6 Chapter 6

Arum looked up at the villa.

'Did I leave my car key there?'

While she was tilting her head to one side, the taxi driver honked his horn quickly.

She raced to the driver and explained to him her pitiable situation.

"I guess I left my car key in there. Villa number 302. Let me go and pick it up quickly."

The driver bluntly showed displeasure at her reply.

"Don't turn off the fare meter. Let me pay for all that."

"Got it. Come back quickly! I just keep receiving calls from other customers."

"Sure." As soon as she replied, she hurriedly walked up to the villa.

Ding dong~

She rang the doorbell.

As if on cue, Hojoon opened the door and presented her handbag. "Are you here for this?"

"Yes, that's right. Thanks!"

Hojoon was waiting for her secretly, but she quickly turned back after receiving her handbag.

The door was closed with a thump.

"Damn!"

His encounter with her, which he expected, ended dully.

When Hojoon sprang out of the daybed, he noticed her handbag on the shoe rack.

"That thing is to blame!"

He learned that every material had its own gi (energy force). He strode ahead and picked it up.

"It's you, damnit! You disturbed my sleep."

As a rule, he discovered other people's belongings in his house very quickly.

"She will be here soon to retrieve this bag."

Actually, he was about to go out when he heard the doorbell. But he didn't expect she would come so early and go back so quickly.

In fact, he didn't know his exact feelings about her. Frankly, he was hurt.

"What a ridiculous woman! Did she leave her bag with me? I didn't think she was that rude, but she actually was. I'll never open my door for her again."

But he found himself responding to the chiming of the doorbell at a quicker speed than that of light.

"Who is it?"

"Excuse me…"

As if she felt awkward, she was hesitant to continue."My name is Arum Han."

He was swearing at her when she suddenly reappeared, so he also felt awkward.

"Hello?"

He jerked the door open at her persistent pressing of the doorbell.

As if she had ran up to the door, she was gasping for breath. He naturally cast a glance at her trembling shoulders. Her exposed collarbones were quite attractive.

Arum stared at him. Sensing it, he quickly turned away his eyes.

"What do you want from me this time?"

"Well…"

She felt embarrassed.

When she stood before him, she felt like a guilty person who had to ask him a lot of favors.

"What did you leave behind here?"

"Did you happen to notice my cell phone?"

"I didn't see it."

With the front door between them, both were standing blankly as if they were a couple keeping their distance from each other.

"Could you call my number?"

"Come on in, please."

"Thanks."

With a clear mind she went into his house.

She took off her shoes neatly.

When anybody entered somebody else's house, they usually took care to leave things as they were. Everybody lived in a house, but their lifestyles were different from one person to another. There was a saying that went about how just looking at someone's house would tell something about his or her character.

As Arum stepped into the house of a stranger, she was cautious. She couldn't look around freely just like she did when she visited her friends' houses. So, she looked sideways.

His living room was neat and clean, just like her first impression of him.

Just like a house set for a magazine shoot, it was equipped with the proper furniture and accessories at the right places.

He didn't look shabby just because he lived alone. Nor was his living room dirty or smelled musty because only a man lived there.

There was a fragrant candle lit on the wall shelf shining delicately. It was a herb-smelling candle.

"Wait a minute."

As if he learned the manners on occasions such as this, he left the front door ajar before coming back.

Watching him doing this, she recalled her mother.

When she attended elementary school, her boy classmates came to her house for homework.

"Play with the door open," she said. Bringing fruits on the tray, she reminded Arum of this pointedly.

"Why?" she had asked.

Though she had nothing to hide, she didn't want to show her doing homework to her mother.

Because of her puberty? No, it had nothing to do with that. She just wanted to play with her classmates alone. She belatedly found out that it was because of her puberty.

"You shouldn't close the door," said her mother resolutely back then.

"Why, mom?"

When her little child persistently asked without knowing anything, her mother scolded her lightly, saying, "You should know anyway."

Only later could she understand what her mother wanted to tell.

Of course, today, men and women mingle with each other without reserve. There came an era when they praised men and women living together without marriage.

When Arum looked at Hojoon, he was exactly like the type of her mother. What an old-fashioned man!

'Well, I'm not here to tempt you, man. I'm not interested in you at all. Just give me my cell phone, will you?'

She showed a fit of annoyance in heart, but at the same time there was a smile on her lips. Though she was sarcastic or tried to be deep inside, she found her trust in him had increased.

'He is a better guy than I expected.'

Her icy heart melted away subconsciously.

At that moment, her eyes met his. She was so startled that she looked at the frame hung on the wall.

"It's pretty."

It was really pretty. There was a sculpture with an owl sitting on a gold-plated twig in the frame.

"Do you know living water?"

Living water?

Was this guy involved in the pyramid selling business? Was it a plague given to the diamond members who had achieved the highest level of performance?

Or was he a follower of a religious cult? Was he digging to get living water, believing he would live for eternity if he drank living water?

She felt that living water was pretty unfamiliar to her.

"Don't you notice that the twig of living water has vigorously branched out? It reflects the spirit of the prosperity of family and business. Of course, it currently symbolizes wealth. The twig has been plated with pure gold and 24K gold."

"Pure gold?"

"Yes. The energy emitting from pure gold fills this living room. In geomancy, the color of gold symbolizes wealth. In China, the emperor uses the color gold."

Nodding her head, she thought about his occupation.

'It looks like his job concerned geomancy…'

She quickly took out his business card from her pocket.

"Oh, you are a geomancy consultant, right?"

"Well, they call me a geomancy master."

"Why don't you give me your card? Oh, my name is Arum Yang, a single woman."

"I know this company. Are you a reporter?"

"Sort of…"

"As far as I know, a reporter is cynical and careful. Can I go and visit your company for a cup of coffee when I pass by your building? Sometimes I go to a place near your company."

"Sure," Arum answered out of courtesy.

"By the way, is there any difference between a geomancy master and a geomancy consultant?"

Arum's curiosity as a reporter was stimulated.

"Well, they're similar. We call those rubbing off the dirt of people in the public bath 'sesinsa',' right? Though it's not an accurate comparison, geomancy consultants offer consulting services about houses through the secret method of geomancy."

Despite his simple and kind explanation, she couldn't get an accurate grasp of its concept. Though she recalled various topics he mentioned on TV such as ' geomancy on making money' and 'geomancy on escaping from being single,' there were only a few she could remember clearly.

'Sorry, I switched the channel.'

Arum felt a sting in her heart.

"We don't consult on grave sites."

"What?" Arum didn't understand his joke.

"Cremation is the general trend these days, isn't it?" he tried to explain as easily as possible, so that the general public could understand.

But she didn't seem to understand.

"Do you know anything about geomancy?"

"No, not at all."

"Well, most people don't know about it."

"It's difficult, isn't it? Geomancy ."

Hojoon agreed.

Learning about geomancy was similar to learning a foreign language. They had to learn characters and words just like they do when learning how to speak. They had to master the terminology of geomancy because they had to be able to communicate with the other party.

In that respect, Hojoon and Arum couldn't communicate at all.

This kind of experience was familiar to Hojoon, though.

Geomancy dealt with the spirit invisible to our eyes. It was geomancy that facilitated the flow of the spirit. Though it seemed easy for Hojoon to talk about it, he found it pretty difficult to make his customers believe in it.