A big box with fish was seen on the rear seat of the bicycle that SolHi was holding from the handlebars and pushing it in front. She easily pushed that bike in front although the box seemed heavy at first glance. And… it was heavy. Even so, SolHi didn’t allow it to hang to the side, not even for a second.
Looking behind her and seeing SolHi so confident in herself, DooSan frowned. It was strange to him to see her carrying such a heavy box on the bike, but not complaining as the women generally used to do when a man accompanied them. At the same time, it seemed strange to DooSan because he always thought that she was fragile and capable of breaking into two at the first strong blow of wind. Yet, surprise… SolHi was exactly the opposite of the image DooSan had drawn in his head about her.
What was weirder than this for him was to see SolHi smiling. Something he had never noticed before. Because of this, because he had never seen SolHi smiling, or at least he didn’t remember this, DooSan always wondered if she was human or a robot that tried to seem human. Ideas shattered at that moment when they crossed through the village and he saw SolHi radiant, smiling at everybody whom she met on her way, especially at the elders.
„As though she tries to spite me,” mumbled DooSan, squinting at her. „When she’s in the office or with me, she always looks as though she’s ready to bite someone. Yet, when she’s with others, she’s smiling. Something suspicious to me.”
He winced eventually and stopped, staring with pumped eyes at SolHi when he spotted her a few meters from him and squinting at him. His reaction seemed suspicious to SolHi too. That is why she asked him, „What the hell are you planning this time, Han DooSan? Or… should I ask you what the hell are you mumbling behind my back?”
„I?” DooSan suddenly asked, trying to defend himself this way. „Honestly, I said nothing. Yet, as far as I see, you have visions.” Then, trying to „escape” her interrogatory, still scratching the back of his head, a habit he got from Kan, DooSan intended to pass by her. He stopped eventually, seeing SolHi’s glance focused on him. „What?” He snapped at her. „What now? What?”
„I was just wondering who the hell you are,” SolHi drily said, staring at DooSan with a glance he had never seen before. This made him turn serious too.
„Who am I?” He asked, grinning, as though trying to make sure he wouldn’t be „bitten” after that. Then, he said, „As though you don’t know me. I’m the only one who you are chasing, you, hunting dog!”
„Yeah, I also know that I’m a hunting dog. Something I’ve learned from you… to bite. Yet, I feel that’s something more now. Something that stinks damn badly and it’s something about you.”
„I tell you that you have visions,” DooSan hissed through his teeth after a few moments of staring at her. „Or… should I say that you smell things now where there are none?”
„Nea. I feel the smell clearly, and it has a sure source… you, Han DooSan. Do you know why I feel it? Because you are here for something damn weird, it seems to me. So, tell me: what the hell are you looking for here? And don’t tell me that’s only for taking me back to work because I don’t believe in fairy tales anymore.”
„You believe only in those with ogres, right?” DooSan tried to make a joke. Seeing that it was a bad one, judging by SolHi’s bitter face, he pulled back. „I was just saying. Yet, you are also right! I mean… you are right in saying that I’m not here only to take you back to work, but also for something strange.”
„Really?! Should I bite this bait now?”
„Absolutely! And… stop using an accent when you speak! I understand nothing of what you say and… you are strange! It irritates me! So, speak normally to be able to understand you! And… stop snapping at me! I’m just a poor innocent soul who is preoccupied with you. More than that, can we leave now? More than your „local” accent and your black eyes focused on me, I’m irritated by those cameras over there.”
SolHi frowned. „What the hell are you talking about now?” Looking in the same direction as DooSan, she smiled, seeing the old ladies of the village staring at them. „Aaa, I see now: what bothers you is to be monitored 24/24, right?”
„Aren’t you bothered by this too?”
„Honestly… no! Why? Because… these cameras are „blind.” They only „look” at you, but record nothing.”
„I have another opinion. Why? Because I feel their glances focused on me. I feel them burning my skin… right on the back of my head as though I’m surrounded by hundreds of cobras, starting with the one in front of me.”
„If you say so,” replied SolHi recklessly. Then, she shrugged and continued her way, mumbling, „Well deserved, by the way. To feel all that, I mean.”
Not her words made DooSan attentive, but her smile. That one was a beautiful smile, a pleasant one that warmed him inside. Then, suddenly, he understood that he was acting weirdly and this surprised him a lot. More than that, he’d been surprised by the thought that he felt jealous. For whom? For the wind that was playfully moving its fingers through SolHi’s hair, which was grabbed in a ponytail. Then, the same wind started to play with the hair that was released and was falling over the collar of her shirt or her face, dancing on her pink cheeks, that beautiful face warmed and bathed by the light of the sunset… the red one that was seen at the horizon. Even those rays DooSan started to hate so suddenly because they could do what he couldn’t do… the kiss. Yes, those rays had permission to kiss SolHi’s pink lips in front of everybody when DooSan had this thing forbidden. At the same time, he definitely hated that wind that spread the charming scent of the ripped chestnuts of her hair all over him.
