8. Our First Kiss, A Long Way Around

“Yiseo, over here.”

Mr. Son, who was standing in line, waved to show his location. Despite it being winter, the sun was so nice that the brunch cafe terrace was full of customers.

“Sir. I’m sorry. I should have come out earlier to save a seat.”

“It’s okay, the turnover here is fast, so seats open up quickly. Let’s look at the menu while we wait.”

The two ordered the cafe’s main dishes, a ricotta cheese salad, an eggplant panini, and two green grape ades, and then sat down at the terrace table they had their eye on.

“When is your holiday, Yiseo? Are you going anywhere?”

“It starts on Wednesday, but I don’t have any specific plans yet.”

“You’re just going to stay home again, aren’t you? It’s your choice, Yiseo, but it feels like such a waste to me. If I were you, I’d be out having a great time.”

Yiseo smiled and took a sip of her ade.

The small trading company she had been working at for a year was introduced to her by Mr. Son. She was still doing office support work, but because she could include her previous company on her resume, her salary had increased slightly.

“Are you going anywhere, Sir?”

“We moved recently, so we spent more money than we expected. We can’t afford a flight, but our youngest heard about hotel tours somewhere and wanted to do one. So, I booked one in Yeongjongdo...”

Catching herself, Mr. Son trailed off and mumbled, “I did,” in a small voice. Yiseo smiled and asked her to take lots of pictures so she could see them. As they talked, Yiseo often had a vacant expression. Her eyes were on Mr. Son, but there was no focus. She looked like someone who was sleeping with their eyes open, which eventually made Mr. Son ask,

“Yiseo, are you still having that dream?”

Yiseo’s eyes finally focused as if she had returned to reality, and she shook her head from side to side. Strangely, she said she hadn’t had any dreams recently.

“Oh... that’s good. Then you won’t have to cry anymore, right?”

As Mr. Son nodded and smiled, Yiseo also gave a faint smile.

After work, when she got home, there was a white envelope tucked into the front door. Yiseo took it, along with a bill, and went into her room. The envelope had an address for an island in the South Pacific written on it, and it was a letter from Ihwan.

It said that it had already been over a year since he got on the ship. At first, he resented the person who had put him on the boat, but it turned out the salary was higher than he expected, and if he lasted for three years on the ship, it would count as an alternative military service. He even had a new junior under him recently, so he had someone to run errands for him, and things were manageable. He said that when he blankly stared at the horizon every day, where it was impossible to tell the sea from the sky, he felt that even this was more than he deserved.

The last line said that he was very, very sorry to his sister. Yiseo gave a faint smile, carefully folded the letter, and put it back in the envelope. Come to think of it, he had taken good care of Ihwan even in Seoryeong.

Yiseo went to bed early. For some reason, no matter how much she slept, it wasn’t enough. And no matter how much she slept, she couldn’t have that dream again. I’m going to forget his face, she mumbled to herself and closed her eyes.

On the holiday, there was a heavy snowfall warning, and a lot of snow fell.

Yiseo opened the window and held out her hand. She continued to watch the snowflakes fall on her palm and melt away. She brought her hand to her face and put her tongue to it. It had no taste and no smell. The mysterious stench that had followed her for 11 years had also disappeared at some point. So naturally, she didn’t look for cigarettes either. Without dreaming, she felt as if her senses were blocked, and she had no desires.

As she watched the snow pouring down and covering the window in white, she suddenly thought it looked similar to the scenery outside the car window on the day she left Seoryeong. And on that day, the face she couldn’t properly see and had to leave behind came to mind. The face that had become distantly blurred in the white snow falling as she stood at the bus terminal... The silhouette that quickly disappeared after briefly appearing in her vision because she couldn’t even turn around....

Suddenly, a visual illusion made the pouring white snow seem to stop in mid-air.

“Ah...”

And through the white points suspended in the air, the silhouette she had last seen 12 years ago seemed to appear for a moment. As if she had gone back to that day in Seoryeong... No, as if the silhouette had been standing there waiting for 12 years, it stared at Yiseo with a pained expression.

Yiseo impulsively got up and started packing.

She gathered everything of value in the house and left. At a convenience store ATM, she withdrew all the money she could. She hailed a random taxi on the street and gave the name of a hotel in Yeongjongdo.

