“It’s this way.” Jyeon leads me along the house's second-floor corridor, and I pretend I have no clue where I am going. It’s not high on my priority list of things to do ever again in my life, but it was the perfect escape route. So glad to have this excuse of seeing our old room while mother and Yoonha sit downstairs and let this past hour sink in. I thought mother would never let go of my hand and stop hugging me. It was weirding me out how emotionally overwrought she was, how affectionate.
I’m tense and emotionally drained, as though they both sucked all my energy out. Yoonha was oddly pensive and quiet and sat by my side, holding my hand without saying much. Like he couldn’t formulate words other than I’m sorry, which I didn’t understand. Maybe guilt that he believed I was dead and stopped looking. I don’t know.
“There’s no point touring most of the house as mother went through a remodeling obsession about a year ago and changed everything. It would seem different to you and probably not spark anything. This one, however, is always out of bounds….” He stops in front of our old bedroom door, and I quietly inhale to fill my lungs and not react. Steadying myself to face what I know will hurt to see. He pulls a key from his pocket and unlocks the door before pushing it open and stepping back so I can walk in first.
It's dull, and I hesitate before walking in with faux confidence, as though curious to see a possible memory, and my heart instantly shatters at the sight of this room.
Not a single thing has changed in all these years. It’s practically a museum to my past and insanely neat and organized with no speck of dust to be seen. Everything is clean and fresh-smelling, and the mess I made two years ago has been rectified to the point that the smashed picture frames have been replaced with replicas and rehung on the walls. The bookcases are back to order, and even the bed is made up with my old duvet choice. It’s like I left it only this morning. My breath catches in my throat as I gaze around the semi-lit space because the blinds are drawn, and it’s surreal. I’m standing, needing a second to take this in.
“She has this place cleaned weekly. Aired out…. She sometimes sits in here and looks at your pictures to grieve. This was our room, but I slept over there.” He nods and gestures to the far door of the study, and all I can do is swallow hard. Caught in a time warp of this crazily familiar place and all the emotions it brings trawling back to me, in denial about what I’m seeing and trying to connect this to the woman downstairs who never seemed to love me truly.
“She kept everything. Your clothes and shoes. Your jewelry, your perfumes… it’s all over there in the walk-in. She has everything dry-cleaned or sanitized once a month. She’s been obsessive about keeping your memory intact and clinging to these things. They’re all yours. You can take what you want.” He motions to the closed doors of our once-shared wardrobe, and I don’t venture toward it. Watching him walk over to the windows of our balcony doors we never used to open, he opens the blinds and drapes to let the sun in.
It’s weird to see Jyeon looking relaxed and still in this room. It’s like he’s spent time here more recently than two years ago. In the past, he rarely came in here while I was and spent minimal time herein. He would head straight for the shower or the study, and he was always so uptight and stiff that we would bypass one another with little interaction. Now here he is, casually looking around as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. Seemingly home in these surroundings that wreak of the past, I and her choices in décor.
“It seems vaguely familiar. A feeling.” I lie. Knowing that I should be dropping tiny hints frequently of the possibility of returned memories so I can fast-track my way out of this act.
“You can look around, open doors… maybe look through the things you left here. It might help jog things. The doctor said small everyday things can unlock parts of your mind.” Jyeon slides his hands into his pockets and casually lounges where he stands.
He’s kitted out in jeans and a shirt over sneakers, and it’s strange to see him dressed this way. I’ve noticed that he has dressed casually now more than once since he came to the island. It's something unheard of from back then, and I wonder if it’s to do with his leather jacket-loving bitch. He’s had a style overhaul, and even Jyeon seems calmer and less uptight. He has a new aura of command and wisdom that was always under the surface as a young boy, but he’s grown into it by becoming OLO’s leading man. I guess we both aged and changed these past two years. Or maybe that’s what a loving girlfriend does to you.
“I guess.” I don’t want to, but if I want a reason to rekindle memories and seem like I’m trying, I have to grin and bear it.
