Page 116 of You Had Me At Annyeong!
He limps towards one of the tens of similar-looking tents huddled together.
‘Care to help me walk? I’m injured, remember?’ he turns around and says to Timira who has not moved an inch and seems to be lost in thought.
She hastens towards Rodrigo and holds his arm. ‘I’m sorry. Let’s go!’
Unbeknownst to them, a black car with tinted windows pulls up just behind their cab. Then a bike, then another bike. Followed by yet another car. Windows are rolled down, helmets taken off, lens covers removed and images zoomed into. Calls are made and news is passed around.
Rodrigo has been spotted in public. With a woman.
Rodrigo and Timira are waiting outside a tent for the owner to clear a table for them to sit. He is leaning against her while she stands with her arms folded across her chest. The weight of his body is too much for Timira’s shoulder to bear.
‘Imonim, is the table ready?’ she asks the owner impatiently. She has learnt from Korean dramas to refer to pojangmacha owners as ‘aunty’.
‘Rod, do you mind?’ She gestures with her hand for him to get off her shoulder. ‘You are too heavy.’
‘I’m so sorry! Oh, poor you.’
Rodrigo grips the part of her shoulder he had been resting against and attempts to massage it.
Haneul and Mr Choi, sweaty and tired after hitting their way around the batting cage, have decided to grab some street food and soju.
Standing at the crosswalk, they are waiting for the light to turn green when they spot two familiar faces across the road. On recognizing them, Haneul freezes and his heart feels like it’s about to explode.
What is Timira doing with Rodrigo?
* * *
‘Hyungnim, you cannot be serious!’
Rodrigo is chatting to his assistant, Kang Minhyun. He has just told the latter what he had shared with Timira the previous night.
‘I’m very serious, Minhyun. I really feel I don’t have it in me to do this anymore.’
He has just shared with Minhyun that he feels he ought to leave the club and pack up from Korea.
‘But you are bound by the contract you signed with the club!’ Minhyun sounds desperate and hopes this’ll force Rodrigo to do a rethink.
‘I don’t mind paying a penalty. I just really feel like there’s no way for me to recover from this.’
Minhyun open his mouth to say something but promptly shuts it upon sensing that Rodrigo isn’t quite finished speaking yet.
I should just let him vent.
‘I’m so embarrassed. And my past. I’ve tried to run away from it all my life; I had no idea it would come back and bite me the way it did! I feel so ashamed of what I did to Mr Baek. How am I ever going to make up for it?’
It sounds like a question but Minhyun is smart enough to know it is only rhetoric.
‘Everybody is right, I really must be trouble. Iamtrouble.’
Minhyun’s heart breaks a little. Over the past month, he has seen a Rodrigo the rest of the world has never been privy to. He has learnt so much about him, about his family, about his life, about the person he really is—knowledge that has made him, in his eyes, look more like a saint and less like a sinner.
Minhyun can’t help but feel partly responsible for this.
I ought to come clean about my part in this.
‘Minhyun, bro, I’m sorry they put you in charge of my affairs. Clearly, I’m a mess!’
That’s it, I must do what I have to!
