Part 2

Part Two of Three. 12k words.

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You steal glances at her from across the venue. 

Sometimes a passing waiter or attendee blocks your line of sight; sometimes another copied-and-pasted investor steps in between you, hand extended, wishing to introduce him or herself; sometimes the woman next to you steals your attention, usually with a laugh that sounds like music in the cool Seoul evening.

The woman next to you is Taeyeon Kim - Vice President, Strategy, 2024-present and also ex-girlfriend, 2018-2021 - but tonight she’s a celebrity, investors and staff members and junior analysts alike all clambering over themselves for a moment of her time, for the opportunity to introduce themselves to the brightest star in the industry. She looks like one too, in her smoky eyeshadow and little black dress with its daringly low cut and short hem, wrapped almost too tightly around a slim body that is thirty-six but looks a decade younger.

Taeyeon laughs, smiles, and places her hand affectionately on the shoulders and forearms of colleague and investor and intern alike when they make a joke or interesting anecdote. She’s magnetic, almost, the way she draws the entire gala to her. She knows how to play a crowd, and is all smiles, a definite contrast from the cold, calculating businesswoman she was during the day. She knows what mask to wear and when - experience hard won by long years in the corporate world.

But on this night, her charms are only half-effective on you. You stand next to her and laugh and smile along with the crowd but most of your attention, when it is freed from nosy colleagues and investors, is focused not on the charming Vice President but on the lonely Marketing Lead across the venue. 

Ryujin Shin takes short sips from one of the two champagne flutes present on her stand-up table. She talks softly to Yuna, who is standing next to her. There is a blank expression on her face, unreadable. Every now and then she forces a smile. Yuna reaches out and squeezes her wrist, as though to comfort her. Not once does Ryujin lift her eyes to even glance in your direction.

She is not more than a hundred metres away but she may as well have been on the other side of the city. With Korean being amongst the half-dozen languages Taeyeon was fluent in, there was no need for a translator as she holds court with the Korean and international investors surrounding her.

“...rumor has it that she runs a small sushi joint in Vancouver, and just had a kid. She had him and her father at gunpoint, and the Senior VP convinced the cops to let her go! Crazy story, isn’t it?”

A hand, hers, grasps your arm. You turn to find Taeyeon looking at you, eyes expectant.

“Crazy,” you stammer, catching on quickly. “I still don’t believe any of it actually happened.”

Taeyeon smiles a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes, which are still locked on yours. “Anyway,” she continues, turning to the crowd gathered around your table listening intently to her every word. “He’s married to another Senior Vice President now - his former colleague. And she’s pregnant. Not sure what he’s up to. Maybe he’s off on some new daring corporate adventure involving car chases and the Tokyo PD?”

The crowd oohs and aahs at Taeyeon’s story - some with a slight delay as the Vice President translates it into flawless Korean, the foreign language giving her voice a pleasant, melodic tone. She continues to work the crowd. For a moment you listen, and for a moment you see why they were so enraptured by her. For a moment you remember why you-

-your phone vibrates. You reach into your pocket to retrieve it, finding a message from Ryujin. She tells you that she’s going to call it a night and head back to the hotel first. She reminds you of your early flight to Tokyo the next morning.

She says she’ll meet you in the lobby of the hotel at 7am.

You turn your gaze to her table to find her, but she’s gone. Her empty champagne flute sits on the table next to the one she never got the chance to give you.

---

Taeyeon made for an exercise in material contrasts - her tight, tiny black Prada dress beneath the cheap suit jacket you’d draped across her shoulders to ward against an evening chill you weren’t sure was actually there; the glint of the Cartier watch on her wrist as she poured cheap, convenience store soju into two paper cups; the 1,000 won lighter she held in her thin, slim fingers to light the artisanal cigarette she plucked from a slim titanium case in her purse.

She takes a long drag. When the smoke leaves her nose it almost clings to her. She wears it as much as she wears her dress, or the suit jacket of yours she was currently swimming in. Like the smoke she’s ephemeral, ethereal, beautiful - but her presence stung when you breathed her in. 

You’d left Vancouver on good terms with her - warm, friendly, joking - but something about her surprise appearance tonight, and what it might have meant, rubbed you the wrong way.

