Part 17

Back at Sungkyunkwan

[At her stay at home Yoonhee tells Yoonshik about her school life, and about Jaeshin, Yongha and Sunjoon (Yoonshik notices Yoonhee seems different when she talks about Sunjoon than about Jaeshin or Yongha). The next day Yoonhee visits Chosun and enjoys a conversation with her, making Chosun more and more interested.]

Yoonhee treks towards Sungkyunkwan with a heavy heart (this is the same night--she comes back to Sungkyunkwan after visiting Chosun). She walks through the Jeonhyuang door (the door she walked through with Soondol on the first day) and arrives at the dorm to find her room, which is empty. Even though she knows Sunjoon will sleep at home and come tomorrow morning, she is nonetheless sad to be looking at the dark room.

She walks into the darkness. Her eyes slowly adjust and she is able to see the inside of the room. She thinks about whether to go get a candle or to go directly to sleep, when she sees Sunjoon's desk, on top of which is a closed book. Her eyes quickly scan the room, and she sees his gat.

Sunjoon must be here. Before she can think any more, her legs take her outside. She runs, with her bare sangtoo, towards the cafeteria. But it's dark and deserted. Suddenly she misses him more. She tries to think about the places he could be, but before she can make a reasonable guess she is already running towards the library.

The library is closed--locked, with a giant lock. She doesn't give up. She shakes the door to the library and makes noises by pounding and pushing on the door. Then she runs from the library towards Bicheondang. But Bicheondang shows no sign of life, only darkness.

Her legs take her from each place she cannot find Sunjoon. But now, she doesn't know where to go anymore. There is no way he would be at Byuksongjung or Hyangkwanchung. Might he be at Jeongrokchung? She runs again. But alas, it's empty.

Yoonhee walks to the courtyard outside Myunryundang and stands underneath the ginko tree. She can't find him, within this small place. Why does this small place seem so wide today? She walks around, going from Myunryundang, to dongjae, then to daesungjeon. And before she realizes it, she is in front of seojae, the west dormitory. Before she can leave, the seojae hajaesaeng (lower level students) appear behind her.

"Stop right here! Why is someone from Dongjae loitering around here?"

Yoonhee stops. She doesn't turn around.

"Why aren't you answering? I asked, why are you here."

Yoonhee turns to them, angry that they are talking down (banmal) to her.

"Are you talking to me?"

"Who else is here other than you?"

She thinks back to Yongha's advice (He told her to be a little confident and stand up for herself). So she firms up and shouts, "Your rudeness is inexcusable! How dare you hajaesaengs treat me like this? What country's laws do you abide by?!"

[This goes on for a bit--the lower level students insult her by saying she didn't get a real education, and she, offended (since they are insulting her brother as well in this manner), says that she came here in her own right, and those who weren't admitted through the proper exam shouldn't belittle her, and tells them to apologize. They are taken back by her and her loud voice, and another student tries to stop both parties by saying that it's too loud--what if Sunjoon hears?]

"Hey, don't you know that Garang sahyung is in Daesungjeon? What if he comes here because of all the noise?"

She knows where Sunjoon is. There's no time to stay here to listen to their apologies. She leaves them and runs.

She goes into Daesungjeon. Her eyes search all around the place, but it's empty. She goes around the building to the courtyard.

There, amidst the trees, she finds Sunjoon who seems to be taking a walk underneath the moonlight.

She feels her tears fall. She can't tell if it's because she is happy to see him, or if it's because the sight of him overlaps with the day she saw him talking with Hyo-eun. Taken back by her tears, she wipes them away, but she can't stop them from falling.

Sunjoon is walking in circles around a pine tree, with his gaze fixed on the shinsam door (the main door). Yoonhee, after wiping away her tears, approaches him slowly.

When Sunjoon realizes her presence, he smiles. He stops looking at the shinsam door and his eyes now go to the ground beneath him as he continues walking around the pine tree.

She starts walking around on the opposite side of the tree, and asks, "Are you already preparing for the state exam under this tree? (there is a myth that you will pass the gwa-guh if you nap underneath the tree in the daesungjeon courtyard)"

"That's not a bad idea. When the exam nears, I won't find any space for it."

