FADE Chapter 9: I Trust You | Drama Web Novel

 

I

The return from Busan was different from the journey there.

Not in distance, the distance was the same, nor in the train, nor the time. But in the thing that sits in your chest when you return from a place that left its mark.

Jina sat by the window, her eyes on the passing scenery, while he read beside her. But when she reached out and placed her hand on the seat between them, he saw it and held it without lifting his eyes from the book.

And it remained that way until they arrived.

She didn't need anything grand.

Just hand in hand, a moving train, and cities shifting outside the window.

This was enough.

In the mansion, when they entered, evening had begun to steal through the high windows.

They stood in the corridor before each headed their own way.

"Thank you for today," she said.

"Don't thank me."

"I am thanking you because I want to. Not because I am obligated."

He looked at her with eyes holding a warm expression that had become familiar to her now.

"Good night."

"Good night to you too."

And he headed toward his office.

While she remained, watching his back recede.

A man who carried the files of the state while a Polaroid photo rested in his pocket. A man who worked until dawn and never complained. A man who sat on a tiny sofa that didn't fit him just because she was there.

And now, she was here.

And his hand was still warm in hers, even after he let go.

II

The next day, she woke earlier than usual.

Not because something woke her up, but because something inside her decided to beat the schedule.

She went to the small kitchen and made two coffees.

Two cups.

She didn't just make one for herself; she made them for both of them.

Then she went out to the garden.

And sat down.

And waited.

When she heard his footsteps in the corridor heading toward the garden, she placed the second cup on the table in front of his chair.

He arrived and found the two cups.

He stopped.

"You made this?"

"Yes."

"It's always me who makes it."

"I know."

He sat down, took the cup.

And drank.

"The right way."

"I learned how you take your coffee."

He looked at her.

"Since when?"

"For a while. I noticed, but I didn't say anything."

He drank again without a word.

And the garden was silent, save for the distant sound of birds.

Jina sipped from her cup and felt something akin to contentment. Not a grand contentment, but the small kind that comes from doing something simple and right.

III

On the fifth day of the third month, there was a moment she hadn't planned.

She was in the library reading as rain began to fall outside the window, a light rain that changed the color of the light and made the room feel warmer by comparison.

And he walked in.

He noticed her and noticed the book.

"What are you reading?"

"The book you gave me."

"How far have you gotten?"

"The passage where I stopped before the accident."

He raised his eyebrows slightly.

"Do you remember the passage?"

"No. But the bookmark was there."

He sat in the adjacent chair.

"And do you like it?"

"The book? Yes. More than I expected."

"Why?"

She thought about it.

"Because halfway through the story, the main character decides to stop waiting for things to go back to how they were and begins to accept what is right in front of them."

The room was quiet.

"And does that resemble something you are living through?"

She looked at him.

"Perhaps."

"'Perhaps' is not an answer."

"You told me this before."

"And you told me it was the honest answer."

She smiled.

"Now, I say yes. Yes, it does."

The rain outside the window grew a little heavier.

And he didn't get up to leave the library.

She placed the book back down in front of her, but she didn't read.

"Joon."

"Yes."

"What do you do when you are alone in your office?"

"I work, mostly."

"And when you aren't working?"

He paused.

"I think."

"About what?"

"About many things. The decisions I've made. The decisions I will make. The price people pay for my decisions without ever knowing."

"That is heavy."

"Yes."

"Do you tell anyone?"

"I haven't found anyone who understands the right way."

"And me? Did I used to understand?"

He looked at her.

"You used to listen. And when you listen, Jina, you truly listen. You don't just wait for your turn to speak."

The sentence flared like a tiny spark in her chest.

"I want to listen again."

"Now?"

"Now."

She fell silent, closed the book, and looked at him.

And he began to speak.

IV

He spoke for a long time.

She hadn't known he held all this inside. The words came slowly at first, then with a different kind of flow. About a file that worried him. About a decision he saw as right but couldn't explain to everyone. About his feeling that the position makes you lonely in a way no one who hasn't tried it can understand. And about how sometimes, in the middle of a meeting, he wished he could just end everything and go somewhere quiet.

And Jina listened. She truly listened.

She didn't interrupt. She didn't offer solutions. She didn't say "I understand" in moments she didn't. She just looked at him, watching as he spoke.

When he finished, he said:

"I haven't spoken like this in a very long time."

"Why?"

"Because speaking requires a listener."

"And me?"

"You listened."

The room was warm, and the rain outside was gentle.

"Joon."

"Yes."

"I want to be the listener."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I don't want you to look for a quiet place alone. I want the quiet place to be with me."

The sentence landed with a different kind of weight.

And he looked at her with eyes that made no attempt to hide what lay within them.

V

On the tenth day, she asked him for something new.

"Teach me what you do in your day."

He raised his eyes.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean take me with you. Not because my presence is required, but because I want to understand."

"Meetings, files, and decisions."

"I know. But I want to see how you handle them."

He looked at her for a moment.

"Why?"

"Because if I truly want to be by your side, and not just in the same room, I need to understand your world."

The phrase "by your side" was no ordinary phrase in the context of their conversations. And both of them knew it.

She began accompanying him to some meetings. Not the large, sensitive ones, but the smaller ones. She sat in the corner and observed.

She watched how he managed the room. How he gave the floor to those who needed it. How he interrupted when necessary, and how he stayed silent when silence sufficed.

She observed how he chose his words, even in meetings, as if every word carried weight.

