By Zephyria For a moment, he felt as if he had been hit hard on the head with something and became dazed. Yu-jin could only stare at Winston with his eyes wide open. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. After his lips twitched several times, a voice finally leaked out after a long time. A sinister, hoarse voice, as if a broken door was shaking helplessly in the winter wind.
“What, what are you talking about?”
The barely audible voice was shaking wildly, unable to overcome the intense emotions. Yu-jin continued to speak, as if squeezing it out.”How can you say such a thing? Me, sleeping with Harold, what nonsense… Why would I?”
“Exactly, why?”
Winston twisted his lips and gave a self-deprecating laugh.
“Was I not enough? Or were you more greedy for what my father had? Or did you think you could have both? Well, how would I know? You’re the one who did it.”
“No…!”
“You’re carrying my child?”
Yu-jin desperately denied it, but Winston coldly cut him off.
“Honey, if you were going to try to fool me with such a lie, you should have at least cried and begged, saying my father tried to rape you when I found out. How can you say you never slept with him at all?”
A low chuckle accompanied the slight trembling of his shoulders. As if he couldn’t bear it any longer.
“I saw it clearly with my own two eyes.”
Winston, who let out a short breath as if sighing, added.
“Try to use your head a little better next time, honey. Don’t make such a mistake again.”
With that sweetly delivered advice, he turned away. This was the end. Yu-jin knew it instinctively. Winston would never come back to him now.
“Winnie!”
Completely losing his mind, Yu-jin ran in a frenzy and blocked Winston’s path. Looking up at him with desperately shaking eyes, he clung to him with all his might.
“Don’t do this, did you forget? Look closely, it’s me. It’s me, remember…”
Please, remember.
Tears quickly welled up in Yu-jin’s eyes. He couldn’t even breathe. Winston was looking at him with such cold eyes.
How much we loved each other.
“Of course, I know who you are.”
Winston slowly moved his lips. He leaned in and whispered into Yu-jin’s ear, each word distinct, as if spitting them out.
“Male prostitute, slut, a man-crazy piece of trash.”
Yu-jin completely froze. Winston, meeting his gaze as he lifted his head, his breath completely stopped, laughed self-deprecatingly.
“And I’m the idiot who almost lost everything because I was fooled by someone like you.”
Through the tears blurring his vision, Yu-jin saw Winston raise his hand. It seemed as if he was going to gently stroke his cheek as he used to, but it stopped ambiguously in the air, and a moment of silence followed. Winston, wearing a bitter smile in the vision cleared by the tears that had uncontrollably flowed down, came into view. Even the sight of him slowly lowering his hand again.
Winston moved. A sweet fragrance wafted behind him as he walked past Yu-jin. Yu-jin, standing there in a daze, finally turned his head after hearing the sound of the door closing. No. He belatedly ran outside, but Winston was already far away. Yu-jin ran towards him, shouting with all his might.
“Don’t go, Winnie! Winston!”
He cried out desperately, but Winston didn’t look back. This isn’t right, this can’t be happening, this is reality. A loud sob burst from Yu-jin’s lips. He sobbed and continued to plead.
“Don’t go, please! Don’t abandon me… Winnie, please don’t abandon me! Don’t abandon me…”
Yu-jin slipped on the slippery marble floor and fell to the ground. A dull thud echoed quite loudly, and Yu-jin was momentarily stunned by the impact before barely managing to lift his head. Winston was already too far away to catch. Yu-jin, in despair, collapsed and sobbed, only calling out his name over and over again.
“Winston…!”
Winston didn’t stop. He didn’t even glance back. He just kept going straight ahead at the same pace as before, without wavering.
Away from Yu-jin, from his past with him, from everything related to Yu-jin.
As if it had never happened in the first place.
Yu-jin blinked blankly and came to his senses. Winston was looking at him with a frown. An awkward silence flowed. Then, he, who had been silent until then, slowly opened his mouth.
“So.”
Winston continued, his voice as subdued as his tone.
“Is your resentment towards me all over now?”
Yu-jin stared at him blankly before shaking his head.
“What’s the point, it’s already in the past.”
Winston propped his chin on one hand and asked.
“You’re saying that the one you slept with back then was me? Not my father?”
Yu-jin remained silent instead of answering. A sigh, as if he was at a loss for words, escaped Winston’s lips. What was he expecting anyway? It would be better to admit that he was crazy.
“I’m not asking you to believe me. It doesn’t matter anyway.”
Winston paused at the calm tone. Yu-jin continued with a serene face.
“You didn’t believe me before, and you still don’t believe me now. And I have nothing but words to claim my innocence. No evidence, no witnesses. Just my words.”
He gave a hollow, bitter smile and lowered his gaze.
“If you say you don’t believe me, what more can I do?”
