My Own Korean Drama
Chapter 15 - Under the Huge Rain
Water falling from the sky
I don't know who will share an umbrella with me
If his shoulders are wetter
He loves me more than himself
Brown strands of hair were strewn under the dresser. Equipment for hair painting is also scattered on the dressing table. My brown hair has darkened. The long hair now lives on a shoulder. This is the shortest cut I've ever made. I looked at my face without makeup. Pale. Only that word can describe my situation. No more beaming faces with blushing lips even the ash singlet I was wearing showed a scar on my left chest that was clearly visible. I looked at Jacob from the mirror.
“Are you sure it’s gonna be worth it?” Jacob asked who seemed worried about me. Strange enough that Jacob suddenly appeared in the middle of this book as someone who loved me very much, but that's it. We rarely communicate but I know wherever I am, Jacob will know. Whatever I'm going through, Jacob will know. It seems like he deliberately put some of his people around me which of course I don't know who.
“Honestly I still love him, I won’t ever stop loving him,” my mouth voiced a confession that I had so far refused. Jacob walked closer to me.
“Then, how about that boy?” Ask Jacob again.
“I will always love him. I love him more,”
“But, you have to choose one!” Jacob shouted.
“For now, I choose my first love,”
“That’s not fair,”
“I know, love is never fair.” I looked up into my brother's eyes. Jacob brushed his hair back then breathed heavily while walking out of my room. I looked back at myself in the glass. She's not Trine McKenzie. The girl who bounced there was Christina Mackenzie. Her skin was pale with clear-looking eye bags.
MY OWN KOREAN DRAMA
I went to Jogja not with Auriga. I booked a separate flight. I don't know what will happen to me during the trip but people shouldn't be able to recognize me anymore. The journey to London is very slow. Every second that passed seemed to be a needle piercing through my body.
After the plane was in the air, I picked up the book Su Ryeon Unnie gave me. I went to the first page and wrote down how this all started. I thought long enough to find the opening of the story I wanted to write. I tapped on the little plane table. Feeling deadlocked, I was about to pick up the box containing the earphones. Instead of getting what I wanted, Min-wook's necklace box appears with my hand coming out of the bag. I opened it again. I was still stunned to see that little locket. Maehwa flower, I think it's a good opener. The end of spring can be a great opening to start my story.
There was not much I did on the first day I arrived. Auriga picked me up at the airport then took me to a seaside villa. I was given my own room upstairs while Auriga's room was downstairs. I closed the door immediately after entering the room. I'm heading to the balcony of the room. The view of the sea with the sun almost drowning greeted me. I reached into the jacket pocket and took out Min-wook's necklace. I open the necklace hook and put it on my neck, I miss Min-wook.
A knock on the bedroom door pulls me back from feeling homesick for Min-wook. I approached the door and opened it slowly. Auriga was at the door. One of his hands thrust out a bag while saying, “later tonight there will be dinner with my family, be prepared.”
MY OWN KOREAN DRAMA
The smell of rain penetrated my smell as my feet stepped towards the car. I threw a glance at the sky as the car drove. It's all black up there. The moon chose to hide behind clouds that might bring down rain later.
I glanced at the neat Auriga with a maroon shirt. He was still enchanting just that the charm was no longer able to bother me anymore. I think my feelings for Min-wook are more domineering. I don't know when that statement of love will return. It could be that the statement will not come back.
I saw my reflection in the windshield. My face was not as pale as when I arrived. A polite dress in matching colors with a shirt Auriga wore. We look like a good couple.
The beach scene is replaced with urban buildings. The weather changed with water falling from the sky. Sure enough my guess is, it rained when the car stopped in front of the diner. Auriga went down first with an umbrella in her hand. The car door opened with Auriga's umbrella on it. We had to walk far enough to get to the little cottage of this restaurant. Right shoulder, and the bottom of my dress is wet with rainwater. So does Auriga's shirt which looks darker on her left shoulder.
Shortly after we arrived, Madame Dilaeni and Aquila came. I spontaneously stood looking at them. Aquila looked at me with a happy twinkle in contrast to her mother who was looking at me with a frown. Dinner was like dinner in general except for Madam Dilaeni's gaze.
