The few bites of clam meat she had barely managed to eat rushed back up, carrying a fishy, foul stench. Since that was all she had eaten the entire day, her dry heaving soon came to an end, but her churning stomach refused to settle.
Out of habit, she reached for her toothbrush, only for her hand to freeze. The pink toothbrush that usually sat in the rinsing cup was gone. Only Jae-geon’s blue toothbrush remained, standing alone.
She locked eyes with the pale woman in the mirror. The woman spoke.
“What should I do?”
Her mind, which had been frantically spinning its wheels, finally overloaded. She washed her face with cold water, trying to cool down her head, which was burning as if being forged in a fire. It didn’t do much good.
Wiping away the water pooling at the tip of her pointed chin, Song Hae-som finally stepped out of the bathroom.
Bedding disheveled in a way that was not like him, the dim, warm glow of the stand lamp, and the night view sparkling beyond the window. And…
“We’ve slept together, so is all that’s left now just to sleep?”
Her gaze drifted to Jae-geon, who was sitting in a wing chair with his legs crossed, staring intently in her direction.
His form-fitting chef’s jacket revealed his robust muscles without reservation, and veins bulged on his forearm resting against the headrest.
No matter how one looked at him, he was a far different from Yoo Eun-ho.
“How did you know?”
His face, which had been frozen in contempt, relaxed for an instant. Seeing his handsome features soften made her heart race. Even a hollow scoff was still a laugh of sorts. She was completely helpless against his smile.
“What else would Song Hae-som want from me on a Saturday? It wasn’t a hard guess.”
“Not that.”
“Then what?”
Song Hae-som did not miss the brief flash of hostility that crossed his face as he asked back.
“Awake or asleep, you’re fucking only thinking about that bastard.”
Of course, she hadn’t asked out of concern for Yoo Eun-ho.
It was only because understanding where things had tangled would make it easier to resolve any misunderstanding or anger. But the man, consumed by rage, seemed to have no room left to consider that.
“Get out.”
If she walked out like this, any hope of reconciliation would be gone.
Though she felt as if the ground were giving way beneath her feet at his harsh eviction, Song Hae-som grit her teeth and held her ground.
“Why? Is once not enough to satisfy you?”
Her cornered mind finally began to work.
How could she prove her innocence, that she had never seen Yoo Eun-ho and Jae-geon as the same person?
Jae-geon leaped out of his chair and grabbed Song Hae-som’s arm as she stood her ground. His grip, like that of a wild beast, felt like a threat to her very life. He bared his teeth with a fierce growl, biting her neck.
Perhaps it was pure instinct that sparked a flash of quick wit.
“That’s just my type.”
The lips of the man, who had been leaving gentle bite marks along her pale neck, pulled away in hollow disbelief.
“Both Eun-ho Oppa and you, Chef, are my ideal type.”
His breath, rich with the bouquet of wine, rushed over her in disarray. Even in the midst of this chaotic mess, Song Hae-som felt a desperate thirst to taste his lips. She thought she must be going mad.
Like reaching for fruit hanging from a high branch, Song Hae-som stood on her tiptoes. His trembling lips were inches away. If he would only tilt his head just a little, they would touch.
But Jae-geon coldly turned his head away. Hurt by his rejection, she added, quick to explain herself,
“Just because I like you, Chef, doesn’t mean you have to be my first love. Everyone has a past.”
His grip, which had been almost brutal, slowly loosened. His large hand, now bearing a fresh scratch she hadn’t noticed before, rubbed over his raging face.
“Shut that mouth of yours.”
“…”
“And get out of here right now.”
She stood on a white path that seemed to go on forever. The still space looked almost like an artificial studio set.
It had to be something that could only exist in a dream.
Ah, was this the start of her insomnia?
Song Hae-som walked along, surveying the scenery with a fair amount of leisure.
The sky was covered in white clouds, the lawn was covered thick with white petals, and even the clothes she wore were entirely white.
The bruised red marks on her wrist felt out of place, so Song Hae-som pulled down her white sleeve to hide the injury.
She felt the throbbing pain subside slightly. Yet, for some reason, her soft, suffering groans continued.
Wiping away the cold sweat starting to bead on her forehead, Song Hae-som paused for a moment.
A soft stream of light poured down from the dim sky, weaving together to form a flight of transparent stairs.
Was the figure standing at the end of the cascading light merely a mirage?
Even for a dream, it was a mysterious sight she had never witnessed before.
Before the bewildered Song Hae-som, a shadow as transparent as water approached. Then, it asked:
‘Who am I?’
The feeling was somehow familiar, but he was nothing more than a faint afterimage.