I walk around admiring items from so far back in my past that it’s strange to be in their presence again. Opening drawers and flicking through the perfectly maintained memories and choices I made for myself, seeing how much of an obsessive I was about my styling. My constant need to present a controlled image that was just as cold as I was.
I venture to the walk-in wardrobe, and as he said, my side is full of everything I once owned and spent my money on. Designer, expensive garments hung up on rails in clear plastic sleeves to keep them clean. My collection of high-end shoes are in transparent boxes, and everything I left behind is in the exact place it always should have been. I was always organized and liked everything in its place. This is a total contrast to the fact that Greta and I share budget buy clothes from a large trunk where we haphazardly toss everything.
I turn, taking note of the expanse of open rails on the other side. Jyeon’s space is empty entirely. Not a hint of him left behind, not a stray item. It’s immaculately spotless, and I grit my teeth.
“So, why don’t you live here anymore? You said things weren’t good with your mother? Have they always been that way?” I abandon the flicking through of endless designer suits I would never want to wear again, nodding to the bare shelves, and turn to lean against a separating pillar. Seeing as Jyeon has followed me in here. He knits his brows together with a bit of cute brow pucker and shrugs as he gazes into the emptiness.
“She blamed me for you. It made living here impossible.” He mirrors my pose by backing up against the pillar on his empty side, resting the back of his skull and spine against it, crossing his arms across that broad chest, and eyeing me up and down. “She thought you killed yourself because of my affair, and she pushed you to it with the last words she said to you. Mother couldn’t stand to be in the same room as me or look in a mirror for a long time.”
“The last w….” My voice comes out tinnily and trails off as I remember exactly what those were. My heart turning cold and shuddering with how deeply it had cut me back then but a hint of sadness that the once formidable woman became this shell of herself. I feel guilty for believing she might be the mastermind behind the car accident now that I’ve seen her and know she’s been mentally broken all this time. I would never have believed it if I hadn’t seen it for myself, adding another layer to the confusion I carry around like a shroud.
“She blamed you for me straying and told you to fix it or get out. Something she has wished she could take back a million times these past two years. Like me, she’s had two years to think about her relationship with you, which didn’t leave her proud or at peace. Regret is a big thing in this family.”
“She doesn’t think that way now?” I ask with bitterness, ignoring the rest of his dialogue, and then clear my throat with a cough to cover it. “Blaming me, I mean.”
“No. She didn’t even then. She didn’t want to admit her son was our failure and the one disappointing her. She knew you were the one who could fix anything she commanded, so she put it on your head. My mother’s pride mattered more than anything and the family name. The legacy. You changed that, and she’s genuinely happy to see you. Don’t you see how much you mattered to us, that we love you and want you home? I don’t know why you can’t see or feel that or what it is that makes you distrust it.” Jyeon seems genuinely perplexed and studies my face for answers while I dodge eye contact and stare into the closet.
“When I first went with Greta to her home, I wasn’t exactly warm or approachable. I was a pretty miserable person. I was cold and hard to deal with… She called me Ice Queen, or Princess High and Mighty, and I didn’t bond with the locals at first. They hated me and was nothing like I am now.” I turn an accusing gaze back his way, hoping I’m conveying what I want with clarity.
“How can you say you all loved me back then and say nothing about how different I am now? How can you love us both? I’m nothing like her. I didn’t even like the person I was when I washed up on that island, so why would any of you? I wouldn’t even thank you for the things in this wardrobe now…. not the clothes, the expensive shoes, the bags, or the jewelry. I have no use or desire for any of it. I wouldn’t stand in OLO and have the ability to do her job. She seems like a shallow person with no good qualities or depth. So who do you love exactly as I’m not even a shadow of her.”
This is one thing that’s been bothering me a lot. That Jyeon hasn’t placed much emphasis on the drastic humanizing of Sohla Park or acted like it’s a massive factor in our past. Somehow he doesn’t seem to notice how significant a change it is. What happened to all the reasons he despised me? All our differences? Why is he now able to talk of Tia with less venom but couldn’t back then? He says he loves me, but now I am completely different. Even I know that.
