Chapter 10
Jeong-o looked at him with slightly doubtful eyes for a moment, then shrugged her shoulders.
Even a child could pull weeds, so of course he could do it.
“You’ll see a field up there. Go pull some weeds.”
“If I pull them, will you give me meat?”
That damn meat refrain.
“If you do well, I’ll grill you some meat.”
“Okay.”
The man whistled as he turned and followed the path Jeong-o had indicated uphill. Jeong-o watched his retreating back with narrowed eyes for a moment before turning away herself.
How much time passed after that?
She got caught up handling some overdue work, and soon 30 minutes had flown by.
Closing her laptop and rolling her stiff neck, Jeong-o suddenly peered outside.
‘I hope he’s doing okay…’
Feeling uneasy because it was too quiet, Jeong-o left the house and walked up the path leading behind her home.
Before long, she saw the man. Seeing him crouched down, working diligently, she thought he was quite commendable…
What is this!
“What are you doing?! What are we supposed to do if you pull out all the green onions!”
Jeong-o looked in horror at the pile of large green onions stacked beside the man.
The man stared blankly at Jeong-o. In his hand, he held another one of the green onions Jeong-o had painstakingly grown.
“But Jeong-o told me to pull them.”
“I said pull weeds! When did I say pull green onions!”
“Oh. These aren’t weeds?”
With an expression that seemed to ask why she was getting angry when he’d done the work she gave him, the man looked sulkily at Jeong-o.
“They look like weeds to me?”
He shook the green onion in his hand defiantly. Jeong-o shrieked and snatched the clump of green onions from his hand. None of them were usable.
“……Jeong-o, I don’t think I’m cut out for work. I’m sorry, I ruined your precious green onions.”
Jeong-o felt a deep frustration and clenched her jaw tightly, but she couldn’t exactly blow up at him after his apology.
“But I worked hard today, so for dinner, meat….”
She genuinely felt like she might grab the back of her neck and collapse from frustration.
Where did this guy come from? He couldn’t do anything right, just ate through her food supplies.
Why did she let someone like this into her home, making her already tough life even more painful?
A throbbing regret surged at her temples at random times. Part of her wanted to kick him out immediately, but she also worried if that fool could survive on his own outside.
A sigh escaped her lips.
“Not a chance. Dinner tonight is green onions. I’ll prepare a lavish feast with the greens you hate…”
As she turned to leave with the ruined green onions, the man suddenly grabbed her. Jeong-o paused and looked back at him.
He was staring at her so intently it felt burdensome. Wondering if he was angry because she’d scolded him, she frowned.
“What are you staring at?”
The man continued to stare at her.
Then, suddenly, he tried to move closer. Reacting instinctively to his abrupt movement, Jeong-o leaned her body back.
“……!”
She almost fell over. Jeong-o hurriedly tried to regain her balance, but was knocked over by the man’s bulky frame and landed on the ground.
She frowned at the sharp pain shooting from her tailbone, feeling a weight on her stomach.
The man was lying on top of her. Then, he suddenly reached a hand toward the crown of her head.
“Jeong-o, there’s a bug on your head. It’s wriggling a lot.”
Following his words, a wriggling cabbage worm was perched on his outstretched index finger. Jeong-o clenched her jaw.
“Get off. Now.”
“Huh?”
“Get that disgusting thing away from me, now!”
“Are you scared of bugs?”
You crazy bastard! Scared of bugs, my foot!
The man’s bulging lower region kept poking her from below. Before she could kick it, Jeong-o issued another stern command for him to get off immediately.
Finally understanding, the man slowly rolled off her body. Then, he carefully placed the bug on the ground.
When Jeong-o stood up and glared at him as if he were a pervert, the man put on a deeply wronged expression.
“Jeong-o, this is like… an unavoidable male instinct.”
What good is having only your instincts alive when you’ve lost all your memories?
Jeong-o completely ignored his words and turned away. That’s when it happened. Someone was coming up the hill path. It was Young-ja.
“Jeong-o, you here?”
Young-ja, who was pretending to look for Jeong-o while scanning the area, blushed crimson in an instant. She approached the man like a girl experiencing her first love, her cheeks flushed.
“My goodness, I thought so from afar, but up close, the Prince truly shines!”
The man, meeting Young-ja for the first time, greeted her like an old friend and waved. Young-ja let out a “Kyaa!” scream. They were getting along splendidly.
“Prince, my foot.”
“Didn’t you say you can’t remember his name? The grannies gave him a fantastic name, didn’t they? Prince! It fits perfectly! His face is perfect, his… thing is perfect!”
Young-ja pointed slyly at the man’s lower region and gave a strange laugh.
The sensation of that part poking her from below resurfaced, and heat rose to Jeong-o’s face. She hurriedly changed the subject.
“What’s up?”
“‘What’s up?’ he says. Our Prince said he wants to eat meat, didn’t he?”
Where did she hear that? Jeong-o looked at Young-ja, flabbergasted.
“Meat?”
