The Ring Left Behind

Som-i moved over to the full-length mirror propped against one wall. Even after she'd worked the essence through, her hair still refused to lie flat, and as she swept a hand vaguely over the fluff, something glinting caught her eye.

The ring on her left ring finger.

It was one of the gifts from Baek Seol-hee, Hwi-young's mother — given to two people who hadn't even held a wedding ceremony, had not a single photograph to show for it, and had simply gone ahead and signed their papers with a thud.

Even so, it's a marriage. You should have at least this much, the woman had said flatly, holding out a box that contained gems unlike anything Som-i had ever seen in her life, arranged by type in velvet slots.

There were earrings, a bracelet, a necklace — and when it came to rings alone, no fewer than four varieties. The moment she received them, Som-i had felt so overwhelmed that she handed the entire set over to her mother for safekeeping. Her mother, who checked the brand names and item descriptions on the certificate of authenticity later, very nearly fainted. The jewels that together looked like they wouldn't fill the palm of one hand were worth comfortably more than an entire apartment in the provincial town where Som-i's family lived.

Try as she might, she simply couldn't bring herself to carry something so terrifying on her person. She had no confidence she could ever grow used to it, and the fear of becoming a target for some criminal struck her all at once. In the end, Som-i had brought up only one ring — a simple band identical in design to Hwi-young's. Of course, it was several more days before she learned that this one, too, cost a staggering sum equal to the starting salary at a major corporation.

Som-i brought the hand she'd been fussing with her hair up in front of her eyes. As if looking at a stranger's hand, she stared blankly at her ringed finger. It was still awkward. Still foreign.

She bent the finger, stretched it wide and turned it this way and that in the sunlight. The ring gave off a soft, subtle sheen with every change of angle. Watching it quietly, she was overtaken by a strange, dizzying feeling.

I really did get married.

Only days ago, her daily life had consisted of secretly burning up inside as she stole glances at Kwon Hwi-young from across a room. And now, in the space of barely a week, the two of them were legally married and living under one roof. The fact landed on her all over again, fresh as the morning.

She stood there for a while, gazing helplessly at her own hand, and then began to ease the ring off her finger, gently twisting it loose.

"Ah…."

Maybe her hands had swelled up overnight. The ring stubbornly refused to slide off, and after a long minute of struggling, she finally wrestled it free. It seemed better, all things considered, to leave it behind when she went to school.

Som-i laid the ring down gently in its velvet case inside the drawer, then came back out to the living room.

The moment she closed the bedroom door behind her, her eyes met Hwi-young's, where he sat astride a chair at the dining table. He had apparently finished getting ready some time ago — dressed to go out, his jacket already draped over the chair beside him. When their gazes met, he broke into a smile.

Som-i smiled back without quite meaning to, but Hwi-young's eyes had already slipped discreetly downward. They stopped at her hand. At her empty ring finger, to be precise.

"You took it off?"

He tilted his chin toward the hand he'd been watching a moment ago.

"The ring, I mean."

"Yes."

Som-i answered, curling her fingers into her palm without realizing it.

"Why?"

"It's too noticeable. What if someone sees and…."

It was an expensive designer piece far beyond what any university student would ordinarily wear. If one of her sharp-eyed friends happened to notice and ask, what excuse could she possibly come up with?

"Maybe we just wear them at home. Us."

At her careful suggestion, Hwi-young regarded her in silence for a moment, then lowered his gaze, matter-of-factly, to the ring on his own hand. He seemed to think it over briefly.

"Okay."

He nodded, just like that, easy as anything. Then, without a flicker of hesitation, he pulled the ring from his own finger and held it up lightly in the air.

"Deal."

And that was that. He didn't ask for a single reason more. She'd noticed it before — how quickly he accepted things, how easily he was persuaded.

Som-i picked up her bag.

"I'll head out first, then. See you later."

They had agreed to go to school separately, staggered by time. Som-i would leave first, and Hwi-young would follow a little while later on his own.

The two of them were already of one mind on this: they would tell no one at school anything, and simply go on acting as senior and junior, exactly as they always had.

Even if she blurted out that they'd gotten married, she could already picture the whispers, the sidelong glances. She didn't want to become gossip on every pair of lips on a campus this small, didn't want to be hurt by it. Yes, they'd stumbled here through a one-night mistake — that much was true. But there was no need to lay that out for the world to see.

Besides, once this semester ended, Som-i would have to take a leave of absence for the birth, if nothing else. Hwi-young would be staying in school, unlike her — and for his sake too, keeping the secret was the best choice. Hwi-young had calmly and quietly agreed with her judgment.

"See you later."