The moon shone brightly when we finished eating. I walked back from the bathroom. The atmosphere of the garden at night held my steps back. I stood in the garden admiring the moon as Madame Dilaeni approached me. The woman who was at the end of the five heads stood firmly beside me. Auriga, and Aquila were conversing alone in the little cottage we had eaten earlier.
“It looks like you were a little rained down when you arrived,” said Mrs Dilaeni opened the conversation. Madame Dilaeni is staring at the moon tonight.
“Yes, it suddenly rained when we arrived,” I replied pleasantly then smiled. Madam Dilaeni's gaze softened, unlike when she first saw me earlier.
“You two are bound without feeling right?” Ask Madame Dilaeni without hesitation. I looked down and sniffed amusedly to answer it. Even without us saying it, this person next to me knows it.
“If Auriga loves you so much should your shoulders not get wet she will willingly get wetter in the rain, so on the contrary,” he explained.
“Then what should I do if we both love? The umbrella is too small so there is no way we are not at all raining,”
“Many ways not to be exposed to rain water, and every couple has their own way, if it is not like yes leave him, just leave him,” answers which is a phrase that means if someone feels unhappy with the way his partner treats him, it never hurts to leave his partner.
“Do you say that because I'm your daughter's former bodyguard?” I asked a little rude because I was offended by her words.
“Are you stupid? You think I didn't know that you were Paul's son? You are even a well-respected actress in Korea, where maybe I reject a daughter-in-law like you, you are a dream daughter-in-law,” Madam Dilaeni replied with a slight raise of her tone.
“I'm saying this because I don't want you to regret forcing yourself beside her as well as being a mother, I don't want my son to regret holding someone who doesn't want to be detained,” is obviously this middle-aged woman. I was quite touched by his explanation. There seems to be a story behind every word.
“According to you why Auriga holds me back if it doesn't have that feeling?” I'm starting to get comfortable talking to Mrs Dilaeni.
“I left him when he only had me as a place to go home. When she met you, she felt like you were her home,”
“In essence Auriga had trauma from being abandoned then becoming obsessed with me,” I tried to deduce.
“Like that, I feel a little guilty to you,” said Mrs Dilaeni then bowed. Suddenly sad mood.
“What is my son bothering you?” Madame Dilaeni asked as she lifted her head then looked at me deeply.
“She was quite troublesome, she spread my privacy, my past, even I was forced to decide my lover because of her,” my reply ended with a smile that anyone would know was a smile of sarcasm.
“So that's the reason for asking me to open a branch in Korea,” commented Mrs Dilaeni then grunted angrily. A hand grabbed my arm, it was Madame Dilaeni's.
“Didn't she already have a lover?” I asked as I remembered the girl standing next to her on New Year's Eve 2017.
“Yes, it's her lover, more precisely her ex-lover. I had expected that she would still come back to you, Auriga did not really love that girl,” Madam Dilaeni replied as she looked up at the sky.
“You've heard of me before?” I asked because Madame Dilaeni said that she had expected this to happen, meaning she had heard of me and Auriga before.
“Aquila, she told me everything. Everything that happens at the Aquila Mansion. How she loved you like her own sister, how Auriga looked angry when she saw you get hurt, that's when I knew that my son was already in love with a girl,” replied Mrs Dilaeni with a smile that continued to adorn the sentence.
“He was my first love and my first wound but I can't be by his side anymore because there are other people who can heal that wound,” I said as I looked down at the ground below me.
“Please forgive him,” pinta Nyonya Dilaeni while sobbing. A mother asks a girl to forgive her son. This is a request I cannot possibly fulfill. I turned to the middle-aged woman next to me then stroked her back slowly.
“I still love Auriga just that I don't want to spend my day with her anymore,”.
“Is anyone already ruined because of his behavior?” Ask Madame Dilaeni again. My heart, my heart is broken, I replied in my heart.
“I chose to go back to him even if it was forced at least something more valuable not to be destroyed,” answered me trying to calm down.
“Thank you for loving my son,” said Mrs Dilaeni amid her stuffing. One of Mrs Dilaeni's hands grabbed my cheek and then solemnly said, “now go after what or whoever you want, let me face my son this time. Look for a man who doesn't have a problem wet shoulders for your dry shoulders.”
