I still like you

Nothing had been decided yet, and her desire to study abroad remained unchanged.
So, Selene stopped practicing and packed her outerwear to go out, even as the date of the international competition approached.
Evelyn had been telling her to go shopping for spring clothes for the past few days, so a trip to the department store today didn’t seem like a bad idea.
Selene headed to the department store.
Evelyn said she was at her store in the department store these days, so she could go there without having to make an appointment first.
But on the way there, all of a sudden, a poster hanging in front of the theater caught her eye.
She remembered Evelyn raving about how much fun that movie was.
She had said it was about a soldier falling in love with a spy.
Evelyn, whose conservative father had a hard time with military service, seemed completely unaware of the movie, and her eyes had lit up as she said that the male protagonist was cool.
Not only that, she often badmouthed her uncle.
She said that she had stopped getting allowances after launching the brand, so maybe that’s why she’s been doing it more often lately.
Nowadays, it is not unusual to have your own brand or model for a department store, but this would be quite a radical thing for her uncle.
Evelyn is an only daughter.

“Selene. If you’re not going to watch the movie, can I tell you the ending?”

As the movie poster disappeared from view, Evelyn’s voice, as if she was dying to talk, lingered in her ears.
Evelyn started spitting out words as soon as she nodded her head.

“You know, in the end of the movie, the male protagonist finds out that the female protagonist is a spy? So he aims his gun as if he’s going to shoot her at any moment, but in the end, he sheds tears and drops his hand. How touching that scene is…!”
“…”
“Selene, what do you think? Do you think you could forgive that person even though you knew he deceived you?”

At that time, Selene had not yet met Theron, so she felt that there was no need to think deeply about it.
In the first place, she had not even thought about experiencing love or men.
Besides, just hearing the explanation, the female protagonist, who was a spy, was trash that wasn’t worth talking about.
Forgiveness was not enough, even if she was thrown in jail right away.
But now she had started to vaguely imagine it.
If Theron Cox was a spy who approached her with a purpose.
Selene frowned.
She could understand a little bit, but she still couldn’t get over it like the main character in the movie.
Rather, wouldn’t you want to tear apart and kill the person who deceived you as much as you trusted and liked them?
Selene was not very good at imagining or assuming things, so she simply inferred unrealistic situations.
“Selene! What’s going on all of a sudden without any notice?”
Furthermore, Evelyn’s high-pitched voice that came flying in as soon as she entered the department store helped erase Selene’s useless thoughts.
“You said we should buy spring clothes together.”
“Oh, I see. But still, what should I do if you come to me without saying anything?”
As she said that, Evelyn gently linked arms with Selene and led her into the private salon.
“I don’t think it’ll take long, but I have someone to meet. Would you mind waiting here for a moment? I’ll be back in 30 minutes.”
Selene nodded.
She didn’t like to wait, but she was the one who came without an appointment.
Evelyn left Selene alone in the private salon with a worried expression on her face, like a parent leaving a child in a childcare center.
Selene, however, quickly became absorbed in the music magazine she found on the table in the private salon.
The magazine listed the expected candidates for this year’s international competition.
Although he was a candidate she was familiar with, she looked closely to see if there was a talented person who appeared like a comet.
And that was when her concentration was broken.
When a loud noise was heard outside and the heads of the women staying together in the private salon were stretched out like squirrels watching for the enemy.
“What’s going on…?”
“I’ll go out and check.”
The worried women opened the door to the private salon after a short conversation.
“Oh my god! It’s on fire!”
“What did you say?”
As the smoke from the Meccan smoke and the screams of people began to be heard, it was only a matter of time before the peaceful private salon was thrown into chaos.
Selene was the only one who remained calm and unfazed.
It would be a lie to say that she wasn’t afraid of the blazing fire, but perhaps because of her natural personality, Selene was able to remain calm.
Her mind was spinning rapidly.
First of all, this was the second floor, and to get down from the building you had to go up the stairs, which might already be dangerous.
However, the others had already left before anyone could catch them.
Selene, who was pressed against the window, looked down.
It wasn’t a height that was enough to kill her, but it wasn’t low either.
Still, it seemed better to break the window and fall than to try to escape down the stairs.
‘At least your hands shouldn’t get hurt.’
That was the only thing that mattered to Selene.
She had to protect her hand somehow.
“…”
But when she was about to jump down, Theron’s face inexplicably appeared before her eyes.
She had a feeling that if she got hurt here, Theron Cox would be sad.
Not just if she got hurt, but if she died here, it would be even sadder.
Even though she had a weak imagination, she immediately pictured Theron’s distorted expression and the sobbing sound of a grown man.
She didn’t want that.
She didn’t want Theron Cox to be hurt so much because of her.
Selene quickly gathered her courage before the fire reached them.
She climbed up onto the window sill and measured the area below where she would jump with her buttocks resting on it.
The awning was fluttering below, so if she were to fall down there, she could probably land without even twisting her ankle.
‘Okay. One, two, three, then you jump.’
Selene, who had made up her mind, jumped down, leaving behind the small explosions heard from inside the department store.
‘it’s okay.’
She managed to land on the awning as she had intended.
She landed sideways, so some of the ash from the awning got all over one side of her face, but it wasn’t a bad landing.
So she quickly got up and tried to jump from the awning to the ground one more time, but that’s where the problem started.
‘ah.’
The awning broke under the weight.
Selene fell without warning.
Although nothing was broken or anything, she fell and hit her head, causing a mild concussion.
Because of that, Selene lost consciousness for a while and only had vague memories of the time she was taken to the hospital.
For example, the doctor’s agitated voice.
“The patient jumped from the private salon? It was completely burned down there. Then the dark part of this face must have been burned as well!”
Like the nurse’s eyes that seemed to be filled with pity.
“There are many other patients that need to be checked first, so I’ll just treat them briefly and bandage them. The young lady’s face got hurt, so….”
Like the feeling of cold alcohol on your soot-stained cheek.
“It looks like you’re in a lot of pain. Let’s just do some light disinfection for now. If the burn is severe, the pain will subside and it may be better to treat it.”
‘I just squinted my eyes because it was cold… .’
However, Selene was not conscious enough to give any other explanation to the hospital staff who thought her face was burned on their own.
The fire at the department store was so big and there were so many injured people that the atmosphere in the hospital felt very chaotic.
When she came to her senses after a while, she was a little surprised to see half of her face covered in bandages like a mummy.
Selene blinked blankly and thought.
‘I wonder if Evelyn was hurt. Evelyn’s store is on the first floor, so if she had known there was a fire, she would have gotten out quickly, but who knows?’
When she opened her eyes in a special room, it seemed like one of her family members had already gone through the hospitalization process… .
While she was worrying about someone else rather than her own insignificant worries, the hospital room door opened without permission.
As she naturally turned her head, the person who came into view was surprisingly Theron.
Theron’s face was distorted as if he was in pain.
He strode in, hugged her tightly, and suddenly confessed.
“Selene, I still like you.”
What’s more, he started saying strange things, such as assuming that she was a criminal or a monster.
Selene soon realized.
Theron, like everyone else, misunderstood that her face was burned.
When she untied the bandage and showed him the soot staining his sleeve, his expression, which had been the most serious and painful one in the world, suddenly turned blank.
“…”
Selene had never seen a human face change so quickly before.