And she noticed how he looked at her out of the corner of his eye from time to time.

A silent question: Are you alright?

And she would reply with a slight nod: Yes.

Their same silent language. In a different place this time.

VI

In the evening after a long meeting, he found her waiting for him in his office.

He hadn't expected it.

He walked in to find her sitting in the chair across from his desk, two cups placed in front of her.

"When did you come?"

"Half an hour ago. I knew the meeting would run long."

"How?"

"From the assistants' faces. When a meeting drags on, their expressions change in a certain way."

He sat down and picked up the cup.

"That's a sharp observation."

"I observe more than I speak."

"You were always like that."

"I remember that about myself."

He drank.

"Was the meeting difficult?"

"Harder than I expected."

"Do you want to talk?"

He paused. Then he looked at her in an unusual way, a gaze holding something akin to gratitude, but deeper.

"Yes."

And he spoke, and she listened. And that was how the evening passed.

VII

On the fifteenth day, something happened that no one had planned.

They were in the garden in the morning when Jina suddenly said:

"I remember the wedding day."

Everything stopped. He looked at her.

"What do you remember?"

"Not all of it. But I remember a part. I remember walking toward you. And I remember that when I raised my eyes and saw you, I felt something in my chest."

"What did you feel?"

"I felt that it was right."

The garden around them was quiet.

"Is that what you felt?"

"Yes. I didn't know what to call it then, but the feeling was there."

He looked at the white flowers.

"I chose these flowers because you loved them."

"I know. Seowon told me."

"Do you still love them now?"

She looked at the garden.

"Yes. But not just because they are beautiful."

"Why then?"

She turned to him.

"Because they were your choice for me."

VIII

That night, she didn't go straight to her room.

She walked down the long corridor leading to his office.

The door was slightly ajar, light spilling out. She knocked.

"Come in."

She entered. He raised his eyes from the files and found her looking at him with something he wasn't used to seeing in her eyes: resolve.

"Is something wrong?"

She walked in, closed the door behind her, and sat in the chair across from him.

"I want to say something."

"Say it."

"I will say it, and I won't take back what I say afterward. Even if it seems like too much."

"Alright."

"Joon."

"Yes."

"I trust you."

The sentence came out quietly and steadily. Three words. But they were no ordinary words in their context. It was more than an admission, more than a decision. It was the result of long weeks of observing, hesitating, advancing, and retreating.

He looked at her for a long time.

"Do you know what that means?"

"I know."

"And are you certain?"

"I am not certain of everything. But I am certain of this."

He rose from his chair, came around the desk, and stood before her.

She looked up at him.

He extended his hand, took hers, and helped her up.

And they stood in his large office, amid files, books, and the city skyline beyond the window.

"Jina."

"Yes."

"Don't trust me because you know I won't let you down. Trust me because you want to."

"What's the difference?"

"The difference is that the first is built on guarantees. The second is built on a decision."

"And you want the decision."

"I want you to be here because you want to be. Not because you are forced to."

She looked at him.

"I am here because I want to be."

IX

The days that followed were different.

Not in the direction of a grand emotional explosion, but toward the tiny things that construct real life, not stories.

Breakfast, which they now sometimes shared. Walks in the garden that were no longer strictly limited to mornings. And evenings spent with her sitting in his office reading while he worked, neither demanding anything from the other.

This kind of presence required no justification.

She watered the plant every day. And when he asked her once why she called it Joon, even though she now knew the original excuse wasn't a real justification, she looked at him and said:

"Because it's stubborn. It refuses to grow quickly, yet it grows anyway."

And he looked at her with that rare, complete smile.

On the twenty-second day, more memories returned. Not all of them. It wasn't like a door thrown open where everything rushed in at once; it was more like a window opening inch by inch, letting the breeze slip through gradually.

The memory returned of the first time she told him she didn't want this marriage, and he told her he wanted nothing without her genuine consent. The memory of a time they laughed until they cried over something trivial in a small restaurant. And the memory of a time she was afraid of something but didn't tell him, only to find he had quietly arranged everything without letting on that he knew she was scared.

She gathered these memories just as she had gathered the fragments in the beginning. But this time, she didn't need to fit them into a context. She already knew their context. She knew the man she was bound to.

X

In the evening, shortly before bed, she knocked on his bedroom door.

Something she had never done before.

He opened the door and found her standing there.

"Is something wrong? Is everything alright?"

"Everything is alright."

"Then?"

She looked at him.

"I just wanted to say something before going to sleep."

"Say it."

"A lot of memories came back today."

"What did you see?"

"I saw that you were always like this. Not just after the accident. Always."

"What do you mean by 'like this'?"

She searched for the right word.

"Present. In the way that means you are truly here, and not just occupying the same space."

The corridor stretched between them, bathed in dim light.

"Joon."

"Yes."

"I wasn't afraid of the memories that would return."

"But you said..."

"I said I was afraid that the memory would change something I didn't want changed."

"I remember."

"And I meant that I didn't want the way I see you right now to alter. I feared memories would return that might make you look different in my eyes."

"And have they?"

She answered softly.

"No. They made you more."

And she didn't finish the sentence. Because "more" on its own was enough.

And he looked at her in that way that no longer frightened her. The way she had seen since her first day in the hospital, without knowing what to call it. Now, she knew.

"Good night, Jina."

"Good night, Joon."

She returned to her room and lay down on her bed, her eyes open, staring at the white ceiling she had seen for the first time when she woke up and didn't know where she was. Now she knew. And that was enough

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