"I hope I didn't bother you." Yeom Tae slowly said, driving Haneul to his apartment.
"I wanted to see the house too so it's fine." Haneul said expressionlessly. "You chose the wrong day, though."
The heavy raindrops were striking against the car windows like bullets.
"I really did." Yeom Tae nervously chuckled. "I wanted to invite your friends too so it's a shame."
"They've been really busy lately." Haneul said, "Almost makes me wonder if they'd make it to the wedding."
Okay, so she wasn't avoiding the topic itself. She was just expressionless and unhappy for most of the time.
"They'll make it, don't worry." Yeom Tae said, "If necessary, we can postpone the date anytime."
Haneul looked at him from the corner of her eye. He could instantly notice her peeking at him. Somehow, it felt extremely nerve wracking. He stopped the car in the underground parking lot of his apartment complex so the rain had less impact on them. If anything, it made the environment a little ambient.
He opened the car door for her and walked her towards the elevator. He set it to the 25th floor and within a blink of an eye, they were at the 25th floor. He walked to the middlemost apartment door with Haneul. He lifted the keyboard protector from the passcode keyboard and started typing in. Haneul slowly looked away to keep his privacy.
"The passcode is 1610." He said with the beep of the door as it opened. "You may change it if you want."
Haneul slowly nodded, watching him open the door and step aside to let her walk inside first. He was a well-mannered man after all. Haneul walked inside the door to be greeted by the shoe holder. She started taking off her pumps while Yeom Tae entered and closed the door behind her.
"Oh, you don't have to." Yeom Tae told her as he saw her removing her shoes.
"I like to respect how people live in their house," She said while putting her pumps on the shoe holder rack, grabbing a pair of soft slip-ons.
Yeom Tae slowly nodded, doing the same before taking the two steps to walk inside the room opening up right after the shoe area. Haneul followed him inside, revealing herself to the cozy living room. The plump, soft, white, cozy couches placed all over the small living room with small tables, indoor plants and cozy lighting added to the ambience the rain had brought from the big glass walls covered in see-through gray curtains.
"This is the living room." Yeom Tae looked at her for her reaction.
But she was as cold as ice. "What's next?"
Yeom Tae guided her to the kitchen behind them which was semi-connected to the living room. Its main focus was the extensive use of cupboards. There was almost nothing on the counter as the cupboards made use of most of the kitchen items, such as small appliances and utensils.
It was pretty and cozy, perfect for cooking together, especially with the attached chairs to one of the counters elongated to the side. The color scheme of his entire apartment seemed to lie between grays, blacks, whites and a popping bright, yet mildly saturated yellow. It was nice, modern, compact and cozy. Perfectly Haneul's type, but she expressed none of it.
"I recently got all the furniture changed by the way. My father wanted everything to be ready." Yeom Tae informed.
Haneul nodded. Oh no, it was so dry. Yeom Tae felt extremely nervous when her eyes were so expressionless to everything he was presenting.
He then walked towards the bedroom, opening the door and letting her walk in first. The bedroom was also compact. A double bed was placed in the middle of the right side of the room, a study table was suspended to the left with an empty bookshelf, only a single book was placed in one of the corners.
"Oh, I installed this for you." Yeom Tae said. "I'm not a book nerd so it's empty right now." He pointed at the book, "Summer Times."
Haneul looked at him and stared at him, smiling lightly. He looked back at her and felt his breaths stopping almost. Oh, how glad he was to make her smile!
There was a connected bathroom to the bedroom so that was good too. She briefly peeked into it and he had set up cabinets just for her. They walked out of the bedroom to go to one last room; Yeom Tae's gaming room.
It was just a small room with two massive beast-like computers and everything that came along them.
"I work from home," He said, "I only go to the office when they call me or there's a meeting." He shrugged.
"That's why you seem to be so carefree." Haneul said as she sighed.
"Well my staff is really nice. They do almost everything." Yeom Tae said. "Plus my best friend is the director at my company and he's a real, real IT nerd." He added.
"You have friends?" Haneul asked, almost as if she was surprised.
Ouch.
"Do I look like I don't?" Yeom Tae repressed a sarcastic smile.
"You never talked about any so I thought you didn't." Haneul said.
"You didn't accidentally run into my friends like I did, so I didn't find it necessary." Yeom Tae said.
"But I want to know everything about you."
There it was, just as Jiwoo had mentioned. The thing that troubled her wasn't the marriage itself. It was the fact that she didn't know how she felt or how Yeom Tae felt.
"I also want to know everything about you." Yeom Tae said with a straight face.
Haneul gave him a small stare before walking out of the room, towards the couch in the living room. She let herself sit on the couch and watched Yeom Tae walk towards her.
"What do you want to know now?" Haneul asked.
Yeom Tae hesitated, "What do you truly feel about this marriage?"