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Charrrrrrrr, she pulled the slot machine lever, and the pictures on the screen began to stop. Two blue stars stopped, but the third barely slid past to a red heart. Yiseo mechanically reached into her pocket to put in a chip, but there was nothing there.

The money she had brought was gone within half a day of arriving at the casino. Yiseo picked up a business card scattered near the casino and went to a private loan shark. Private loan businesses were thriving in the area, and people like Yiseo, with no credit or collateral, could only borrow money for a short term. Yiseo took out a high-limit, ultra-short-term loan that had to be paid back within a day. By the time she got her fifth loan, the holiday was also coming to an end.

She liked that watching the slot machine spin kept her from thinking. She had won big a couple of times, but that money also disappeared quickly. She was blankly pulling the lever, recalling someone’s words that the casino was a system where only the operator made money, when an angry voice came from behind her.

“Yoon Yiseo, you’re not answering your phone and not coming to pay the interest, so what are you going to do?”

Yiseo pulled the lever without even looking at the man. The man let out a scoff, grabbed Yiseo’s arm, and pulled her to her feet. She was dragged away, following the man.

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The inside of her cheek, busted from a slap, tasted of bitter blood. The man grabbed Yiseo’s chin, turned her face back, and growled,

“Ha, what a fucking idiot I was for giving you money because you looked normal. Hey, that’s a lot of money, and you blew it all in a few days, and on a damn slot machine at that. Huh...? Fuck, you’re smiling?”

Yiseo curled her lips, and the man, unable to contain his rising anger, grabbed her cheeks and shook them roughly.

“You crazy bitch! You never intended to pay it back from the start, did you? Huh?”

Slap, slap! Slap! Slap!!!

The man’s slaps became harder and faster. Yiseo coughed and spat out blood mixed with saliva. Seeing the blood, the man became even more agitated and cursed. She was starting to feel that being treated like an animal was easier.

Footsteps echoed down the hallway. When men in black suits entered through the open door, the man was taken aback by the sudden intrusion and backed away. He was immediately grabbed by the sturdy men and quickly dragged out the door.

“Yoon Yiseo.”

Her swollen eyelids were hard to lift. Through her barely open, narrow field of vision, she saw the tip of a black shoe. Soon, the face of a man who was kneeling down came into view. Ah, it had been a year since she had last seen his face in her dreams. The face she saw seemed somehow more gaunt than the Tae Mujin in her dreams, and he looked as tired as an old man who had lived a long time. He asked in a pained voice,

“What... what do I do. What more can I possibly do for you?”

Tae Mujin urged her to tell him what to do. Yiseo gave strength to her barely lifted eyelids so she wouldn’t lose sight of him. It felt like if she blinked for even a moment, he would vanish into the distance. Tae Mujin reached out his hand to Yiseo’s swollen cheek but pulled it back. With that hand, he rubbed his rough face and said,

“I let you go, just like you wanted. What happened to the money I gave you, and why do you show up in this state and drive me crazy?”

“I... threw it away.” At Yiseo’s barely uttered words, Tae Mujin’s face was instantly filled with anger.

“I’ve tried giving you everything, and I’ve tried taking everything away! But nothing works. What the hell am I supposed to do!! You tell me, Yoon Yiseo. What! Do you want me to do!!”

Yiseo mumbled with her busted lips. What? Not having heard properly, Tae Mujin’s cheek twitched. Kiss me.

“Kiss... kiss me. Tae Mujin... kiss... me.”

Yiseo kept repeating those words.

Kiss me, kiss me like the Tae Mujin from Seoryeong.

She knew that no matter how much she pleaded, she couldn’t go back to Seoryeong. She knew well that she couldn’t go back to being the girl he had loved. Still, Yiseo repeated the words as if she were throwing a tantrum. Tae Mujin’s face crumbled like a snowman in the morning light.

“Do you... do you know what that means, Yoon Yiseo? If you do, I can’t let you go again.”

Instead of answering, Yiseo repeated the words kiss me as if she were a broken record. Tae Mujin came closer. The lips that touched hers carefully seemed to tremble slightly. They stayed like that for a moment, their lips pressed together. Their lips stuck together, gently caressing each other. And when they were pressed together without any gaps, it became fierce, as if they were swallowing each other’s breath. Yiseo hugged Tae Mujin’s neck and kissed him to her heart’s content. It was our first kiss, a long way around.