„Aaa, what the hell?!” DooSan suddenly yelled in his head when he felt the jealousy tightly holding him in its arms. This was something he couldn’t understand, just as he couldn’t understand why he felt jealous of the wind and the rays. Not only for them DooSan felt jealous, but also for that man, who stopped to say Hello to SolHi when he saw her passing by there. DooSan even swore at one point, in his head, finally understanding what he denied for so long, but which was deeply hidden in his chest. It was real, stuck into his chest, and probably fixed with that screw that SolHi gave him when he lost his car in the Chinese Neighborhood. „A screw I intend to fix well in your head, Han DooSan, right when we are back to Seoul. Why? Because you lost your mind that day when you touched her palm to take the screw. More than that, you are nuts man! How the hell to have such thoughts about her? No, I’ll make you wake up when we are back in town. There, I’ll also make you stop seeing beautiful illusions where it should have been only hatred.”
The moment he heard one of the old ladies saying to SolHi, „Is the giraffe following you, SolHi?” DooSan stared to his left with pumped eyes. Then, understanding that the „giraffe” was about him, DooSan stared at SolHi again, showing his fangs to her. He was furious: not only because the old lady called him „giraffe,” but also because he saw SolHi smiling. „Do you feel yourself a winner now?” He finally hissed through his teeth.
„Absolutely because… it seems to me that the Zoo with the name „Han DooSan!” is complete now!”
„Ia, Ian SolHi, this isn’t funny!”
„Why not?! At least some of us have fun if not you.” Then, turning toward the old lady, SolHi told her, fighting with herself not to burst into laughter. „Adjuma, you know, our „giraffe” is someone important. He’s a prosecutor there, in the Capital City.”
„And?” The old lady idly replied. „Doesn’t he have hands once he’s from Seoul or what? Or… does he think he’s someone important if he leaves a girl to carry on such heavy boxes while he whistles along with the wind, walking like a puppy behind you with his hands stuck into his pockets?”
„Was this about me?” DooSan asked SolHi, ready for a fight. Seeing her chortling, he pulled back, hissing through his teeth, „You’ll pay me this for sure, Ian SolHi! Then… I’ll show you what this „giraffe” can do.”
„What will you do then? Stretch your neck longer than it is?” He heard SolHi whistling in his ear. This made him stare at her with the eyes of a beast. Seeing her winking, he felt even more outraged than before. Yet, he said nothing. He only followed her by a glance when she looked at the old woman again, to whom she said in a playful voice, touching her lips with her index finger first. „Shh, adjuma! Let’s not be mean now! If not, he gets angry, and then… it’s damn bad for us!”
„Such a big deal,” the lady said, frowning. „I think that he’s a prosecutor only for show because if talking about him and the justice… ehe, a lot of water will run down the River Han before he has the right to be respected as one. And, don’t stay there and only look around, do you hear me? Help her! At least with pushing if you can’t do something else!”
Staring at SolHi, with wide open eyes again, DooSan saw her deeply enjoying the victory. Not the same DooSan felt. He was boiling inside, convinced that the old ladies and SolHi wronged him. Then, approaching her, he hissed through his teeth, „You have decided to make fun of me today at any cost, right? And yeah, to fully enjoy your triumph too!”
„A well-deserved victory, Prosecutor Han. You can’t deny that… just as I can’t deny that I’ve been waiting for this opportunity for years. Since the day I met you, by the way.”
„Then, profoundly enjoy it, Ian SolHi because it’s your only chance to feel all this! And you’ll enjoy it for the last time too, right before reaching the gates of hell for mocking a poor innocent soul like I am.” After that, grabbing the handlebars, he pulled the bike toward him. „I also suggest you stop grinning like the little devil you are if you don’t want to see what the big Devil Han DooSan can do!”
„If you say so!” Replied SolHi, still smiling. Yet, seeing that DooSan was about to turn the bike and the box upside down, she suddenly grabbed it, snapping at DooSan while staring at him like a pitbull thirsty for blood, „Are you taking revenge?”
„Maybe?!” Replied DooSan, forcing a weird smile. „Or maybe I’m just returning you a favor, is this a possibility too, don’t you think so? A favor I owe to a „friend,” who stubbed my back at the first opportunity.” Then, turning his back to SolHi, who kept squinting at him, DooSan smiled. Yet, he surprised himself by doing this because he understood that he loved that fight between the cat SolHi and the mouse DooSan with all his heart. Or maybe was this vice versa?! Who knows?!
***
Being close to DooSan that night made SolHi feel weird. She felt butterflies in her stomach although she shouldn’t have felt them. At the same time, she felt clumsy, „As though I’m back in high school when I fell in love for the first time. And damn, I hadn’t hoped this would finish this way.”
„To finish? What exactly?”
„Nothing. Just… stay here! I’ll leave this box at the supermarket and we’ll go right away,” SolHi murmured, confused. After these words, she felt even weirder than before. Why? Because DooSan heard her whisper when she would have preferred him to hear nothing. Yet, DooSan heard everything, although he didn’t understand the message of her words. SolHi even played the fool eventually just to make sure he wouldn’t understand that message.
Honestly, she wasn’t just playing the fool, she was one. Why? Because she had lost her head for the man who had to be an enemy for her, but who turned out to be someone important to her, and she felt that she was closer to him with each second that passed, something that SolHi hated to accept that it could be true.
Eventually, catching DooSan’s glance focused on her, after she refused his help, SolHi grabbed the box with fish and headed toward the supermarket. Before leaving, she murmured the stupid remark, „If you are a good boy, maybe I’ll buy you something tasty. Or… a bottle of water.” After that, SolHi grinned because… how the hell could she tell her boss or the one she liked to be a good boy?! Was he a dog or what?! She had to think about this seriously when she would have had time. If not, she would have had problems with Han DooSan for sure. Serious problems if thinking again about the night they spent together. Not that a big deal happened between them that night, but yet… it could have been a start if they had gone too far that night and… „Just shut up, Ian SolHi,” she demanded herself eventually, right before entering the supermarket.
