Work Text:
After she started staying at his home, the table usually hosted two people for dinner. Even if Ardia never cared much about eating dinner properly, she liked to perch on the seat across the long mahogany table, across where he sat, and nibble on the meal he picked today.
“Why do you still let me stay here?”
It wasn’t the first time he had heard that question, and he kept refusing to entertain it every time.
The Recruiter put down his knife and fork for a second, meeting her eyes as he let the soft classical music he was playing from his turntable softly mused through the air before he changed the subject. “Aren’t you going to continue eating?”
“I am.” Ardia dropped the fork she was holding with a clatter. “I’m still waiting for the water to boil.”
From the kitchen, the sound of the kettle boiling interweaved with the classical tune, a soft sizzle pitching the night atmosphere.
“Not eating the steak?”
In front of her was a plate of steak not dissimilar to his; the difference was that her meat was barely cut into, the knife left alone as she prodded it with her fork. A bite or two was taken out of it, but there were no signs she was gonna continue eating it.
“I’ll add noodles to it first,” she said.
“Always instant noodles,” he responded, “aren’t you tired of only eating that?”
She closed her eyes, already bored by their conversation. Her hand nonchalantly reached for a bottle of vintage red wine placed on the table—courtesy of the Recruiter’s collection—and poured it into her bordeaux glass. He kept commenting on how she kept taking his things without asking, but he just watched as she downed the glass worth hundreds of thousands of won.
“I know what I enjoy already. Besides, steaks don't taste good,” she put her glass back down and eyed his plate, which was almost empty. “It gets stuck easily and is all gummy when it’s too rare. I never understand why you can eat these things.”
He brushed off her insult, as usual, and raised a piece of meat to his lips with a smile. “Maybe it’s just how you are, Miss.” He tore the meat off the prongs and munched on it. “How about I get you something else?”
Without missing a beat, Ardia answered, “I want sundubu jjigae.”
“Okay, then.” The Recruiter cut into another piece of meat, unfazed by her immediate response. “I’ll get you some sundubu jjigae this week.”
Ardia tapped her fingers on the mahogany wood, imagining it being filled with something that wasn’t Western food or her noodles.
“You’re really going to set this table like that, Mister?” She asked, tilting her head with a disinterested gaze. “I can’t picture it at all.”
“You want it, right?” He said with a smile. “So I will.”
A regular conversation on a regular dinner night. Ardia never thought she’d be distraught to miss one, especially after months of living in that dreary apartment with that dreary man.
After he stopped showing up, Ardia was the only one who ate at the table for dinner. The mahogany was still polished, the surface reflecting the neon-lit city scenery outside the window and the yellow color of the lamp, but they certainly felt more somber. The drag of the chair when she pulled it out was heavier, and the ambient noise of the kettle boiling up was the only thing filling the silence.
She sat down, and across her was an empty chair.
There was no plate with a blotch of meat on it or another record of classical music humming.
From inside her pocket, she pulled out her cigarette pack and fiddled with it, but didn’t take any out. He had bought it for her after she kept complaining, but weirdly, he was also strict about not smoking indoors. So most days, she kept it in her pocket while waiting for a chance to stick her head out of the window when he was out.
Ardia tapped the box on the table. She never cared about what he does—did—but deep down, on an intellectual level, she knew his job was a dangerous one, even in a way she didn’t really know about. But she never thought it’d sting like this.
His non-existence still didn’t feel real to her. She tried looking away, waiting in front of the closed door, and even sitting at the table at lunchtime, but he never showed up. Empty might be the closest name she could tack on her feelings, and though she denied it at first, it was the only fitting tag she could use aside from grief.
Empty, like the silence that stretched. A silence that eventually gets broken by the kettle screaming on top of its lungs. After it boiled and boiled, the agitated water inside almost spilled from its spout, considering how much the woman filled it today.
Ardia broke her gaze from the seat across her. She gave the tin kettle a brief glance before she stood up and walked to the kitchen. What she left behind was an empty mahogany table, devoid of anything but memories of those regular conversations they had.
Aah, she’ll never get her sundubu jjigae.