Mad About My First Love — Episode 7: The Key on the Table

It was nearly ten in the morning. The floor-to-ceiling windows of the living room, which looked out over the reservoir in the distance, were veiled by thin white curtains that softened the sunlight. Thanks to the hum of the air conditioner, the house felt pleasantly cool.

The two of them sat facing each other in the quiet kitchen. Unable to muster a single answer to his question, she was eating the breakfast he had set before her. She might as well have been eating sand — she couldn't even tell whether the food was actually reaching her mouth. She was too awkward and embarrassed to meet his eyes, so she just kept poking aimlessly at her scrambled eggs when a persistent buzzing began to vibrate across the table.

“Sounds like you've got a call.”

Jae-gyeom handed over Ji-su's phone, mentioning that the battery was nearly dead so he'd plugged it in to charge. On the screen of her violently shuddering phone, two words glowed clear and bright: Oppa Young-baek.

“You're not going to answer?”

“Nope.”

Jae-gyeom nodded. Ji-su had just speared another bite of egg and was lifting it to her mouth when a second call came through — this time from a different contact. Young-baek's Mom. Ji-su flipped the phone face-down on the table.

“Im Ji-su. Once you're back in Seoul, you're going to keep ignoring my calls just like this, aren't you?”

“…….”

“This is the real you, huh. I guess you were planning to use me and throw me away.”

“No, that's — I mean, listen, huh?”

“Shameless. And you think you're the one in a position to get huffy?”

Feeling as though she'd been beaten over the head with her own words, Ji-su gave up trying to respond and raised her juice glass to her lips instead. Jae-gyeom was still watching her with that smile of his, so in the end she just smiled along with him. The problem was, she didn't have the gall to put on any other expression.

Jae-gyeom seemed to have given up on pressing her, too.

“Your car — where should I have it towed? I'll fix it up as fast as I can.”

And so, whether she liked it or not, Ji-su's phone number and home address were laid completely bare for Yoon Jae-gyeom.

They left the house together and headed for Gyesul Station, and the silence held even inside the car. Jae-gyeom never once brought up the things he could have said — stop dodging my calls from now on, or so what exactly are we to each other, starting today?

All he said before she got out was a simple farewell, a plain promise that they'd be seeing each other again before long.

Once aboard the train to Seoul, Ji-su sent a message to Eun-mi — her old classmate and closest friend.

Eun-mi was a reporter at one of the country's three major dailies. She happened to have a lull in her schedule, and said a call would be easier — her phone rang a moment later.

“It wasn't worth an actual phone call.”

— Are you kidding? You're asking about a guy? You've never once asked me anything like this. And if he's handsome? All the more so.

“Well, anyway…… you said you don't know him.”

— Oh! Wait, now that I think about it, I remember him. That insanely good-looking guy. Tall, and his face was literally carved like a sculpture.

“We had someone like that at our school?”

— Yeah, and funny enough, the name's almost the same.

“What was his name?”

The name of Gyesul High's greatest beauty, according to Eun-mi, was Kim Jae-gyeom.

— Kim Jae-gyeom was one year below us. And he didn't even live in Gyesul. He was a Seoul kid originally.

“You're unbelievable — you know everyone down to the underclassmen. How do you even know he was from Seoul? Anyway, must be a different guy. Mine was my age.”

— By the way, weren't you taking that trash boyfriend of yours to meet your mom? Please tell the old lady didn't collapse again from how awful he was. If I were your mother, I'd have taken to my bed. And hold on — the guy who was going to meet your mom suddenly gets you swooning over some random stranger? What even IS that?

Ji-su debated where to even begin.

Should she start with calling him trash is a bit harsh, or skip ahead to he's not my boyfriend anymore, actually? That she'd let a man she'd believed was an old classmate meet her mother — and then slept with him? Which part did she lead with? After a moment's agonizing, Ji-su decided to start with whatever was easiest to say from a train.

“Eun-mi. I'm going to break up with him.”

— WAAAAAH!

It came through like a scream, but Ji-su knew better. That was a war cry of celebration.

— WOOOO hot damn! I'm giving you a standing ovation right now.

“You're at the office. Watch your mouth.”

— Watch it? I'll watch it when I'm dead! This is huge. Our Ji-su has finally come to her senses. The day has finally come.

