Worlds Apart - Taekook - Book 2

Chapter 257 - Glacier

Emi balanced the tray in one hand and turned the door handle with the other hand. The room was quite murky as the blinds at the windows were mostly closed.

"I thought you were going for coffee?" Han-Shik asks his wife as she puts the tray of drinks onto the table near the large, plush chair he's sitting on.

"I cancelled." She answers, before offering him one of the sodas.

"Why?"

"My friends can do without me for one coffee."

"You always go. Will So-ra survive without the replenishing smoothie after her dance class?"

Emi busies herself folding some clothes so as not to create a job interview vibe. Her husband's comment makes her smile, it tells her that he does listen to her and pay attention to her life. Sometimes she feels like she bores him when she talks about coffee dates with her girlfriends or the phone calls with her brothers. In contrast, she likes to discuss business with him, it's a nice way for them to connect on an impersonal level.

"Kiko will ensure she gets it and you know that I will hear all the gossip at the next coffee date."

"You've been in this apartment since we got back from the hospital. Ryan is dead, you don't need to stop your life."

"I had an online meeting yesterday and secured a new client this morning. I haven't stopped my life... are you ready for tomorrow?"

"I don't have to go tomorrow. There are other days."

"Won't your brothers be there tomorrow?"

"More of a reason to pay my respects on another day so that there's a family member in attendance on multiple days."

"Your eomma has been calling your phone non-stop."

"I booked us flights to Tokyo earlier. We fly out in 10 days."

Emi looks across the room at her husband, "Won't you have the businesses to run now that Ryan is gone? That could be why your eomma is calling you."

"I don't care why she's calling me."

Emi sees the way Han-Shik looks out of the window and puts his drink down onto the table. His posture is defensive and she could kick herself for the change in atmosphere but this is exactly the kind of situation where he needs to trust her and open up instead of exploding or storing it up inside.

And he had been so quiet... she thought at first that the panic attack had made him tired but the repression continued.

"Why won't you speak to her? It could be about the will?" Something had happened but she didn't know what? Emi replayed the scene at the hospital over and over again... she couldn't work out what happened? Han-Shik knew that his mother was a liar so she wouldn't have thought that the news about the phone call that she overheard, would have had such an impact?! Had he been embarrassed for being proved wrong about Taehyung? Was that the issue? It seemed very dramatic, even for her husband? She certainly didn't think that this subdued mood would have continued? Was he actually grieving? It was his stepfather that died, after all?

"Drop it... do you want to go to Tokyo or not?"

Emi walks closer to the small seating area. "Don't speak to me like that, Han-Shik, I'm on your side..." she sits in the chair facing him, "... You know that I'm not a fan of Nuri's and I made my feelings clear at the hospital so please, talk to me because I wouldn't put it past her to turn up here if you keep ignoring her."

Han-Shik had been lost in his own head since the moment reality crashed into his world and obliterated it. It was one thing knowing that something was true and he couldn't deny that his mother was deceptive, he'd had many examples of it... but... but then he'd seen her... with his own eyes and that felt colossal! Han-Shik had heard her and witnessed her dramatic change of personality and he'd been drip fed evidence of her emotional manipulation... but it all came together like the components of a bomb and the explosion happened when he had the flashback to Nuri dropping her bag and spilling the contents.