Just then, the man popped his face in, his eyes sparkling brightly. How did he manage to understand the word ‘meat’ like a ghost when he didn’t know a word of Korean?
Come to think of it, Jeong-o sometimes felt like he understood what was being said.
‘Is that bastard pretending not to understand Korean?’
Jeong-o glared at the man with suspicious eyes. The man looked back at her with a blank stare.
No way he could understand.
Jeong-o dismissed her baseless suspicion and turned back to Young-ja. Young-ja explained with a very excited face.
“Granny Flower Matchmaker has been going around the village saying we must feed the Prince meat, you know?”
A sigh laden with worry escaped Jeong-o’s lips. Just when she thought he’d been quiet while at home, it seemed he had been roaming around stirring up the village while her attention was elsewhere.
But how did the granny, who couldn’t understand English, know the man was asking for meat? Then again, remembering the man’s sulky face at the dinner table, poking at the side dishes with his chopsticks, it seemed he might have picked up on it intuitively.
“The 1-2-3 Grannies all chipped in their savings, so it looks like we’re having a meat party!”
But what was this about a meat party now?
Jeong-o said it wasn’t necessary, but Young-ja, saying the boiled pork was already cooking, didn’t even pretend to listen.
“Come quickly and bring the Prince to the village hall. Okay then, Prince, see you later!”
Having said that, Young-ja hurried back down the path she came from. The man waved at her with a bright face.
Jeong-o’s worries deepened.
The village hall was in an uproar.
Under the command of the village elders, Grannies 1-2-3, people from the lower village had all gathered, boiling pork and making fresh kimchi salad.
In one corner, various pancakes—green onion, kimchi—were being fried, while in another, the grandfathers were playing Go-Stop.
Jeong-o, suppressing her irritation, was slicing the well-cooked meat. Perhaps feeling guilty about pulling all the green onions, the man was running errands for Jeong-o with clumsy gestures.
Seeing his large frame going back and forth to the village hall somehow made him seem endearing, and a laugh escaped her.
Relenting, Jeong-o told him to go take a break for a while. The man said he’d rest just a bit and then walked away.
“Oh my, look who it is!”
Just then, a noisy commotion was heard. She’d sent him out to rest, but the man had been caught by a granny and was sitting on a nearby mat.
But what was this? The granny was hanging a flower over the man’s ear.
The grannies gathered nearby rushed over in a wave. First Granny cackled and praised the man.
“Prettier than the flower itself!”
The man didn’t seem to mind; he left the flower in place, surrounded by grannies, laughing affably and occasionally throwing in some cute gestures as fan service.
“Flower Matchmaker, your man is truly handsome! Getting married again past 80 feels good, doesn’t it?”
“Isn’t my man pretty?”
The granny grinned, showing her toothless gums. Then, Third Granny, who was frying pancakes nearby, laughed and agreed.
“That’s right! Your man is truly pretty!”
The granny picked up a piece of meat from the table with her fingers and put it in the man’s mouth.
The man ate it without any sign of distaste. She even rinsed kimchi in water for him since he couldn’t handle spice, and he ate that too.
“Prince, is it really that delicious?”
“How neglected must he have been by Jeong-o to eat like that?”
Neglected? What did she mean neglected? She cooked three meals a day until her hands were raw. To the point her food supplies were nearly depleted.
But the man ate the meat and pancakes the grannies offered like someone who hadn’t eaten for days, devouring them like a man possessed.
“Oh my, he eats so well!”
Seeing him eat so heartily, the grannies, looking even more delighted, fed him this and that. Jeong-o watched this disapprovingly before finishing slicing the meat.
Just then, Young-ja sidled up and stuck close to her.
“His memory still hasn’t come back?”
What was she so curious about? She kept asking all sorts of questions about the man.
“Yeah.”
“Really, now. His family must be looking for him. Hasn’t there been any contact from the embassy or something?”
“I told you, no.”
As Jeong-o gave vague answers, her phone vibrated. She took off the knife and gloves she was holding and fumbled for her phone. It was a call from Baek-seok.
……Jeong-o.
I knew I shouldn’t have answered.
It wasn’t Baek-seok’s voice. It was his voice. The voice of her ex-lover, the one she could never forget.
Jeong-o momentarily stopped breathing.
Noticing Jeong-o’s expression darken, Young-ja looked at her with concern. Jeong-o signaled she’d take the call and got up, moving to the back of the building.
When Jeong-o didn’t respond, Gyeong-ho spoke again.
Jeong-o, it’s me, Gyeong-ho.
She unconsciously gripped the phone tightly. Her heart began to beat erratically.
I heard from Seok. He said you’re doing well……
“Is that what you’d prefer to believe?”
‘Doing well?’ A cold voice finally burst from Jeong-o’s lips.
“You should at least try to be somewhat self-aware, Mr. Park Gyeong-ho.”
I’m so sorry that I can’t even properly apologize to you.
“What are you sorry for? That you, who should have believed in me more than anyone, were the first to turn away from me?”
……
“Or is it that you married another woman the moment I went to prison?”
