Chapter Text
The first I stepped at the bungalow, the grain of sands were still on my feet. I shook my feet to get rid of them before entering the bungalow. The weather was hotter than I had thought before and my skin had become tanned quickly. Thank God it didn’t burn. I took off my shades and cap, putting them on the table as I walked to the kitchen. The wooden floor creaked as I walked. On the kitchen bar, the little red light on the telephone was blinking – which meant voicemail. Who would have known that I was living in—oh.
Him.
Who else? He was the one who reserved the bungalow for me. Of course he knew I was here. Two voice mails, the screen displayed. I pressed a button on the phone.
Hey my Baby-Bae, how is your holiday? I bet it is fun staying there, right? Bali is just wonderful, isn’t it? I remember that I went there with Joonyoung and it was incredible! You should go to the club also, that one near Kuta, but I forgot the name. I will text you the name of the club and please, party hard. You know… I miss you already but I can’t see you. How about we meet in Singapore? I have a meeting there…
Beep.
I pressed the end button on the phone without listening till the end, and I ignored the second voice mail. Keep the bullshit for yourself, I snickered. I stared at the yellow icon at the corner of my smartphone screen. Another messages.
I touched the icon and read the sender’s name. It was the same person with the one who sent me voice mail.
Baby-Bae~ xoxoxo
Baby-Bae, you’re so busy enjoying the beach, huh? I just want to hear your voice~
Can’t you send me a voicemail or a video of you at beach?
Baby-Bae
Baby-Bae
Baby-Bae
Baby-Bae
Baby-Bae love you so much I could die. Can’t wait to see you in Singapore!
I booked it for you Bali-Singapore and we could fly to Busan after that. Together!
After the last text, I found that he sent me a video. He started the video with a pouting mouth, as if he wanted to kiss me. Then he walked farther away from the camera and waved to me.
“Baby-Bae! Here I was eating the kimchi jjigae you made for me and I’ve been exercising! You’re right, my abs is disappearing while yours is still the same as before. Just wait, if we meet again, you could feel the hard abs of mine and… You know, the other hard thing… If you know what I mean.”
He smirked coyly while wriggling his eyebrows. Then it ended. The video froze at the sight of him pouting his lips. The lips that I knew by heart –the softness, the redness, the moistness, the thickness, every inch of it. I touched the frozen video right at the pouting lips, but the video was replayed instead. This time, I didn’t care what he was saying. Rather, I focused on how his lips were moving.
His lips still made my heart skip a beat, but then my heart squeezing and thousands thorns pricking it. I held my phone, hoping that the pain in my chest would slowly fade away every time I tightened my grip. But it didn’t work, the pain became stronger and stronger, and soon I couldn’t breathe. My knees couldn’t hold my weight anymore and as I collapsed to the ground, my tears running down my cheeks.
I cried a river that evening.
No matter how often he said he loved me, I couldn’t believe him anymore. My heart was broken and nothing in this world could make it the same as before. I covered my face for a while, trying to stop the tears, but it didn’t work. Instead, the tears were streaming down my cheeks. When I wiped the tears with my fingers, I felt a friction against my skin. I saw my hand and realized that something shiny was still on my finger, reflecting the light.
A diamond ring.
The symbol of our love.
A love that I doubted if it was still there in our heart.
***
It was Friday night in summer and he casually picked me up after work. I was stoned when I found him standing in front of the building and holding a bouquet of red roses.
While slowly approaching him, I rubbed my eyes. I just couldn’t believe he had come and brought my favorite flower – a bouquet of that. It was usually me who brings him bouquets of flowers, which later withered in the vase at our home without him keeping it. When he saw that I was nearing him, he waved his hands eagerly, making the petals fell down. I chuckled, but then realized that I shouldn’t chuckle.
I was supposed to be mad at him, considering what he had done to me. Some scenarios were in my mind, where I became the antagonist one. Maybe I could take the bouquet then put it to the nearest trash bin.