Winston said nothing. Yu-jin was right. Believing those words in this situation was no different from saying he was out of his mind.
Don’t be fooled, he’s trying to trick me again.
A warning sounded from deep within his heart. If Winston hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he would never have believed it either. Yu-jin sleeping with another man besides him, he would have laughed it off as ridiculous.
But.
Isn’t there a reason why he’s denying the fact that he clearly saw with his own eyes to this extent? Just as Winston isn’t a fool, Yu-jin isn’t a fool either.
What if there really was something I didn’t know?
“The tea.”
Winston finally spoke in a low voice after a long time.
“You said you drank tea? And you don’t remember anything after that.”
“To be exact, after I went to your room and met you…”
“My father’s room.”
Winston corrected Yu-jin.
“In my father’s room, after meeting my father.”
Yu-jin closed his mouth and stared at him before letting out a short sigh.
“Yes, that’s what you saw.”
He didn’t admit it until the end. Because the truth Yu-jin knew was completely different from what Winston knew.
Winston frowned but didn’t say anything more and closed his mouth. Yu-jin just watched him silently as he rubbed his forehead and let out a low groan.
“…Okay.”
Winston finally muttered in a low voice. He wanted to ask what he meant by okay, but he didn’t give him a chance and got up from his seat.
“Go to sleep, you must be tired.”
Leaving only those words behind, Winston walked towards the door. Did he need time to think? Yu-jin suddenly thought, but he didn’t bother to hold him back. Only after hearing the sound of the door closing did he let out a deep sigh and slump his whole body, and suddenly sleepiness washed over him. He roughly washed up and lay down on the bed. Fortunately, deep sleep came before he could be swept away by useless thoughts and emotions.
* * *
Hoo…
Standing alone in the garden where the silence of the deep night had settled, Winston let out a deep sigh. If it were like before, he would have taken out a cigarette and put it in his mouth, but he couldn’t do that now. Angela was back, and Yu-jin was here too. He meaninglessly thought about the dangers of secondhand smoke before shaking his head irritably.
Why does he keep repeating such an obvious lie?
Until now, he had thought that Yu-jin was just a clumsy con artist or that he simply didn’t want to admit his mistake. But if that’s not the case. If Yu-jin is really telling the truth…
Can two completely different memories both be true?
It was ridiculous. To be shaken by those big, innocent eyes again and be fooled again was no different from confessing how stupid he was.
Or confessing that I still love Yu-jin this much like crazy.
At other times, he would have scoffed or laughed at himself. But now Winston wasn’t laughing at all. Suddenly, a forgotten memory came to mind.
‘I almost got married before.’
When he first met Sam, she honestly told him about her story that she had kept hidden away.
‘There was a man I loved. I missed him so much that I wanted to see him again even after meeting him every day. I was so eager to get married and live with him.’
A smile appeared on her wrinkled face as if she was recalling her past love. But the smile didn’t last long.
‘But one day, I saw that man kissing another woman.’
Winston just listened silently. Quietly ignoring the aching in one corner of his heart.
‘I was furious and took off the ring and threw it in his face. He begged me to listen to him, saying it was a misunderstanding, but I didn’t even pretend to listen. I saw it, with my own two eyes. What more explanation do I need? I saw it.’
Sam, who repeated the same words, gave a bitter smile.
‘I was so angry and disgusted with the betrayal. I decided to hate him for the rest of my life. I decided that I would never forgive him, no matter how hard he begged.’
Winston still didn’t say anything. He soon knew why she brought up this story.
‘But I never found out what happened. He died.’
Winston’s eyebrows twitched briefly as he recalled that far. The image of Yu-jin covered in blood flashed before his eyes for a moment, and he closed his eyes without realizing it.
‘He was chasing after me in his car that day when he got into an accident and died on the spot. That was the end of everything.’
Sam’s eyes gradually became wet.
‘I still regret it. I should have at least listened to him. Did he really cheat on me? Did I see it wrong? Maybe there was something I didn’t know… The man I knew would never cheat on me.’
She slowly shook her head and continued.
‘But now I can never hear it. He’s not in this world anymore.’After clearing his throat, Sam looked up at the ceiling, took a deep breath, and advised,
‘Listen to the other person, Winston.’
Looking at the man sitting in front of him without a word with sympathetic eyes, he added,
‘It’s not too late to judge after that. At least you won’t have any regrets.’
And Winston tried to listen to Yu-jin, but in reality, it was a terribly arrogant idea. Looking back, he wasn’t trying to hear Yu-jin’s side. He was giving Winston a chance to apologize and confess his lies even now. That probably wasn’t what Sam meant.
Why did that memory come to mind now?
Winston felt embarrassed and couldn’t help but admit it. Maybe this was a second chance for him.
Haa, after letting out a deep breath, he stared into the distance with a cold, hardened face.
Let’s re-examine the events of that day.