North - South

Shadows from the past

London - Pyongyang

"WHAT!?" 

The voice on the phone roared so loud to force its interlocutor to move the phone away from the ear. Bloody hell, did he always have to be so dramatic? 

"What were you thinking, calling me on this number, did you lose your mind maybe?"

"Listen, something happened. Something big. The house (...)"

The explanation was brief, as he got a point yelling that the line wasn't safe. Brief and welcomed with a frightening silence from the other side of the line. 

In the end, only a swift sigh, and a noise as if he was sighing before saying something crucial.

Never a silence had felt so creepy.

"De. Ok. I suppose it's time then."

"Time?"

"To secure the business personally."

Swiss

There was a specific feeling that those like her were never lucky enough to feel. It was that precise sense of safety which came from knowing that, going back home, one could find warmth and comfort.

A bad day or a bad grade at school, a deal which haven't gone as expected, or a fight with schoolmates, there were people who knew that, closing the home door at their backs, they would have felt fine anyway.

It was something that made people face life in a different way.

Se-ri had always had to make sure that nothing would have happened to her. Or to solve things by herself, possibly in secret. Home wasn't a place where she would have felt fine anyway, but where they would have put salt on the wounds. Life was hard out there, but for someone it was hard in too.

People like that, people like Yoon Se-ri, gave great importance to their things. Books, hobbies, even a simple blanket weren't just objects or distractions but, often, the only space where they could find some solace. Books didn't judge, paper models didn't insult. The very opposite: they kept her mind and brought it somewhere else, somewhere where her miseries didn't exist.

It developed a special affection toward things, in situations like those. Because they elicited something that other people usually didn't need to feel toward objects: gratitude.

To Yoon Se-ri, it was Rover. It was her books. It was the needlework. And when she had seen Ri Jeong Hyeok's library, she had instantly recognized that he was like her.

On her way home from London, though, the young woman realized that things were changing. A little anxiety to go home while she was still at Heathrow. Driving a little faster. Swallowing whatever edible she found in the fridge. A hot shower.

And eventually, collapsing on the bed, her robe on the pajama as an additional shield from the cold. Staring at the ceiling with dreamy eyes. 

"I did as you said. I faced him! And the organic wool... now I can do it. Can you believe it, Ri Jeong Hyeok ssi?"

Oh.

So, it was that. Somehow, she had rushed home to tell everything to him.

A deep, nearly tangible sorrow coiled around her. So, that was how she would have lived from now on? Funny. She was eventually obtaining everything she'd always wanted, but that was how she would have paid it. The price was not being able to tell it to the only persons she would have wanted to share the news with. The price was the evidence of her solitude.