Sleepless in Seoul

Episode 12a

What happened that night when Cho Cheol Gang almost kidnapped Seri in the garage in Seoul?

Surely, they didn't just say a polite "good night" and go to sleep...?

After spending another frustrating hour tossing and turning in bed, Yoon Seri opened her nightstand drawer to pull out a bottle of sleeping pills. She reached for her mug and realized it was empty. Then she noticed that she'd forgotten to refill the jug next to it too.

"Aish," she grumbled and threw the covers off. She pulled on the silk robe matching her pajamas and began making her way to the kitchen.

Ri Jeong Hyeok heard her door open and the soft footsteps in the hallway. Sleep was eluding him too. He had refused to take the painkillers the doctor had prescribed for the cut, deeming it too minor to bother, and now the slight discomfort kept him up along with the thoughts he could not shut off about the night's events.

Why on earth did he leave her alone to go home by herself? Who was he kidding — walking into a setup like that thinking he could wrap things up with Cho Cheol Gang so easily? If that bastard had succeeded in kidnapping Seri... he couldn't even bear to go there. Fury gripped him, followed by a wave of fear that made him almost nauseous.

He listened for the sounds of her going back to her room but they didn't come.

Seri didn't bother with the lights and went up to the refrigerator to pull out a bottle of water. She started to go back to her room when her eyes fell on a clean glass by the sink. He'd washed it by hand again, despite her repeated reminders that she owned a perfectly good — no, not just good but state of the art — dishwasher. She laughed softly.

Leaning on the counter, she looked out to her dining room and pictured in her mind's eye several other little things around her apartment that indicated his presence. A jacket draped on a dining room chair. The remote control sitting very far from where she usually left it. A book she wasn't reading on the side table in the living room. Even her refrigerator now had a shelf that housed the leftovers of their fried chicken dinner that first night because he'd refused to throw them out.

She still couldn't quite believe that he was actually here in her apartment, in Seoul, sharing her home — by far a more welcome intruder than she had been in his. Her thoughts wandered (as they often did) to the house in the North Korean village. What traces of her time there had been left behind? It's not like she had packed a bag before she crossed the border. Did the sight of her belongings affect him? What did he do with her clothes? Her beauty products were probably claimed by Pyo Chi Su, that annoying man. Did the village ajummas miss her as much as she sometimes missed them?

Seri sighed deeply, still staring into space, the unopened bottle of water in her hands temporarily forgotten.

Jeong Hyeok was about to go into the kitchen when he heard the sigh and stopped in the hallway, peering instead into the room still in semi-darkness. He spotted her standing by the sink. The shimmering  fabric of her robe cast an almost ethereal glow where slivers of light hit it. Her profile made his breath catch.

This woman. She was magnificent tonight, outsmarting Cho Cheol Gang in the dangerous cat and mouse game that almost cost them both their lives. She looked like an angel glowing in the dark: beautiful, vulnerable, unreal.

Not wanting to startle her, he watched her in silence for a few more moments, then retraced his steps back to his bedroom. He made a point of audibly opening and closing his door before walking back as noisily as he could in house slippers. He clapped twice and light flooded the kitchen as he entered it.

Seri held up a hand in front of her eyes, wincing from the sudden brightness.

"Yoon Seri? Gwaenchanh-a?" he asked as he came up to her, hoping he sounded surprised. "What are you doing here in the dark?"