Real Piece of Shit Calling

Vvvrrr — bzz bzz —

"Ah!"

Seol-hee's eyes flew open. Early sunlight was already spilling in through the window.

Her gaze, groping through the cramped room of barely a hundred square feet, blinked into focus. She soon traced the source of the vibration, reached under her pillow, and fished out her phone.

"Ha."

The moment she confirmed the caller's name, her groggy mind snapped wide awake, and a laugh slipped out of her.

It was certainly not because she was glad to hear from Dong-chan.

Seeing that name on her phone screen made it real — she had truly come back to the past.

She tapped the decline button with brisk satisfaction and swung her legs out of bed.

"Dad."

Wiping the sleep from her eyes, she shuffled out to the living room. The house was quiet. A yellow sticky note had been stuck to the dining table.

"You should've woken me up and taken me with you."

He must have gone out to buy something delicious for a daughter going through such an ordeal. Her throat tightened for no reason.

"And with your health the way it is……"

She had to return to the hospital that afternoon. The stomach cancer discovered before the wedding had been caught early, and the surgery had been a success. And yet, three years after that surgery, he had left her side.

Perhaps this time, the outcome could be different.

I have to at least try.

Seol-hee picked up one of the washed apples and took a bite. With a crisp crunch, sweetness flooded her mouth.

"Mmm. Cheongsong apples."

There had never been a day when the refrigerator stood empty of apples, in any season. Her mother used to say she'd suffered terrible morning sickness while pregnant with her, and the only thing she could keep down was apples. That, she suspected, had a great deal to do with why she loved them so much.

Chewing away at the crunchy fruit, she mixed glutinous and regular rice and left it to soak in water, then rummaged through the cupboard until she found dried seaweed.

"Dad deserves some seaweed soup."

Just then, the doorbell rang.

Ding-dong, ding-dong —

There was only one uninvited guest who would come calling at this hour of the morning.

And sure enough.

"Right on schedule, as always."

On the intercom screen, Dong-chan was glaring straight into the camera. Impatience must have gotten the better of him — this, from a man who could never drag himself out of bed before noon.

Seol-hee picked up the receiver.

There he was, bellowing away, having confirmed that her father's car wasn't there — wearing that full scowl of his, utterly oblivious to how ridiculous he looked.

"I'm at the Intersection Cafe."

Click.

Leaving nothing but those words, Seol-hee headed back to the kitchen. She set the sliced seaweed to soak in cold water, gave her hands a quick wash, and set out for the cafe.

Jingle —

"Welcome."

Stepping inside, she ordered an iced latte to go. Since the place doubled as a flower shop, it was the only cafe in the neighborhood that opened this early.

Dong-chan's eyes swept over Seol-hee from head to toe. A white T-shirt clearly grabbed off whatever was at hand. Plastic sliders, a baseball cap jammed onto her head, nothing on her face but sunscreen. His face darkened with complaint — why had she walked out wearing bargain-bin rags when he'd bought her an entire wardrobe? His lips twitched as he fought to hold his tongue.

"I told you not to eat anything sweet. Oh, they have kale juice here, you should dri—"

"Why are you here?"

She took the seat across from him. There was no need to listen to more; time to get to the point.

Dong-chan studied her expression, then let out a sigh and finally opened his mouth.

"You really mean to end things like this?"

Seol-hee crossed her legs and looked him dead in the eye. Apparently his expression changed depending on his mood, too — the Dong-chan of ten years ago had an even more punchable face.

"Well then, how would you like it to end?"

To Dong-chan, those words sounded like a declaration that everything was already over.

Says who?

He raised his voice.

"Shouldn't you at least hear my side? You were never this inflexible."

Seol-hee bit down on the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing.

There it is. Dong-chan's signature speech habit.

That shabby, chronic compulsion to lecture people. She couldn't for the life of her remember why she'd once mistaken that tone for tenderness.

Dong-chan, seeing her bite her lip, believed she was cowering as usual. Sensing his moment, he pressed the advantage.

"And digging into my background on top of everything — isn't that going too far?"

"Did you not do the same to me?"

A faint smile playing at her lips, Seol-hee answered without a beat's hesitation.

"Me, my father, even the relatives we'd cut ties with. You raked us all clean, didn't you?"

Dong-chan's mouth fell open. His face said plainly: how could she possibly know that?

Before the regression, she'd learned it from documents she'd stumbled upon in her mother-in-law In-ok's vanity drawer.

She could practically hear the gears grinding in his head, scrambling for a rebuttal.

"Th-that's just how our family works, we had no choice. You were going to become family — of course we needed to know you were clean. It's purely preventive……. But wait, how did you find that out?"

Seol-hee said it with something like a sneer.

"I don't owe answers about my private life to a man whose own isn't remotely clean."