Left alone, DooSan looked confused at the sea. „Am I a dog more recently?” He wondered, dumbed. „Maybe… Only a little?! Yeah sure, only a little… If you think about this once you are here and… Ia, Han DooSan, my friend, are you stupid? Stop saying nonsense things and go to see the world! The views, I mean.” After that, feeling more confused than before, he headed toward a wooden square that was not that far from the supermarket, on which the villagers used to sit when passing by.
Sitting on it, DooSan deeply breathed in the sea scent, murmuring, „I have definitely made a mistake coming here. Thus, I gave her the perfect chance to make fun of me. Yet, don’t worry, Ian SolHi: I’ll have my sweet revenge on you after this. Now… nea, it isn’t the right moment. First, I must take you back to the city and work. Then, when I make sure that it isn’t risky for my skin anymore and you don’t have the chance to run away, I’ll make you pay for this too. I’ll do it for sure or I will stop calling myself Han DooSan. I swear.”
Understanding that he was going around the bush because he wouldn’t have ever been able to hurt SolHi or make her pay for something, DooSan kept silent. Yes, he wasn’t able to hurt her, not after what happened in his apartment. There, they experienced such intense things that he couldn’t deny them anymore. He fully enjoyed that kiss that made him feel alive and wish to feel more. DooSan even started to dream of loving her after that kiss. Yet, he had to do it in silence because he couldn’t tell the world what he felt. Not that he was afraid that people would judge him, but because he understood that people could hurt her for what he felt. She’d been hurt because of that kiss already and went away. If it had happened more than a kiss between them…
„…I don’t even want to think about this. Not now. I’ll think about this later. Now I’ll fall prey to the moment and see where this wave of madness takes us. I just hope it won’t take us to a place from which none of us will be able to return.”
After such thoughts, DooSan allowed the sun to be the only one bothering his calmness and kissing the top of his head while the playful wind was moving his soft fingers through his hair and on his skin. This made him close his eyes, lay back a little to be able to support his hands on that wooden square and allow himself to relax. DooSan did that when he felt that it was time to be alone, far away from the world and its problems, and even far away from his problems. And, too focused on living in his head, DooSan didn’t notice the old man who approached him eventually.
The old man wasn’t alone but was accompanied by a red husky, the color of the squirrels, as fluffy and playful as them. While he and the old man were heading from the beach to the place where DooSan was, the husky kept moving around the old man’s feet, seeming to be ready to knock him down at one point. Yet, nothing of all this had happened eventually because the old man knew very well what the fluffy playful red ball could do and avoided the animal to step in his way.
As well as his owner knew him, the husky knew the old man too. Thus, when he understood that playing around the man was enough, the husky calmed down. Then, he obediently followed him to the wooden square, on which the old man sat down eventually.
After he sat down, the old man said nothing. DooSan also said nothing. More than that, DooSan seemed not to have noticed that the old man was also there. Even so, the old man didn’t pay too much attention to the young one, who was practically lying on that square but kept looking in front, at the blue sea, which he silently admired, deeply feeling its waves that were dancing in his soul too.
Only when DooSan opened his eyes and looked at the same red horizon at which he was looking, the old man said, „Beautiful, isn’t it?” That question amazed DooSan a lot. He also seemed surprised when he finally understood that he wasn’t alone there. That’s why he kept staring at the old man, trying to understand who he was and what he wanted from him. Unlike him, his interlocutor seemed calm. And, still staring at the sea, he said, „This sunset is so beautiful, my boy. It’s as beautiful as life is. You know, I’ve been looking at this red horizon for my entire life, but I’m still not tired of looking at it. I can’t do that because… nobody ever will be tired of beauty. At least this is what I think.”
DooSan smiled. „There are also exceptions,” he said in the end. „I, for example, the one who has been living his life in the city, won’t miss such places. Not the same happened to my brother. He was crazy about the beach, smelling the sea and seeing the red horizon, about the dance of the seagulls above the water, and the sound of the waves embracing the rocks. I think he had something yours, old man.”
„Your words hint to me that your brother was a wise man,” the old man said, smiling. „At the same time, he wasn’t wrong about loving the whisper of the sea and the sweet voice of the seagulls from above the water. Something that SolHi loves too, you know?! So, if you want to win points with her, bring her closer to the sea more often.” DooSan looked at the old man, confused. „Why do I know that?” He asked and DooSan right away nodded. „Nothing out of the ordinary, by the way. To find out that a stranger came to this village, I mean, because… there aren’t many strangers that visit these places. More than that, a secret is something impossible to keep only for you while being here… as the secret about a giraffe from the Capital City, which came here, following our SolHi.”
„The surveillance cameras,” DooSan growled. Seeing the old man insistently looking at him, he sketched a foolish smile. „I was just thinking in a loud voice.” Then, he looked at the sea again.
Noticing his clumsiness, the old man looked at the sea and smiled. „Eh, young man,” he murmured after a long silence. „There aren’t only thoughts in this world. Yet, I must accept that our life is built from thoughts sometimes. Many of those thoughts torment people, especially those who know SolHi. And, talking about the wolf, he knocks on your door,” the old man jokingly said, seeing SolHi heading toward them. „A real pleasure for my eyes!”