‘No, it had to be more cruel, Bae. Maybe you could snatch the bouquet, throw it on the ground, and step on it, then leave him without looking back,’ a devil whispered into my head.
But then his hug and the soft peck on my cheek blew the scenarios in my mind. He fixed the hem of my suit and gave me the bouquet while smiling at me.
“You must be tired, Baby-Bae. Let me take your bag,” he snatched the bag from me. I just complied with his act. Why was him so good to me if it was just a lie?
He then put his hand around my hip, led me to walk to the nearest bus station. I stared at the man beside me. He was slightly taller than me and dyed his hair platinum blonde. A smile always plastered on his face, without fail. Was that just a façade to cover all his lies to me?
“Don’t stare at me like that, Baby-Bae. I may die if you keep staring with those sharp eyes.” He said without looking at me.
I turned my head, focusing my mind again to the pedestrian walk. Realizing that I had a bouquet in my hands, I brought it on my nose and inhaled the refreshing scent.
“You like the red rose, Baby-Bae?” he was observing my face, eyes glistening in a playful mood while he smirked at me.
“You had already known the fact that I like roses,” a stiff voice came out from my mouth.
He smiled weakly. “You know, Bae, I don’t like your tone when you talked to me. I don’t know why, but you seemed far apart to me lately. Did I do something wrong?”
“No you didn’t,” I immediately answered without sparing any second to think. But my mind screamed, ‘Oh yes you did something terribly wrong, Ri.’
He suddenly stopped and grabbed my arm. “Talk to me, Baby. I hate this feeling.”
“We don’t have anything to talk, Ri Sweetheart,” I forced a smile, my best eye smile, to him.
He looked at my eyes deeply, and then sighed. I took that as a sign that he didn’t find what he wanted to know. “Alright then Baby-Bae. Do you want to eat dinner outside or shall we cook something in our apartment?”
“Cooking is alright with me.”
“I will help you then,” he jumped like a child while holding my arm.
I tried to lift up the mood by ruffling his blonde hair. Please heart, brain, comply with me. Let me ignore the uneasy feeling because I don’t want this sacred relationship to end. Not after we promised in front of God to be together through thick and thin, I tried to chant a mantra to ease my own heart.
“Just stay at the back of kitchen counter and give me your best smile, okay? Last time you tried to help me you nearly burnt the kitchen.”
“But Baby-Bae…” he squeezed my arm and pouted at me.
“Be a good boy, or else,” I said to him with a stiff face as if I was his teacher.
“Yes, Sir! I understand!” He said. I laughed at his expression and then the contagious laughter infected him. We laughed together as if nothing wrong with us.
“We need to go to the supermarket. What do you want to eat, Jagiya?”
He froze when I called him ‘Jagiya’. I smirked in my head, knowing that it spiked something in his brain. An awkward smile appeared in his face. I bet he tried so hard not to do something strange in front of me. “I want to eat kimchi jjigae.” He finally said.
“Kimchi jjigae? Don’t you have something grand to eat?”
He shook his head. “I love your kimchi jjigae.”
“How about we eat some chicken steak and mashed potato?”
“French fries it is.”
“Mashed potato. It’s healthier than those greasy potato, Ri!”
“But it’s delicious!”
“Mashed potato. I want to see you live for a hundred years, Riri sweetie.”
“Ugh!” He snickered. “You health freak! I sometimes wonder why I bother keeping up with you pushing your opinion on me.” He then pulled me into a hug. “But I love you.”
I felt like something tug at my heart upon hearing those sacred three words. Those words which were supposed to make me happy when I heard them, but I didn’t feel happy at all.
Because I knew that you didn’t love me anymore.
You didn’t love me as much as you used to.
My hands curled into fists and my right hand was pricked by thousand needles. It hurt but it’s nothing compared to the pain in my heart. I struggled to hide the mixed emotion in my head. “Yeah. I know you love me,” was the final words came out from my mouth.
“Do you love me too?” The tone of his voice was weak, as if he pleaded me to answer his question.
