The Only Photograph

The only photograph of its kind was sitting right there before her eyes. It was the very thing Kang-ho had said he would take and keep. Why, then, was it coming out of this woman's bag?

A hollow laugh escaped Mu-young before she could stop it. She looked at the woman across from her. Hee-jin's eyes blazed with the bravado of a witness clutching evidence of blackmail. In a way, this was a sharper blow than the water-blessing Hae-ju had worried about.

"Then go ahead. Tell him."

Mu-young answered without a moment's hesitation. She meant it. Even if her past with Baek Kang-ho came to light like this and the marriage fell through, there was nothing she could do to stop it. She would simply have to bear the accusation that she'd never said a word.

What did it matter, anyway? He had treated her like a total stranger. She might be lucky if all he wore was a look of contempt, as if to say how dare she fixate on a past he'd wiped clean from his memory.

"No, what I meant was—"

The moment Mu-young reacted in a way Hee-jin hadn't anticipated, the woman looked utterly flustered, as if she'd lost the initiative in a single stroke. It was plain she hadn't even prepared a Plan B.

"Besides… I never deliberately hid anything."

Mu-young picked her way through what she wanted to say. If anything, she was grateful someone had forced the issue into the open—it let her set the record straight on her own terms.

"So you simply had no reason to bring it up. Is that it?"

"Then what on earth are you thinking, going through with this marriage?"

Watching Mu-young dismiss the past as if it mattered so little, Hee-jin threw out the question, clearly at a loss to understand her.

"Do I owe you an explanation of my motives, Ms. Choi Hee-jin?"

Mu-young countered instead. What right did Hee-jin have to summon her here, to dig up an old photograph and lay it out like a threat? Mu-young pressed the point home.

Hee-jin could only stare back at her, her eyes wavering. She wanted to bring her nail-bitten fingers to her mouth but couldn't bring herself to, and the way her fists clenched tight was almost pitiable.

Mu-young couldn't help feeling that the situation itself—sparring with this naive creature over Baek Kang-ho—was a little absurd, a little uncomfortable.

"No, let's start with the basics."

Mu-young, who had been sitting upright, leaned slightly forward and cut straight to the heart of it. Hee-jin shrank back instead, cowed by the force of her manner.

"What exactly is your relationship with Assemblyman Baek Kang-ho?"

She needed to understand the reality of things before she could properly close out this uncomfortable hour. Whatever else was true, she was the one promised to marry the man, and the woman opposite her was clearly desperate to stop it.

"Well, you see… I love him. A lot. It's been ages—since we were young. He's always treated me like an equal, like family…"

"Is that your way of saying I should feel guilty?"

Mu-young cut through Hee-jin's rambling excuse and asked her to state only the essential. Cornered completely, Hee-jin finally spat out the truth as if it were something she had to cough up.

"Yes, fine. It's my unrequited love. But you butted in too, didn't you? You show up out of nowhere and announce you're getting married overnight…"

"If you want to argue that, take it up with Assemblyman Baek, not me. Wouldn't that be the most sensible move under the circumstances?"

Mu-young offered the advice the way one might hand down the conclusion of a friend's counseling session. From the look in Hee-jin's eyes, she already knew the answer. That she couldn't act on it was something Mu-young could understand, too, at least a little. So she wanted to end things as gently as she could.

"Well then, I'll be going."

"If he finds out you're the one who hid it, he'll feel betrayed."

But Hee-jin couldn't quite let go of her last shred of attachment, and she hurled the words out with a spiteful edge. Mu-young no longer needed to ask to know that it was the only weapon the woman had to strike at her with.

"That sort of feeling doesn't matter in our marriage."

Mu-young laid out the reality for her. Perhaps it was the instinct to soothe a girl young enough to be her little sister.

"Then can you promise you won't be… the way you used to be, with him? I really do love him. I'm begging you. Please."

Hee-jin swallowed her pride completely and grabbed Mu-young's hand. Tears looked ready to spill from her eyes at any moment. Faced with a woman's desperate pleading, Mu-young felt her heart squeeze with an ache that made no sense to her.

Being able to say plainly that you loved someone, and to lay yourself bare on their behalf—it looked enviable, and it looked beautiful. It was something Mu-young could no longer bring herself to do. No. Perhaps it was something she had never once managed, not ever.

"Here. Wipe your face."

She pulled her own handkerchief from her bag and held it out. When Hee-jin took it with a sniffle, Mu-young rose from her seat. As she turned to leave, she heard, over the sound of sobbing behind her, a loud blow of the nose. Somehow that reassured her a little.

If you really loved Baek Kang-ho, I might believe it.

