Chapter 32

After dinner, I went back to my room after forcefully re-stating my request for AhJung to continue writing her diary entries. I sat on my bed with my legs crossed and laid out the eight bags I had purchased that afternoon. After meticulously sewing the carefully folded talismans into the bags’ seams, an hour had already passed.

“I can’t believe this took so long,” I said out loud to myself.

I wiped my brow with my sleeves, stretched out my sore back and stood up. But at that moment, my cellphone rang to let me know a message had arrived. I went to check the message.

[The 1st act of the comedy synopsis you requested has been sent to your email. Please confirm receipt.]

It was a message from the famous writer, Noh HeeChul who I had requested a comedy play script from. To check my email, I turned on the laptop sitting on the tea table. It was probably going to be a simplified summary, but since Noh Heechul was the best writer in the business, the synopsis was probably going to be of a different class.

With high hopes, I opened the email and read the document. It included a summary of the plot with the description of each of the characters.

The main female lead was Na AhJung. Age, 33. Facial features of a 17 year old. Cursed by her young looks, a theater actress who fails to get casted for mature roles.

“Great. It’s exactly AhJung.”

Excited at finding the perfectly matched character, I continued onto the plot. From the first sentence on, my expression started to crumble. Upon reading the last line, I grabbed my phone. Then I dialed the number of the writer.

The moment the writer picked up the phone, I yelled without restraint.

“What! Why does AhJung end up getting into a relationship with a girl?!”

[Ah, that. Because there has to be an edge like that to get it some artistic recognition.]

“Look here. You call this art? You just pasted a bunch of ridiculous concepts together and made it as provocative as possible, is that art?”

[The thing is, if an average person reads this, it may be difficult to understand, but if you see it on stage, it will be phenomenal.]

“If I see this on stage, I’ll kill you,” I threatened. “You may be thinking that I’ve already got my deposit so there’s not much to lose if the play fails. I can tell you’ve created this play with that mindset, just patching together random storylines.”

[Well it’s only in the beginning stages, so I can see how you could get that impression.]

“Cursed by her young looks, an unknown theater actress finds out her days are numbered. She meets a girl while on her way to commit suicide and the two become a pair that cannot live without each other after a one night stand. Then, the girl finds out her husband of 20 years is actually her long lost father.”

I read back the synopsis back in a hardened voice.

“Whatever more you add to these bones will not make any difference in attracting the audience’s attention. More importantly, you missed the main point I emphasized in giving you this project. The story you’ve given me is not one written for a woman in her 30s living with the face of a teen. That was the point of the project.”

[Truthfully...thinking up a story with that criteria in only a week that could also attract public interest was not such an easy thing to do.]

“I gave you $100,000 because I knew it wasn’t easy.”

[That’s true but...can’t you give me a little more time? About a month...]

“A month?” I sighed in exasperation. “Is it really that difficult to think up a story for Na AhJung?”

I heard a sigh through the receiver.

“Then, how about this? An unknown actress in her 30s with the face of a teen marries the grandson of a millionaire.”

[What?]

“This girl thinks that this man is the greatest luck of her life, but we find out that the man is gay.”

[Oh, that’s great. And then what happens?]

“The man wasn’t marrying the girl because he loved her, but because he wanted to hide the fact that he was gay so he fooled her into marrying him...”

As I continued to tell the real story of AhJung’s life, I suddenly backtracked. If I made AhJung act in this play, she might find out that it was actually based on her life. Plus I was giving this play to her as a gift, so she’d be doubly suspicious. We couldn’t move forward with that story anymore. I couldn’t create a play that was a 100% match with her real life.

Then...should we twist up the story a bit?

“No. Let’s do it like this. The teen-looking unknown actress in her 30s goes into a “contract marriage” with the grandson of a millionaire. Using all the imagination at my disposal, I continued making up the story so that it would be different from the truth so that AhJung would not be able to tell that it was her story.

***

Na AhJung

It’d been ten days since JiHan had started forcing me to write my diary entries every day. Only two weeks remained until JiKyung’s return.

While JiHan was checking over my tenth entry, I stared at the pictures of myself that hung all around my walls. They were a mirror, my reflection. I concentrated on each of the pictures, repeating it to myself. For ten days I had done this, just as Lee JiHan had commanded.

But how could this beautiful and charismatic person be me? It can’t be?

Once the doubt started to resurface, my head tilted back and forth in denial. JiHan’s voice echoed from behind me.

“You better not be thinking about something else during this time of self-reflection.”

He called this “time for self reflection.”

I held my head up straight and tutted. Then continued to look at the pictures on the wall.

It would be nice if I really did look like this...

I was envious of the version of me in the pictures. From behind me, I heard the diary snap close.

“Let’s spend some good times together. Like yesterday.”

These words meant that my homework check was complete, so I turned back from the wall. JiHan, as he had for each of the ten days, looked at me and smiled. A smile that was brighter than his golden hair.

Ah, I would have thought I would get used to this by now.

I turned back to the wall to hide my thumping heart and pretended to look over the pictures once again. I could feel JiHan stand and walk towards me.

“Are you reviewing by re-looking at the pictures you’ve already seen?”

