Chapter 27
When I returned to the cafe, AhJung was no longer there. Not again! Where did she disappear to this ti? I stalked over to the table with the intention of going after her. As I went to grab my phone from the table, I felt a presence at my feet. I looked under the table and saw AhJung there. She was crouched on the floor wiping the spilled water with a stack of napkins.
“What are you doing down there?” I asked. Frowning at the ridiculousness of it, I pushed away the table that was blocking AhJung from view.
“I was just wiping the water off the floor,” she said tearfully.
“Why are you wiping the water I threw?”
“Uh, it’s...I just got used to wiping the bathroom floor for the last month. I was afraid the tiles here would get dirty too.”
AhJung looked back down and rubbed in between the tiles. I beca so infuriated by this sight that I reprimanded her severely.
“Why are you making a fuss over a couple of drops?”
“Because you made a fuss about a couple of drops,” AhJung retorted, then froze realizing what she said.
“That’s when I was making you do it!” Angrily, I grabbed Na AhJung’s shoulder and made her stand up. “Now, you should be telling the employees to do it!” I said shaking her.
“We’re the ones who spilled it...”
“Waiter!” I yelled for the waiter in the far corner. An employee who was doing sothing else at the counter saw us and ca running.
“Where do you get your coffee from?” I asked the employee.
“Excuse ? Uh, it’s—”
I opened my mouth, not letting the employee continue his stuttering. “Did you pluck it off the coffee trees from the moon?”
“Sorry?”
“Based on its taste, it looks to be from Ethiopia or Guatemala. You seem to be using the sa beans as other cafés yet when they charge $5 you charge us $20. There must be a reason.”
The employee stared at , not knowing what I was hoping to hear.
“I think that the $20 includes the taste and service of the place, so don’t you think it’s necessary to at least do one of those things? Make it taste good, help a custor if she is wiping water off the floor.” I pointed at the floor with my finger, my eyes blazing.
The employee finally seed to understand and nodded quickly. “Oh, yes, we’ll clean it up right away.”
The employee rushed to the counter and went to the storage closet. Seeing this, I turned my attention back to AhJung.
“The coffee I paid for includes this sort of service. I didn’t ask for sothing that was not on the nu, nor did I ask them to make coffee from peas. I’m just telling them to clean up the ss they will eventually clean up later, now. So why are you crouching down there and doing that alone? Let’s live knowing your rights, please!”
After reprimanding her sharply, I grabbed Na AhJung by the arm and left the cafe.
***
Up until the mont, we arrived back at the house, my lecture continued.
“Why do you lack such confidence? Why didn’t you throw water in that jerk’s face and just sit there? How could you not be angry when he disrespected you like that?”
Throughout my speech, AhJung wore an expression of confusion. Her eyes were narrow and her lips pouted. Then, as if the situation seed to be making less and less sense to her, she frowned even more and tilted her head back and forth.
Having arrived in the living room, I stopped AhJung and poked at her temple. “What are you thinking in here, let’s at least hear it.”
“You won’t want to hear it.” She watched hesitantly with scared eyes.
“I’ll be the judge of whether I’ll like what I hear or not. I might not like it, but maybe I will. The possibility is half and half. If you don’t say anything, however, then there’s a 100% chance I won’t be happy. Can you calculate which one is the better option?”
“If I tell you, will you go easy on ?”
“Go easy on you?”
“Even if it’s sothing bad, will you not be so scary about it.”
“Fine.” As I accepted her offer, Na AhJung swallowed nervously and with a new determination, opened her mouth.
“You are angry at what that man said about but you treated like that before too. You acted like there’s nothing about worth seeing, and you couldn’t understand why your brother would like soone like . You said I was dirtying your pure brother’s family na.”
I did. That’s true, I did say those things. I was lost for words rembering the harsh things I had said. AhJung continued quietly with a ek expression.
“I didn’t think much about it back then. Because to a point, it was true. In anyone’s eyes, JiKyung was too good for . And now, it’s the sa. It’s not like I suddenly got better, I’m still the sa. But back then, you thought it was obvious that I should accept this fact and now you think that there’s sothing wrong with acting like this. I can’t understand it. It was right back then but wrong now?”
In my entire life, had never been at a loss for words for more than ten seconds, but frustratingly enough, I had nothing to say after ten and even twenty seconds. Even after AhJung left the room to take a call I was still speechless. I stood there numbly. Why, for what reason, was I getting so angry? However much I thought about it, I couldn’t find the answer, so I walked to my room toward my bed. I needed a place to lie down and think.
