FADE Chapter 7: A Single Moment Broke the Wall | Drama Web Novel

I

The plant was very small.

Jina stood before it the following morning, looking at it in a way she hadn't looked at anything else in this room.

A plant on a wooden shelf beside the window. Its leaves were dark green, small, and undeniably stubborn. Its pot was simple, unadorned brown earthenware.

She hadn't paid attention to it over the past weeks. It was just there, and she passed by it every day without truly seeing it.

But now she stood there, holding the pot with both hands, gazing at the tiny leaves.

Its name was Joon.

She had named it herself. With her own hands. And the justification she had given her sister was amusing enough for her to know it wasn't the real reason.

The plant is stubborn and refuses to grow quickly.

She placed the pot back in its place.

And she stood there, looking from it to him, from the plant to the man who had brought it all the way from a balcony in Busan to this mansion.

A man carrying a small plant simply because his wife had named it after him.

The next day, she watered the plant for the first time.

She didn't tell anyone. She didn't tell Joon. She just did it, quietly, before starting her day.

II

On the twenty-eighth day of the second month, something shattered the routine.

She was walking in the eastern corridor when she heard a sound, the voice of a little girl.

She stopped.

In the adjacent hall stood a small group: children in tiny formal attire, looking like the offspring of an official. They sat with an artificial orderliness that told you they had been instructed to sit exactly like that.

Except for one little girl.

She was standing in the corner, far from the group, her eyes wandering around the grand hall in a mixture of awe and curiosity.

Then she saw Jina.

And they looked at each other.

"Did you lose your way?" Jina asked her.

The girl shook her head slowly. No.

"Then why are you here alone?"

"The seats are cramped, and I don't like cramped spaces."

Jina looked at her, and something in the answer made her smile.

"That makes a lot of sense."

She sat on the floor beside the little girl. Not on a chair. Straight on the floor.

The girl looked at her in surprise.

"You are the President's wife."

"Yes."

"Why are you sitting on the floor?"

"Because the seats are cramped, and I don't like cramped spaces."

The girl smiled.

And they sat together on the floor of the corridor, sharing a conversation that nobody else knew about.

When Joon found her ten minutes later, sitting on the floor with a little girl who was telling her about her school, he paused at the entrance of the corridor.

He didn't interrupt them.

He just stood there, watching.

Later, when Jina asked him why he hadn't approached, he said:

"Because your face at that moment looked just like your face in the photo. When you were comfortable."

III

On the first day of the third month, he asked her something she didn't expect.

"Will you go out with me?"

She lifted her eyes from the book.

"Where to?"

"A place you love."

"I don't remember what I loved."

"I know. That's why I am the one taking you."

The car pulled up in front of a narrow street in an old neighborhood of Seoul.

They stepped out, and she looked around her, small restaurants, old shops, and people walking by with indifference. It looked nothing like the mansion.

"Where are we?"

"The old area of Itaewon. You used to come here when you wanted to get away from everything official."

They continued walking. The bodyguards surrounded them, but at a distance that provided a sense of privacy.

They stopped in front of a small restaurant with a simple sign.

"This place?"

"You once asked that we eat here because it looks like nobody knows anything about it."

He opened the door.

They walked in.

The aroma was the first thing that hit her, warm, deep, and familiar in a way she couldn't immediately explain. Then the light, dim and warm. Then the sounds, quiet conversations and the distant murmur of cooking.

They sat at the last table in the corner.

"Is this our table?"

"You always requested this specific table."

"Why?"

"You said you wanted to see the door, but you didn't want anyone from the door to see you."

She smiled.

"That makes sense."

"I told you that the first time."

The waiter arrived. Joon ordered without even looking at the menu.

"You remember what I used to eat?"

"I tried it once when you were in the restroom, and I didn't like it. But I remember the look on your face when you ate it."

When the food arrived, she took the first bite.

The aroma and the taste came together.

And there was a memory.

