Chapter 13

There was no way she could go back looking like this. But changing into fresh clothes before returning was even more out of the question. She could already imagine the teasing she’d have to endure.

‘Well, now. Didn’t she go to get some Korean melon? Has this old man been that clueless?’

‘Ja-yeong, come on, be honest. Who are you changing clothes to look good for? Surely it can’t be us old folks you see all year round…’

‘Let’s leave the two of them to hash things out face-to-face. We’d better clear out for now.’

If Ja-yeong had been alone, she wouldn’t have cared if they tried to pair her up with the village chief’s son or some nephew of the county chief’s in-laws. Either way, her grandfather’s sickle would have dealt with the matter before it ever reached her ears.

The problem was that the man, Han Eden, was sitting right there. As if being treated like a little girl weren’t embarrassing enough, she’d also choked on her soybean noodles in front of him.

“Why did you have to wear a white T-shirt, Ja-yeong…? Huh? Why didn’t you think to wear red or black…?”

Squatting in front of the running tap, she scrubbed the stained front of her shirt. Her fingers moved with desperate urgency.

But who exactly were the Geum-ryongs?

They’d been growing chili peppers for sixty years. The Geum-ryongs’ chili powder was famous for its gorgeous color and rich flavor. Even before harvest, they had the nationwide chili powder cartel wrapped around their little finger, with reservation calls flooding in every year. They were the undisputed superstars of the chili powder world.

They were chili experts and pepper tycoons who selected only the plumpest peppers, then dried them crisp in the autumn sun, turning them front to back in their hundred-pyeong front yard—roughly 3,300 square feet. They produced enough to last the entire year, with plenty left over.

There was no way to wash out the cucumber kimchi seasoning made by the Geum-ryongs with a little tap water. Her effort was admirable, but all she’d managed to do was spread the damp red pepper stains across her chest.

“Please, please, just come out…!”

Ja-yeong scrubbed the fabric with a miserable look on her face.

“What are you praying so hard for?”

Just as she was wondering whether she should try adding soap, an ominous voice came from behind her. Startled, Ja-yeong spun around.

“……!”

That guy. No, that man. Eden stood leaning at an angle against the wooden fence, his arms crossed.

“Is refusing to answer when someone asks you a question a habit of yours?”

His crooked smirk was even more lopsided than his posture.

“I don’t understand your habit of clamming up whenever you feel like it, but… after what I’ve seen today, I think I might know the reason.”

“What do you mean, the reason?”

Ja-yeong sprang to her feet without thinking and faced him as he approached.

The breeze was refreshing, and the summer sun glittered overhead in the middle of the day. In the sunlight, the man’s eyes were surprisingly light in color, and the fine lashes growing densely beneath them, like fresh green shoots, gave him a rather delicate look.

Even Ja-yeong, who had been bristling with anger just seconds earlier, couldn’t help thinking that he had unusually pretty eyes for a man.

Whether he knew what an absurd thought had just crossed her mind or not, Eden calmly looked her over as she stood before him.

“Seeing how much the elders dote on you today, I’d say…”

His gaze traveled down over her.

“You can afford to act spoiled.”

Her forehead was damp and smooth, a few wisps of hair clung to its edges, and her nose was small and rounded.

Whether she’d washed her face or been doused with water, droplets trickled down her chin, and the T-shirt beneath was soaked through.

“You’re a little girl, aren’t you?”

By then, Eden’s gaze had settled on the swell of Ja-yeong’s chest, where her damp T-shirt clung to her body.

Perhaps after hearing everyone call her a little girl, he’d started imagining she was an actual baby who still needed to be spoon-fed. The front of her shirt was mottled with red seasoning.

So that was what she’d been doing, crouched in front of the tap. She’d tried to wash out the cucumber kimchi seasoning and failed.

The man let out a soft, amused snort. For some reason, it put Ja-yeong in a bad mood, and she furrowed her brows.

“Whatever. Why are you in someone else’s front yard?”

“They told me to come check. They also asked me to find out whether you were taking so long because you were busy growing the Korean melons.”

That sounded exactly like her grandfather’s style of joking. Just then, a cheerful singing voice drifted over from the kiln yard beyond the fence. It was Hwang Deok-ho’s all-time favorite song, unchanged for fifty years.

“I… was just about to head back.”
“Is that so?”

The man’s constant, faint smirk grated on Ja-yeong’s nerves, but there was nothing to gain from staying alone with him any longer.

She quickly wiped the moisture gathered beneath her chin and, doing her best to look unfazed, walked past him, hoping he wouldn’t notice the T-shirt soaked with cucumber kimchi juice.

“But you’re going out looking like that?”