“Yes, they’re nice to look at,” I said beating around the bush.

JiHan’s hand squeezed my shoulders slightly. My hands tightened into fists as electricity shot through me.

“If they’re so nice to see, I’d like to look at them too.”

The pictures weren’t going anywhere, and yet he acted like I had been blocking his view of them.

“Go... go ahead,” I stammered as I shuffled to the side in case I was in the way

JiHan strengthened his grip and turned my body to let me know I was going the wrong way. As a consequence, I ended up face to face with him. He stared at my face.

“The pictures are actually over there,” I said pointing at the pictures behind me.

JiHan let go of my shoulders. “Why should I look there when there’s something better.”

After uttering words that made no sense to me, he grabbed my face with his hands and turned it to look at him. With my face parallel to his, he smiled serenely as if he was staring at something really good.

Ah...every morning, he’s driving me crazy!

I bit my lower lip to wake up my brain. I hurriedly pointed to the bed.

“My phone!”

At my panicked reaction, JiHan turned his head to the bed. Taking that opportunity, I ran to pick up the phone that hadn’t even rang.

“Oh, JiKyung? What are you doing up at this hour?” I answered.

“The phone didn’t ring,” JiHan pointed out sharply amidst my acting skills.

Not losing my composure, I took my mouth off the receiver.

“It was on vibrate,” I whispered.

Then, as if I was carrying on a conversation with JiKyung, I continued to talk to through the phone.

“Oh. You called because of my wedding dress? I know. It would have been nice to go with you. What can we do, though.”

Today was the day I would go to choose my wedding dress. I fabricated the dialogue using that situation.

“I’ll be fine so don’t worry about me. You still have two weeks until you return and the wedding is so soon after that, we don’t have much time. We don’t have much of a choice.”

Even though I was on the phone, JiHan refused to leave my side.

Why isn’t he leaving?

With my eyes down, I spared a glance at his unmoving feet and slowly started shuffling away from him.

At that moment, the ringtone blasted through my cochlea.

“Ahh!”

I wrenched the phone away from my ear in surprise. At my reaction, JiHan’s voice rang out.

“Why don’t you pick up the phone?”

Turning my head, I saw JiHan with his phone at his ear. Looking me in the eyes, he pointed at my phone. Afraid my suspicions were true, I looked down at my phone and saw his name on the screen.

Ah, what an embarrassment!

I picked up the phone practically on the verge of tears. JiHan’s voice rang through the receiver.

“Why are you avoiding me? To the point you would make up a phone call.”

“Avoiding you? There really was a phone call...” I tried to justify myself. “I was on the phone with JiKyung when your phone call came through.”

Taking the phone off my ear, I stared at the screen curiously. “I wonder why the call disconnected. Is this what they call entanglement?”

JiHan stepped up close to me and confronted me. “It’s not your phone that’s entangled, it’s your emotions.”

What is he talking about? Without even realizing, I looked back curiously at JiHan.

“I’m making that happen,” he said confidently.

He put his hand on my shoulder and sat me on the bed. Then picking up the teddy bear from the head of the bed, he placed it in my embrace. Like a reflex, I wrapped my arms around the bear. Like my reaction to JiHan’s whistle a few weeks ago, responding this way to the teddy bear was now a habit.

JiHan stretched his arms out toward the ceiling to fix the crooked canopy. Then he stepped back and looked at the canopy, the teddy bear, and finally, me. This was his routine every time he completed checking my diary entries.

Today, however, there was something extra. JiHan didn’t leave the room this time, but instead walked to the tea table and picked up the diary. Then he walked up and handed it to me.

“Today, you will review and memorize the things that are written in here,” he said.

I received the diary, not quite understanding, and looked up at JiHan for an explanation. He looked down at me ready to reprimand.

“I want you to remember how good I’ve been to you for the last ten days. Only then will I consider letting you out of here.”

“You want me to memorize all of this?”

“It’s only ten pages.”

JiHan took no excuses. Without a single attempt at compromise, he turned and left.

“Only ten pages...” I muttered indecencies the moment Jihan walked out.

I flipped through the pages of the diary and sighed. “There’s so much to memorize...”

Both the front and back of the ten pages were filled with miniscule writing.

It included a record of all the compliments that JiHan had uttered, all the presents he’d given me, all the things he’d done for me etc. And now he wants me to memorize it all.

I would never have imagined it. I had to remember all the things Lee JiHan had done for by date.

“I mean, why do I have to do something like this?”I blurted out in frustration.

The nagging suspicions started to creep back into my head. Out of all the days to decide to do this, he would pick the day I needed to choose my wedding dress. If I didn’t memorize all this, I wouldn’t be allowed to leave the house.

JiHan, this jerk...he went through all that for ten days specifically to do this to me now! I wondered why he had been so nice to me! Doing all those things for me to memorize so I wouldn’t be able to go shopping for my dress! He really has a knack for making my life difficult, to think I was almost fooled! Ha, you think I won’t be able to memorize it?

I felt ridiculous thinking of all those times within the last ten days that I had been touched by his actions. Thinking of JiHan’s obnoxious behavior, I clenched my fists in determination.

I will memorize all of it. I’ll memorize it and go to get my wedding dress.