FADE Chapter 4: A Stranger in My House | Drama Web Novel

 

I

Her first week in the mansion taught her things she hadn't found names for yet.

It taught her that silence here had varieties. There was the silence of the long hallways that absorbed sounds as if designed for that very purpose. The silence of the vast rooms that made a person realize their true, small scale. And the silence of the assistants who smiled and performed their duties without leaving any real trace behind.

And it taught her that Joon Kim had his own kind of silence, too.

Not the silence of a man who had nothing to say, but the silence of a man who had too much, carefully choosing which parts to utter.

She noticed it. She didn't know why she noticed it, but she did.

The daily routine was laid out by Min-joon on a piece of paper he had given her on the first day.

Breakfast at nine. A session with the doctor at ten-thirty. Free time until noon. Lunch at twelve-thirty. Rest. A walk in the garden at four. Dinner at seven.

She read the paper twice, then placed it on the table.

Her life in Busan had no schedules. She would wake up when the alarm rang, eat when she was hungry, and sleep when she was tired. This minute-by-minute schedule made her feel like a guest in a hotel, not a woman in her own home.

But this wasn't her home.

This was what she reminded herself every time she began to forget.

II

On the third day, she asked the assistant to show her the rest of the mansion.

The assistant, a wide-eyed girl named Seo-yeon, looked at her with slight hesitation.

"Should I inform the President..."

"No. I want you to show me."

"Of course," Seo-yeon said after a second. "This way, please."

They walked through the long corridors while Seo-yeon explained everything in a practiced tone. The formal reception hall. The massive mansion library. The eastern hall reserved for external meetings. The floor housing the executive offices.

When they reached a door at the end of the western corridor, Seo-yeon stopped.

"This is his private office. We don't usually pass by here."

"Where does he enter from?"

"Through this door."

Jina stared at the door. Dark wood, a golden handle, and something hidden behind it that she did not know.

"What does he do in there?"

"He works. Most of the time."

"Even through the night?"

"Sometimes until dawn."

Jina shifted her gaze forward and kept walking.

A man who works until dawn. A man who carries files when files shouldn't be carried. A man who chooses his words with utter precision.

Someone she knew and was a stranger to all at once.

III

On the fifth day, the first confrontation happened.

She was in the library reading, or trying to read, her mind wandering in every direction except toward the pages of the book. That was when he walked in.

He didn't notice her at first. He went straight to a distant shelf and pulled out a book with the ease of someone who knew exactly where it lived. Then he turned and saw her.

"I didn't know you were here."

"I wasn't obligated to inform you."

He looked at her again.

"Of course."

He sat in the opposite chair and opened his book.

And they remained in silence.

She was trying to read, while he, seemingly, actually was. Page after page, with a level of focus she couldn't comprehend. How could he focus when she was in the same room, with unanswered questions hanging heavily in the air between them?

"Why haven't you put up pictures of me anywhere else besides my room?"

He raised his eyes.

"What do you mean?"

"I walked through the halls and corridors. There isn't a single photo of us together in any public space."

He studied her.

"Because I wanted your pictures to be in a place of your choosing, not where protocol demands them."

"That is a diplomatic answer."

"It is an honest answer."

She looked at him.

"When was the photo in my room taken? The one where my eyes were closed."

He paused.

"Five months ago. We were in Gangnam."

"What were we doing there?"

"We had coffee at a café you chose because it looked, in your words, far enough away from anything official."

Jina looked down at the book in her hands.

Coffee at a casual café, away from formalities. That sounded like something she would do. That sounded like a decision she would make.

"And you agreed?"

"I went with you."

"The President, in an ordinary café."

"The President in an ordinary café with his wife, yes."

Something in that last sentence made her thoughts halt for a moment. Not the words themselves, but the way they were spoken. The absolute calm with which he said it, as if it were an undeniable truth requiring no confirmation.

She returned to her book.

And he returned to his.

They spoke no further. But the silence this time was of a different kind.

IV

On the seventh day, she discovered something about herself she hadn't expected.

She was in her room, looking at her clothes inside the massive wardrobe. Dresses, suits, and outfits in a style she didn't entirely recognize, yet couldn't deny. It was as if the person who had chosen them was her, but a version of her with far more confidence.

