Having someone carelessly probe into one’s wounds wasn’t pleasant. Awkward consolation only stirred up painful memories. Knowing this, Jae In decided to pretend she hadn’t noticed the hint of darkness in the man’s past.
“In truth, it’s a bit overrated.”
She wondered if a day would come when she would know even the trivial things about him. She had thought learning about someone else would be tiring, but now she was looking forward to it.
Suddenly, Jae In wanted to be the person who could wrap up all the pain he might be hiding.
“That’s a relief. We’re on the same page then.”
“If you wanted pizza, you should’ve asked me. I know a really good place. And just so you know, it’s not Chicago-style. It’s a pizzeria run by an Italian with a handsome mustache.”
Jae In closed her eyes, inadvertently imagining herself sitting across from Tae Seo at her favorite Chicago pizzeria.
Tae Seo shifted position in an attempt to sleep by force. He had left Incheon on Tuesday morning, stopped over in New York, and finished his business in Chicago.
Without time to adjust to the time change, he had cut back on sleep to work, and now he was again on his way from Chicago, via New York, back to Korea.
Upon arrival, he had to immediately shower, change clothes, and then go to the Kang Sun Art Center. He needed to sleep now to appear less tired later. But why?
“Ah…”
Sleep eluded him. Was it excessive tension? Thinking about seeing Jae In upon arrival, recalling the lengthy call they had before takeoff, his lips twitched at the memory of her beautifully drawn lips.
In fact, today had been a tough day for Tae Seo. It was the anniversary of his mother, Yoo Jung Ha’s, death. Due to the time difference, the day he wanted to forget stretched to nearly thirty hours.
Notting Hill, the upscale London neighborhood famous from the romantic comedy movie title, is where Tae Seo had lived with his mother for nearly seven years. To him, Notting Hill was a place remembered only as a nightmare.
“Come to grandma, baby.”
“…”
“It’s me, your grandma. I’m sorry, my dear. I’m… oh baby, I’m so sorry.”
Yoo Jung Ha was found by a maid two days after presumably cutting her wrists in the bathtub. Tae Seo, then ten years old, had been curled up in front of the locked bathroom door and did not speak once he woke up in the hospital.
“The imaging shows nothing obviously wrong. Just give it some time…”
“Even if everything else is aside, why won’t he speak? Even when he was younger, he was a child who could express himself clearly!”
“Refusing to speak is a defense mechanism, a way to protect himself. Pressuring him won’t help. Especially since he might have experienced partial memory loss due to the shock…”
After enduring a hard ordeal, not speaking or crying, Tae Seo was examined by a doctor who diagnosed him with selective mutism and partial amnesia.
But he remembered everything. What his mother had done to him and how she died.
From Saturday evening when his mother locked herself in the bathroom to Monday morning when she was found. He had never once forgotten how that weekend unfolded.
“I want to go to school.”
“…Tae Seo, you’re talking, you’re speaking?”
“I want to go to school.”
“Baby, you… do you remember…”
“Baby, you… you remember…”
Three months of silence, living as if dead, the child met the eyes and spoke for the first time as spring flowers bloomed in profusion. He spoke clearly, but when told of his mother’s death, he simply blinked.
“Do you know who this person is?”
“No. I see her for the first time.”
The doctor cautiously probed with a picture of Yoo Jung Ha, checking if anything was recalled. But Tae Seo, pretending to have no memory of his mother who was said to have died from a worsening illness, acted nonchalantly.
He wanted to forget, but it wasn’t just that. He honored the wish of his grandmother, who, worried for her young grandson, preferred he live without the horrid memories coming back.
“I want to go back to London. But I don’t like the previous school.”
“Stay with me, baby. There are plenty of good schools in Korea.”
“There is a school I want to attend. Please send me there. But I’ll need someone to look after me. Someone who can cook and drive, and has no problems communicating in London. It would be good if they’re responsible.”
Yielding to the firm resolve, young Tae Seo returned to London. He secured a home near Kensington Palace, completing his primary education with two live-in guardians.
“Tae Seo, soon it’s your mother’s anniversary…”
“I don’t want to go.”
“Have you remembered something?”
“No. I just don’t want to. It’s unsettling to think about it.”
In his adolescence, when he was temporarily in Korea and his mother’s anniversary approached, his grandmother tentatively asked if he’d accompany her to the memorial park. Tae Seo shook his head.
And that day, Tae Seo vomited. He woke screaming from sleep, crying until his pillow was soaked.
Pretending to have lost his memory was an act, but his suffering from the trauma didn’t need any feigning. It was, in fact, an annual ordeal for young Tae Seo.
Having witnessed it, his grandmother never again spoke to Tae Seo about his mother. She attended to the anniversaries alone, never letting on to him.
“You don’t plan to stay in Korea? Determined to attend college abroad?”
“Yes.”
“Tae Seo.”
“I’m more comfortable that way. Father would find it unpleasant to live under the same roof.”
Outwardly, Tae Seo seemed just fine. But he was merely pretending not to remember, trying to ignore the terrible days. He wished he genuinely couldn’t remember.
“Then I wouldn’t have grown up to be an idiot who can’t take a single pill for a relentless headache.”
With a self-deprecating laugh, Tae Seo pressed on his temples. As he was about to lower the airplane window shade, the dazzling blue sky halted his motion.
Before closing his eyes again, his gaze returned to his phone. Despite having memorized the messages even before takeoff, they still felt new each time he read them.
He wondered if Jae In had hesitated before sending that tender message. Contemplating the second message sent three minutes apart despite the time difference, Tae Seo closed his eyes once more.
“She said goodnight, so I should sleep.”
Thinking of the laughter of the one he yearned to see seemed to ease his headache a bit.
When scheming men desperately battle for her favor in the male harem
This one’s also on my reread list! The rivalry, scheming between the men in the imperial harem are just as intense and thrilling as in classic palace drama novels, where concubines fight to the death. Give it a read, girls! I promise you won’t be disappointed.
Synopsis:
“I am not worthy of her… but I still want to be by her side, even if only as a loyal dog…”
Those were the painful whispers of Yue Guanyi – the proud Crown Prince of the Great Qi, who was torn between deep love and a guilty conscience. Despite holding the supreme power of the Imperial Guard, he still could not forget the dark past when he was sold into a brothel.
Fate played a cruel twist when Qiu Shuzhi – a young female official who had just passed the imperial examinations with top honors – stepped into his life. She did not know that she was the one who had saved him from a tragic fate many years ago. And now, her heart was the target of pursuit for both Yue Guanyi and the powerful Empress Dowager Qin Qing.
While Yue Guanyi only dared to silently care for and protect the one he loved from afar, the Empress Dowager Qin Qing openly expressed his feelings and did not hesitate to take advantage of his power to approach Qiu Shuzhi. The covert struggle between the two most powerful forces in the imperial court began…
Trigger warning: All men in this novel are yandere style.
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