62
"It's this way." Jyeon leads me along the corridor of the house's second floor, and I pretend I have no clue as to where I am going. It's not high on my priority list of things to do ever again in my life, but it was the perfect escape route. So glad to have this excuse of seeing our old room while mother and Yoonha sit downstairs and let this past hour sink in. I thought mother would never let go of my hand and stop hugging me. It was weirding me out how emotionally overwrought she was, how affectionate.
I'm tense all over and emotionally drained as though they both sucked all my energy out. Yoonha was oddly pensive and quiet and sat by my side, holding my hand without saying a whole lot. Like he couldn't formulate words other than I'm sorry, which I didn't understand at all. Maybe guilt that he believed I was dead and stopped looking. I don't know.
"There's no point touring most of the house as mother went through a remodeling obsession about a year ago and changed everything. It would seem different to you and probably not spark anything. This one, however, is always out of bounds…." He stops in front of our old bedroom door, and I quietly inhale to fill my lungs and not react. Steadying myself to face what I know will hurt to see. He pulls a key from his pocket and unlocks the door before pushing it open and stepping back so I can walk in first.
It's dull, and I hesitate before walking in with faux confidence, as though curious to see a possible memory, and my heart instantly shatters at the sight of this room.
Not a single thing has changed in all these years. It's practically a museum to my past and insanely neat and organized with not a speck of dust to be seen. Everything is clean, fresh-smelling, and the mess I made two years ago has been rectified to the point that the smashed picture frames have been replaced with replicas and rehung on the walls. The bookcases are back to order, and even the bed is made up with my old duvet choice. It's like I left it only this morning. My breath catches in my throat as I gaze around the semi-lit space because the blinds are drawn, and it's surreal. I'm standing, needing a second to take this in.
"She has this place cleaned weekly. Aired out…. She sometimes sits in here and looks at your pictures to grieve. This was our room, but I slept over there." He nods and gestures to the far door of the study, and all I can do is swallow hard. Caught in a time warp of this crazily familiar place and all the emotions it brings trawling back to me, in denial about what I'm seeing and trying to connect this to the woman downstairs who never seemed to love me truly.
"She kept everything. Your clothes and shoes. Your jewelry, your perfumes… it's all over there in the walk-in. She has everything dry cleaned or sanitized once a month. She's been pretty obsessive about keeping your memory intact and clinging to these things. They're all yours. You can take what you want." He motions to the closed doors of our once shared wardrobe, and I don't venture towards it. Watching him walk over to the windows of our balcony doors we never used to open, and he opens the blinds and drapes to let the sun in.
It's weird to see Jyeon in this room, looking relaxed and still. It's like he's spent time here more recently than two years ago. In the past, he rarely came in here while I was and spent minimal time herein. He would head straight for the shower, or the study, and he was always so uptight and stiff that we would bypass one another with little interaction. Now here he is, casually looking around as if it's the most natural thing in the world. Seemingly at home in these surroundings that wreak of the past me and her choices in décor.
"It seems vaguely familiar. A feeling." I lie. Knowing that I should be dropping tiny hints frequently of the possibility of returned memories so I can fast track my way out of this act.
"You can look around, open doors… maybe look through the things you left here. It might help jog things. The doctor said small everyday things can unlock parts of your mind." Jyeon slides his hands into his pockets and casually lounges where he stands.
He's dressed in jeans and a shirt today, over sneakers, and it's strange to me to see him dressed this way. I've noticed that he dresses casually now more than once since he came to the island. It's something unheard of from back then, and I wonder if it's to do with his leather jacket-loving bitch. He's had a style overhaul, and even Jyeon as a whole seems calmer, less uptight. He has a new aura of command and wisdom that was always under the surface as a young boy, but he's grown into it by becoming OLO's leading man. I guess we both aged and changed these past two years. Or maybe that's what a loving girlfriend does to you.
"I guess." I don't really want to, but if I want a reason to rekindle memories and seem like I'm trying, then I have to grin and bear it.