She pulled out a simple, dark blue dress and looked at it.

Then she put it back.

In its place, she took out a gray blazer and black trousers.

Standing before the mirror, she realized her hand had chosen them without thinking. It was as if the body remembered even when the mind could not.

At dinner that night, Joon noticed what she was wearing but said nothing.

Yet, she saw his eyes linger on her for a single second when she walked in.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing."

"You said something with your eyes."

"I didn't say anything with my eyes."

"You did."

He looked at her.

"You always preferred suits over dresses. You told me once that dresses made you feel like you were wearing someone else's clothes."

She fell silent.

"And did I agree to that?"

"No. I said that you looked so striking in dresses, it was a sight worth preserving."

"And what did I say?"

"You said that your opinion on your clothes was none of my concern."

She smiled despite herself.

A small, faint smile she couldn't suppress.

"And I was right."

"You always think you're right."

"And was I?"

"Sometimes. And sometimes not. But you would argue even in the latter cases."

The smile lingered for another second, then vanished.

Because she remembered that she didn't remember any of this. All these small details he described existed in his memory but were entirely missing from hers.

And this made her feel something she couldn't yet name. Something akin to injustice, yet directed at no one.

V

On the tenth day, she asked him for something she never expected she would.

They were in the garden after lunch, she walking and he walking beside her at the usual distance, the air carrying the crisp scent of early autumn.

"Can you tell me about how we met?"

He stopped.

He turned to her with questioning eyes.

"In detail?"

"Yes. In detail."

They resumed walking slowly, and he began to speak.

He told her about the conference, about the files that dropped, and about the very first sentence she spoke to him in Korean when he thought she was a foreigner. He spoke of the laugh he let out, a laugh he couldn't remember ever making normally. And how he looked for her afterward, both intentionally and unintentionally at the same time.

"How could it be intentionally and unintentionally?"

"I asked around about you. But I didn't know exactly what I wanted once I found the answer."

"And when you found it?"

"When I found it, I invited you to a formal gala under the pretext that you had worked on one of the files discussed at the conference."

"A pretext."

"A pretext."

She looked at him.

"That wasn't very honest."

"It wasn't. But it was the only way I knew how."

Jina thought about this. A man accustomed to directness and grand decisions, inventing a pretext just to meet her.

"And when I came?"

"You were furious with how the assistants treated you."

"I remember that. My mother told me."

"You told me, too. Directly. Within the first five minutes."

"And what was your response?"

"I apologized and corrected the matter."

"Immediately?"

"Immediately."

She walked a little in silence.

"Why?"

"Because you were right."

She turned to him.

She found him looking straight ahead with an entirely calm expression, as though he were telling someone else's story. Yet, in the lines of his face, there was something not quite serene. Something that knew exactly how to hide itself.

"You're a man who admits his mistakes quickly."

"I try to."

"That's unusual for a man in your position."

"Or any man."

She smiled despite herself for the second time.

Then the smile stopped.

Then they continued walking.

VI

The problem was, she had started doing this a lot lately.

Smiling, then stopping.

Listening, feeling drawn in, and then remembering that she couldn't remember.

And this repetitive cycle, gravity followed by withdrawal, exhausted her in a way she wasn't used to.

Because pulling away required effort.

While being drawn in happened all on its own.

On the twelfth day, when he entered the library and found her trying in vain to remember something, he sat beside her for the first time.

Not in the opposite chair. In the seat right next to her.

She noticed the change in distance but said nothing.

"What are you trying to remember?" he asked.

"A song. A melody that's been playing in my head since morning, and I don't know where it came from."

"What does the melody sound like?"

"I can't describe it."

"Try humming it."

She looked at him.

"I won't."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want to."

"Alright."

Silence. Then, he began to hum in a very soft voice.

And she froze.

It was the exact same melody.

She stared at him.

"How..."

"This is your favorite song. You used to hum it without noticing, most of the time."

The silence stretched out.

"You know me better than I know myself."

She said it simply. Not as praise, and not as a reproach. Just as a fact.

And he looked at her with eyes where, for the first time, she read something he hadn't managed to hide well enough.

Something that ached.

"Time will return what it took," he said.

"And if it doesn't?"

He didn't answer immediately.