“Because you’re the Sohla I grew up with. You’re not different. You’ve returned to who you were. Before marriage, OLO, loss……. To me, it’s finding the girl that was missing much longer than before the accident. The girl I already loved.”
I wish I could argue with that logic, but I guess there’s truth in it. I vaguely remember me of my youth as I seamlessly transitioned over the years. I don’t know what I was like or how I felt before anything changed me. I guess I would be able to pinpoint the changes in Jyeon, though. Recite a timeline of how and when he changed. I remember him so vividly, and he’s shown up a lot in this version of him since I returned. Maybe it’s the same for him.
“Don’t you think if I’m made to come back here and live this life again, I’ll return to being the person no one liked? The environment which you say created me.” I raise a brow at him, knowing that in itself should be a deterrent.
“No. I won’t let that happen this time. I know where I went wrong in the past.” Jyeon’s tone is low and husky, and that attractive quality I always loved about his voice gives me butterflies with how he softly says it. I blink away, refusing to be softened by him again, and push myself off the wardrobe to move further along and admire the pointless clothing in a bid to dodge him. Turning my chin down to avoid his gaze.
“You running away from me in case I try to finish what was started downstairs?” He follows me, dropping to a sexier tone, and my skin prickles. Sensing his heat behind me, I take a turn at the end of the hanging space into the open dressing room where the security monitors are fitted into the wall. Stiffening all over and getting uptight with how close he seems. He has a way of invading my air and turning my body to mush without doing anything.
“If cameras are here, how come you don’t know who messed with the car?” I thumb towards the row of black screens and throw back a wary look, not liking that he’s only one step behind me, and homed in like I’m his prey. Deflecting his question. Jyeon sighs, smirking at my obvious avoidance and nods at the screens.
“At the time, I didn’t know I had to check them. Even if I looked now, I would have nothing of back then. And now it’s too late. The footage gets wiped every few months. If someone tampered with it, then the footage is long gone.”
Convenient.
“You really didn’t want me out of the picture? An easy and clean goodbye?” I act like it’s a joke with a half-smile and move to turn away, but he catches my wrist and tugs me back. Knocking me breathless with the way I’m spun and pushed up against the wall behind me, next to those screens. My head is cushioned by his hand right behind the back, hitting the drywall softly.
“I told you… I would never have hurt you like that.” He leans in, caging me in and moving a flat palm to either side of my shoulders, my palms pressed to his chest to keep his distance, and I falter, swallowing hard. He has no issue with getting in my face nowadays, anyway.
“What are you doing right now? Stop it.” I make to push him away, my voice breaking, and I tremble visibly. My face flushes with noticeable heat, and my stupid heart flip-flops. I press a little harder to keep him from moving in at me, but there’s no real rejection behind it. As though my body stops listening to my brain every time that tall wall of muscle gets within a foot of me.
Jyeon gazes deep into my eyes with a blank expression as though he’s thinking. Not having the same hormonal meltdown I am with being this intimately close. He seems relaxed, like I’m exactly where he wants me. Before the accident, he would never have casually initiated this proximity unless something required physical contact and restraint.
“Come with me to something. OLO’s fiftieth celebration event is in two days at our building. The public announcement goes live tomorrow that you’re here and alive, and they will hound you until they see you in public. Let me take you there, and at least I can give them what they want in a controlled environment.” He lifts one hand and brushes the hair from my cheek and behind my ear, so softly, so unexpectedly, that I flinch and tear my gaze from his. Pushing his hand away impulsively.
“I don’t know.” I turn my face sideways to avoid him, but he follows with a head tilt to stay locked on my face.
“I’ll protect you. I won’t let anyone close, but you know this will be a media storm, and they won’t rest until they get some footage and a few words from you.” He leans in to follow as I try to turn away further, and the result is him getting close enough to kiss me again. Cornering me with his body and jamming his shoulder to the wall to block my escape route. He likes to keep sticking to me without breathing space nowadays.
By them, he means the media, the shareholders, the employees, and whoever else expects to have a piece of us when we are what we are. A Park, A Kim, a President…. an heiress. It’s what made me hate showing them who I truly was inside.
