The New Groom Chapter 12

The water was chillingly cold, but Lee Jeongrok felt as if he had fallen into a boiling vat of oil, each of his cells incinerating. The air bubbles that had been madly streaming from his nose and mouth stopped coming out. He did not know how much water he had swallowed. He thrashed about with all his might, but at some point, the strength in his entire body simply gave out. He felt that even if Go Yoongi weren’t holding him down, he would sink and never be able to come back up to the surface.

“What is this little shit trying to do, trying to make someone a murderer? Hey, you fucking bastard, wake up. Open your eyes, damn it.”

“He’s probably pretending to pass out because he’s embarrassed, right? If you slap him a few times, he’ll open his eyes one hundred percent.”

Someone grabbed his shirt collar violently and dragged him out of the pool. Lee Jeongrok barely came to his senses at the hands slapping his cheeks roughly. He was so disoriented he didn’t even know where or how he was hurt. When he finally regained his senses after lying there for a while to catch his breath, people were no longer even interested in him.

Go Yoongi was surrounded by his friends, taking their jokes and smiling broadly. Although the corners of his mouth were torn and his cheek was swollen red from being slapped by Lee Jeongrok, he was more high-spirited than ever. The men were either splashing water on him or sitting on the sunbeds, drinking beer and chatting loudly; they no longer spared a glance for Lee Jeongrok.

“What’s up, you guys?”

Only after everything was over did the women come down to the pool. They had done their hair and changed into swimsuits. They looked alternately at Lee Jeongrok, who was soaking wet, and Go Yoongi, who had fallen into the pool in his tuxedo.

“What did you do while we were gone?”

“What did we do. We had a fucking great time.”

One man threw a beach ball to start playing around. As the woman who caught the beach ball jumped into the pool, a water fight began.

It was absurd. Lee Jeongrok stared blankly at the people laughing and fooling around as if nothing had happened. The things that had just happened to him, and the people who were so calm as if nothing had occurred—it was all spine-chilling and ridiculous.

The only person to speak to him in his daze was Hwang Imin, who had also changed into a swimsuit. Hwang Imin looked over him with some concern as he sat there looking as ragged as a floor cloth.

“Honey, how did you end up in the water? It would be best to change your clothes first. You might catch a cold.”

“…”

“I’ll ask Yoongi to lend you some clothes…”

“No, cough… no, never mind.”

Lee Jeongrok hurriedly dissuaded his wife and shook his head. He suddenly stared blankly at the thin, white arm he was holding.

Could he tell her what had just happened to him?

Could he confess that he had almost drowned in the pool after a fistfight with Go Yoongi, and ask to go home together so they would never have to face those people again?

He couldn’t.

Even if he died, he couldn’t. In all honesty, he would rather have sunk to the bottom of the pool and died; he could never tell his wife that he had been subjected to such a humiliating ordeal.

Lee Jeongrok let go of his wife’s arm and rose unsteadily. His legs were trembling, but that was something he couldn’t help.

“I… I’ll head in first. My clothes are wet, and I’m a bit tired.”

“Are you okay? Should I go with you?”

“No. No. You stay and enjoy yourself. I’ll go first… I, I think I was a bit drunk earlier. That’s why…”

He needed time to be alone. He needed time to think over what on earth he had experienced and why such a thing had happened—or, at the very least, time to calm down even a little…

Lee Jeongrok, who had been stumbling through his words, forced a smile for his wife, whose face had darkened.

“Take your time and have fun. I’ll go in first. Don’t worry.”

“…If you say so… I understand. I’ll be in soon, too.”

“There’s no need. It’s a good day today… go have fun. I’m really tired… I’ll get going.”

He barely managed to stop Hwang Imin, who was trying to see him off, and Lee Jeongrok left the underground pool alone. The upper floor was quiet, without a single soul in sight. As soon as there were no eyes on him, his legs gave out, and he almost collapsed. Barely leaning against a display cabinet, he suddenly noticed a full-length mirror installed opposite him.