Not a flash. Not a picture. It was a complete sensation that she had been here before. That this place knew her, even if she couldn't remember it.

She put down her fork.

"What's wrong?" he asked her.

"I feel like I've been here."

He looked at her.

"You have."

"No. I mean I feel it. From the inside. Not just because you told me."

He went silent for a moment.

"That's good."

"Yes."

She took a second bite.

The food tasted exactly the same.

And the feeling of the place grew larger with every bite.

IV

In the middle of dinner, she said:

"Tell me something that happened here."

"A lot happened."

"One thing. The most important."

He thought.

"The third time we came here, you told me something you didn't mean to say."

"What did I say?"

"We were talking about something I don't remember, and suddenly you said, 'I don't want you to leave.' Then you paused and tried to correct yourself. You said you meant you didn't want the beautiful atmosphere of this night to leave."

"And did you believe me?"

"I didn't. But I didn't force you."

She looked at him.

"Why didn't you force me?"

"Because things said naturally are more honest than things said under pressure."

"And were you waiting?"

"I was waiting."

"And the accident came before you could hear what you were waiting for."

The sentence came out quietly, but there was something inside it that wasn't quiet at all.

He looked at her.

"Yes."

Jina looked down at the table.

"I am sorry."

"Don't apologize for something that isn't your fault."

"But it hurt you."

"Many things have hurt me in my life. It didn't ruin the things themselves."

She raised her eyes to him.

A man in his mid-thirties sitting before her in a small restaurant far from all his formalities, speaking of pain with the calm of someone who does not fear it.

"Joon."

"Yes."

"I don't want you to leave."

She said it.

In the exact same way she had apparently said it the first time. Without planning. Without permission.

The difference was that this time, she didn't try to correct her words.

The difference was that this time, he was looking right at her when she said it.

And something in his face changed in a way she had never seen it change before. The calm, controlled outer layer cracked for a split second. And what lay beneath it wasn't painful this time.

It was warm.

V

They returned to the mansion in silence.

Not a cold silence. A different kind of silence, the silence of two people who have a lot to say but choose not to say it right now because the moment doesn't need it.

In the corridor before they parted, she stopped.

"Thank you for the restaurant."

"The purpose was for you to remember."

"I didn't remember everything."

"But you felt something."

"Yes."

They stood there.

And the distance between them was less than usual. Less by exactly one step.

Just one step.

But Jina knew that this single step hadn't happened by chance.

VI

The next day, a new memory arrived.

Stronger than everything that had come before.

She was in the kitchen making her morning coffee when it hit her. It wasn't an aroma or a sound this time. It was words.

His words.

His voice saying something in a tone that sounded unlike any tone she had heard from him in the past weeks, a sharper, warmer tone. And she couldn't hear the words clearly except for one.

Her name.

Calling her by her name in a way he hadn't called her since the hospital.

She gripped the edge of the counter.

The memory was of a night. They were together in a place with dim lighting, and he was angry. No, not angry. He was afraid. And the difference she had learned from him was that fear doesn't stop you, but it irritates you.

And it was clearly irritating.

But the memory didn't complete itself. It stopped right in the middle and dissolved.

And she remained there, gripping the edge of the counter, her heart beating rapidly for a reason she didn't fully understand.

In the evening, when Joon found her in their usual garden, he sat down beside her.

"There's something in your face."

"How so?"

"You look as though you're processing something."

She looked at him.

"A memory came back. But it wasn't complete."

"What did you see?"

"I saw that you were afraid. In some place at night."

Something shifted in his face.

"Do you remember anything more?"

"No. It stopped there. And it held your voice calling my name in a way I haven't heard from you."

"What kind of way?"

"I don't know how to describe it."

He looked out at the garden.

"It was a night three days before the wedding. You said you wanted to be sure of your decision, and you went out alone for a walk at night. You wouldn't answer your phone."

"And you?"

"I searched for you."

"And when you found me?"

He turned to her.

"I told you that I would never allow myself to fear for you again."

"That sounds like a reproach."