“Greta…” I start to reject the offer thinking how much she will hate it, turning and sliding in the opposite direction to get away, but he cuts me off. Stopping me with another palm to the wall in front of my new escape route and moving to face me again. He is not letting me out of his small circle.
“Is better kept out of sight. The media will be looking to dig, find out where you’ve been, and doing what. Greta is the key. Leave her in the shadows where she’s safe, and so will your island be. You don’t want the press delving into the last two years of your life any more than I do.”
I hate how intrusive yet familiar this feels. I also hate that he’s right, and I don’t want that. Being the boy of my past and his scent and energy keeps pulling me to old memories of fonder times when I forget to hate him. Jyeon no longer remembers what personal space is between us, and I’ve given up fighting it.
“Fine. I’ll go. I’m sure there’s something in here that’s appropriate to wear. It’s just a formal one-day thing, right?” I give him a final shove with both hands to the chest and gesture behind him as though I need to find an outfit. Jyeon finally takes the hint and steps back, releasing me from his Park prison. Watching me as I push past him, pull the first garment bag forward, and see one of my old favorite black pantsuits. It’s a strange feeling to be faced with something so symbolic, and it was a suit just like this I wore the night I crashed. It was like a uniform for me back then.
“Not that. None of these. How about I take you shopping for something more you, how you are now?” Jyeon pushes the bag back in, frowning at the old familiar clothing, and I get the sense he doesn’t like it. Maybe it’s too much of a reminder of the past me, or perhaps I imagine it. Thinking into it. I wonder if they ever recovered my clothes from the river, and maybe he connects it to my last outfit.
“It’s a business-related event. I’m sure a suit will be fine. And there’s a dozen or more here.” I walk past him and stop on one I rarely used back then. It’s a softer cut with a loose feminine jacket in a light pale grey. It’s a wool mix, so it doesn’t seem like a suit, even though it’s a pair of pants and a jacket. Over a soft sweater, it’ll be a less harsh style but still formal. I’m sure I bought it way back in the early days of our marriage, and it saw the light of day once because mother said it was not intimidating enough.
I Pull it out entirely and hold it in front of myself, turning to the long-length mirror mounted on the inner doorway and catching Jyeon watching me from a few steps back. Narrowing his eyes on it and he smiles softly as though in approval. Nodding that, it’s a complete contrast to the harsh, high fashion styles I wore for four years.
“You can pack up whatever you need from here to go with it. We should get back downstairs. I told mother you couldn’t stay for dinner this time as you have plans. She’ll think I’m lying if we linger too long.” Jyeon walks over to the far end of the wardrobe and reaches up to the overhead cupboard, pulling out my old suitcase and laying it on the bench for me. Opening it and then gesturing around us.
My eyes stray to the case I took on every trip and overnight when working for OLO, and it’s suddenly so oppressive. My life back then was nothing but work. We never took one vacation or day off to relax. We never hung out together as we seem to now, and we never had reason to make time for one another.
I observe him pick up the garment bag I laid on the bench and fold it up to put in the case. Focused on what he’s doing and oblivious to my open staring. Side on, as handsome as he ever was, yet his entire aura is different.
I want to trust him so badly, but I can’t. My heart’s resisting and holding onto wounds, and too many things don’t add up. I don’t miss the life I left behind, even if I missed the people, and I don’t want to walk back into OLO and take what is rightfully mine anymore.
I exhale heavily, breaking my gaze on him, and look to the shoes instead for something to match.
“You okay?” Jyeon straightens up, tilting his head to me, and a sudden softness in his expression winds me. A hint of teenage Jyeon. Eyes so dark and alluring, smooth tanned skin, defined jawline, and manicured black brows. He always had good genes and was lucky to be born so flawless. He could have been an idol, model, or actor in another life.
“Yeah, I want to leave. So, throw me those.” I break my trance on his physical attributes and gesture to some black flats that will look fine with the outfit while turning away to find a sweater. I’m leaving him as soon as possible, so I should stop being so weak and confusing myself.