The Awakening

“Jae-hwi has grown so much since I last saw him, Father.”

“Indeed. Looking at him lately reminds me of what your mother used to say about you and your brother, Yoon-mo. She’d beam with pride, saying the Goo blood couldn’t be denied whenever she saw how tall and sturdy every boy she gave birth to became.”

“……Yes.”

Jae-hwi didn’t add anything to the exchange between his grandfather and uncle. Instead, he ignored Goo Jae-kyung, who was likely glaring at him from beside Lee Seol-ran, and called for Manager Park.

“The soup is especially delicious today.”

“Oh, thank you!”

“I’ll have another bowl, please.”

Receiving the fresh bowl from Manager Park, Jae-hwi continued his meal at a steady, unhurried pace. He looked as though he didn’t have a single worry in the world.

After finishing the meal, Jae-hwi headed to the backyard. He had heard that the swimming pool—the place where his memories of Taerin lived—had been filled in and removed years ago. A pity.

Beyond the wide expanse of the lawn, in the distance, lay the sand garden Goo Kwang-hyun so cherished. Without sparing it a glance, Jae-hwi strode along the neatly laid stepping stones. His leather shoes only veered off the path onto the grass as he approached Du-gu-gwan, the staff quarters.

In the shadows behind the quarters, he found the person he was looking for. He let out a short laugh and shoved both hands into his slacks pockets.

“You seem to be having a hard time lately.”

His voice was low, sounding almost affectionate. At the sound, Goo Jae-kyung—who had been exhaling a cloud of cigarette smoke while standing between the building and the wall—froze. Jae-hwi lifted his chin as she turned her head, her brow furrowed.

When provoking an opponent, look down on them and smile with leisure. This was a lesson Jae-hwi had learned from observing Goo Jae-kyung long ago.

“You……”

“It’s been a while, Noona.”

Meeting Goo Jae-kyung for the first time in thirteen years, Jae-hwi addressed her as “Noona” without hesitation. There was a time when he would flinch, his shoulders shrinking every time her eyes grew sharper at the title, simply because he didn’t know what else to call her. But now…

Jae-hwi raised a hand and rubbed his eyebrow. It was an action meant to suppress a burst of laughter.

God. It was so absurd he wanted to curse. He had lived in a Russian orphanage until he was seven, was brought here for reasons he didn’t understand, and then left for Germany in the autumn of his fifteenth year. He had spent eight years in this house.

A full eight years. During that long stretch of time, he had never once stepped outside these walls, except for the time he went to the hospital for surgery after falling down the stairs. In other words, most of his memories of Korea were set within this house.

Among those memories, the only good one was Won Taerin. He had wanted to be like her—radiant and bright—and had wanted to be near her—beautiful and fragrant. At first, he just liked looking at her; later, he grew greedy, wanting to stand by her side. Because of her, Jae-hwi began to change, and only after a long time was he finally able to return.

The rest—the sorrow, resentment, loneliness, sadness, pain, fear, dread, and agony. The Goo family sat at the center of the vortex of negative memories that had crushed him. Especially Goo Jae-kyung. She was the one who had directly urged him to die.

The old Jae-hwi had cowered and hidden, terrified of the visceral hatred she projected. He had held his breath and trembled. He had walked on eggshells for no reason and begged for forgiveness for sins he hadn’t committed. He fell asleep crying and woke up crying. He had even contemplated suicide.

All because of Goo Jae-kyung? Because of that?

“Are you laughing?”

Faced with Jae-kyung’s displeased expression, Jae-hwi could no longer hold back. He let out a scoffing chuckle and reached out. With one eyebrow arched crookedly, he snatched the long cigarette from between her fingers.

“Hey! You—!”

“I need to live a long life, you see.”

Jae-hwi ground the cigarette—which Jae-kyung had only puffed on a few times—against the wall to extinguish it, then rubbed his fingertips together. With a look of disgust, he brought his fingertips to his nose and let out a low groan.

“They say secondhand smoke is even worse for you.”

Saying the word “smoke” made him think of Taerin again. On the day he reunited with her at the gallery, he had used the excuse of going out for a smoke, but the truth was he didn’t smoke at all. He had only gone out because he saw Taerin leaving.