He looked absurdly fine. He just looked like someone who had fallen into a pool; he didn’t look like someone who had just almost died. His cheeks were merely flushed red from having been beaten soundly. Lee Jeongrok, who stared into the mirror for a long time in search of signs of violence, suddenly thought of the protesters.

The pale, wet faces that fought in front of the hotel wearing useless raincoats. Among them, the sharp, clear eyes of Jin Juyeong as he held his picket high suddenly seemed to be piercing through his own reflection in the mirror. Lee Jeongrok turned his body as if to shake off that gaze.

As he pushed open the heavy front door, the cool, dry air that had surrounded him disappeared in an instant. Instead, the humid, muggy air brought on by the long rainy season wrapped around his entire body. Lee Jeongrok stared blankly beyond the darkness, listening to the sound of the rain pouring down like crazy.

He felt suffocated. It was because of the humidity, because of the air that had become too dense due to the endlessly pouring rain, because of the excess oxygen—he felt suffocated precisely because of it.

“…Some ‘stunning view’ this is, where exactly is…”

Behind his back, the front door slammed shut.

All the way home, Lee Jeongrok kept his eyes closed. Chief Joo, sitting in the passenger seat, watched a drama as usual. He did not ask anything of Lee Jeongrok, who had returned soaking wet and stumbling. Even the driver and Secretary Yoon were glancing at the backseat as if trying not to look, but Chief Joo’s gaze was glued solely to his phone screen.

When they descended the winding S-curve road to the end, Lee Jeongrok stopped the car urgently. He collapsed onto the roadside and vomited everything that was inside him. Because he hadn’t eaten much due to feeling uncomfortable at the dinner table, the vomit was almost entirely liquid. Chief Joo stayed by his side while he was vomiting. Instead of patting him on the back, he just silently tilted the umbrella over him. Chief Joo knew, to the point of being annoying, how to protect Lee Jeongrok’s pride.

Even after vomiting, he sat hunched over for a long time as his body trembled as if in convulsions. When he finally calmed down and his breathing gradually returned, Chief Joo handed him a handkerchief. Lee Jeongrok looked at the handkerchief before his eyes and let out a snicker without realizing it. Even after receiving the handkerchief, he didn’t wipe his face but instead giggled for a long time before lifting his head. His face, stained by the light of the taillights, was reddish, and his two eyes sparkled strangely.

“You, of all people, actually carry a handkerchief.”

As the rain grew heavier, Chief Joo lowered the umbrella deeply.

“So what? Is there a law that says a gangster can’t carry a handkerchief?”

“No… you can carry one. And.”

“And what else, why.”

“Chief Joo isn’t a gangster.”

“…”

Chief Joo did not answer. Lee Jeongrok wiped his face vigorously with the handkerchief.

His legs were so weak that even standing was an ordeal. He shoved the handkerchief, now messy with tears and snot, into his pocket and stumbled back to the car. After rinsing his mouth with bottled water and throwing the water bottle onto the road, he collapsed into his seat. Fortunately, most of the remaining road was straight.

In a high-end residential area formed slightly away from the city center, there was the house where Lee Jeongrok lived. After marriage, Lee Jeongrok moved into his in-laws’ home and lived with his wife’s parents. It was a mansion of about 500 pyeong, consisting of two basement floors and two floors above ground. The two decided on the second-floor bedroom that Hwang Imin had used before marriage as their bridal room. Even so, it was a room that was wholesome to the point of absurdity, where they only slept together and no act befitting a married couple had ever taken place.

The mansion was brightly lit but quiet. It seemed his father-in-law and mother-in-law were still enjoying the party. The car his in-laws had taken out was not in the parking lot.

Perhaps because it was a gangster family with no roots, there were always outsiders at the mansion. Whether inside the house or in the garden, five or six thugs employed by Hwang Bosik were always wandering about, secretaries and bodyguards were on standby at all times, and if you included the servants who took care of the housework, the number of people was not insignificant. In the house that was always bustling with people, now only Lee Jeongrok remained. To be exact, only Lee Jeongrok and his own attendants.