Chapter 23

Chapter 23: Chapter 23

Never had Arum been more thrilled than today when she stood before the door of the small room in her house.

Standing before it, she recalled the bitter memories of her painful breakup with Konsu because of just one ramen. But she was now thrilled with the promise a rosy and happy future.

“Geomancy, wow!”

Before she was engaged in the geomancy of love that Hojoon promised to her, she decided to translate into action what she learned from his online lecture.

First of all, she cleaned even her unused room, so that dust could not collect. Sunlight and ventilation in such a room would be desirable, let alone hanging a wind chime to drive out the bad spirit of the room.

She threw open the door of the small room.

But there was one thing she didn’t think through in advance, which was that she was overwhelmed by a sense of lethargy and depression whenever she entered this room.

She couldn’t act up to her words.

She couldn’t throw away the boxes with new home products. She could meet Konsu again.

What was the point of cleaning this room everyday?

It was even burdensome for her to clean her own main bedroom once a week.

‘That villa was a wrong choice from the beginning.’

Whenever she looked at the home furnishings for marriage, she felt regret.

Her house in Green Villa was a rented room. She used to live there on a monthly rent, and later purchased it when its owner listed it for sale.

In fact, she wanted a bigger house. Since she would get married to Konsu, she wished she could live in a better house.

But she didn’t have the money.

Konsu just started working as an intern. He asked her to wait for two years. But Arum went ahead and purchased the rented villa.

She wished she had waited for two years as he requested.

But it was too late. Konsu felt stressed out because of his self-awareness of his financial incompetence.

Arum and Konsu agreed to use 50 million won to purchase the house, which their parents gave for their wedding, and spend the spare cash on buying home furnishings.

Though it was a shabby house, both wanted to enjoy their newly-married life fully.

Both felt they could create a wonderful atmosphere in the room with a little more decoration.

At that time, both of them had to work late into the night almost everyday as they were new hires. Nonetheless, they cut down on sleep and worked even during the weekends to save time for the interior construction of their shabby house at their own expenses.

But they ran into an unexpected trouble.

Arum didn’t like the sink.

She couldn’t dismiss her cherished dream of a beautiful kitchen. She decided since childhood that when she got married, she would get a spacious kitchen and buy all kinds of cooking utensils and plates.

‘Spicy seafood soup with freshly cooked rice. Pasta seasoned with bacon and abundant cheese and wine during the weekend. When the crab season comes, I am going to steam crabs in a large pot and enjoy them over soju with Konsu.’

Arum’s imagination went wild about her life after marriage.

‘I’m going to bake cookies for my children everyday.’

‘Oh, when winter comes, let me make grapefruit tea, lemon tea and citron tea by myself.’

As a woman who was dreaming of such things, Arum couldn’t take the broken sink.

As the last expedient, she tried to glue the broken part of the sink, but in vain.

However, Konsu was practical. In his eyes, the sink was functioning alright. Though it was old and shabby, it was still a sink.

He tried to persuade her out of it, emphasizing the need to save money in order to move to a bigger house as soon as possible.

But Arum was not persuaded.

“It’s our matrimonial home. I really can’t use this broken sink, no matter how hard I try. As you know, a kitchen is a woman’s space. I would like to make it a beautiful space,” she said.

Konsu responded, “You and I are working. How often do you think you can cook here? I would rather buy food outside. And you have had no problem with that up to now.”

But Arum resisted, saying, “Are you going to keep cooking ramen all the time here? Don’t you want to invite your friends here?”

Konsu talked back nonchalantly, “Just call for take-out. We don’t have to care about others. I know you don’t cook well.”

That was true.

Though she wanted to cook well, she didn’t. She really tried hard to cook well, but she didn’t have the taste or the hands when it came to food.

“Well, I had no time to cook then. I think I can cook well if I try.”

She tried to persuade him with a clumsy excuse.

“There now! You don’t have time to cook or stay in the kitchen. More often than not you and I will have to eat at the company. During the weekends my senior friends usually eat out,” said Konsu.

“Hey, this is our newly-married life. If you want to keep the status quo, it no different from living alone. I really can’t give in as far as the sink is concerned,” she talked back.

“Aren’t you aware of our budget?” asked Konsu.

“I know it. But let’s change it this time. When will we change it if not this time? You and I promised to start our newly-married life at a new condominium, but we ended up here,” she replied.

In the end, that portion of her remarks offended his pride.

“Hey, we’re not living here on a monthly rent. It’s our house!”

“That’s why I want to change the sink!”

After that, their quarrel escalated to an uncontrollable situation where Konsu announced their disengagement on the day they were supposed to share one ramen.

Though she put it behind her, it was still stuck in her memory as a deep regret that could not be forgotten even until today.

In the end, she stepped back from the small room.

She didn’t want to clean it by herself.

The most difficult thing for her after she broke off the engagement was to inform her family and friends of that unhappy news.

“O my… I wish you had been a little more patient.”

When someone said that, she replied with a smile, “I think so too.”

Nonetheless, she couldn’t reply to them, “I broke up because of a broken sink.”

However, she couldn’t hide it from her mother.

“How come you got divorced because of that petty sink?” demanded her mother.

Her mother scolded her severely with an intensity that she had never experienced before.

“How stupid are you! You can change it at some point while you’re living with him. A man doesn’t know anything about it. You stupid girl!”

“Oh my god…” she let out a sigh with remorse.

She got a rude awakening.

At that time, she didn’t know that lesson. She just purchased home furnishings just because others did the same for their wedding.

Actually, she didn’t have to buy them at the time. Again, she didn’t have a knack for it. She blindly followed what others were doing.

Both of them didn’t know how to meet each other halfway and insisted on their own lifestyles. Basically, they were not mature enough to get married. Financially, they were hit hard by the breakup.

Both of them severed contact with each other on that very day of their breakup.

Come to think of it, the expenses of the sink replacement would have been much smaller.

After all, the reason for their breakup was not because of the sink, nor one ramen. As she didn’t know the real reason, she couldn’t get over her lingering attachment to him.

Some might ask why she didn’t know the reason, but she couldn’t figure it out even now.

After she broke up with Konsu, she cried for three days, staying away from work without any notice. If her company, where she landed a job with difficulty, had not been generous, she would have been fired.

She hated seeing others because she felt she failed in her marriage life even before she started it. She couldn’t stand living in the matrimonial house where she got divorced.

In the end, she put it up for sale.

The old real estate broker looked around it and said, “You should have offered it for sale. It’s too windy here. Good decision. You were the third owner of this house. Do you know that the second owner got divorced, and the original owner did a moonlight flit?”

“Really?”

“You were completely taken in.”

Only then did Arum recall the seller who offered it for sale urgently at a value cheaper than the market price.

The middle-aged man, who looked tired all the time, got divorced and left the neighborhood.

Having heard what the broker said, she looked at her villa again.

Compared with other villas, her villa was slanted a bit to the outside. It was pretty windy because of that. She could still recall that howling and ghostly sound instead of a sweet and pleasant breeze.

“Do you think you can sell my house in a situation like this?” asked Arum.