North - South

The everywhere and forever language of love

Day five - morning

"A man of ambition..."

"...capable of everything," Hong Chang-sik was nothing but right, Kwon thought as his glance laid over the room. Mr. Ri wasn't there, but it was as if one could feel his presence. In the flowers, in the food, in the boss' clothes, neatly folded on a chair. Even – and mostly – in those two persons who were playing the clowns to make her laugh.

Well, one was clowning, the other's stare was holding something like disapproval and disconcert. Quite an appropriate blend, if he might say.

The two had arrived just ten minutes ago, interrupting the meeting they were having with their boss, but also bringing tea and other dainties. Saying, to counterattack the boss' protests, that "he" would have gotten worried if she wouldn't have eaten enough.

Mr. Ri hasn't even been in their orbit one month yet and was already having his squad and bossing around. The audacity!

The laughs curving her eyes in a half-moon shape prevented the bystanders from noticing it, but Se-ri's look was laying around the room too. More discrete, but not less scanning, it was taking note of the concern on some faces, of other's clowning, of the flowers, of the neatly folded clothes, of Dan's effort in pushing her to take some food even if they couldn't call themselves friends and she owed her nothing.

Of the warmth. Mostly, and firstly, of the warmth that was invisible yet evident, so evident.

Always she had considered herself a lonely person, for lonely are those who have no one to share their burdens with, for lonely are those whose burdens are not of the kind that can be shared or that is fair to share, for it's not a friend's responsibility – and often, not even an ability – to understand certain things.

But in that room, for a single moment, Se-ri appreciated the idea of being just someone who had been in surgery – tough event, yet trivial too – and whose friends were there to visit. 

A lifelong friend and his new girlfriend. And another longtime friend who was not there at the moment but who had helped her in spite of a ten-year hiatus, and who had become something so big it was difficult for her to describe. And the boys, in NK, they had taken so many photos for them! And her managers, her nannies' sons, two guys who, till not much time ago, had only heard about her from their moms. And who had instantly become her most loyal employees. And Mu Hyeok oppa.

All those people were nothing to her, didn't share a crumb of her DNA, not a drop of her blood – so pure, so noble, accordingly to her dad's fake documents – and still were to her family, and filled her heart, and were as close and loyal as her blood and DNA family had never been.

Her dad and his wife had been there that morning. Just a quick check. "Are you awake? Are you feeling good? We're going, then." No "Do you need something? Are you feeling sore? Can I give you some water?" Nothing. She had had to wait the round of the wards to eventually ask a nurse to give her the glass of water she couldn't reach by herself.

"Don't drink so fast," Seo-dan had admonished her a few hours later while giving her some tea, her voice holding an exogenous concern. "He's coming later, it isn't safe now," she had added in a stern whisper, enemy and friend at one time.

Light. They were making her feel light and carefree.

"Everybody, gather around. Let's take a picture. Manager Hong, please take my phone and set the self-timer." She had taken another one, a selfie or sort of, on the day before. They were hugging and even if, for safety measures, only his shoulders were visible, it was something.