I walk around admiring items from so far back in my past that it's strange to be in their presence once more. Opening drawers and flicking through the perfectly maintained memories and choices I made for myself, seeing how much of an obsessive I was about my styling. My constant need to present a controlled image that was just as cold as I was.
I venture to the walk-in wardrobe, and as he said, my side is full of everything I once owned and spent my money on. Designer, expensive garments hung up on rails in clear plastic sleeves to keep them clean. My collection of high-end shoes are in transparent boxes, and everything I left behind is in the exact place it always should have been. I was always organized and liked everything in their place. This is a total contrast to the fact that Greta and I share budget buy clothes from a large trunk where we haphazardly toss everything.
I turn, taking note of the expanse of open rails on the other side of me. Jyeon's space is empty entirely. Not a hint of him left behind, not a stray item at all. It's immaculately spotless, and I grit my teeth.
"So, why don't you live here anymore? You said things weren't good with your mother? Have they always been that way?" I abandon the flicking through of endless designer suits I would never want to wear again, nodding to the bare shelves, and turn to lean against a separating pillar. Seeing as Jyeon has followed me in here. He knits his brows together with a bit of cute brow pucker and shrugs as he gazes into the emptiness.
"She blamed me for you. It made living here impossible." He mirrors my pose by backing up against the pillar on his empty side and rests the back of his skull and spine against it, crossing arms across that broad chest and eyeing me up and down. "She thought that you killed yourself because of my affair and that she pushed you to it with the last words she said to you. Mother couldn't stand to be in the same room as me or looking in a mirror for a long time."
"The last w…." My voice comes out tinnily and trails off as I remember exactly what those were. My heart turning cold and shuddering with how deeply it had cut me back then but a hint of sadness that the once formidable woman became this shell of herself. I feel guilty for ever believing she might be the mastermind behind the car accident now that I've seen her and know she's been mentally broken all this time. I would never have believed it if I hadn't seen it for myself, and it adds another layer to the confusion I carry around like a shroud.
"She blamed you for me straying and told you to fix it or get out. Something she has wished she could take back a million times these past two years. Like me, she's had two years to think about her relationship with you, and it didn't leave her proud or at peace. Regret is a big thing in this family."
"She doesn't think that way now?" I ask with a tone of bitterness, ignoring the rest of his dialogue, and then clear my throat with a cough to cover. "Blaming me, I mean."
"No. She didn't even then. She just didn't ever want to admit her son was our failure and the one disappointing her. She knew you were the one who could fix anything she commanded, so she put it on your head. My mother's pride back then mattered more than anything, and the family name. The legacy. You changed that, and she's genuinely happy to see you. Don't you see how much you mattered to all of us, that we love you and want you home? I don't know why you can't see or feel that or what it is that makes you distrust it." Jyeon seems genuinely perplexed and studies my face for answers while I dodge eye contact and stare into the closet once more.
"When I first went with Greta to her home, I wasn't exactly warm or approachable. I was a pretty miserable person. I was cold and hard to deal with. She called me Ice Queen, or Princess High and Mighty, and I didn't bond with the locals at first. They hated me and was nothing like I am now." I turn an accusing gaze back his way, hoping I'm conveying what I want to with clarity.
"How can you say you all loved me back then and say nothing about how different I am now? How can you love us both? I'm nothing like her. I didn't even like the person I was when I washed up on that island, so why would any of you? I wouldn't even thank you for the things in this wardrobe now…. not the clothes, the expensive shoes, the bags, or jewelry. I have no use or desire for any of it. I wouldn't stand in OLO and have the ability to do her job. She seems like a shallow person with no good qualities or depth. So who do you love exactly as I'm not even a shadow of her."
This is one thing that's been bothering me a lot. That Jyeon hasn't placed much emphasis on the drastic humanizing of Sohla Park or acted like it's a massive factor in our past. Somehow he doesn't seem to notice how significant a change it is. What happened to all the reasons he despised me? All our differences? Why is he now able to talk of Tia with less venom but couldn't back then? He says he loves me, but now I am a completely different person. Even I know that.