Of course, the unwelcome guest had never once done what Ja-yeong wanted him to.

“So what? It’s none of your business what I look like!”

She deliberately stomped her way into the house. Her face, which she’d gone to such trouble to cool down, flared hot all over again before she could do anything about it. She was uncomfortable around this man who kept showing up out of nowhere and getting under her skin, even though she’d never invited him over or asked him to look at her.

“I should’ve just changed right away… Why did I squat down by the tap and try to wash it out?”

Now that she regretted it, everything about the situation annoyed her.

Why did that man always appear out of nowhere and somehow manage to pick out only her most pathetic moments? Meanwhile, he could roll around in the dirt and still look effortlessly handsome. He could even make a whole production out of taking a single plate out of a box….

Ja-yeong pulled the blackest clothes she owned from the wardrobe and changed. Then she went to the kitchen, grabbed a tray of chilled Korean melons and a paring knife, and headed back outside. When she stepped onto the wooden porch, the man was still wandering around the yard.

“Now why is he looking at the vegetable patch…?”

Purple eggplants, red tomatoes, bright yellow cucumber blossoms.

When her grandfather tended the colorful little garden in his baggy traditional trousers, it positively reeked of the countryside. But with that tall, impeccably dressed man from Seoul standing beside it, the whole thing looked like the produce section of a department store food hall.

He brushed his fingertips over a perilla leaf and lifted it to his nose, then plucked a ripe cherry tomato and popped it into his mouth. Even from a distance, Ja-yeong could clearly see the juice burst between his teeth.

“W-Why are you picking things and eating them without permission? Those belong to my grandfather!”

Before she knew it, Ja-yeong had snapped at him. She hastily shoved her feet into her slippers and hurried over to the garden.

“Why do you keep showing up uninvited? Why do you grab my wrist without asking and not even apologize? Why do you keep doing that, anyway?”
“I apologized that day.”

Every time he spoke, the juice of the ripe tomato seemed to burst anew. It carried the fresh, green scent of tomatoes that her grandfather fertilized every two weeks and carefully pruned, pinching off the new shoots. The kind of tomatoes you couldn’t buy with money. Sweet and fresh, their aroma made saliva gather at the back of Ja-yeong’s tongue before she even realized it.

“Y-You still haven’t apologized for grabbing my wrist!”

Maybe she really was that angry, because even the breath hissing from her nostrils felt hot. Ja-yeong was practically boiling inside, yet the man kept chuckling as if he were having the time of his life.

Had he gotten drunk after just a few glasses of makgeolli? Or was he, heaven forbid… laughing at her?

“I’m sorry. I was too hasty last time.”
“……?”
“For grabbing your wrist without permission, too. I apologize.”

Ja-yeong was so taken aback that she fell silent.

She hadn’t expected it. A genuine-sounding apology coming from his mouth? The meek expression on his face was just as surprising. His entire demeanor was different from the way he’d pressured her, flaunting a watch worth three hundred million won.

“…Y-You’re lying.”

Ja-yeong clutched the tray holding the Korean melons so tightly that her palms grew slick with sweat.

“I’m not lying. I mean it.”
“You apologize, and then this time you’ll say, ‘Yes,’ is the only right answer and everything else is wrong?”
“I did, didn’t I? I said that, too.”

Then why was she still so worked up?

The kiln had cooled completely, and the air in front of the yard was still filled with a refreshing green breeze. The unwelcome guest was being perfectly agreeable, and his words were no longer anything that should have made Ja-yeong angry.

“I’m sorry if I upset you.”
“……”
“I wanted your work that badly.”

Why did her mouth keep going dry? Why did she feel so hot inside? Had Hwang Ja-yeong always been this petty, to the point that even an apology couldn’t soothe her anger?

“You’ve said what you came to say… So that’s enough. Go home, and don’t come back.”

He was suddenly being so agreeable that if she listened to him any longer, she’d end up looking like the bad guy.

Suppressing the faint warmth spreading from the pit of her stomach, she spun around with determination. She’d take the melons to her grandfather, then finish glazing the pottery with water right away. Whether the uninvited guest who’d appeared without warning went home or not, she wouldn’t care.

She really, truly wouldn’t care anymore….

“Huh?”

Her firm resolve hadn’t even reached its final period when the world in front of her began to sway of its own accord. The slippers she’d hastily shoved on before rushing off the porch slipped out of place, throwing her off balance.

Before her twisted ankle could even cry out in pain, the sudden lightness in her hands warned her first.

She’d dropped the tray. The tray carrying the melon and the fruit knife.

And you know how they say you can break your nose even when falling backward? Well, if she didn’t know that already, she’d find out in about a second. Better brace herself!

She squeezed her eyes shut.