Jyeon is sitting reading the paperwork at his desk while I pour us both coffee to wake us up. It's very technical and detailed, and as I have zero mechanical knowledge of vehicles, I left him to decipher it. He knows about cars, especially that one, given how much time he used to spend on it, and I wonder why he never had it repaired and brought back to life after it was recovered.
The office feels eerily quiet at this time, and I forgot how much I used to enjoy this silence and serenity before the employees started clocking in at nine am. This was my hour to stroll the nearly empty building, drink coffee, and find my armor for the day in the peace of the company we owned. I forgot what it was like to feel like a queen roaming her kingdom and knowing it belonged all to her. It's not as weird being back here as it was the first time, and I'm familiarizing myself with Jyeon's office, even if I don't dare venture near my old one. That's a closed and locked room I have no intention of visiting anytime soon. It's the prison cell of the me I left behind. I don't want her escaping.
"I'm guessing it's not good if you're frowning like this." I nod at his sour expression as I slide a mug in front of him on the smooth polished walnut, and he only seems to furrow his brow further. Sitting upright in a straight and business-like manner, with an aura of agitation.
"The crash caused a lot of damage, and it was hard for them to decipher before and after issues. It does seem like several things make no sense from an impact or water submersion. They have listed several of them. If someone was tampering with a car to make it a weapon, it's clumsy and erratic and seems more like the intention was to immobilize it completely." Jyeon flips a page and reads on, his eyes scanning the words while looking crazy serious, and I lift my chin to stare out of the window to absorb what he's saying.
"It's a lot of yanked leads, ripped off hoses, bent metal….. someone who didn't know what they were doing. The intent of that much damage wouldn't be a silent attempt at murder, more like an angry rage on my car."
"You mean… it was vandalized? Not intentionally set up to fail at the opportune time."
"Yeah, it's amazing it even started, let alone drove. So many leads pulled…plugs, liquid leaking out. The power steering pipeline was completely ripped off. You said the steering was heavy and hard, that's why. It seems like whoever messed with it did so to ruin it and make it undriveable completely, and it was a complete fluke that it started. It should never have moved."
"If they wanted to make it so someone would drive it and crash...." I mimic robotically, letting that sink into my thoughts.
"Then the damage wouldn't have been so extensive or obvious. One or two tiny changes would have been undetectable until the car failed, not obvious from the get-go. Whoever messed with it wasn't trying to hide the fact it was wrecked."
"Why would someone trash the car? That makes no sense…..why... ?" my words trail off as my memory flashes back to that night, and I think about the importance of that car in our relationship. It was a symbol of our marriage and something I always believed Jyeon cared about more than anything… If you wanted to get under Jyeon's skin, you only had to dent or scratch his prized baby. Other than me, only one other person would have known to use it to wound him. Only one other person was as mad and devastated as I was that night and stupid enough to behave in such a thoughtless manner. Venting his rage.
I drop my chin down and stare at Jyeon, frantic thoughts building in my frontal lobe, wondering if he's clicked on the same thing I have, but his expression is back to serious and focused, and he's still reading. My heart racing as I dissect the genuine possibility, and my stomach clenches tight as my thoughts pile in on one another. I'm hit with the most significant case of 'how did I not see this?' and nausea rises from my stomach to my throat as the room starts to spin.
That night, Yoonah was drunk and passed out when I got home. He was so messed up over everything and angry at his brother… to the point he was irrational and drank more than half the liquor cabinet to control his agony. Yoonah is impulsive and childish and the kind of person to lash out without thinking. He had a temper and could be spiteful and petty when his thoughts were clouded by booze. He's the kid who always took my side and tried to fight my corner for me, even if he only made things worse, and this is totally something he would do to exact revenge for me.
"Is Yoonah here yet?" I ask robotically, my brain a scrambling mess and my body vibrating with the actual thought that this might be the reason. My hands turn clammy, and my legs wobble as I have a complete physical reaction to what should have been staring me in the face all along.
