Taehyung

"Yeah, please coordinate with Mr. Lee and e-mail me the final draft by noon," I speak on my phone that's on loudspeaker while fastening my necktie and fixing the collar of my shirt as I stand facing the dresser mirror in the bedroom.

"Sure, Mr. Kim, we will do it," the reply comes crackling from the other end of the call.

"Alright," I end the call and glance at the screen, only to discover that the battery is at 7%, which means it wouldn't last me until I leave for work because my phone's battery exhibits this strange behavior of instantly going down from 5% to 0% in ten seconds.

After scolding myself for falling asleep last night without even remembering to charge my phone, I plug my phone to the charger and head outside to have breakfast.

Areum joins me, and together we eat a simple breakfast with gimbap and some sides.

"Appa, I have learned how to solve the middle layer. Can I show you?" My daughter asks, sounding ecstatic, holding out the Rubik's cube in one hand.

"Areum, you haven't eaten even half of your breakfast, and you'll have to leave in five more minutes. So eat now. You can play later," her mother informs her in a stern tone, and I softly pat Areum's hand when I notice how her excited expression fades off in a flash.

"Let's talk about this on the way to school, okay?" I ask, and she nods with a smile, quickly gobbling up the remaining few slices of gimbap that are left on her plate.

Picking up my bag, the car keys and Areum's backpack, I head out first followed by my daughter. After making sure that she's seated and buckled in safely, I get into the driver's seat, and we proceed to school.

"Appa, look. The white face is mixed up now," Areum lifts the cube and shows it to me, and I 'okay' her after taking a glance at the cube through the rear-view mirror.

She then begins rotating the layers, and in a few more seconds she calls out to me once again.

"Look, I solved it," she flashes the solved white face proudly and smiles brightly at me.

"That's amazing, bubba. You've picked up speed. Keep going," I encourage her, and she begins twisting the faces of the cube once again with a concentrated pout, her eyebrows furrowed.

"Look, appa! I've done the middle layer!" Areum screams ecstatically, holding up the cube in her hand.

"Wow, bubba, great job. That was real quick. I told you you'll be amazing at this," I appreciate her genuinely, and she giggles excitedly.

"What to do next, appa?" Her eyes are gleaming with eagerness.

"Next is the yellow cross on top. Just like you did for the middle layer, you need to place the solved white face at the bottom and then fix the yellow cross. There are three possible sets of moves for it, and I'll teach you those tonight, okay?"

"Okay, appa. Are they also easy like this one?" She quizzes me curiously in a cute pout.

"Everything is easy when you practise it," I wink at her as I pull over close to the curb in front of her school.

I help her wear her backpack and walk her up to the school building where her teacher is welcoming the kids inside.

I give her a parting hug and a kiss on the cheek, and she does the same to me.

"Bye, appa," she waves to me before a teacher ushers her inside.

"Bye, Areum," I stand back up on my feet and wait for her to disappear from my line of sight.

Walking back to my car, I place my left hand over the back pocket of my trousers, hoping to pull out my phone, but I'm surprised when I don't find it there. I quickly jog back to my car and search the seats, the glove compartment and even in my briefcase, but the phone is nowhere to be seen.

"What the he- aaahhh," I smack my forehead when the realization hits me like a truck. "Aiiissshh! It is at home. Great start to the day, Taehyung!" I scold myself as I turn the car around and begin driving back home to collect my phone.

It has almost become like an essential organ of my body, like a third hand without which I cannot survive these days, and given that it's the only way to communicate with Maya right now, I really can't afford to part with it.

But a sudden, dangerous and visceral thought of Jang-Mi going through stuff on my phone crosses my mind, making my heart to hammer wildly.

No, no. She definitely won't do that.

But, SHIT! I'm finished if that happens.

And after everything last night, I didn't even delete the videos or clear the chat like I usually do, and I even forgot to charge my phone. I was just so exhausted and happy that I fell asleep in a flash.

I hope the phone, and its secrets are safe, just the way I left them earlier.

It takes me more than fifteen minutes to arrive home, and I don't do a great job in parking the car very neatly. Climbing out of the car and slamming the door shut behind me, I keep praying as I hurriedly jog up to the front door and frantically press the doorbell; my legs suddenly trembling a bit.

It takes a few seconds for Jang-Mi to open the door, and the tension that I'm feeling while waiting for her to open the door is literally threatening to snap my whole body into two.

She finally opens the door, but very strangely, she doesn't look surprised or shocked when she sees me standing there. However, I'm not in a mood to discuss or ponder about her expressions right now, and I don't even bother to look at her for more than two seconds.

"You came back for your phone, didn't you?" She steps aside from the doorway, crossing her arms under her chest while I hurriedly head towards the bedroom.

