Geomancy couple

Chapter 38: Chapter 38

It was only right that Hojoon should leave now. But Arum suddenly got the chills because someone picked her pocket last night. She was scared. She couldn’t call Konsu. Even if she called her mother, it would take more than an hour for her to come here. If she could hold out for about two more hours, the sun would already rise.

“Since you’ve come to my place, why don’t you take a nap here?” asked Arum.

“No thanks.”

Hojoon remembered that when he was alone with her a while ago, he left the front door open.

“Wait a minute,” said Arum.

When she called him again, he sensed what she wanted.

“Are you scared?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

Then he took off his shoes and came back into the living room.

“How come you insisted on crawling up here a moment ago?”

“I didn’t know that I’d be that scared.”

“So, are you scared now, when you pretended you were not a moment ago?”

“You bet. I just don’t know why I insisted. Acting like that just to keep a handbag is really too crazy!”

“It seems like your handbag is so precious that you can actually risk your life just for it.”

“Well, it’s a handbag Konsu gave me, when he proposed to me…”

“Do you like that guy that much?”

“I don’t know.”

Hojoon could see wistfulness in her eyes.

When he looked around, he found that she had installed a wind chime and a flower vase in the living room as he instructed.

“Did you really put a clam underneath your bed?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you believe that?”

“What the heck? Don’t you remember how much you heckled me, complaining that I didn’t believe in geomancy?”

“I’m going to receive an honorarium from you if geomancy works out well for you. This is a very expensive geomancy method,” he said sourly.

Then, he abruptly asked, “Did he say he got married?”

“Nope.”

“Is he dating someone?”

“Probably not. That’s why he asked to see me today. But he stood me up.”

After taking a quick look at her living room, he sat beside her.

“Just split with him!”

“Why are you often telling me to break up with him? I understand that you’re dating, too.”

“Me? Dating someone?”

“Yeah, that woman called Cho…”

“You mean Soran Cho.”

“When did you date each other? As a reporter with a women’s magazine, I’m dealing with lots of gossip stories. I don’t see your name in Soran Cho’s list.”

“Are you interviewing me now?”

“Just tell me off the record.”

“How can I trust you? Are you recording this?”

Putting down her cell phone on the table, she said, “No, absolutely not. I’m really curious about your relationship with her. It seems that you’ve split with her. I guess you would never meet a woman again once you split up with her.”

“Yes, you’re right. I know the feeling well because I’ve already experienced it. That’s why I’m dissuading you from meeting Konsu again.”

“I envy you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I envy your separation. Come to think of it, I didn’t break up with him because our engagement was broken off unilaterally by him.”

“Then, why did you meet him again today?”

“Because I am not yet ready to break up with him forever. There are too many things I have yet to share with him. When I go somewhere, the first thing I think of is that I wish that I came with him. When I enjoy good food, I just think, I wish I had it with him. I can’t stop thinking like that.”

“Then, try meeting him. Let me show you the surest way to make him your man.”

“Really?”

She was just happy without questioning why he said that.

In fact, Hojoon said that with a devil-may-care attitude. In other words, he was thinking, ‘I don’t think you guys can really meet and get married.’

This guy, Konsu, didn’t call or send a text message to his girlfriend, whom he parted with late at night. And this woman, Arum, who didn’t even call her boyfriend, when she had an accident on her way back.

Hojoon knew how their relationship would end up.

Nonetheless, only Arum, the direct party, was not aware of that.

“Yes, I can do it for you, Arum. Just call me anytime when you want to. Let me help you guys secure a great love. Let me give you my full material and emotional support. In other words, I can help you with everything, such as where you meet and what you eat, and so on.”

“Really? Are you sure?” Arum clapped her hands excitedly. The more she clapped, the more he got stimulated.

“You know that I am a man of my words. Upon my honor as the best geomancy consultant, I’ll help you rediscover your love. So, you want me to make Konsu love you again, right?”

His eyes sparkled with overzealous desire.

***

Arum took two days off.

She had no choice but to use her precious annual paid vacation.

Though she wanted to take more vacation leave, she couldn’t. She reported to work, though she felt pain in her legs.

She couldn’t dare to use public transportation like the bus, and her own driving was dangerous. In the end, she had to spend almost all of her meager pay on riding a taxi.

Once she reported to work, she got so hungry. But she suffered a much more pain than this kind of physical pain.

She suffered some mental distress because of Konsu.

Three days had already passed since Konsu disappeared after he said, ‘Wait a minute!’

He didn’t call her to say he was sorry. She opened the mailbox to check if she had any email from him, but she didn’t receive one.

She tried to understand his actions all day long. She couldn’t go to the company, so she was thinking about him while she was in bed.

‘Did he get the call that his parents were in critical condition? Did his close friend die? Did Konsu have an accident? Was he taken to a police station after fighting with a drunken man?

Or was he incurably ill? Did his condition get worse, which he had been hiding from me? Was he kidnapped by a female stalker?’

Arum was tormented by all kinds of strange thoughts about Konsu.

At some point she stopped thinking about him anymore because she felt ashamed of herself idling away like that while she was in bed. But the conclusion of her wild imaginations about him was the same. It was much more miserable, which she didn’t want to recognize and think about at all.

‘Yeah. He was such a bastard from the very beginning.”

He acted like that when he was dating her.

Whenever she had words with Konsu, it was Konsu who first disappeared.

Aside from who was to blame, Konsu had always avoided such a situation.

Only when she plumbed the depths of anxiety did he come back nonchalantly. When she examined his tracks, she found that he had a great time without worrying about her. He would come back as a chubby guy, eating three meals a day, and even drinking.

On the other hand, her cheeks would look hollow as she wouldn’t eat for several days, and her eyes were swollen because she cried too much.

That wasn’t all.

When he disappeared after he did something terrible like cancelling off the marriage, he lost contact with her. After he notified her of his breakup with her though a text message, he went to Japan for a trip by using his sick leave when he was only an intern.

During his absence, she had to deal with emergencies.

She had to answer the calls from her parents and also his. She had to cancel the reservation at the wedding hall and pay for the remaining balance of their wedding shots.

When all those things came to her mind vividly, she felt enraged.

Konsu came back as a worse guy. How could he desert his ex-girlfriend, whom he met three years ago? This time she didn’t quarrel with him, and she even felt sympathetic about him.

What was the problem?

In the end, several days passed after Konsu left her like that, and Saturday came. She didn’t want to feel the weight of her worries anymore.

As Hojoon asked her to do so, she began to clean up the house.

General cleaning!

She was determined to clean up everything this time.

She didn’t feel much pain in her legs. As she had no injuries on her two arms, she could clean and wipe the floor. What would be the most effective clean-up?

She called Hojoon.

“Sorry to bother you during the weekend. I haven’t had a call from Konsu yet. I think I need a more dramatic clean-up.”

“Move your bed!”

“Bed?”

“Most of the problems in love affairs come from the bed. If you change the bed, you can find a new love or your spouse may have an affair.”

Hojoon began an impromptu lecture.

As the bed was an important space where one spent one third of one’s life, it had a great importance in terms of geomancy. He said that one received an energy force subconsciously while sleeping there.