"It was."

"And me?"

"You said you didn't need permission to walk alone."

She smiled despite herself.

"That sounds like me."

"It was exactly like you."

VII

On the fifth day of the third month, he asked her something she didn't expect.

"I want you to come with me to my office."

"Why?"

"Because I want you to see it."

His office was larger than she had imagined. A massive window overlooked the city from a height sufficient to make Seoul look like a living map. Shelves filled with files and books. A large desk bearing papers arranged in an order that didn't look like order from the outside, but was crystal clear from within.

She walked slowly through the office.

She stopped in front of the shelves.

Among the books, she saw something she didn't expect: a small frame hidden between two books. She pulled it out.

A small instant polaroid. She was laughing in a place she didn't recognize, her eyes closed.

"This is in your office."

"Yes."

"Amidst state files."

"Yes."

She looked at him.

"Why here specifically?"

"Because this place becomes heavy sometimes. And when it does, I need to remember what lies outside it."

The room was quiet.

And the city outside the window moved slowly.

And in her hand was a photo of herself in the office of the man who rules a nation.

Hidden between two books as if it were a secret.

VIII

That night, what changed everything occurred.

She hadn't planned for it. He hadn't planned for it. It happened the way real things happen, suddenly and slowly at the exact same time.

She was walking down the corridor toward her room when she heard a sound. Not an annoying sound, but it wasn't the usual silence either.

She approached its source.

It was a small room beside the library. Its door was slightly ajar, and inside was a dim light.

She peeked in.

He was sitting on the floor.

Not on a chair. On the floor. His back rested against the wall, files scattered all around him, and his eyes were closed. He wasn't asleep. He was leaning back in the manner of a man who had reached his limits.

She didn't move.

Then he opened his eyes.

And he saw her.

And he didn't stand up. He didn't adjust his posture. He didn't do what he always did, composing himself before anyone could see him. He just looked at her.

She stepped inside.

She sat on the floor beside him.

Not close. Close enough.

"When was the last time you slept well?" she asked him.

"I don't remember."

"That's a long time."

"Yes."

The small room.

The files around them.

The dim light.

"Joon."

"Yes."

"Thank you."

He raised his eyes to her.

"For what?"

"For everything you didn't say. For every time you waited without demanding. For every distance you maintained when you had the right not to maintain it."

He went silent.

"Don't thank me for patience."

"I am thanking you for respect."

The difference in the word made him look at her differently.

"Jina..."

"I still don't remember everything, but I remember enough. And what I don't remember, I've begun to feel."

The words came out slowly, but they came out completely.

He looked at her for a long moment.

And for the first time in months, the usual caution wasn't in his eyes.

There was something quieter and deeper inside them.

"What do you feel?"

"I feel that you are real. Not real in the sense I know about strangers. Real in the sense that your presence changes something in the air."

IX

They didn't speak any further that night.

But they remained.

On the floor in that small room, among the files. She leaned against the wall, and he was beside her. And the distance between them wasn't measured in meters this time.

And at some point she hadn't noticed, she fell asleep.

When she woke up in the morning, she was in her bed.

She didn't ask how she had gotten there.

Because she knew.

X

In the morning, when she went out to the garden with her cup, he was there before her.

The first time he had arrived before her.

He raised his head when he heard her footsteps.

And they looked at each other.

What had been there before yesterday wasn't in their gaze. The old caution wasn't there. Neither the wall she had built nor the patience he had carried.

There was something simpler yet harder at the same time.

A silent confession that something had changed.

She sat down.

And she held the cup with both hands, as was her habit.

She looked at the garden.

Then she said quietly:

"The plant needed water yesterday. I watered it."

He paused.

"When?"

"In the morning. Before I started my day."

He didn't say anything for a moment.

Then he said with the same calm:

"Thank you."

"It's my plant."

"I know."

"Its name is Joon because it's stubborn."

"I know that too."

And the smile came this time without waiting for it.

And it didn't fade.

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