"Then we will build new memories."

We. A word he spoke with a quiet confidence, as if it were an absolute certainty.

And Jina did not correct the word this time.

VII

On the fifteenth day, the real confrontation took place.

It happened in the small kitchenette attached to the suite, when she found him standing there making coffee late at night. She hadn't expected anyone to be there. She only wanted a glass of water.

They both stopped.

"I didn't know you were here," he said.

"Neither did I."

He moved to clear a path for her. She took what she came for, the space small enough that total distance was impossible.

"Why are you awake?"

"Work."

"At this hour?"

"Work doesn't know hours."

She looked at his back as he finished brewing his coffee.

"Were you always like this?"

"Meaning?"

"Working so much. Sleeping so little."

He turned around.

"You told me once that it was a bad habit."

"And did you change it?"

"I tried."

"But you didn't succeed."

"But I didn't succeed."

She gripped the glass of water with both hands and looked at him.

He looked different in this dim lighting. Less formal. Less distant. As if the night stripped away a layer of what he always wore.

"Joon."

He paused.

It was the first time she called him by his name directly.

And she noticed how it affected him. A split second in his eyes revealed far more than he intended.

"Yes?"

"I don't remember you. And that isn't my fault."

"I know."

"But you act sometimes as if you're waiting for this fact to change."

He looked at her.

"What do you mean?"

"You tell me stories, answer my questions, and exist around me in a calculated way. As if you're building something."

Silence.

"And is that wrong?"

"No. But it confuses me."

"How?"

She tightened her grip on the glass.

"Because I don't know you. And every time you tell me something, I feel like I am supposed to feel something toward it, but I don't. This void between what should be and what actually is... it exhausts me."

The words came out more forcefully than she intended. But she didn't take them back.

And Joon looked at her with something in his eyes that had never been present on his face at any other time she had seen him.

Something entirely real.

"I'm not building anything toward you, Jina. I am just being present because that is the only thing I know how to do."

The small room fell silent. And the night outside the window was heavy.

"And if that isn't enough?"

"I will settle for it anyway."

VIII

She left the kitchen but didn't sleep.

She lay in her bed, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling as his words spun in her head.

I will settle for it anyway.

A man saying he would settle for mere presence. Not returned love. Not a recovered memory. Just presence.

That didn't sound like a man who was pretending.

And that was the problem.

Because it would be easier if he were pretending. If this were a story about a man playing a role, she could stand outside the narrative and just observe. But the man in the kitchen a moment ago, under the dim night light with a half-made coffee and eyes that failed to hide what they wanted to conceal, that man wasn't acting.

She turned onto her side.

"You don't know him," she told herself.

But the replying voice in her head was quiet and unconvinced:

No. But you've started to.

IX

On the eighteenth day, she saw something Joon hadn't intended for her to see.

She was passing near his private office when she heard his voice behind the door, speaking on the phone. She hadn't meant to stop. But a word she caught made her freeze.

"No. I won't pressure her into anything. Give her all the time she needs."

A voice on the other end spoke, but she couldn't hear it.

"I don't care what the timeline says. She is not a project with a deadline."

She stood still. Then, hearing footsteps approaching the door, she moved away quickly.

But the words remained. She is not a project with a deadline.

He had said it with a tone carrying a hint of sharpness. The exact tone he used with anyone who dared say what he didn't want to hear.

He had defended her in a phone call she was never meant to overhear.

X

On the twentieth day, as they sat in the garden in the morning with two cups of coffee, a routine they had fallen into without a word spoken, she said:

"I want to remember. But I can't force myself to."

He looked at her.

"I know."

"And you're patient."

"I try to be."

"Why?"

The word came out heavier than she intended. Because the real question was: Why are you patient with someone who doesn't know you? Why do you stay? Why all of this?

He looked down at his coffee cup. Then he looked at her.

"Because when you wake up in the morning and come out here, you sit on the exact same bench, hold the cup with both hands, and gaze at the garden before you take a sip. Those three short seconds are entirely you. The accident didn't take that away."

Jina looked down at her hands. At the cup she was, in fact, holding with both hands.

And she said nothing.

Because when he said things like that, she couldn't find anything to say.

And this silence, for the first time in twenty days, wasn't cold.

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