Chapter 27: Chapter 27 – The Golden Ax Falls Into the Lake, Part 5

When I returned to the cafe, AhJung was no longer there. Not again! Where did she disappear to this time? 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 became 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 something else at the counter saw us and came running.

“Where do you get your coffee from?” I asked the employee.

“Excuse me? 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 same beans as other cafés yet when they charge $5 you charge us $20. There must be a reason.”

The employee stared at me, 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 customer if she is wiping water off the floor.” I pointed at the floor with my finger, my eyes blazing.

The employee finally seemed 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 something that was not on the menu, nor did I ask them to make me coffee from peas. I’m just telling them to clean up the mess 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 moment, 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 seemed 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 me 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 me?”

“Go easy on you?”

“Even if it’s something 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 me but you treated me like that before too. You acted like there’s nothing about me worth seeing, and you couldn’t understand why your brother would like someone like me. You said I was dirtying your pure brother’s family name.”

I did. That’s true, I did say those things. I was lost for words remembering the harsh things I had said. AhJung continued quietly with a meek 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 me. And now, it’s the same. It’s not like I suddenly got better, I’m still the same. But back then, you thought it was obvious that I should accept this fact and now you think that there’s something wrong with me 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 me 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 someone else complained about the same things I did about her? Why does that make me angry?

I tried to decipher the reasoning behind my anger by going over the situation again. As I remembered Hyun JungHoon’s words, fire rose up in me again. Whoa, what is wrong with me? 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 someone was criticizing my cooking…wait. My cooking? My only budding unfulfilled dream? Am I putting Na AhJung on the same 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 same. 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 someone 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. Someone as good as my brother, but someone 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 me. If none of my friends work, maybe I can find someone 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 time as I left the room. 6:00pm. My mother wouldn’t be home 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 meal 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 something noteworthy. What does AHJung like most?

I flashbacked to the hundred meals I had prepared for her and her reactions to each of them. She had made a fuss each time, loving every bite. Out of those times, 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 meals was the best, AhJung’s reaction to them was just as difficult to filter through. She was always pretty during those times.

She is pretty in these situations. Hyun JungHoon would never know that. Aha! What if I cook for them here when she’s meeting the new guy? I’ll invite him over and they can have their date here.

I took out some 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 meal. 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? Someone 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 me?”

As if hit by a revelation, Beethoven’s symphony rang through my head.

(Wedding Impossible continues in Book 2)