„Something I doubt,” SolHi replied, smiling. „Do you know why, old Pan?”
„Because the words are often lies?”
„Not the words are lies, but people are those who are almost always lying. Unlike the animals, which can love you without words for an eternity. Right, Kochiko?” She asked the husky, which started to jump around her. Before kneeling to caress his fur, SolHi threw a bottle of water to DooSan, jokingly telling him, „Your reward for „pushing,” giraffe.”
DooSan showed her his fangs. Then, opening the bottle of water, but still looking at SolHi, who was playing with the dog, he told her, showing his jealousy this way „I thought my prize was what you have in your hand.”
SolHi looked at him, confused. Then, when she felt the wet touch of Kochiko’s snout on her hand, she looked at the dog, also confused. Only then did she understand what DooSan meant by his „prize” - the sausage, which Kochiko had half enjoyed already, waiting for the second half. Before SolHi gave him that half too, the dog licked his lips, staring at it with shining eyes.
That short waiting had been a test of patience for everybody. Who made all of them anxious? SolHi, who couldn’t decide whom she should have given the other half of the sausage. While she thought about this, Kochiko dreamt of what she had in her hand. What about DooSan? Well, he would have given up on that half sausage for a caress. Yes, DooSan badly wanted to be in Kochiko’s place at that moment when SolHi’s hand kept caressing his red fur, although DooSan also knew that it was a foolish idea to be jealous of the dog.
Finally understanding that he was pathetic thinking about all this, DooSan cleared his voice while trying to chase that awkward feeling from between them. Who felt it more intense was him and SolHi, and that red rival, of course, who suddenly looked at DooSan, as though asking him, „What’s your problem with the girl, dude? Just let her breathe.” After that, spoiled by the girl’s fingers, who was tangling his red fur, Kochiko enjoyed the other half of the sausage, licking his lips in the end.
Seeing Kochiko so happy when he enjoyed what she had bought for him, DooSan cooked his nose. „Little traitor,” he told SolHi in the end, making her smile.
„If you say so,” she replied smiling. „A well-deserved betrayal, by the way.”
„Are you looking for a fight?”
„Nea… only for play! Not with you, but with him. And… let’s go, Kochiko until this ogre closes us in a sand castle to take revenge for the sausage!” After that, releasing Kochiko from his leash, she ran toward the seashore, followed from close by that red fluffy ball that looked more like a squirrel than a husky.
Seeing her leaving, DooSan mumbled, „I’m an ogre now. I’m not a giraffe, a turkey, a mopsic, or what she called me before. No, what was left for me was to be the ogre from the fairy tale. Ah, Ian SolHi, I’ll pay you later for all this because…”
DooSan kept his tongue behind his teeth eventually when he heard old Pan saying, „Poor kid! She suffered so much in this life. Even so, life couldn’t take her smile and kindness away from her.”
DooSan looked at him, confused. „Whom are we talking about?”
„I’m talking about SolHi, young man. I’m talking about that mask that is called a smile, behind which she hides her sadness, making everybody think that nothing happens to her although she is hiding a huge secret. It’s better to say that she hides a great pain because… only God knows how much this child has suffered.” Seeing DooSan looking at him, even more confused than before, the old Pan sketched a sad smile. „I see you also don’t know her story.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
„Her story? What story? Did something happen to SolHi in the past?”
„That’s right, young man. Honestly, there are a lot of things hidden in that dark past. That past… is something that cannot be compared to a fairy tale because what generally happens to the princess in fairy tales is nothing compared to what has happened to SolHi in her childhood. She lived a cruel reality, with no father by her side to support her, a father who left her when she was only a few months old, and with a schizophrenic mother that made her life even bitterer than it was already.”
„What?” DooSan asked, stunned, staring into the old man’s eyes. Only then did he see that old Pan was almost blind, although he thought that he saw at least something. Yet, more than that, what amazed DooSan was to find out that SolHi’s mother suffered from schizophrenia. She never told them about this. Yes, DooSan was sure of that and that not even Kan knew about this because, if Kan had known about this, he wouldn’t have given him SolHi’s address ever because he wasn’t stupid to give DooSan a weapon to use against SolHi and knock her down.
DooSan suddenly kept silent in his head when old Pan continued his story. „You know, prosecutor, SolHi’s fate seems so strange. It seems strange even to me, the one who has known her since she appeared in this world, the one who knows very well how much she has suffered with such a mother, and the one who hasn’t been able to help her as he has wanted, and this has happened because I’ve also experienced difficulties in my life. Even so, I didn’t take her from under the bridge only once, almost frozen because her mother had the brilliant idea of sending her outside only during such cold nights when one didn’t leave even the dog outside. Her mother not only threw her on the streets but also kept her hungry and dirty. Probably because of this, SolHi started to work on that fishing boat when she was eight, just to be able to eat something. Yet, she never complained about this, abandoned her mother, or felt shame for her. I’m even sure that she has never stopped loving her mother although SinHa has never felt love for her. SolHi has always longed for that love, feeling pain inside because only a child, like SolHi, who has a big heart, can love the monster who hasn’t ever loved her.”
Hearing such words, DooSan squeezed his fists. He felt a hot iron piercing his heart, although he couldn’t understand why he felt this. At the same time, he felt his hands strangely shaking as his voice shook when he asked, „What about her father? Did he never ask about her?”
