I'm off to Paris next week," she begins, pauses. "We're playing at La Sainte Chapelle on Friday night. Would you like me to take anything with me?" she offers carefully.
His stomach clenches, and he shoves a punishing hand into his hair, shakes his head no. "She won't come," he says with certainty. She shouldn't in any case. She's probably furious with him, and the most selfless part of him is glad that the fury can drive her to hate him a little bit. Leaving her like that was unfair. She deserved better. He hates himself for it and spends most of every day replaying that fateful night in his mind, torturing himself by imagining how she felt when she woke up to find him gone. Did she cry the way she did years ago on the night of her birthday when she thought he was gone? Who would comfort her when he's not around? It's the only thing that makes feel anything at all. A dull knife relentlessly twisting around and around in his heart, and he can't seem to die.
Dan hums under her breath and chuckles quietly as the lassoed bird is led past them by its keeper back to the oversized cage. "What if she does?" she wonders, drawing him back to the garden.
"She won't," he asserts.
"Okay," she relents and looks at him closely. "How did your trip go?"
"It was the best and worst trip of my life," he says honestly, raking the fingers of both hands into his hair. It falls across his forehead, long and unkempt, but he can't find it in him to care about that either. Sometimes he wonders if Se-ri would like it like this, if she'd like to run her fingers through it or curl them into it when he kisses the most intimate parts of her body and she forgets to breathe. He shuts his eyes against the images flitting through his mind. Thinking about her is like touching a raw, exposed nerve. It hurts so bad, he could retch for days.
Seo Dan is quiet as she watches him agonize. "It feels like you're not really here," she tells him. It's an odd thing to say, but he understands it at a fundamental level in a way that shakes him to the core.
"I'm not," he sighs. "I mean I am, physically, but everything inside me is with her."
She nods again, hands tracing the edges of the wooden table between them. She lifts a stark, open gaze to his face. "Then why aren't you with her?" she asks simply, and now there's a hint of accusation in her eyes. Like she would give anything to be in his place, to have that choice, to be with that someone who makes colors bright and music beautiful.
"I can't."
With a frustrated sigh, she shakes her head at him and pushes her chair back. "I know it's not easy, but you can. You have a choice to make. It's a tough one, but you have to make it and be at peace with whatever you decide," Dan says softly. "This is no way to live." She stands up, and he follows suit.
She's right it's no way to live, but he doesn't really want to live. He just exists. "You're leaving?"
She inclines her head in a quiet affirmation. "I'm meeting my mother for lunch. I just wanted to stop by and see if you wanted to send anything."
He offers her a faint smile. "Thank you."
"You don't have to thank me. I'm your friend," she says in that no-nonsense tone that brooks no argument.
She is – his friend. A kindred spirit in many ways. He doesn't acknowledge the assertion, but he knows she can tell how grateful he is for that lifeline. "I'll see you out."
She waves him off with an annoyed hand. "Read your book. I know my way around. I need to go tell your mother that you haven't completely lost it yet," she teases. "She's worried about you."
"I know."
Tilting her head slightly, she reaches for her purse, slings it over her shoulder. "You look like we should be worried about you."
"I'll be fine," he promises.
She assesses him at length and then turns away, satisfied – or not, he can't really tell. "Alright then, I'm off. I'll see you soon."
"Safe travels, Seo Dan-ssi," he says politely and when she starts to walk away he stops her with his voice. "If she does come, tell her I'm sorry."
Fate – once again – playfully nudges their universes into collision.
One of the messages Jeong-hyeok had left on the burner phone from Switzerland read: Seo Dan's band is called Ribelli Quartet. They play in Europe regularly.
A plan started to take shape, materialized effortlessly when she researched the Ribelli Quartet – aptly named the rebellious ones – and found out that they would be playing in Paris the same week of her store opening.
When fate is in the mood, everything is ridiculously easy.
That's how Se-ri finds herself sitting between a small, eclectic group of people at La Sainte-Chappelle in Paris on a Friday night when she was supposed to have already returned to Seoul after attending her store opening on Wednesday. The small concert is unexpectedly entertaining. Surrounded by stained glass in a dramatic chapel from the Gothic era, the string quartet covers both modern and classical renditions of popular music pieces. Seo Dan plays the cello beautifully, and she looks just as dramatic as the chapel in her all-black ensemble and heavy dark makeup.