"Yeah, it was charging, and I forg-"

"Why are you looking there? It's here," she interrupts my explanation; her words make me freeze on the spot before I whip my head around in shock, only to look at her holding up my phone in her right hand.

"Oh?" My eyebrows shoot upwards, not understanding how and why the phone isn't on charge anymore.

I turn around fully to face her.

"Someone kept texting you," there's an unexplainable emotion blazing in her eyes as I approach her taking slow steps, my eyebrows coming together in confusion.

"Maya wants to see you in her dreams," she extends her hand holding the phone towards me, making the muscles in my face to contort in shock, and I swear I felt something constricting within my stomach.

The crease between my eyebrows disappears, and my eyes go wide, mirroring the heart attack I felt within.

SHIT! SHIT!

"Here," Jang-Mi shoves the phone into my hand, and my eyes land on the phone before they lift to look at her; her eyes now bloodshot and tears welling up within them, ready to pour out with a blink of her eyes.

My throat goes dry, and I don't even know what to say. Hands feeling like frozen solids and legs trembling uncontrollably like jelly, I could also feel the sweat sprouting in various parts of my body.

Jang-Mi closes the front door with one hand while wiping away her tears with the other hand, and I know this is the dreaded moment that was awaiting me, one among the many wretched moments that I feared all along.

There is palpable tension in the room, amongst other emotions that I can't even name at the moment—fear, guilt and shame being the most predominant ones.

As I stand rooted on the spot, swallowing thickly and trying to mentally scramble around to find the right words to frame my explanation and defend myself—unable to find any to justify whatever I have been doing.

"Is she the one from your high school?" Jang-Mi's voice sounds shaky.

"Yeah. My friend. From high school," my own voice lowers, as does my head, and I know it that everything is badly screwed up right now.

"A friend? Wasn't she a crush?" She huffs sarcastically, and my eyes lift to look at her crossing her arms under her chest once again and shaking her head in disbelief.

I gulp lightly to moisten my parched throat and keep thinking about how much she knows already.

Has she seen the chats? The videos?
Goddammit!

"And what kind of friends share videos of themselves masturbating? I really don't understand. What am I missing here?" Her voice is still quivering, and she speaks even as her tears drip down her face.

Jang-Mi's eyes stay locked with my terrified eyes, and suddenly there is a lot of pain and regret that I feel within my heart. Yet, her teary eyes lack any emotion, and I don't see a hint of worry or regret or anything at all in them—only tears.

It is then that I realize that she doesn't look shocked, and she isn't even screaming. She isn't arguing like she usually does. This isn't anything like the kind of fights that we always have.

What is happening?

My mind frantically paints a hundred imaginary scenarios and possibilities in less than a few seconds by when her voice snaps me out of my thoughts.

"I was already sure about it, Taehyung. I just didn't know who it was," Jang-Mi shoots me a bullet I cannot escape, and her words cause the tight constriction within my stomach to reappear, making my entire body go rigid.

I haven't spoken a single word because I really don't know what to say. I'm caught, and I'm guilty, and what do I do now?

Should I come clean? There's no use denying it when she has literally seen it all.

"Do you know how?" She quizzes me with her eyes still holding me captive.

I'm still speechless, motionless, and I don't even know how I'm still standing rooted.

"Whenever you came back home late from work in the past, you never used to be quiet. You always opened the shelves with a lot of noise, walked around making thundering noises with your heels, and you even kept humming some songs to yourself. That was just you being yourself," she sniffs back a few tears and wipes away the last few streaks of tears from her cheeks and continues speaking.

"But these past couple of months, whenever you came back late at night, you literally sneaked in like a robber...no noise, no humming, no thudding... nothing whatsoever. You were guilty, weren't you? You really thought I'd be blind and deaf to all these little changes?" Her questions make my heart stop for a few seconds.

She really noticed? I mean, I myself didn't realize that I was doing these things.

"And I've seen how you 'work' even on some Sundays, and how much you use your phone these days, not leaving it unattended for even a little while, and how you get lost in your thoughts and zone out so often, sometimes even smiling and blushing to yourself, and how would I not notice the way your clothes have been smelling of women's perfume, and all those nail marks on your back...? All those semen-stained clothes in the laundry hamper? I do all the laundry, for Heaven's sake. And all of this when we haven't had a spot of physical contact in so long," Jang-Mi takes a step back, shaking her head a bit and exhaling her anger and frustration.

"WHY AREN'T YOU SAYING ANYTHING?" She demands shakily, severe disappointment coursing through her whole body, her hands falling loose on her sides.

I am too stunned to say anything, and I have absolutely no idea what to do now. My phone that I'm holding in my hand vibrates with an incoming call, the sound of which resonates in the dead silence that has fallen over the house.

"It must be her. Answer the call," Jang-Mi says robotically while I hesitate to pick the call.

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Published on : 05/19/2022