„Why should he have done this, young man?! He didn’t leave them to turn back because he loved his child. If he had loved his baby girl, he wouldn’t have left, right? A real father does this, he stays with his children even though he is meant to die. SolHi’s father is different though. He’s that kind of cuckoo that leaves his eggs in another bird’s nest, flying toward other nests to leave eggs there too. Honestly, although he would have been here, he wouldn’t have helped SolHi too much because that man was a bastard, trash, please excuse my thoughts about him. Yet, I don’t regret having called him this way because he is a real bastard, who has always dreamt only about his welfare. Also because of this, he approached SinHa when he came to Korea, promising her Paradise. He gave her nothing of this instead. All that she had while living with him were more problems, sorrows, and headaches. Nothing strange because he never loved her once he left them both in the end. Abandoning them, he hurt them the most, especially this child’s heart, who never knew what it felt like to have a father. If she had had a father, she wouldn’t have worked on a fishing boat since she was eight. Even so, this child is an Angel. She is stronger than any of us, an angel that didn’t collapse, not even when life stabbed its sharp fangs into her throat, wanting her dead.”
„What about SolHi’s mother? Is she that sick?”
„Sick is a soft word to describe her condition. And… honestly, I don’t think there are words to describe SinHa’s condition. You’ll meet her anyway. One day, if SolHi wants this. If this happens, you’ll understand why I’ve said what I’ve said. And, I hope your heart won’t bleed that day, my boy, as my heart bleeds while thinking about this. Forgive my dare to call you „boy,” but it’s my manner to call SolHi’s friends. You are definitely one of her few friends that she still has after the 7-year-old events.”
„I didn’t know that SolHi told you about that,” murmured DooSan, confused.
„She told us?! No, young man: SolHi never talked to anybody about what happened in that big and crowded city. Even so, we also found out about this because… yeah, maybe we seem backward and isolated from the rest of the world, but even so, we have a TV in our house too. Thus, we found out about her pain from the first day. Yet, nobody said anything about this or judged her. It wasn’t our problem to do that because SolHi was our child, of each villager, and, as any other parent, we couldn’t judge our child.”
With the pain in his soul, old Pan stood up and headed toward the supermarket. Seeing him leaving, DooSan looked behind him for a while, until the old man entered the supermarket. After that, he looked at SolHi and Kochiko, who were still playing on the beach, running one after another or knocking the other one down to continue their play. And… „She’s so beautiful,” he murmured. „SolHi is so beautiful in my eyes today.”
While looking at her, love was seen in his eyes. It was so alive, although he swore to hate her for his entire life. Because of the same love, his heart started to beat madly in his chest because it wasn’t easy for him to find out about her „dark past,” one he was also part of once he made her suffer a lot too. Yet, everything was part of that past too: his hatred for her and the revenge. What DooSan was dreaming of at that moment was love: in her arms, on that beach, playing with him and not with Kochiko, for whom he felt jealous at that moment.
***
The game of night seemed weird to DooSan. Why exactly? Because… It had been so unexpected: while he was watching SolHi and Kochiko’s game on the beach, the sun hid behind the clouds, the light vanished somewhere, and the night queen took over the horizon. Only then, SolHi allowed Kochiko to return to old Pan, who was sitting on the same wooden square on which he and DooSan talked before. After that, she grabbed the bike handlebars and told DooSan to follow her. The man did that without saying a word, somehow immersed in thoughts, trying to understand what exactly was bothering him from everything that happened that day. Or maybe not that day was guilty of anxiety, but himself?! He wasn’t sure of anything anymore.
With such thoughts, the man followed SolHi for a while. Then, when he understood that the silence between them was strange, he looked at the woman beside him, smiling. The reason? That playful strange of hair, which was moving up and down on SolHi’s face, shadowing his view of her.
It was bothering him. Yes, that strand of hair got to bother him because it was stealing part of her beauty and he wasn’t able to see her. At the same time, the seagulls bothered him, those whom SolHi was looking at, in silence, as though trying to understand their secret message shouted from above, right from above the sea.
Unlike DooSan, SolHi was calm. What was important for her at that moment was only the beauty of that place and the seagulls that were flying above them. And, completely charmed by that romantic night that suddenly surrounded them from all over and when she spotted DooSan’s glance focused on her, SolHi smiled. She did that discreetly, not to give DooSan the chance to misunderstand things and make fun of her after that, as he used to do sometimes.
Suddenly, SolHi winced the moment DooSan touched her cheek in his clumsy attempt to move that rebel strand of hair away from her face. Instead of touching that strand of hair, he touched the woman’s face, who looked at him right away, confused because she couldn’t understand his gesture. More than that, SolHi couldn’t understand the blink she saw in his eyes, something similar to love, but still something strange in her opinion.
DooSan felt as weird as her. Because of this, he looked elsewhere when SolHi looked at him. He did that because he felt strange after being caught red-handed, looking like a teenager who felt shy after trying to steal a kiss from the girl he loved. And, confused and looking all over but not at SolHi, he murmured, „Don’t misunderstand me. I was just trying to move the hair away to be able to see the sea.”
Hearing his stutter, SolHi smiled again. Then, suddenly turning serious because she could tease him only when she looked serious, she told the man to her left, „You could have seen the sea looking past me. You are taller than me, remember? It’s the only reason why the aunts of the village called you giraffe. Or… if you had taken a step in front or back, I wouldn’t have blocked your sight anymore. I was just saying! Don’t take it personally.”
