Eternity [ryeji]

Chapter 30

The tall woman steals a look at the man who’s walking next to her, calmly matching her pace. She had ignored his words and quietly paid for the dinner at the counter while blocking his voice. When he stopped talking, she thought he had given up but he followed her out of the restaurant, all the way to her car.

She stops abruptly, turns towards him and frowns. “Why do you keep following me?”

“Because you didn’t hear a word I said.”

“You’re following me all the way to my car just to be heard?”

He nods.

“Fine. Say what you want to say.”

“First of all, Yuna didn’t invite my daughter and Ryujin to dinner. I did. So don’t blame her for it and please forgive those two. They couldn’t help themselves. They’ve just started this relationship and I’m sure you know how it feels in such times.”

“…”

“I don’t mean to offend you or anything,” he adds after seeing her cold, emotionless expression. “Look, I know you’ve caught on with Yuna’s little plan. I’m partly responsible for that. She discussed it with me and I gave her the go ahead.

“I also know that it works, to some extent. The anger or irritation or whatever emotion you felt when you saw my daughter and Ryujin shows that you’re no longer numb, that you’ve remembered the feeling. I consider that a good thing.”

Chaeryeong raises her eyebrows slightly but maintains her silence.

“You’re this close to asking me to take over from Yuna, aren’t you?” he asks, pinching his thumb and index finger close together, nearly touching.

“Will you do it if I ask?”

He shakes his head. “I can’t.”

“Have you ever done it?”

He nods. “Unfortunately, I have.”

“What’s the difference between then and now? Between that person and me?”

“A brutal double rape and murder.”

“W-what?” Chaeryeong’s caught completely off guard by that answer as she stares at him in shock, not exactly believing what she’s heard.

“He was my friend from the homeland, a fellow survivor of the clash. We reunited in China by accident back in the mid 1920s. I came over from the States and didn’t plan on staying for long in that country because of its political situation. He, on the other hand, had been living there for years and fell in love with someone he wanted to marry. It took him a long time but he finally convinced his girlfriend’s parents to let him marry their daughter, right after the civil war started in the late 20s. I decided to stay with him and help him and his in-laws survive the war. His daughter was born a year later and because of that, we had to cancel our plans to leave the country. It was almost impossible to travel with a newborn.”

He takes a deep breath and exhales, recalling the terrible times. “So many incidents happened in the following years. Rebellions, wars even invasions by foreign countries. But the ultimate evil came in 1937, when Japan invaded Nanjing, the city we were living in.”

“I heard of that,” says Chaeryeong in a small voice. “The images were… horrendous.”

“Did you see the movie they made of it?”

Chaeryeong nods. “I couldn’t sit through the whole thing.”

“Imagine being in that situation for real. My friend and I couldn’t die so we were not worried about ourselves. His wife and daughter though…”