“You two together now?” she asks, voice flat and direct, now that the melodic charm of the social gathering was no longer needed in her words.

On the bench next to her, you look away with a scoff. You knew who she was referring to, even if she never said her name. You bend forward, elbows on your knees, hands clasped together. You play with your thumbs and rub your nails, as though you could wring an answer from between your fingers.

“What’s her name again? Soojin? Yujin?” she continues.

You shake your head. A smile with no warmth in it bends the corners of your lips. The gall of this woman.

“Ryujin,” you state, firmly.

“Hmm,” she murmurs, giving Ryujin’s name as much attention as the ash she flicks off the end of her cigarette, as though it were beneath her somehow. She takes another drag, leaves another layer of smoke floating between you filled with all the words you’ve never said to each other. “Are you two… real?”

You don’t look up at her. The faux-smile leaves your lips.

“I’m not sure,” you answer, slowly. “But I want to find out,” you add, hoping that it would send her a message.

A few moments of silence. Taeyeon takes one of the paper cups and downs her shot. You do the same, before re-filling both of them. Neither of you look at each other. The alcohol does nothing to ease the tension between you.

“You’re never sure about anything,” Taeyeon says, softly. 

Her words trigger you - more than she did when she showed up unannounced at the event, more than when she forgot Ryujin’s name, more than she did when she slid her hand into yours as you both left the event in full view of your colleagues. 

You stand up, suddenly angry, suddenly upset. The words rush to your mouth and leave your lips before you even know you’re saying them.

“I was sure about you.”

---

Friday, May 14th, 2021. 8:19pm.

She’s twenty-six again. Still beautiful - but in a bright, fresh-faced way. The kind of beauty that is found only in youth, in the features of a young woman yet to be truly hardened by the realities of life.

An image of her flashes on the screen of your phone as it lies on the table. She’s wearing a cheap Uniqlo sundress and the oversized circular eyeglasses she needed because she was blind as a bat before the Lasik surgery she’d get years later after a promotion. A cheap silver ring you’d bought her hours before from an artisanal market - a pre-engagement ring, she’d called it - glimmers on her left ring finger as she waves awkwardly at you, the photographer.

She’s in London, in front of Big Ben, where you’d both been sent on your first overseas business trip together. She wasn’t ready for the picture and has an odd, crooked smile on her face. You remembered her protests when you set it as her contact picture, insisting you replace it with a better one, perhaps one of the two of you together - but you kept it nonetheless, partially because you wanted to tease her about it, and partially because the picture reminded you of your first few weeks together. 

You were in love with her - there was no mistaking it. It was there in the way your heart leapt when she walked in the door of your apartment, there in the way you brushed hair from her face as she snored fitfully next to you, there in the way you made her coffee as she rushed out the door in the morning and a quick dinner when she got home late at night.

It’s still there now, as you pick up the phone and raise it to your ear.

“Hello?” you answer.

“Baby,” she says, stress already apparent in the way she said it. “Another long night for me today. I’m so sorry.”

You sigh, a sharp exhalation from your nose. You feel a sharp pain in your chest - not physical, no, another kind of pain, the kind that leaves you feeling empty.

“When will you-”

“I don’t know,” she answers, before you can even finish. In the background of the call, members of her team mumble. Someone is clacking away entirely too loudly at a keyboard. A voice is speaking sternly in Japanese. “I’ll get home as soon as I can,” she continues amidst the din of the busy office behind her, “but… you shouldn’t wait up.”

Your eyes drift closed. The pang of pain in your chest was becoming all too familiar. It started with her taking phone calls and drafting emails during meals, before escalating to missing dinners and forgetting important dates. Work had always been important to Taeyeon, but these days it had consumed her - and your relationship. Nights like these were becoming common. 

You loved her, still loved her, even when those lonely nights became lonely months. Your head tilts back. A headache begins to form in the front of your skull, and love could only dull so much of it.

She must’ve heard the sigh that leaves your lips.

“I’m sorry,” she repeats. “So, so sorry. But Hirai’s on my ass and you know how she is if I don’t meet these deadlines. If I want to make director I need to-”

“I know, Taeyeon,” you say, the words leaving your lips in another sigh. “I know.”