DooSan squinted at her. „It seems to me that you are exaggerating now. I… was just trying to… Forget it! It isn’t worth it to keep explaining obvious things to you.” SolHi burst into laughter. „What?”
„Nothing. It just… seems weird to see the great Han DooSan stuttering and confused because of his ideas. Or… did old Pan tell you something about me?” DooSan looked elsewhere. „If you avoid answering, it means he has told you something. Now, my question is: what has he told you that you act like that now? As though you feel sorry for something.”
„I?” DooSan played the fool. „Of course not! I just… feel strange. That’s all.”
„A strangeness that seems weird now.”
„This is because you don’t have enough faith. You don’t trust those that surround you, thinking that they can betray you when it’s nothing like that.”
„Really?! Honestly, your words don’t convince me. Why? Because I know you very well, Han DooSan. I know what you can do. More than that, my instinct tells me this, the instinct I’ve always trusted since I’ve entered the police, which has never betrayed me. An instinct that helps me to smell liars like you from far away.”
„You know, I hate you when you do that.”
„What I hate is when you try to play the gentleman when you don’t have enough courage for this. Why? Because hatred impedes you from doing that. I feel this. Yet, as I’m not in the mood to argue with you right now, I say to go from here.”
„I was thinking the same thing because… you are the only one capable of driving me crazy. After that, as nothing has happened, you ask me to go for a walk.”
„Now it’s my fault?”
„Not mine?!” DooSan protected himself, squinting at her. „Although you often drive me crazy, I still want you close to me.”
The change felt in DooSan’s voice and those words that seemed he said from his heart made SolHi stare at him. Then, suddenly bursting into laughter, she managed to surprise DooSan when she asked, „Do you want me closer to you? Me?” DooSan nodded. „Alive or…?”
„Ia! Can you not exaggerate now? I was talking about being close to each other on the bike and going for a ride. The two of us.”
„You and I? To have a ride on the bike? Are you getting old and you turn sentimental or what? Or… have you treated your friends so well during the years that I’m the only one who can be now „close to you,” on a night with a full moon, close to the seashore?”
„This isn’t funny at all. Yet, you are right!”
„Wow, something unexpected: Han DooSan accepts that someone other than him can be right.”
„Can you stop this?!”
„Why? I am just calling the things by their real name because… you are damn suspicious today. And your offer.”
„I can’t see what can be suspect in having a ride on the bike, only the two of us.”
„No, it’s nothing strange if we have been lovers or together. Yet, as we aren’t either one or another, and when everybody knows that we love each other like the mice love the cats, yes, it seems strange to me if not perverse.”
DooSan cleared his voice, squinting at her. „And, as I stated earlier, you are the only person who can see black stains in a world that is as white as the milk. Or what, has everything in your life been betrayal and conspiracy?”
„It’s not that. It just… seems weird to me that my boss… My ex-boss, by the way, tells me to have a ride together on the bike. On the same bike.”
„In case you were unaware, this is the only one we possess,” DooSan jokingly said.
SolHi looked at him, confused. „A ride? With you on the… bike?” Seeing SolHi upset because she found his irony inappropriate, DooSan suddenly grabbed her arm and pulled her toward him, aware of what SolHi could do if he had given her enough time to think about this. Then, practically forcing her to climb on the bike, in front of him, he told her before starting pedaling:
„Ian SolHi, you tend to be stubborn at times! Like a mule! I just intend to demonstrate that others possess a heart as well.”
Such words made SolHi’s heart beat faster. She even felt herself blushing at one point, and the blood was circulating faster toward her brain. Yet, though she felt the urge to look into the man’s eyes, whose calm and pleasant breath she felt dancing on the skin of her neck, SolHi stubbornly forced herself to look only in front because she couldn’t admit that she lost that small war with Han DooSan: the war of their hearts.
DooSan felt the same or maybe weirder than her at that moment, although he seemed calm while pedaling. How not feel all this when he dreamt of such a romantic scene before?! Yet, in none of the cases, when DooSan had such a dream, SolHi had been the main hero of his story. No, at that moment was another woman, the one with whom he spent that night in a hotel room many years ago, a faceless woman, but who seemed to have gotten roots in DooSan’s heart, making it beat faster even at that moment when he was with another woman on the same bike.
***
„Lady in Red” by Chris De Burgh was so pleasantly resounding in SolHi’s small room. Who was listening to that melody was DooSan, in his headphones while looking for something through SolHi’s things. At one point, he even seemed irritated, despite the beautiful song he was listening to when he should have been calm. Yet, he wasn’t, and this seemed weird even to him, just as it was strange the fact that he was in her room, looking through her things when she hadn’t permitted it.
Although SolHi hadn’t permitted him to be there, DooSan didn’t seem bothered about this, but because he couldn’t find what he was looking for. „As though it vanished into the air or she hid it damn knows where. Or… has she done this to drive me crazy?”
He didn’t receive an answer to his question. DooSan only winced when he looked at the door where he saw SolHi. She was staring at him, gnashing her teeth a little while holding a small table with food on it. Not this mattered to her at that moment, but finding Han DooSan in her room, who looked damn suspicious and scared, like a kid that had been caught stealing things or doing something forbidden.