As Hae-ju walked toward the elevators, she found herself recalling what she'd said to her friend a few days earlier. She'd tossed it off as a throwaway remark, certain there was no chance of it being true—and yet Mu-young's expression at the time kept refusing to leave her mind.

Was there really something between her and Baek Kang-ho, something more? If so, there was no way she, of all people, wouldn't know about it.

Unlike herself, who dated freely whenever a man seemed acceptable, Mu-young had never shown the slightest interest in the opposite sex. Plenty of decent men had come around, and she'd fended every one of them off, as if guarding some sacred ground. That was why Hae-ju used to tease her, joking that her friend must surely have a great first love somewhere.

Whenever she did, Mu-young would only smile. She never said it was wrong, never said it was right. That had always bothered Hae-ju, and somehow the words and expression she'd caught from her friend the other day felt like an extension of that same old self.

"Ugh, whatever."

Hae-ju shook her head to clear it. Perhaps it was because she was walking into the National Assembly, where Mu-young worked, that these thoughts kept circling. The elevator arrived just then, and she stepped inside, forcing herself to run through only today's assignments in her head.

"Hold it, please. Let me ride along."

The doors, about to close, were pushed open by someone's hand. The person who'd hurried over bowed their head in thanks, then froze the instant they recognized her.

"It's been a while, senior."

At Hae-ju's greeting, Jung-pyo went blank, as though he'd just taken a punch. Even as Kang-ho stepped into the elevator he was holding open, Jung-pyo remained standing outside. Kang-ho, arriving from his morning breakfast meeting, was leaning against the rear wall of the car, rubbing at his tired eyes.

"Not coming in?"

"Ah—yes, sorry."

Only when Hae-ju pressed him did Jung-pyo finally step inside. He stood beside her and simply watched the floor numbers climb. Their relationship was, in truth, awkward enough that neither of them knew what to say.

"Senior, is this the first time I've seen you since you quit?"

"Well… I suppose it is."

Jung-pyo had worked at the same newspaper where Hae-ju was now employed, until he received Kang-ho's offer to scout him and crossed over to the Assembly. When word reached Hae-ju that a man who'd been treated as a virtual outsider at the company had suddenly been pulled into an assemblyman's office at the very peak of political careerism, she'd assumed it was misinformation. The Yoon Jung-pyo she knew was, she was certain, not the sort to covet such a position.

It had been a complete misjudgment on her part. It was also the moment she learned, all over again, just how fearsome human desire could be.

"So… what brings you here?"

"I transferred to the politics desk."

Hae-ju held up her press access card.

"I'm here on an Assembly assignment, so… well, anyway, it looks like we'll be seeing a lot of each other from now on."

Hae-ju's gaze drifted past Jung-pyo to the man standing at the back of the elevator, then returned. The timing, she thought, was exquisite. She'd known that coming here often meant running into him eventually, but she hadn't expected that coincidence to arrive quite so easily.

"You'll be even busier soon, senior. Once the marriage story breaks, reporters are going to swarm your office."

"…Marriage?"

At Hae-ju's remark, Jung-pyo looked back at her with eyes that knew nothing. Behind him, Assemblyman Baek shifted almost imperceptibly. Apparently he hadn't told Jung-pyo. Judging the man to be more tight-lipped than she'd expected, Mu-young's friend found herself liking him for it.

"Oh—so you hadn't heard yet, senior."

Hae-ju grew sheepish, as if doing damage control. Then she looked toward Kang-ho standing at the back and bowed her head.

"Oh dear, that was a breach of etiquette on my part. My apologies, Assemblyman. My information network is simply too good—looks like I beat your own office to it."

Having landed a hit on both men with a single blow, Hae-ju made a show of excessive courtesy. Kang-ho merely smiled at her performance.

"You must be very good at your job. The news travels fast with you."

Kang-ho parried with a carefully neutral reply. He had anticipated that the rumor sheets would already be circulating after the formal family banquet—or that the leak might even have come from Assemblywoman Min Ji-ae's side.

That his most trusted aide alone should be ignorant of such fresh news was, in equal measure, a small pang of guilt and a dull ache. And with Jung-pyo looking at him as though he'd been betrayed, Kang-ho had no idea where to put his eyes.

"My information is bound to be fast. Mu-young's my friend."

Hae-ju volunteered the connection without being asked.

"Oh, right—that announcer, the one from TUS. Did you get things sorted out with her? I trust you, of course, Assemblyman, but Mu-young was in a bit of a mood over the weekend after taking a phone call and running out somewhere. Oh dear—am I not supposed to say that?"

At the reporter's belated pantomime of covering her mouth, the corners of Kang-ho's eyes distorted almost imperceptibly. And Hae-ju, missing nothing, watched every twitch of it.