“‘Come to my senses,’ huh……”

— I was so happy I almost cursed. Okay, fine, I already did. But seriously, friend — this time, break up with him for good. Okay? That's my one request, unni to you.

“That's the plan.”

Every single time Ji-su declared a breakup, Young-baek's mother had thrown herself into patching up her son's failings. Under the pretext of providing for a girl living alone, she would haul over side dishes, health supplements, even skin lotion, coaxing and coddling Ji-su right back into the relationship. And woven all through it was the burden of “six years of dating — you owe him.” That was the thing Eun-mi despised most of all.

— That woman drives me insane. Look, honestly — what power does a relationship with zero sex in it have, that she keeps hammering you with these six years? If those six years were so precious, her precious son should have waited for you, pure and faithful and true. Instead he's out there hitting on every woman in a skirt within a ten-block radius and doing every sleazy thing imaginable! That little piece of—

“I'm sorry. Breathe. Calm down.”

— Calm down? Honestly, that Young-baek — that old fart, that lunatic — he keeps parading around like he never slept with anyone else, like it's some medal of honor. You really believe he never did? There's no way he couldn't!

“……Eun-mi. Got it, so please, you're at the office—”

— Ahem. Right. I got a little carried away.

Saying she needed to head into the newsroom, Eun-mi checked in on Ji-su one last time — with strict orders never, ever to go back on this decision.

Looking down at her phone, still burning hot in her hand as if it were carrying the full heat of Eun-mi's fury on her behalf, Ji-su steeled her resolve once more.

The following Friday, Ji-su's car arrived.

She'd been worried sick that Jae-gyeom might drive it over himself, but the car came on a transport truck, and the driver even tucked it neatly into the piloti parking space on the ground floor of her studio apartment building before leaving.

“Wow. It came back gorgeous.”

The car, registered in Young-baek's mother's name, had carried small scratches from the very day Ji-su received it as a “gift,” along with several rust stains where the paint along the bottom of the doors had peeled away. Now, every last one of them had been fixed to perfection.

Over the past week, Jae-gyeom had kept up a steady stream of one-way messages. And yet none of them felt burdensome, none of them put her off. They were simply snapshots of his quiet days.

You bringing that all the way here is what's weird. How much was the repair? Where should I send the money? Can you give me your account number?

Whenever she asked about the repair bill, the replies stopped coming.

“This man, honestly.”

But now that the car was back in her hands, she couldn't very well not pay.

Besides, after everything he'd done for her, refusing to pay would have been beyond indefensible.

Ji-su searched online for the used market price of the same model and the typical cost of repairs — and couldn't close her gaping mouth. The car would sell used for a million won, and the repair on the major engine components alone had cost eight hundred thousand. Add in the fact that he'd fixed every scratch on the exterior too, and……

So that's why she told me to scrap it.

Ji-su let out a bitter laugh. Young-baek's mother, who had handed this over as a “gift” while cooing that no one but us will ever look out for you — even she must have found this heap too much to deal with anymore.

Ji-su pressed down hard on Yoon Jae-gyeom's name in her messenger app. Fortunately, the transfer button lit up. In good conscience, she entered the full million won — the car's exact resale value — into the amount field.

“Thank you, Yoon Jae-gyeom.”

The moment she hit send, she deleted his contact and blocked him on the messenger as well.

The next day, Ji-su reached out to Kim Young-baek first and arranged to meet him.

She ordered an americano at a big chain café and stood looking out the window. Across the street, a convenience store had refitted its outdoor displays and was stocking up on Chuseok gift sets. Chuseok already, huh. Autumn really has come striding in. She was still mulling that over when—

“Hey. You know how overpriced this place is — my mom's told you a hundred times. There's a way cheaper, better spot just a little farther down. One of those self-service cafés, no need to worry about people watching you.”

“…….”

“And you know I like iced café mocha. You did order it with the whipped cream piled up like a mountain, right? You ordered it, it just hasn't come out yet — that's it, isn't it?”

That was what came spilling out of Kim Young-baek the moment he walked in. It had never once been pleasant to hear, but Ji-su had always chalked it up to thriftiness, to a man who simply knew his own mind. He was a spoiled only child raised doted on by his parents, she'd told herself — he talked like that, but underneath he must be soft-hearted. Ji-su no longer had any need to keep making excuses for him.

What she set down in front of him was not a drink.

It was the car key.