Would it be different if she reached out and traced his form? The moment she touched the shadow, its graceful, rippling outline burst with a soft pop and dissolved into droplets.
The residue left Song Hae-som’s face a mess. The sticky feeling against her skin was awful. She gagged.
It was a dream, but it wasn’t just a dream.
Watching the yellow gastric juices spilled onto the bedsheets, Moon-jung let out a sigh of despair.
“You need to eat something to have anything to throw up. Why do you refuse to eat?”
Amidst a high fever that had lasted for days, Song Hae-som had lost both her appetite and any desire to do anything. Aside from the intermittent spasms and bouts of vomiting, she did nothing but sleep.
Her appearance, which wouldn’t have been out of place on a living corpse, broke Moon-jung’s heart, and Chang-jun lit a cigarette again after having quit.
“She pushed herself so hard to endure during her internship—is she just exhausted now?”
“Instead of opposing her without even thinking about it, I think we should let her keep cooking.”
“I’m just worried she’ll get hurt.”
Chang-jun reached out and placed a wet towel over her burning forehead.
“When she wants it so badly that she makes herself this sick, would getting hurt even matter to her?”
The acrid smoke drifting past the tip of her nose made her feel like throwing up again. Song Hae-som writhed and dry-heaved, but since even her stomach acid was empty, nothing came out.
Moon-jung helped the exhausted Song Hae-som sit up and trickled thin rice gruel between her teeth.
“There’s a good girl. Just take three bites of this, okay?”
Parting her lips like a baby bird, Song Hae-som suddenly looked up at the ceiling. The ceiling was white, as if it were an extension of her dream. She felt nauseous once more.
In the end, she threw up every bit of the gruel she had just swallowed. While Chang-jun cleaned up the sour mess, Moon-jung shook Song Hae-som’s frail shoulders, her face filled with despair as if her world were ending.
“Are you really going to keep sleeping like this without eating? Classes have already started, so what on earth are you planning to do? Please? Stop breaking your mom and dad’s hearts and at least eat some food, sweetheart. It’s your mother’s wish.”
Had that much time passed already? Song Hae-som couldn’t believe it.
For she was still trapped in that final night she had spent with Jae-geon…
She missed him. Even his contemptuous gaze, looking at her as if she were an insect, was enough. Even his rough intimacy, harsh enough to leave her physically bruised, was now understood as a desperate, wretched struggle to engrave himself upon her.
How could she meet Jae-geon again, even if he remained cold and cruel? How could she ask for his forgiveness?
Her lifeless eyes stared up at the white ceiling.
A sudden, desperate longing for the blue sky, the cool wind, and the refreshing scent of pine needles washed over her.
“I want to go to the monk.”
It was a sunny afternoon. Seated in the backseat of a fast-moving car, Song Hae-som rested her elbow on the window frame.
What would everyone be doing right about now? With service about two hours away, prep would be finished, and they would be busy preparing for the upcoming preview tasting.
She felt a fresh wave of regret that she wouldn’t be there to see whether her burdock ceviche would receive praise or criticism from her seniors.
‘The burdock ceviche developed by Song Hae-som has been selected as the third-quarter appetizer.’
If she had continued to work at Not, which station would she have been assigned to?
The appetizer station, where her burdock ceviche belonged? Dessert, with the petit dasik? Perhaps she would have hoped to remain at the mains.
Woon-seop and Jong-im were certainly reliable seniors, but they couldn’t compare to Seung-jun, whom she had worked with for several months.
Song Hae-som looked down at the text message that had arrived from Seung-jun a couple of days ago, having opened it several times already.
[First-Half Public Recruitment Schedule.pdf]
His chic aloofness in sending only the attachment without a single word of explanation made her eyes warm for some reason. Rubbing her stinging nose, Song Hae-som forced her eyes up.
The colors of the real world, so different from the white world of her dreams, overwhelmed her with their full range. The colorful maple trees covering the mountain peaks looked breathtaking, like thick dabs of paint pressed onto a canvas.
Moon-jung, who was sitting next to Song Hae-som in the backseat and looking in the same direction, spoke.
“It’s already autumn here.”
“Yeah.”
“Enjoy the autumn foliage to your heart’s content with the monk, and make sure to come back up before winter, alright?”
The hand gently patting her bony shoulder bore a scar similar to the one on Song Hae-som’s forehead. It was faded to a similar degree.
She parted her lips to ask when she had gotten hurt, only to bite them back at Chang-jun’s murmured words.
“Huh? That’s a car I haven’t seen before. Do we have another guest?”
…It was Jae-geon’s Panamera.
