Chapter 54

Chapter 54: Chapter 54

“Oh my god!” exclaimed Jina, slapping her on the back.

“Are you crazy? Why would you sleep with him? Come to your senses!”

“He hasn’t gotten married yet.”

“You told me he’s going to, right? He’s got the matrimonial home and fiance. And you said you saw his wedding picture, right? Can’t you give him up?”

“He cancelled off marriage with me. Why can’t he do the same to his fiancé?”

“Wake up! You’ll be sent to prison if you commit adultery. Even though there is no adultery law, do you think you can live with him as an adulterous woman? All your personal life will be revealed on the Internet. Don’t ever expect me to offer you private meals when you’re behind bars! Stop it right now!”

At that moment, a guy looked at Jina and approached her. Looking askance at her, he sat at the table next to her.

“Are you Jina?”

Arum tilted her head to one side when she looked at the stranger. She knew everything about Jina’s love affairs, but he was unfamiliar to her. Besides, Jina, who scolded her, furious with anger, was now silent. And she turned her eyes away, which made Arum embarrassed.

“Oh, you have a company. As you know, I worked at the company that had business deals with your company. I took vacation leave to come to Korea briefly. I’m glad to see you here, so I just came by to say hello.”

Bowing politely to her, that guy gave Jina his business card.

“I see your contact number changed. Give me a call if you can.”

He looked at Jina sadly and then left the place.

Jina stared into space until he disappeared.

“Let’s get out.”

Jina took out cash from her wallet and headed to the counter quickly. She offered another drink to Arum a moment ago, but she didn’t even stagger as she sobered up now.

As if she didn’t want to stay there even for another second, she paid with cash and didn’t wait for the change.

Obviously, Jina was acting strangely. Only after she got out of the bar did Arum know who he was.

“You didn’t…?” asked Arum.

But Jina quickly got in a taxi waiting before the bar even before Arum managed to ask her.

“Let me go home now. I feel unwell. Sorry.”

Jina then closed the door of the taxi.

Late at night, Arum lay back on her bed but couldn’t sleep easily. Rather, she became more and more sober. She began to count sheep up to 300 to go to sleep, but gave up. Rather than go to sleep, she kept conjuring up Konsu’s wedding picture.

‘Do you think I can bring private food to you?’

Jina’s warning at the bar rang loudly in her ears.

Never did Arum think she would experience what she had told Jina one year ago.

And that guy she just saw at the bar.

She was reminded of her remarks to Jina one year ago because of that man at the bar.

Two years ago Jina met the team leader of a company that her company had business relations with. Both of them shared their interest in baseball, and soon became lovers. Their relationship was natural, but they dated secretly.

Arum came to know about it by chance. Actually, she initially thought it was strange that Jina didn’t tell her about it.

“That guy is prudent. I don’t think it’s good that our secret dating is caught by others. He is the team leader of our company’s client company,” Jina said at that time.

However, Jina came to know about the real secret about ten months after she dated him secretly. That man, or that bastard, was a married man. Worse, his wife delivered twins a month ago. While his wife was pregnant, he had been dating Jina.

The problem was Jina had a crush on him. Such a smart and logical woman like Jina became dumb when Arum talked about him. Her feelings about him were just one-sided love.

Losing patience, Arum heaped insults upon her, citing numerous examples.

Then, one day, Jina broke with him suddenly. It was because of his wife’s call.

In an elegant and generous voice, she called Jina and said, “I don’t want to take issue with this matter, Jina. I know you’re a smart woman, right?”

And that woman continued, “I can’t go out, so I asked my elder sister to go out and meet you. I would like to meet you, too, and find out who is this woman whom my husband loves. I’m very curious. Can you meet?”

Jina said in a cold voice.

The moment Jina heard that, she got goosebumps. Jina refused her, but her elder sister came to the basement cafe of Jina’s company.

According to Jina, her request to Jina for them to meet was not genuine. As it turned out, Jina had no other choice but to meet her sister.

While meeting face to face with her elder sister, Jina couldn’t raise her head. It seemed that everybody was pointing fingers at her like a scarlet letter was inscribed on her forehead. Jina said she didn’t want to remember that shameful day.

“Sorry. My brother-in-law made a big mistake. My younger sister was too sensitive when she was pregnant. Sorry. I think he hurt your feelings a lot. Please let me know how I can make compensations on our end, be it money or counsel.”

That was an elegant revenge on her end.

Jina said later, “I was like a worm that should be killed by treading.”

After all, in other people’s eyes, Jina was nothing but an evil woman who broke another woman’s family. To make matters worse, that guy who deceived Jina with sweet talk of predestined love never called Jina after he was caught red-handed.

After she met the wife’s elder sister, Jina took vacation leave by using all available vacation hours. Confined in her house, she kept crying without eating. When her friends couldn’t contact her for three days, Arum came to her house. In the end, Jina was taken to an emergency room and she had to see the doctor for psychiatric help.

After she got all her troubles off her chest later, she said, “I wish she had dragged me by the hair. If she had hurled curses on me, I would have struggled desperately and cursed at that bastard!”

At that time, Arum learned a lot of things. How dreadful marriage was! Lovers could solve the problem legally if they were caught dating different men or women. But the moment they reported to the authorities about their marriage, something like ownership of each other was created.

Jina belatedly found out that the mother of his wife was a board member. After that, he was reassigned to a US branch.

In the end, Jina lost a man and the client company.

Arum was curious. When she was having a hard time after breaking up with Konsu, Arum asked Jina, “Hey, Jina. I’m so sad. Did you find your psychological counseling helpful?”

“Not really.”

“Don’t you think you got better after the counselling?”

“I got better, but I recovered after reading a poet’s collection of poems. It’s by poet Kyongmi Kim.”

Then Jina took her to a bookstore right away and gave Kim’s poetry book to her.

“Read it little by little. Don’t cry while reading her poems.”

Jina said she cried and cried while reading her poem titled <Shush, My Second>.

While counting the number of sheep on the bed, Arum suddenly recalled that poetry book. She took it from the bookshelf and opened it under the night lamp.

And she followed the characters quietly. Each character of the poem deeply touched her.

Arum bit her lips.

‘Dang it! How did I end up being Konsu’s second!’

Never did she imagine it, nor could she accept it.

‘No, I can’t do this. No way.’

Though she bit her lip, she was more heartbroken.

Only after Jina realized that she was his second did she become an adult.

‘How can I dare say that I’m an adult?’ Arum strongly reproached herself. She didn’t feel pleased with the fact that she was Konsu’s second woman for the first time in her life. She realized that she had reached an age when she couldn’t simply follow her heart to love someone.

If she had realized this a bit earlier, she would have loved anybody as much as she could.

She felt heavy when she closed the book.

***

Parking his car in the garage, Hojoon frowned when he found that his house was lit up again.

While he was spending time with Arum at Namsan Tower, his phone kept buzzing. Confirming that the caller was Soran Cho, he ignored the calls. Now, she visited his house again.

Why didn’t he change the password on the front door lock?

There was a reason for that.

After he went through Arum’s misfortune, he realized that any person who wanted to break into the door could simply ignore any security measures

With a deep breath, he walked up the stairs.

As expected, the intruder was Soran Cho.

“You’re late today, Hojoon.”