TFEB 07

Chapter 07…

The Fox’s Surprise Attack

My misfortune was that, because it was so late, there were no other people who had come out for a swim. This was the result of my having firmly believed that Cha Junjae wouldn’t show up.

I looked perfectly fine on the outside, but my soul was practically unconscious. Perhaps he hadn’t noticed how flustered I was, since I had even forgotten to greet him. Cha Junjae calmly dried himself off with a towel.

That was just how Cha Junjae was.

He genuinely wouldn’t be interested in something as trivial as the title of the song I’d been humming. As far as I knew, there was only one thing in this world that could ever interest him.

Other people’s shiny possessions.

“Were you surprised that I came without saying anything?”

Perhaps he found it uncomfortable that I was silently staring at him without saying a word. With the towel draped around his neck, Cha Junjae asked cautiously.

As if he actually cared.

His eyes and expression, always so peaceful and unchanging day after day, were utterly infuriating.

“Ah, yeah. I thought only Auntie and Uncle were coming. Aren’t you busy?”

Please don’t be surprised that I’m being nice to Cha Junjae, the very person I’ve cursed and torn apart in my mind thousands of times.

This was my survival strategy.

After all those years of being tormented by that guy, I’d developed my own way of dealing with him. Unleashing my anger like a madwoman all by myself was the fastest route to defeat. But crying was something my pride wouldn’t allow, either.

Even if you took away every last bit of pride I had, I wouldn’t care.

My secret, if you could call it that, was to look down at him like a benevolent Buddha.

“I was looking around for places to go on vacation, but… I heard Mother and Father were here.”

Cha Junjae picked up his towel and the shirt he’d taken off, speaking with his usual indifferent expression.

Yet the corners of his eyes, which curved like a fox’s, seemed to say something entirely different.

I didn’t come to see you. I just followed my parents here. Don’t get the wrong idea.

Looking at that completely emotionless face, I wanted to say this:

What a load of nonsense. You heard I was here and came to check up on how I’ve been living, didn’t you?

When we returned to Korea, Cha Junjae lived in the north while I lived in the south. And every now and then, my mother, who lived somewhere in between, would tell me about him.

Junjae says he’s curious about how you’re doing.

That shameless guy, who had already squeezed every last drop out of my liver, was still eyeing what little I had left.

“Eundam.”

“Hm?”

“Are you going to swim?”

I swallowed the words that had nearly come out of my mouth.

If you’re going swimming, I’ll go back to the accommodation. If you’re going back to the accommodation, I’ll go swimming.

Instead, I deflected his question with a relaxed smile, one that came with growing older.

“Ah, Junjae, you must be tired from coming all the way here. I’m staying somewhere else, so I was going to head there.”

“Somewhere else?”

Cha Junjae tilted his head as if he were hearing about it for the first time and stepped closer.

With a bag slung over one shoulder, his pace quickened slightly. Before I knew it, he was right in front of me.

Thanks to that, my plan to casually step aside and put some distance between us went up in smoke.

Why does he have to be so tall that he makes my neck hurt?

It was infuriating to think of all those years I’d wasted drinking milk and eating anchovies just to catch up to him.

“Where’s your accommodation?”

“Ah, well, um… over there. On the opposite side.”

“Where on the opposite side?”

“It’s somewhere over there. It’s not even that nice. This is the most expensive and luxurious place on the island. The water quality over there isn’t great, and there are tons of mosquitoes…”

I deliberately scratched at my mosquito bites and made a big show of complaining.

Cha Junjae listened, nodding with an expressionless face, before walking ahead.

That’s right. There was no way someone like Cha Junjae, who had been raised comfortably in Seoul, could put up with an environment where he might get bitten by mosquitoes or have to deal with dirty water.

Even if he was always coveting what belonged to me, Cha Junjae still had his limits.

I was standing behind him with a triumphant expression, feeling victorious, when his feet suddenly stopped halfway down the stairs leading to the resort garden.

“Are you coming?”

“Huh?”

“You’re not going swimming, are you?”

My lips froze because I couldn’t come up with a suitable excuse.

It wasn’t anything else. It was the chill in Cha Junjae’s moonlit eyes that made me uneasy.

I wondered if he’d seen through me, and my feet refused to move.

Then, as if his gaze hadn’t been cold just a moment ago, Cha Junjae smiled again.

“I’ll walk you to your accommodation.”

What kind of ridiculous nonsense was that?

I frantically waved both hands with all my might.

“You don’t have to. I have lots of friends here, so you don’t need to worry about me at all. You’re the one who just got here. You should rest.”

I tried to persuade Cha Junjae with an elaborate display of hand and body gestures.

But he stubbornly fixed his gaze on one spot and refused to budge.

“Where are your friends at this hour, in the middle of the night?”

“Ah… Huh?”

“Do you know everyone living on this island? Could you walk into any random house and find someone you know?”

