Deceit | Vincenzo Kdrama | Jang Han Seok

Chapter 5

Her favourite time of day was when the night was at it's darkest.

The weather that night was uncharacteristically warm and humid. Her coat had been discarded in a shadowy lump beside her with her little leather purse neatly placed on top, trousers rolled up to her calves and blouse unbuttoned as low as possible without showing off too much of her breasts, just enough to allow the sticky skin the chance to breathe while she hoped for a cooling breeze. 

The people passing her complained about the heat, fanning themselves and each other, or eating ice cream in a means to cool down. Almost all of them were in groups and pairs.

Solmee didn't mind being alone, but she hated being lonely. Both words seemed like they could mean the same thing, which in truth they could, but to Solmee they couldn't be more different. One was a choice. The other was not.

It was Solmee's choice to be as she was right now, sitting alone at a table outside with a bottle of Soju before her. It was an old habit she could not shake, she had forgotten most of her old habits but this one still remained. Watching people in the dark. It was how she had learned from them.

Solmee was not the only one enjoying the solitude of darkness.

Vincenzo was also wandering at night.

But wandering meant that you didn't belong, that the place you were was a place you would not settle, that you had no intention of being there.  Solmee had spotted Vincenzo and thought that he looked quite confident, at ease, like he did belong, that he was walking with intent, so perhaps instead of wandering the night he was instead strolling through it.

His stroll almost comes to a stop as he walks past her. It slows ever so slightly, so slightly that Solmee is unsure if her drunken eyes were playing tricks on her but his pace had changed. However he does not stop.

Emboldened by drink Solmee tilts backwards in her chair.

"Join a lonely girl for a drink?"

This time he does stop. "You've drank enough. You should get a taxi home." He doesn't turn around. Atleast not at first. Not until Solmee speaks again. If he could act like he cared he could atleast act as if he knew her too.

"How long are you going to keep pretending?"

He turns to her. 

"Pretending?"

Solmee rolls her eyes, rolls the bottle of soju in her hand, pours it into a cup, drinks from the cup and then replies. "Pretending that you don't know me."

Vincenzo does not react so she sighs and straightens herself up.

"Perhaps you'll understand me better if I say it like this."

"So che sei tuo fratello" (I know it's you brother.)

"And I know you've known that all along."

"We're not having this conversation now." He says. It was not the kind of conversation to have when she was drunk. To a drunken Solmee, it seemed as though he was purposely avoiding the conversation. "If not now then when?" He doesn't give her an answer.

Angry, Solmee throws her cup at him, she is angered even more when he catches it effortlessly in one hand.

He sets it back down on the table. "Call yourself a taxi."

Solmee snarls at his retreating form. "Coward."

Not long after he leaves is she approached. This individual is not someone she knows, but she knows enough to know what they are. Someone's puppet. She can see right through the guise as they pretend to stumble into her table, hiding their face with a mask, cap and hoodie. 

How unoriginal.

They do nothing, say nothing other than slide a business card into her hand, then acting like a clumsy passerby the bow and apologise and hurry off.

Solmee furrows her brow, as she examines the business card.

It was a Wusang business card belonging to Choi Myunghee.

Solmee sobers up immediately, dropping the cup in her hand to the floor. It shatters at her feet and she jolts at the sound.

The woman had found her.

All those efforts she had made to hide and remain hidden, and the woman had still managed to find her.

She didn't expect anything less. She had only expected it to not happen so soon. Solmee picks up the Soju bottle to pour herself another, much needed drink and finds the bottle empty. With a disgruntled sigh she replaces it with another. First her brother and then Choi Myunghee- tonight she now needed a distraction.

"Solmee, it is you!" The moment she registers her name being called is too late, and she sees that familiar mop of fluffy hair making it's way over to her.

Jun Woo hurries over sliding into the seat opposite her. "You're drinking again?"

"Don't say it like that, you make me sound like an alcoholic. This is the first time i've had a drink all week."

"Sorry." he apologises, sending her an innocent smile to placate her.

"Your popping up everywhere is starting to make me suspicious Jun Woo." She hums, swirling the glass in her hand, offering him a pointed look. "Are you spying on me?" She is on edge now. An edge that alcohol cannot pull her away from.