Just as a smile began to spread at the thought of acting cute and confessing the truth to Taerin later, a grating voice pierced his eardrums.

“…I suppose you’ve forgotten after living abroad for so long.”

Goo Jae-kyung crossed her arms and lifted her head. It was the same look as before. The same gaze that viewed humans as something less than insects. Expectation filled Jae-hwi’s face as he waited to see what venom she would spit out.

“I am Goo Jae-kyung.”

“Yeah, I know you’re Jae-kyung Noona. I almost didn’t recognize you, though. Why did you get so old?”

“……The hell?”

“Seriously, why the cigarettes? It’s the fast track to aging.”

The more Jae-kyung’s face crumpled, the deeper Jae-hwi’s smile became.

“You know, I think I actually missed you, Noona.”

He had thought he never missed her for a single second, but seeing her now, he realized the truth. He must have missed seeing this exact face. With this belated realization, Jae-hwi didn’t take his eyes off the progressively distorting Goo Jae-kyung.

He studied her eyes, nose, mouth, eyebrows, cheeks, and jaw. He didn’t miss a single detail, not even the smallest twitch of her face filled with unpleasantness. It was a joy to observe the clear evidence of the irritation he caused.

“Ah, would it be better if I shut up?”

“I told you never to come back alive.”

“You did. I was so scared of those words. I was so terrified they even showed up in my dreams.”

Jae-kyung tilted her head as she looked up at Jae-hwi, who was smiling softly as if recounting a fond old story. She seemed to be wondering if he had finally lost his mind.

“I wondered if I’d die the moment I stepped into the airport, but look, I’m still alive.”

“You really must have forgotten everything. I—”

“How could I forget?”

“……What?”

“How. Could I. Forget.”

The words were spat out one by one with heavy, violent emotion. Yet, his smile remained beautiful, his eyes curving softly. Unable to reconcile that gap, Jae-kyung tilted her head and narrowed her eyes.

“The cruel words the Goo sisters poured over me. The cold stares. How could I forget all that?”

“…….”

“If I had forgotten, I really would be the ‘dim-witted brat’ you called me. Ah… speaking of which, I really used to believe I was a lacking, slow-witted kid. They call that ‘gaslighting’ these days, don’t they?”

As Jae-hwi took a step closer and leaned down, Jae-kyung took a step back. A chill settled over Jae-hwi’s face. The smile he had been wearing just moments ago had vanished without a trace.

“How could I forget? Something so poisonous. Especially when Goo Jae-kyung……”

“…….”

“Tried to kill me.”

Standing under the white glow of the streetlamp, Jae-hwi’s smooth face shone pale. He didn’t miss the way Jae-kyung’s eyes flickered downward. The way her gaze swept over his arms and shoulders meant she, too, remembered that day long ago.

The people of Ban-gu-jae had dismissed the incident as a fall and simply replaced the railings with stronger, higher ones. Because the young Jae-hwi had been unable to answer questions and only sobbed, the cause of the accident was blamed on his own dull-witted carelessness.

But it wasn’t an accident. An “accident”—an unexpected, unfortunate event—was not what it was. There was a culprit only Jae-hwi knew, and there was an accomplice. Goo Jae-kyung and Goo Jae-eun. It was a deed planned and executed by the two of them, a malicious act with a clear motive and purpose to terrify or harm him.

The marks from the day he was pushed off the second-floor staircase railing still remained on his body. The reason he had refused the doctor’s suggestion for scar treatment was simple: those red marks served as a more powerful stimulant than anything else.

During his difficult years abroad, whenever he struggled, he thought of two women. One was Won Taerin, who had shown him a new path; the other was Goo Jae-kyung, who had wanted him dead.

The woman who made him live, and the woman who tried to kill him. Jae-hwi had looked forward to his reunion with Jae-kyung just as much as he had longed for his reunion with Taerin. He had prepared many things for both of them.

“……Do you have proof?”

Jae-hwi leaned in slightly toward Jae-kyung, who was glaring at him with venomous eyes. His voice was thick as he whispered into her ear, which carried a faint scent of tobacco.

“Why does that matter?”

“…….”

“I’ve waited so long for the day we’d meet again. That’s what matters. But……”

Jae-hwi stood up straight again, his face now clouded with a look of boredom.