Hwi-young, chin propped on the back of his chair, waved a lazy hand. It was an oddly ethereal image — she was looking straight at him, and yet the reality of it kept fading in and out like a mirage.

"Yes. See you later."

Som-i gave a small bow and turned away quickly. When she glanced back on her way to the front door, he was still waving.

She hurried her steps toward the entrance. Her eyes dropped of their own accord — and landed on her sneakers, lined up neatly, ready to slip right into.

She hadn't touched them. It had to have been Kwon Hwi-young. Som-i stood looking down at the shoes for a quiet moment, then slowly slid her feet in.

And in that instant, a strange illusion seized her — that today, for some reason, the inside of her sneakers felt warmer than usual.

Studio A in the Practical Training Building. The third-year acting students were in a fever of heated debate, trying to choose a script for their second-semester workshop.

Hwi-young leaned back at an angle in a chair by the practice room window, rubbing his dry, gritty eyes with the back of his hand. Even so, the fatigue clung to his eyelids like they'd been loaded with lead weights; it simply would not lift.

"Hwi-young, did you not sleep last night? You look extra tired today."

Yu-jin, a classmate, had turned her whole body toward him at some point — how long had she been watching? — and asked sweetly.

Hwi-young, out of pure habit, let the corner of his mouth curl up first.

"Yeah, a little."

"Why? What were you doing up so late?"

At the softly probing question, Hwi-young's gaze hung for a moment in empty air. As if some memory had flashed past, the eyes that had been staring blankly ahead trembled faintly. Yu-jin caught that subtle shift at once, her eyes gleaming, and pressed him.

"Mm? Did something happen?"

"No, nothing. I just slept badly, that's all."

Hwi-young's face settled back into its usual easygoing expression, and he turned his head away. Looking genuinely disappointed, Yu-jin scooted her chair up close behind his and suddenly thrust out the coffee she was holding.

"Want to at least have some coffee?"

Hwi-young hesitated at the coffee so abruptly offered. Catching even that tiny flicker of reluctance, Yu-jin hurried to add:

"I haven't taken a single sip. It's brand new."

"You bought it to drink yourself, why would you give it to me? I'm fine, so you have it, Yu-jin."

A graceful refusal delivered with a smiling face. He saw her cheekbones lift slightly, but Hwi-young pretended not to notice and turned his back on her. Then he covered his mouth with a fist and swallowed down a yawn.

He twisted his neck this way and that, rolled his shoulders — all of it fell hopelessly short of chasing away the drowsiness pouring over him. Hwi-young let out a faint sigh and rubbed at the corners of his eyes again.

It was the natural result of staying up almost the entire night. He'd spent the small hours tormented by every stray thought in the world and urges that kept raising their heads, until the first gray light of dawn seeped through the blinds and he finally passed out as if someone had flipped a switch.

And no wonder. Yesterday had been the first night he'd ever fallen asleep in the same bed as Kwak Som-i.

"Ha…."

Hwi-young dragged a hand down his face, rough with sleeplessness, and exhaled a long breath.

The road ahead looked pitch dark. He was going to have to share a bed with Kwak Som-i every single night from now on. Just how far could his meager self-control possibly hold out? The more he thought about it, the deeper he sighed.

He rose, figuring a little fresh air might do him good, and walked to the window. Three floors down, the campus lay bathed in the clear sunlight of autumn, bright and unstinting.

He let his face take the breeze drifting in through the gap in the open window, and the accumulated exhaustion seemed to thin, if only a little.

He set both hands on the windowsill and bent forward at the waist like he was stretching — when suddenly, from below, came the sound of girls giggling. He lifted his head naturally and dropped his gaze.

Huh.

Hwi-young's movements stopped dead. As if bewitched, he pressed himself close against the windowsill.

"…."

His gaze, snagged on something below, would not budge an inch. The cluttered noise of the studio, the fatigue pressing down on his whole body — all of it receded into the distance in an instant.

He sat there with his chin even propped on the windowsill, staring blankly out — and that was when:

"Hey, Kwon Hwi-young. What're you grinning at like an idiot?"

At the voice of the classmate who'd thumped his shoulder, Hwi-young finally snapped back to reality.

"Me? I was laughing?"

When he shot back a blank question, the guy clicked his tongue in reply.

"Yeah. You've been yawning your head off all day like you were half-dead, and now you're grinning like a screw's come loose somewhere. It's creepy."

A hollow laugh slipped out of him; he felt strangely adrift. So that was why the corners of his mouth had felt numb. Hwi-young quickly ran a hand over his jaw and smoothed his expression.

His classmate slung an arm playfully around Hwi-young's shoulder.

"What, did some drop-dead gorgeous girl just walk by?"