SolHi said nothing to DooSan after seeing him in her room, although she would have told him a lot of spicy things. She didn’t say anything, not even when DooSan seemed to have had a heart attack because her sudden appearance by the door scared him to hell. Because of this, DooSan even hissed through his teeth in the end, „You’ll kill me one day with your damn habit of sneaking around.” This enraged SolHi, who left the table on the floor with a bang. Then, turning toward him and throwing poisonous arrows from her eyes while staring at him, she told him:
„If you hadn’t entered my room like a thief, on the sly, to look through my things, you wouldn’t have been scared like hell now. Yet, no: you wanted to do that. Why? Were you looking for evidence or maybe for a piece of my underwear? Red, right?”
„Ia!” Shouted DooSan, being offended. „I’m not that perverse to look through your things, looking for… underwear,” he hissed through his teeth eventually, leaving the room while following SolHi. „I was just looking for a… towel.”
„I’m not Mother Teresa to believe that, or should I?” SolHi replied in a slightly mocking tone, although she was burning inside because, finding DooSan in her room, looking through her things, wasn’t something she liked. „Just as I don’t believe you when you say that you aren’t here to look for evidence. Those I supposedly hide.”
„Would you mind not exaggerating now?” DooSan told her, stopping only two steps away from the place where SolHi put the table and was already by it, sitting on her hips and staring at him. „I told you that I was looking for a towel. Is it that hard for you to believe it?”
„Yeah. Why? Because I can expect everything from you.”
„Not… everything, okay? I’m not a criminal, in case you didn’t know,” he hissed through his teeth, nervous and offended at the same time. Then he also sat in front of SolHi. Seeing her squinting at him, he put the spoon on the table with a bang. „What now?”
„Nothing. I’m just surprised by your short brain.”
„No insults, okay?”
„I? I haven’t insulted you, to know. I just call the things by their real name because… for someone who’s not „capable of taking someone’s life,” you have tried this twice. On my neck, not on somebody else’s neck. That’s why it’s damn hard for me to believe that you can’t kill.”
„Okay, you are right now: I’ve tried it! I accept that! Yet, you must also accept that I haven’t been able to do that eventually. This weighs in my favor, right?”
„Was this a question or a remark?”
„Remark because… if I wait for you to defend me, I can be killed thrice.”
SolHi reproachfully shook her head. „Be as you wish! I won’t have this argument with you for sure! Yet, next time you need a „towel,” ask for it, don’t look through my things. Who knows?! I can even give you a piece of my underwear with that towel.”
DooSan threw the spoon on the table again. „I’ll say no to it!”
„Why not? You look like the kind of man that wears a woman’s underwear!”
„Ia, Ian SolHi, show some respect, okay?! You have a man in front of you. A real man! So, respect me!”
„It is not about showing respect here. Why? Because even the „men that look good,” the real men, the macho men as they are also called, can love „beautiful” things. There’s nothing wrong with wearing a g-string.”
„Pff, you are a damn poisonous cobra for sure if you want this. You are biting from the most sensible part of someone’s body.”
„I learned this from you. And… if you are still in one piece after I have found you looking through my things, it means I’m not that venomous.”
„Why? Do you hide something there that you don’t want someone to enter your room?”
„Absolutely! The evidence you are looking for!”
DooSan frowned, feeling mockery in her voice. „This isn’t funny, SolHi!”
„Just as it isn’t funny at all that you’ve come here just to look for that evidence. Or what, have you thought that I’m that stupid to keep that evidence in sight? In my mother’s house, which the police checked after your brother’s death? Of course not!”
„This means that there is evidence.”
„I never said that there wasn’t evidence. I just said that it was something you shouldn’t know.”
„Alright then, be as you wish! If you don’t want to show it, I won’t insist! Yet, sooner or later, you show it to me alone!”
„Are you sure of that?”
„Of course, I’m sure! Why? Because you won’t win this war alone, Ian SolHi! You need me. And, as I’m sure you’ll look for my help, I just have to wait, calm, in my office, where you’ll look for me.”
„It’s up to you if you want to stay on your tail, waiting for me to ask you for help.”
„I’m not a dog, ok?!”
„I never said that. You are who has outlined this detail. Is it because it is the truth?”
DooSan said nothing, something that seemed strange to SolHi. She found it even weirder than his silence when she spotted him staring at the spoon with soup. „What now?”
„Nothing! I was just wondering if you poisoned the soup or not!”
It’s been SolHi’s turn to throw the spoon on the table. „Do you think you’ve gotten to the witches’realm or what? Or maybe to the lands of the dragons?” She hissed through her teeth. „If yes, you are damn paranoid because I’m not stupid to kill you in my house. Not when Mister Prosecutor from the Capital City has come to visit me and when the whole country knows that I’ve slept with him.”
„You are exaggerating now saying that we’ve slept together. Well, we slept together… on the same bed only. Yet, the others think we’ve done something else, right?” DooSan murmured, satisfied, as each time he managed to drive SolHi crazy.
„Honestly, I don’t see what you win with our „romance,” but… it’s up to you if you want to use it!”
„What do I win? Hm, how to say it to sound nice… I’m famous now?”
„For sleeping with a psycho? Does this make you happy?” SolHi asked, squinting at him.
„No. I was talking about our argument, which I won. This also convinced me that you weren’t capable of poisoning me. Not after all the love you showed me in my apartment.” SolHi strangely grinned. „You wouldn’t have been capable of doing this, would you?”
„Do you think this?!”
„No, not after I’ve seen this grin that only a witch is capable of having. A witch that can get water from a hard stone.”
