When Your Pain Becomes Mine

***

After midnight.

When he returned home staggering, Gyeonhui opened the door roughly.

Ojae had been waiting for him and rushed towards him.

"Where the hell have you been?"

He waved his hand like he didn't want to be bothered by Ojae's questions.

'Udang, tang, tang.'

At that moment, Gyeonhui remained unbalanced and collapsed on the porch.

"You, why are you doing this?"

Gyeonhui's face was pale, and his hair was wet with sweat like he had a fever.

Ojae held his arm to support him, but Gyeonhui struck Ojae's hand away.

"... Let go of me."

His mouth smelled of whiskey.

"Did you drink even more?" Ojae looked at him and asked anxiously.

"Yes. I drank more. Why?"

"Why on earth are you doing this? Don't you know that you've screwed everything now? How can you even think of drinking more after all this?"

"I thought I was going to die if I didn't drink, so I drank!" He leaned back at the door and shouted at Ojae.

At the same time, his body slid down the door.

"... What had happened?"

He closed his eyes and said no answer.

"Hah. Let's get inside." Ojae was frustrated but held his arm.

"I said, let go of me!" He pushed Ojae's hand away again.

"What the hell is going on! This is not like you!"

"Hah…" Gyeonhui sighed with his eyes closed.

Ojae sat in front of him, watching Gyeonhi struggling with his own anguish.

Ojae sat beside him quietly and waited.

A moment had passed, and Gyeonhui slowly started speaking,

"... Guess it's what I said to her..."

Instead of answering, Ojae looked at him still.

"I asked her if she has slept with Dr. Park. Hahahahahaha."

He suddenly laughed like a madman and stopped just as swiftly.

"... that's terrible."

"She said that my feelings about her are not love, and I just didn't want her to sleep with someone else." He smiled wryly and started speaking again. "... I had nothing to say because she was right. I was going crazy because I was afraid that she would sleep with him..."

He wiped his forehead with one hand and grabbed his hair.

"But that wasn't all... I had something more to say…" He continued to speak self-mockingly. "... But I couldn't say anything. I was so miserable."

He spoke in a low voice with his head dropped. He wrapped his hands around his head.

Ojae looked at him silently.

His expression alone conveyed enough of the pain that he was dealing with.

"Hah…" With a long frustrated sigh, Gyeonhui slowly raised himself.

"Hey, Gyeonhui…"

Ojae called his name anxiously.

He took one step, then another. It was relatively easy for him to go up these stairs, but not today.

When he returned to his room, he placed his face down on his desk without taking off his coat.

"Oh..."

The terrible pain constantly bothered him, not knowing whether it was her pain or his own.

"I'm being punished…"

He would usually just get up and go to the hospital, but he didn't want to, this time.

"... Cheonsun…" He struggled to call her name.

However, no voice answered.

"... I miss you…"

He slowly stood up and headed to the dressing room.

He put his hand deep between his well-pressed shirts as he struggled to find something.

After a while, he pulled out a red scarf.

It was a gift that he had given to her, the first and last.

It was something she loved most of all.

He sat on the floor of the dressing room and looked at the scarf.

On the first day she received the gift, he remembered her happy smile with her scarf wrapped around her neck.

His face that had a slight smile was quickly distorted by repeated abdominal pains.

"Hah…"

The fluffy texture wrapped around his neck warmly.

It was like he could feel the scent of her body.

"Sun..."

He closed his eyes and sang her name again with a distorted expression of pain.

His meaningless cry soon became buried in silence.

***

The next morning, in front of the Consencio building.

As Sun went to work, she paused for a moment and looked up at the building.

The skyscr.a.p.er that was higher than twenty floors was enough to overwhelm her.

"... I can do it."

She slowly stepped into the building while closing her mouth firmly.

She entered the building and passed through the security area and got into the elevator before looking around to find him. However, luckily she didn't see him.

"Hah…"

When she arrived at the office safely, she sighed lightly and entered the office.

"Good morning."

"Hey, good morning."

She greeted Eunyoung and Ari with the brightest tone that she could possibly utter, but their reaction was only awkward.

"What is this reaction? What's going on?"

At Sun's question, Ari and Eunyoung exchanged looks and approached her.

"Look at this."

Eunyoung pushed out her tablet PC to Sun.

"What's up?"

Sun's eyes were immediately shaken as she watched the tablet PC.

'The Consencio's CEO, Gyeonhui Woo, appeared at the raffle event while drunk...'

"This... what is this all about?"

Sun was so embarrassed and looked at Eunyoung.

"It was so chaotic yesterday. He was already stumbling when he got to the podium."

Eunyoung recalled the scene of the raffle event yesterday.

"There was a drawing of business cards, and he started stumbling by the time he went up to the podium to draw the cards for the raffle event. He was so drunk that when he spoke, his tongue was all twisted…"

The more she listened, the more her expression sank.

The article showed that it happened after he had seen her in the restaurant.

"Did he really drink that much after that and before the event?"

Sun couldn't believe a person like Gyeonhui, who absolutely distinguished between business and his personal affairs, could make such a mistake.

"What happened between the two of you yesterday?" Sun recalled yesterday when Ari asked carefully.

She remembered seeing him at the restaurant and near her house last night.

"... No, nothing happened."

Sun closed her eyes like she was trying to shake off her thoughts.

However, both of them could figure out what happened yesterday by looking at Sun's expression.

"Well, the rich people will clean up their own mess with tons of money that they have anyway, so let's just go back to work." Eunyoung tried to change the subject.

"That's right. Hey boss, what are we going to do with the remaining school supplies? Are we going to supply the discounted price like last time?" Ari asked her if she also agreed with Eunyoung.

"How much do we have left in our inventory?"

"Not much. We can donate them to the orphanage where we went with Mr. Woo last time..."

Ari suddenly blurted out her words while realizing that Sun didn't want to deal with Gyeonhui.

Eunyoung had furrowed her eyebrows and tried to stop Ari, but Sun had already heard everything.

"... That's a good idea. It's also an ambiguous quantity to supply to our customers." Sun answered when she heard Ari.

"Okay. Then Ari will take care of it."

Eunyoung said while glaring at Ari."

"No. I'll go," Sun answered.

"What?"

"I'll go. I want to go."

Eunyoung and Ari were so astonished by Sun's sinking voice that they looked at each other without saying anything.

Sun watched the news exhaling a slight sigh.