She spots Se-ri sitting in the third row during the second act, and she betrays no surprise at all. Their eyes meet and hold for seconds on end in some shared nostalgia that defies language. Whatever bitterness either of them has been harboring falls away, and in the silence of that moment, they reach a shared understanding.
"Hello Yoon Se-ri-ssi, I wasn't sure you'd come," Seo Dan remarks as she walks up to her after the show.
"Me neither," Se-ri replies evenly, and it sits between them for a moment. Then, "it was a great show."
Dan shrugs, almost nonchalant in her dismissal of the compliment. "We've played better shows. Still, I'm glad you made it," she says, and it's so genuine, Se-ri isn't sure what to do with that statement. "There's a café around the corner that serves great coffee and decent wine…"
"I can't stay," Se-ri interjects, shaking her head regretfully. "I fly to Seoul tonight, in a couple of hours."
The bounce in the other woman's step falters, and her mannerisms turn more subdued as if the sudden press of time makes it difficult to share everything she's carried with her from Pyongyang. Se-ri feels a startling disappointment spear through her chest. "He didn't think you'd come," Dan says precipitously.
Her heart plummets into her stomach, and God, Ri Jeong-hyeok, this is so unfair. At the mere, nameless mention of him, she's utterly defenseless, exposed. She resists the urge to ask for every detail, and she wonders about everything. When did he see Seo Dan? Why were they talking about her? What did he say? How is he? "He has good reason to think that," she tells Dan with a hardness to her voice that masks a wealth of pain.
The other woman tilts her head pensively, and around them the last people in the chapel make their way to the exit. "You're different," Seo Dan observes, and her inquisitive gaze sees too much.
Se-ri looks away to hide the sadness swelling inside her. "How is he?" she asks quietly because it doesn't really matter if Dan knows how much she cares.
"Depressed," she responds, honest but soft, considerate. "He left the orchestra, and he's not teaching. He's staying with his parents, and he's about as thin as he was in high school."
She knows her gaze is desperate when it flashes to Seo Dan, harboring a world of hurt and still hopelessly aching for him. "Why did he leave the orchestra?" she manages to ask, but her voice is husky with unshed tears.
Dan's eyes are brimming with empathy. "His mother says he hasn't been able to play the piano since he left Switzerland," she tells her, lets it sink in for a few seconds before she speaks again. "He can't seem to forgive himself for whatever happened between you two. He says he's sorry."
Se-ri nods in acknowledgment, wipes away the tears from the corners of her eyes and rifles through her handbag for the small white envelope. "Tell him I forgive him," she says and means it, her voice surprisingly steady as she holds the envelope out to the other woman. "Could you please give this to him?"
Dan takes it from her hand. "I will," she vows.
"Thank you, Seo Dan-ssi. You've been kind to us. I never thought time and fate would lead us here," she muses.
"It's funny, isn't it? If someone had told me we'd be having this conversation three years ago, I would have called them crazy."
They share a bittersweet smile for better and worse times. When Se-ri checks her watch, she gives the other woman an apologetic look. "I have to head back to my hotel before going to the airport."
"Have a safe trip back." Seo Dan's smile is gentle, content, and she harbors a self-awareness that Se-ri has rarely seen in people. Her transformation from the resentful young woman in Pyongyang is fascinating.
Se-ri turns around and starts towards the exit.
"Yoon Se-ri," she calls out, drawing her attention. Se-ri stops, turns back around and listens. "Ri Jeong-hyeok is a good person. He's one of the best people I know. He makes mistakes – plenty of mistakes – but they're never ill-intentioned. Right now he's torn between the life he grew up believing in and fighting for and the life you make him really want. And it's killing him."
Duty and desire. That everlasting battle. Se-ri smiles sadly. Ironically, his strong sense of morality – however he defines it – is one of the things she loves most about Ri Jeong-hyeok. It's ultimately the thing that makes her lose him.
"Goodbye, Seo Dan," she says finally and leaves the chapel behind.
A/N: Reviews are love x