„Ia, Han DooSan, are you stupid or only pretending to be one? If I wanted to kill you, I would have done this on that lavender field. Or… no, you would have been able to do it instead. It wouldn’t have been something you hadn’t tried before.”
„It is something I haven’t managed to do eventually, you must accept that too. However, nothing impedes me from trying it again. What do you think… will it be incendiary if I try it again?”
„Only if you want to be left without hands. And… eat at once!”
„Why? I mean, why shouldn’t I have said it? I was just trying to be the bad boy, at least once in my life. To feel how life flows through my veins, or something like that. It sounds poetic, I think.”
„What will sound poetic will be: Prosecutor Han DooSan has finally gotten revenge on his brother’s assassin, killing her in a lavender field. In this case… on a beach. Nobody will judge you if you do that. Or… maybe nobody will also suspect you of doing this because nobody has seen you entering my house.”
„Yeah, nobody saw me: only half of the village that saw us on the same bike,” he mumbled in a mocking tone, sipping from the soup. „Yet, I must accept that it sounds tempting because…”
Poor DooSan remained with his mouth wide-open when he spotted someone grabbing SolHi by the hair. Looking up, he saw a woman about fifty, who looked completely out of reality, pulling SolHi by the hair and struggling with her while SolHi was fighting to release herself. This only enraged the woman, who started to shout, „Easy woman! I told you so many times before to stop hovering around my husband. Yet, you never listen. Why? Is it easier for you to take another’s man than finding your own man?”
What was happening at that moment with SinHa, stunned DooSan. He hadn’t ever expected to see someone attacking SolHi. It wasn’t a simple passerby, but her mother because, although old Pan had told him that SolHi’s mother was schizophrenic, DooSan hadn’t thought that it was that bad. More than that, he had never expected to hear the woman yelling at SolHi, „I’m tired of seeing how you try to destroy my family. I’m tired of fighting with you, bi…ch! Yet, I won’t ever give up! Do you hear me? I won’t ever allow you to be happy with him.”
SinHa’s madness didn’t last long. The moment SolHi had been able to release herself from her sick mother’s hands, she stared at SinHa with the eyes of a beast, something that made her mother pull back. SinHa even shook her head when SolHi shouted, „What about me, mother? What happens to me now, have ever thought about this? Will you ever see me too, Mother? For how long should I keep suffering, paying for what my father has done to you with all his lovers?”
SolHi’s words made SinHa seem confused for a few moments. Then, she pounced on SolHi again. Yet, she didn’t manage to touch her this time because of DooSan, who suddenly immobilized her. After that, along with old Yejin, who was taking care of SinHa, he kept the sick woman away from her daughter. However, this didn’t impede SinHa to keep struggling to release herself and yell at SolHi, accusing her of all the bad things that happened on earth, not recognizing her at all.
Because of the insults, although she was aware that SinHa didn’t know what she was saying in that fit of madness, SolHi burst into a cry. „What about me, Mother? Why should I pay for the fact that you have decided to bring me into this world while trying to keep that man with you?” Questions that made DooSan stare at SolHi, stunned because of that sudden confession. SolHi, not paying attention to him or that SinHa looked even madder than before, kept shouting through tears, „Why should I pay for your sins, Mother? Why do you hurt me when you should have made him suffer? Why should I suffer for you, Ku SinHa? Why? If I live, it’s because of you, who has brought me into this world. I live, swallowing all the bitter pills you give me to swallow every day. Even so, I kept living, hoping to be seen one day by you, Mother. I had hoped you would love me too one day. Instead of love, you slapped me all the time, insulted me, trampled me, hurt me, and made me pay for your sins. Why, Mother? Why?”
„SolHi, please!” The old woman implored her. „You know very well that she doesn’t know what she does or says.”
„I don’t care!” SolHi shouted, completely driven crazy. „Why should I care about her when she has never cared about me?”
„Because she’s sick and you are not?”
„No, Aunt Yejin! Don’t defend her, because it has always been like this! Even when she was lucid and didn’t suffer from Alzheimer’s, I paid for others’sins and mistakes. I paid for her mistakes because she loved a man that didn’t deserve her. Yet, it has been enough for me, you know! I won’t allow her to insult me anymore! I’m tired! That’s why, if she wants to live, let her do it away from me! I’m done with that stupid SolHi, who has tolerated everything. I’m done with all this!”
Eyes bathed by tears and with her soul in fire, SolHi looked at her hands that were badly shaking. She was barely controlling herself not to jump on SinHa and get revenge for everything her mother did to her. She couldn’t act differently at that moment because she couldn’t tolerate SinHa trampling her, slapping her, and hurting her when she was alone and unprotected.
Eventually, spotting DooSan’s eyes focused on her and seeing pity in his glance, SolHi turned her back to them and went away. She didn’t look back even for a second or care about SinHa’s shouts, who released from the trap of DooSan and old Yejin’s arms and got in the middle of the yard, yelling behind SolHi to vanish from the earth’s surface because she didn’t deserve to live. Unlike SolHi, who seemed not to care about what she left behind, DooSan was overwhelmed because it was hard also for him to believe what he saw. He didn’t feel joy seeing SolHi’s suffering, although he dreamt about knocking her down so many times before that. No, he didn’t want this anymore because… he suffered the same SolHi suffered when he saw pain in her eyes, something that made him burn inside and made him crouch with pain seeing her leaving, without looking back.