MY OWN KOREAN DRAMA
Tonight I stared at the sky more lightly than in previous days. It felt like the weight on my shoulders had been lifted completely. This is the first day, and the last time I stayed one roof with Auriga. After returning home from the restaurant earlier, Auriga and Madame Dilaeni engaged in a serious conversation in Auriga's study. I myself rushed into the room after dinner last night.
Maybe you're confused as to why I left Min-wook, and went back to Auriga who was clearly trying to bring me down. I am grateful to take the decision to fulfill Auriga's wishes to Indonesia, at least there are no more scandals published related to my past. If only I stubbornly held out next to Min-wook, maybe the problem got longer. One new fact that I know, R, my former co-worker while still working at Aquila Mansion is the manager of Arsen, the man I idolized. The world is very narrow, as narrow as an umbrella that makes one's shoulders wet from loving another. Right now my only problem is my own feelings, the ego inside me. I'm the one giving a point into the sentence for my story and Min-wook's. Is there still fire inside me to continue the story between us?
I put my back on the back of the balcony chair facing the open sea. Back I picked up Su Ryeon Unnie's handbook. My hand again scratched the ink connecting sentence by sentence writing down how the day went. They both hold umbrellas, but they make different decisions.
MY OWN KOREAN DRAMA
The End of Summer 2012
Like most late summers, rain falls on hot ground more often. From the top of the bus I could see how the rain soaked the earth mercilessly. Some people who did not carry umbrellas ran towards the roof. I just got back from Grandma's. I took the bus to get back to the dorm.
I got off the bus a little rushed. The rain this afternoon is pouring down on Seoul. The bus drove back leaving me and a few others at the stop. I was sitting on a wooden bench that slightly surprised me when I first sat down because it was cold. Some people who did not carry umbrellas waited for the rain to subside under the roof of the stop. If it hadn't rained this hard I would have run towards the dorm.
“Nuna! Nuna!” The sound pulled me from the daydream. I looked up to find the source of the sound. I smiled at the six-man rowing across the street. After so many children alternated into this debut line, now the six of them, Jung Seo joined last March. Hyun Sik, and Dae Ho share an umbrella while Eun Hyuk, Wook Ok, and Jung Seo become one in a sizable umbrella. Min-wook runs the very back with an umbrella to himself. The other five turn towards the dorm while Min-wook crosses over on the white line.
“Last-lately it rains a lot, why does Nuna not bring an umbrella?” Ask Min-wook. No-no, Min-wook doesn't ask with his tone nagging his sisters. Min-wook asks with gentleness. I got up from the chair and joined under the umbrella that Min-wook used and replied, “lucky you came when I didn't bring an umbrella.”
I can feel that Min-wook is tilting his umbrella to keep my body from getting wet. Then Min-wook and I walk side by side under one umbrella towards the dorm. I can see that Min-wook's shoulders are getting wet. I clasped the umbrella pole over Min-wook's grasp to have Min-wook's shoulder covered in an umbrella.
“It's okay, Nuna, it's a risk of having a wide shoulder,” Min-wook said as he tilted his umbrella back at me. I giggled at the answer. Our footsteps finally stopped in front of each other's dorm door. To this day I still live alone. None of the trainees were placed with me.
The clouds outside continued to drop rainwater without pause. It looks like the rain will last until dawn. I stirred the kimchi jjigae back in the pot. This portion is not for myself alone. I'm going to share it with the six boys in the next room, especially Min-wook because he was a little bit rained on earlier.
The rain stopped when dinner came. Finally the seven of us decided to eat at the rooftop. After drying the wooden cots, we all started dinner together. Even though it was almost eight o'clock in the night, the sky was still bright. In summer, the sun goes down more slowly. Each of us held a bowl filled with rice. Dinner this time is decorated with quarrels Min-wook and Wook Ok. The two men were wondering who had more right to spend my kimchi jjigae. I don't know why I really enjoy fighting those two guys. I will definitely miss trivia like this. If Min-wook lets his shoulders get wet so that my shoulders dry then I'll give him a kimchi jjigae to warm him up. That is the unwritten rule that exists between us. No agreement, no previous talks. I hope Min-wook will always be there in every downpour so I can give him a bowl of kimchi jjigae.