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know, Baby-Bae. You tell me.”
I smiled. “Maybe.”
“Maybe what?”
“Maybe I love you.” I walked away, leaving him behind.
***
After I cried my heart out, I washed myself. It was nearing dinner time and I didn’t want to cook something although I already bought groceries. I dried my hair and took a glance to the clock on the wall. 6 p.m plus one hours of time difference between here and Korea, so it’s 7p.m there.
‘What did we usually do at this time, Riri? Cuddling? Watching movie?’ I asked to myself.
What were you doing when you left me alone in our apartment at this time?
Or.
What are you doing now without me? Meeting that Choi Seunghyun?
I threw the damp towel on the floor harshly. The rage suddenly stormed on. ‘What was wrong with us, with our marriage, Ri? What’s wrong with me?’ I sighed heavily. I loved him with all my heart and all he did was hurt me.
Then I heard a song from my phone. It was a song I set only for him. His face was on the screen, but I decided to slide the blinking red icon.
Rejected.
The phone vibrated for some times. He must have sent me a lot of messages. I scrolled down the notification and read it from the preview screen.
Baby-Bae? Why did you reject my call?
I just want to know how you are...
You didn’t reply to my text at all.
How’s Singapore? Should I book it for us or you just want to go back home?
Bae, please let me know that you’re alright there.
I am worried about you, you shouldn’t ignore your husband like this, Baby-Bae. It hurts.
It hurts you said? How about you having an affair for almost one year when our marriage life is only on its third year? It didn’t hurt me?
The same song rang again. I did the same, rejected his call.
Baby-Bae. What’s wrong?
I wrote a reply for him.
Leave me alone, just for this once. I need to clear my head.
Then I threw the phone to the bed because I didn’t want him to call me again and again.
I went out from the bungalow to eat dinner at a restaurant. It was not far away from my bungalow. The restaurant was designed for people who stayed at the bungalows and located at the very left of the complex, near the sea. It had the best view to see sunrise or sunset. I brought my flip-flops with me without putting them on –I wanted to feel the sands.
I snickered.
Beach is one of our favorite places to spend our holiday. No, it used to be his favorite place, until he dragged me to every beach he was familiar with, and then it became my favorite place, too. He said that Indonesia has the best beaches he had ever seen and he couldn’t wait to go with me to explore the beaches.
But then there I was, alone.
We had never gone to Indonesia together; the farthest beach we explored was in Okinawa and we didn’t enjoy the trip at all. It was crowded with people who were spending their holiday and not as romantic as we thought it would be. We ended up fighting, even on the way back home. The fight was so big that I even wavered and wondered if we loved each other or not. We did forgive each other but I thought it was only on the surface. We lied to each other, we lied to ourselves, pretending that we were okay but in fact, we were not.
I tried my best to make things between us right –I still made breakfast and dinner for him, massaging when he said he was tired, and still gave my body to him even though I didn’t feel his presence in our bed. Every time we fucked each other, I could see that he was thinking of someone else.
Damn right he was.
It didn’t take a long time until I arrived at the restaurant and the waitress greeted me. She led me to the outdoor table, so I could enjoy the view of the sea at night. Dim lamps decorated the outdoor space and I sat and enjoying the blinking lights. The waitress asked for my order. I wasn’t that hungry, so I ordered an apple pie and mango smoothies. She wrote my order and then left me alone.
I observed my surrounding. It was not that crowded. Maybe I was too early to get my dinner. There was someone else too. He sat two tables away from me and looked far away to the sea, as if he was hoping that someone would come from it.
He was wearing a sleeveless shirt, kind of showing off his tanned arms. Thanks to the dim light, I only could guess that he had slightly permed brown hair. Where did he come from? Ah, it must be nice to have someone to hook up to when I was in here. Maybe having a one night stand or even summer love before I went back to reality. I looked at the ring in my finger and played with it. Maybe I could take it off, just for this time.
I inhaled the refreshing-and-salty air.
It suffocated me.