"He comes in at eight, so yeah, he will be. Why?" Jyeon flickers his gaze up at me, seemingly not picking out the small detail I have, and I can't formulate the words as I don't want them to be true. He only sees the cool and calm front I am fighting to keep in place and not the deterioration of my inner self. I don't want to say it until I know for sure.
"I'll be right back." I dump my mug on the table, sloshing it over my hand but don't stop to clean it up and turn on my heel. Tears blur my eyes, and my insides shred to pieces as I try to remain calm. Repeating to myself that I might be wrong, and this might not be what happened.
"Sohla…. what is it?" Jyeon's voice follows me, but I wave him away. Unable to sound normal anymore.
I clench my jaw, stiffen my posture, and march out of his office like a woman on a mission, wiping away a stray tear that rolls down my cheek, yet I can barely breathe. Shaking all over, my blood running cold.
If he did this, if my loving little brother was the reason I drove off that road that night, then I don't know how to process it. I don't know how to feel as anger and fear and something deeper and more painful swirl about in my depths. Breaking my heart, slicing me open with a sense of betrayal even if he never meant it to be me.
I know him. He would never have intended to hurt anyone, no matter how mad he was, but if it was him…. But why didn't he tell me? I can't see how it could have been anyone else. Why did he hide it when he had the opportunity to offload what he did and give me peace of mind.
I barge into his office down the hall from Jyeon's without waiting to knock or caring if he has company and find him sitting at his desk. Engrossed in his laptop, looking mature in a navy suit and styled hair and not like a foolish boy who could have caused me so much devastation. He glances up on automatic pilot at someone bursting in and then falters and breaks into a half-smile upon recognizing me.
"Sohla? What are you doing here?" he moves to stand, yet I don't give him a second. Fired up and close to an explosion with how it's spinning inside my head. The questions, the doubts… the heartbreak. The loss of everything that once mattered to me and the two years of destroyed self-worth because of it.
"Was it you? Were you the one who fucked with the car? Did I crash because you did something so fucking stupid, Yoonah?" I spit them at him like bullets, fired with fury and venom that does not conceal my intense anger, and he pauses mid-move to standing. So he is semi-hunched at his desk, and all the color drains from his face. Freezing in place and his eyes widen like a rabbit in the headlights. It tells me everything I need to know.
"Why are you asking me that?" Yoonah swallows hard, his mouth drying, and he looks away from me to his desk and feebly shuts his laptop. Guilt all over him that it's practically oozing between us.
"It was, wasn't it? You thought you would piss him off by trashing the one thing he seemed to care about…. Tell me…Yoonah, tell me!! Was it a rash and impulsive ploy to trash his car, or did you intend for him to crash it?" I demand answers, stalking over and thumping my fist on his desk, so I bruise my hand. Devastation is pouring out like molten lava, and I cannot contain it as I shake all over. Adrenalin coursing through me. My gut is telling me this is it… this is what I've been trying to find out. This is why I didn't ever come back. This has so much importance in all the decisions I made back then, and it was Yoonah. The person I relied on and trusted more than anyone!
"Sohla…." Yoonah clears his throat, his voice trembling and body shrinking from me. He straightens fully to try and pull back his composure and extends palms to me as though treating me like a crazed woman who needs calming. "Why are you saying…."
"Don't fucking, Sohla me!! Don't deny this either, or treat me like I'm mental. I'm not an idiot, Yoonah. Answer me!" I'm spitting rage, glaring at him fiercely and brimming with pent-up agony as it all dissolves in front of me. Broken that he, of all people, did this.
My friend, my brother, the one who was on my side, and yet he did this to me, to us. He implanted so much pain in my heart for believing Jyeon or mother wanted me dead, yet never once did I suspect my little Yoonie. Not fucking once.
The mature director of a moment ago reverts to a broken little boy who has been caught out by someone who matters to him. Yoonah visibly deteriorates, his eyes swimming with sudden tears and he clutches his hair at the temples and crumbles into his seat. Guilt pouring out from every pore, and he begs me with a broken expression.