***
The music I chose to accompany as I laid in my bed was Beethoven’s symphony. I was hoping the dramatic music would seep into my brain and wake it up. I listened to it intently, thinking with all my might.
I know my brother is gay, but Na AhJung doesn’t. She believes that my brother loves her, and that is why they can’t get married. Yes. That is why I am feeling guilty toward Na AhJung. That much is obvious. That makes sense. That’s why I want to treat her nicely and to repent for what I did to her previously.
But my anger over another guy disrespecting AhJung didn’t make sense. Even if she was being fooled by my brother, AhJung was still AhJung. She was not suddenly family or anything. Like she said, nothing about her had changed. What did it matter if soone else complained about the sa things I did about her? Why does that make angry?
I tried to decipher the reasoning behind my anger by going over the situation again. As I rembered Hyun JungHoon’s words, fire rose up in again. Whoa, what is wrong with ? I shot up from the bed. This is not obvious! This doesn’t make sense! Why am I getting angry at what happened to Na AhJung? As if soone was criticizing my cooking...wait. My cooking? My only budding unfulfilled dream? Am I putting Na AhJung on the sa level as my dream? Aha!
As the answer popped into my head, I clapped my hands together. My cooking never got a chance to be acknowledged. No one knew how much I liked it and how good I was at it. AhJung was the sa. She never got the chance to be acknowledged, like my cooking. I know my cooking’s true potential. I know Na AhJung’s true potential. Both never got a good chance to be acknowledged. So it is reasonable to be angry at Hyun JungHoon. He was unable to see the hidden beauty when I shoved it right under his nose. He never gave AhJung a chance to bloom. I should have put a hole through that thick skull of his.
I frowned, grinding my teeth. Yes. Both were my budding flowers. If there was a difference, my cooking was a flower bud I had given up on, and Na AhJung was soone I was trying to help bloom by finding the right man. I nodded in understanding and picked up the phone. Thinking was not enough. I needed to find a man as soon as possible. A man who would make Na AhJung bloom. Soone as good as my brother, but soone who could love her in a way my brother never could.
I checked the contacts on my phone as I set my goal. Mother, JiKyung, skip them. Hyun JungHoon, erase that jerk. And the rest of them...staring at the few lines of phone numbers, I frowned in frustration. These guys are no better than Hyun JungHoon. Out of these guys, JungHoon was the best choice! Shit, I’ve lived in vain!
Feeling like my past life had been a waste, I threw the cellphone on top of the blanket. All my phone contacts are useless. I’ll just have to look elsewhere. While contemplating my options, my eyes suddenly widened as an idea hit . If none of my friends work, maybe I can find soone from my mother’s friends.
I picked up the phone and got up from the bed. First, let’s go to my mother’s house and find her contact book. I turned off the music with the remote, collected my car keys and placed them in my pocket. Then I checked the ti as I left the room. 6:00pm. My mother wouldn’t be ho and her contact list was in the library.
I ran through the hallway while going over the plan, but stopped in front of the kitchen. Gazing at the kitchen, I realized AhJung hadn’t had dinner yet. Oh. I should make dinner for this girl before I leave. I turned and headed to the kitchen.
Like a mother cooking an extravagant al for her child who was going away, I scanned the ingredients in the fridge to figure out what I could make that AhJung would enjoy the most. If I have to make it anyways, might as well make sothing noteworthy. What does AHJung like most?
I flashbacked to the hundred als I had prepared for her and her reactions to each of them. She had made a fuss each ti, loving every bite. Out of those tis, which one made her look the prettiest? I was now looking into my head instead of the fridge. As difficult as it was to say which of my als was the best, AhJung’s reaction to them was just as difficult to filter through. She was always pretty during those tis.
She is pretty in these situations. Hyun JungHoon would never know that. Aha! What if I cook for them here when she’s eting the new guy? I’ll invite him over and they can have their date here.
I took out so veggies and beef and placed them on the counter. Then I washed my hands thoroughly in the sink. I started to imagine the scene playing out with AhJung, the new man for her date, and my well-prepared al. Yes. This plan is perfect. But for this to work, I’ll have to find a man. Taking the knife in my hands, I started to peel the onions. But is there a man that is as successful as my brother? And he has to have a lot of gold in his fortune. Is there such a man? Soone as well off as my brother with gold in his fortune...and he has to see Na AhJung for the best that she is. I peeled the thin skin of the onion with my knife then suddenly stopped. A thought popped into my head and I said it out loud.
“Isn’t that ?”
As if hit by a revelation, Beethoven’s symphony rang through my head.
(Wedding Impossible continues in Book 2)
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