"If not, why are you walking out here this late?"

Sunjoon can't tell her that he was waiting for her. It's not anything particularly hard to say, but strangely enough he can't get it out.

"I guess the wind just blew me here."

Yoonhee glances at him, wanting to know if it really was the wind or himself who brought him here. As they are walking around the tree, the trunk covers the sight of Sunjoon.

Sunjoon says to himself, "I didn't know you were going to come through the jeonhyang door..."

Yoonhee pretends not to have heard, and says, "I don't know why I went through the jeonhyang door."

The two keep walking slowly around the tree without words. Then Sunjoon, with sadness in his eyes, opens his mouth, heavily. "I don't know if it's me who is running away from you, or you running away from me."

She wants to see his face, but the tree blocks him.

"I don't know if I am the one looking for you, or if you are the one looking for me."

Sunjoon also looks to see Yoonhee, but the tree stops him as well. His sad eyes go to the ground again. Yoonhee walks further so that the tree is not blocking them from one another.

He starts, "yesterday..."

Yoonhee's heart sinks. She tries to be unaffected as she says brightly, "Ah, yes! How was yesterday? That woman, isn't she beautiful?"

"Yes. She really is."

"Y-you lied to me that day. You said that you didn't go to Bookchon, but you went... and you met her..."

Yoonhee, afraid to meet his gaze, lowers her head. Sunjoon is silent as he continues walking. After a while, he stops. And he speaks.

"She asked to meet again, so I said okay. And she suggested between those times that we exchange letters, so I agreed."

Yoonhee's legs stop and she stands behind him. She can't take in what she just heard. It feels as though bees are scratching at her heart. It feels so crowded, so loud, so chaotic, that she can't breathe.

"She's a beautiful woman. And she is kind. Isn't it only right that a man's heart be taken by her? Shouldn't every man feel nervous to stand in front of her? That's what's right. That is what it should be."

Yoonhee, in the end, has run around the entire campus to hear this. She can't find it in herself to smile, but she forces one anyway, as she says, "yes. That is how a man should feel."

Yoonhee's voice turns Sunjoon around to face her. But before he can see her face, her hands fall onto his face. She covers his eyes as she says, "please don't look at my face right now. Even though it is dark, I don't think it can cover my pathetic face."

"Pathetic? What's wrong?"

"Didn't you say all men's hearts would beat in front of such a woman? I am also a man. So how can I not fall in love with her? I was nervous since the first time I laid eyes on her. I'm acting this way because I am too envious of you. Because I'm jealous!"

Should she use this as an excuse to use her wish? To stop him from meeting Hyo-eun? But she can't accept how low that would be.

"I didn't know. I'm sorry."

"There's no reason for you to be sorry! I went around before today with Chosun, and then thought about Hyo-eun. I'm this type of man. I'm pathetic, wanting all the women in the world to be mine."

"Chosun.... from the initiation? You are still meeting her..."

Sunjoon's hands tighten into fists, and he isn't unaware why his body is reacting this way. She takes away the hands from his face and turns around. Sunjoon sees the small sliver of what he can see of her face, and what he sees overlaps with the face of Yoonshik's sister, covered by the Sugaechima. And he grabs her shoulder. But unable to find it in himself to turn her around, he takes his hand away.

"I will be okay by tomorrow. They say people fall just as easily out of love as they do in."

Yoonhee leaves, and Sunjoon watches her walk away. He does not take his eyes off her and keeps his gaze in the direction she disappeared.

"It was me who was running away from you. I was afraid.... that my heart was taking me away from the right path..."

Later, deeper into the night, it starts pouring. It had been sprinkling the past few days--it must have been foretelling a more cold, intense rain. Although Jaeshin isn't in the room, Yoonhee, buried in despair, does not feel the same nervousness as she did when she last thought she would spend the night with Sunjoon alone (when Jaeshin went to go buy the hat). And she is unable to sleep--the sound of the rain keeps her awake the entire night.