"I didn't mean it…. It was never meant to start; you have to believe that. I wasn't trying to hurt my brother or you. I fucked with it to piss Jyeon off, and I thought he would find it and blow up at me. I thought I did so much damage he wouldn't be able to move it. I just wanted to hurt him, show him how mad I was... I wanted him to feel an ounce of the pain he was causing you with what he did, and I wanted to kill the symbol of your marriage to him. I'm sorry." Yoonha's voice breaks, and his eyes pour, tears like a waterfall across his cheeks as his bottom lip quivers. His hands tremble as he grasps at the hem of his jacket, and all I see is the little boy who would shelter behind my dresses with his bit baby eyes and plead for me to protect him.
"You could have told me when I came back…. you could have been honest with Jyeon all these years. You could have used your fucking head and not been such an idiot in the first place. Why, Yoonah? WHY?"
"How could I tell him? That you died because of something I did…. That you were gone, because of me….ME, Sohla. It's haunted and tormented me all this time. I did that to the person I loved most in the world. You have no idea what it did to me." He croaks it out, breaking in front of me and crumbling into a weeping figure, ashamed of himself.
"I didn't come back because of you…because of what you did. I thought someone tried to kill me!!" I wail it at him, despair dripping out of me, and I have to put my hands on the table to steady myself as dizziness hits me hard. "I threw away every I was, everything that was mine because I thought Jyeon wanted me dead, and he would hurt me if I came back. Do you know what THAT did to ME?" I'm gasping for air, chest heaving and clutching at the table's edge until my knuckles whiten with force. My head is spinning to the point I think I might pass out.
"Sohla, I'm sorry…I…. I never wanted to lose you or ever hurt you….." Yoonah moves to come to me, pulling himself up and sobbing as he slides by his desk. I snap up, holding my hand up to keep him away, my arm stretched out between us while all I see is someone I'm seething mad with in place of the boy I once nurtured.
"Don't….. I can't even with you right now. I get that you didn't intend it, and in my heart, I know you wouldn't have …. But you did….and it ruined my entire life. I need some breathing space. I need to process this because I just can't talk to you or look at you right now." I wipe away half a face of tears with one brutal swipe of the back of my hand and sniff it back in, knowing I need to pull myself together before someone sees me this way. I need to calm down and stop screaming at him before his secretary or other employee comes in.
"Sohla, don't go…please."
"Be quiet… leave me be. We are so not done with this. You stay the fuck here!" I snap, very much Sohla of old, and he shrinks back like the obedient puppy he always was when I was in commander mode.
I push away, backing up so he can't get near me, and turn on my heel to storm back towards the open door I came from. I can't have this out with him while this wound up, this upset and in shock. I'm a mess, and I didn't even tell Jyeon what I thought…what this has become. He's going to flip his shit. I can't hide this from his brother even though I know all hell is about to break loose when I tell him.
Yoonah has no idea how much this has swirled over me for two years. How many doubts and suspicions? The time I lost back then in my life while living in fear and desperation that my family wanted me dead. He has no idea what it did to my heart and soul. How it changed me, wounded me.
I pull his office door closed behind me and lean against the cool wooden surface to try and catch my breath. To regain composure and pull myself back together before I leave this hallway to go back to Jyeon. My brain is going a hundred miles an hour, and all I want to do is curl up and hide in a dark hole where none of this can touch me. I close my eyes and take deep breaths, wiping my ace and counting to ten to pull my shit back together.
"Sohla, what is it? What's wrong?" Jyeon's voice yanks my eyes back open as I catch sight of him walking towards me, frowning at my obvious distress that speed shim up, and he comes to me, pulling me off the door to cradle me close. His hand son my face as he wipes my cheek and searches my eyes for answers. "Baby, what is it?" The fear and worry I see in him make me break. Aching all over and wishing this wasn't true.
"It was Yoonah..." It comes out as a breathy wash of disbelief. "Yoonah trashed the car. He's the one who almost killed me."