Dong-chan sat there, lost for words. He searched and searched for something to fire back, and found nothing. He hated to admit it, but every word of it was right.

Damn it, since when does she argue this well?

Dong-chan had always liked how obedient Seol-hee was, how well she knew her place. She was easy to handle — convenient, in a word. But the Seol-hee sitting across from him now had changed. Contrary, disrespectful…… and, strangely enough, confident.

Why does it feel like I'm losing?

Dong-chan's face scrunched up.

"By the way… Seol-hee, why are you talking down to me?"

For four years of dating, she had spoken to him politely without a single exception.

Seol-hee pretended to think for a moment, then replied.

"The honorifics just won't come out."

Dong-chan gave a hollow laugh of pure disbelief. Just then, the owner awkwardly raised a hand — her to-go latte was ready. Precisely the amount of time it took to order one coffee. The absolute maximum she would grant Jin Dong-chan.

"If there's nothing left to say, we're done here."

At that, Dong-chan threw out his words in a rush.

"Are you sure you want to throw this wedding away? Really?"

Seol-hee sat back down.

"What about your father's hospital bills? You're barely keeping up with your student loans as it is. You even put off getting a job to marry me."

Dong-chan hurried to pile on.

"You know what kind of family mine is, right? Mother is furious right now. This is going to sound cruel, but you won't find employment easily."

Seol-hee's expression, untouched until now, finally dimmed. His words didn't sound like mere bluster.

Her future in-laws could reach far deeper into people's lives than she'd once realized — and no one knew that better than she did, from the front row. They cultivated friendships with corporate moguls whose names alone opened doors, and under the noble pretext of "looking out" for people, they handed over privileged information and wielded influence to match.

Seeing her face harden, Dong-chan thought: so now it's finally sinking in.

"I'll cut things off with the other girl."

A lie.

"And I'll smooth things over with Mother about the wedding."

His mother had been in a fury, screaming for Seol-hee to be brought before her. The fortune that the Cheonmyeongdang Master had personally hand-picked, she said — nowhere in this world existed another saju that would bless her son's destiny like Seol-hee's. So if they simply brought her in first, his mother wouldn't just forgive her; she'd fling both arms wide and welcome her in.

"Do you love me?"

Seol-hee, holding his gaze, threw out a question he never saw coming.

Dong-chan flinched and laughed awkwardly.

"Of course I lo—"

"You love me, so you sponsor an actress?"

Her voice was as calm as ever. Dong-chan's face froze.

"If that's what love is, isn't that awfully strange?"

Seol-hee tilted her head slightly, as if genuinely puzzled.

She'd met Dong-chan right after starting university — back when she could barely take care of herself. In those days, he had been the only person cheering her on. That was why she'd liked him. That was why she'd decided to marry him.

But he had approached her with impure intentions from the start, and the control he disguised as love curdled into mockery and violence, tightening around her throat again and again.

Seol-hee posed the question that would let her view this whole situation with cold clarity.

"You don't love me. So why are you trying to marry me?"

Dong-chan's lips fluttered, unable to form an answer. Seol-hee's eyes bored into him, as if shaking loose everything he was hiding — eyes that seemed to say, I already know all of it.

Watching him sit there struck dumb, Seol-hee rose from her seat.

"If there's nothing left to say, I'm leaving. And don't ever come looking for me again. Whatever you try to pull, neither you nor your family will ever be entangled with me."

Picking up her prepared iced latte, Seol-hee walked out of the cafe.

Left behind, Dong-chan stared holes into her retreating back. The way her eyes had caught his from time to time during their conversation kept flickering before him.

It felt like standing in silent darkness, facing the edge of a blade that could fly at him at any moment.

"There's no way she could know."

There was no possible way she knew the true purpose of this marriage — so why did she feel like she knew something?

Dong-chan bounced his leg restlessly. Right up until the morning of the wedding, Seol-hee had been exactly her usual self. So why, in that sliver of time, had she turned into a completely different person?

Because of Ryu Ah-reum?

He understood that, from her perspective, it was an unforgivable betrayal. But the gentle Seol-hee he knew would at least have demanded an explanation before believing the worst.

"Unless……"

Suddenly, the familiar faces from the wedding flashed before his eyes. One person who had never been invited to the ceremony. And what if that person was someone capable of turning her heart?

"Unless… Do Yi-hyuk……"

Could it be connected to that bastard somehow?

"No way. I blocked those two from ever crossing paths — how thoroughly did I make sure of it? Seol-hee wouldn't even remember Do Yi-hyuk's face."

Everything was twisting away from his calculations. Before he knew it, Dong-chan was gnawing at his fingernails.

Vvvrrr — vvvrrr —

The phone on the table buzzed.

Mom

Checking the caller ID, Dong-chan spat out a low curse.

"Fucking hell — what does she want ME to do about it?"