“…Not exactly.”

See? I told you.

Regardless of what I said, Cha Junjae seemed determined to escort me all the way to my accommodation.

This was my fault.

I shouldn’t have exchanged a single word with Cha Junjae. I should have run straight back to my accommodation the moment I greeted him.

I hated the sight of his back as he strode down the stairs, having accomplished exactly what he wanted.

He deserves to get hit. Seriously.

If he barged all the way into my accommodation, which was my last line of defense, I’d have nowhere left to relax in peace.

“Um, Junjae.”

There were so many people walking around shirtless, wearing nothing but their swimsuits. Cha Junjae probably knew that and had intended to walk around in his comfortable clothes.

But I wasn’t okay with that.

Even if there were only a one-in-ten-thousand chance of it happening, I didn’t want to walk through the streets at night alone with Cha Junjae.

Especially not with Cha Junjae walking around shirtless.

“I’m going to sleep here tonight.”

“Here?”

“Mother’s accommodation. I heard there are lots of rooms… Oh, apparently they even included me in the reservation and paid for an extra person.”

“Really? Why did you suddenly change your mind?”

I didn’t want to spend even a moment in the same place as Cha Junjae, but telling him where I was staying was an entirely different matter.

In that case, it was better to sacrifice just one night.

I forced a smile at Cha Junjae, who didn’t look like it but was incredibly stubborn. Under his unwavering gaze, I put on my act.

He wasn’t the only one who knew how to act.

“Actually, I drank some beer. I’d forgotten about that. I’ll go to the place where I’m staying tomorrow morning.”

His eyes silently scanned every inch of me until I finished speaking.

Someday, when the time came for me to cut ties with him completely, I wanted to ask him something at least once.

Why did he always look at me as though he were scrutinizing every little detail whenever I said something?

Did he know that whenever I stood in front of him, I felt as nervous as a child giving a presentation?

“Eundam.”

What did that cold, quiet gaze of his mean? The kind of gaze he only showed when there was no one else around.

I had spent days and nights thinking about it, only to end up with a headache.

The answer remained a mystery, and Cha Junjae was the kind of person who would stay silent forever.

“Do you know that I’m staying at the same accommodation too?”

That’s why I hated him like an enemy standing on a narrow wooden bridge.

“Yeah. I know. But we’re staying in separate rooms.”

“I know.”

My escape had failed.

Tomorrow morning would be my chance.

I’d have to wake up at the crack of dawn, get on a bicycle, and run away.

Cha Junjae turned away from the direction we’d been heading and began strolling through the resort garden.

We walked between the enormous palm trees, the largest I’d ever seen in my life. Neither he nor I said a word.

When the yellow lights along the ground illuminated a quick-footed lizard, I suddenly felt mischievous.

I hoped Cha Junjae, who had grown up as a city frog, would be startled when he saw the lizard.

“It’s cute.”

“What is?”

“That. The lizard.”

Cha Junjae was someone who never failed to meet my expectations.

I secretly snorted and stepped onto the stone-walled path leading to the accommodation.

Fortunately, the darkness of the night concealed my angry footsteps.

Bicycles were parked at intervals along the long gravel path.

Only after opening the arched wooden gate did we reach the accommodation buildings.

The place the adults had booked was a multi-room accommodation, so it occupied the very end of the stone-walled path.

I had absolutely nothing to talk about with Cha Junjae, yet the path was ridiculously long.

I sighed out of boredom, only for a sharp gaze to fly straight at me.

“Ah, I was just thinking about how tiring it’ll be to take the adults around tomorrow. I’m planning to stick to a really boring, ordinary sightseeing course. Something suited to their stamina.”

I was subtly hinting that we should go our separate ways tomorrow.

Cha Junjae merely smiled without saying anything.

His reaction irritated me so much that my fists began to itch.

“By the way, Junjae. The boats must have stopped running by now. How did you get here?”

From what I’d found out, the boat my mother and father had taken was the last one of the day.

It wasn’t as though Cha Junjae had swum all the way from one island to another.

“I took a plane to the larger island on the other side. Then I rented a private boat from there. It was pretty expensive. I wonder if I got scammed.”

“Wow! I didn’t know that was possible. But why didn’t you just stay nearby for one night and take the boat tomorrow?”

He’d foolishly paid three times the price just to get here.

When we arrived in front of the accommodation, I frowned and inserted the key.

Click.

The sound of the lock turning felt like a bolt from the blue.

I prayed over and over that the adults would return soon.

“Eundam.”

It happened just as I confirmed that the key had turned and was about to open the door.

A large hand suddenly reached out and grabbed the doorknob before I could.

I could only see half of the view of the accommodation, which had its own private swimming pool.

His arm was pressed against mine, blocking my way through, whether by coincidence or deliberately.

“Do you want to have another drink with me?”