Chapter 69. A Ten-Year Devotion
“I… I have no intention of accepting your feelings.”
“I’m not asking you to accept them right away. But don’t talk like that, like there’s not even the slightest chance.”
“Joo Taeseong, you’re misunderstanding.”
Haeyoung finally said the words she’d been silently mulling over.
“You’re just… you’re only being nice to me because you feel sorry for me after seeing me for the first time in years. Because I used to be your friend, your family. You’re just happy to see me again. That’s not love.”
There was a decade between them. And the last time they parted, they had only been friends.
How could Joo Taeseong truly love her now, after such a short time together?
And even if he did, she told herself it was a fleeting feeling at best.
“What you feel… it’s pity. Charity, even. And your kind of pity is far too expensive. It’s more than I deserve.”
She judged his heart entirely on her own.
“Don’t say things like that carelessly, Cha Haeyoung. Why on earth would you think you’re pitiful?”
“Can’t you see? I’m thirty now with no proper job, no money, no family. Every day feels like a failure!”
“……”
“Back then, we were both students, wearing the same uniforms. It felt like we were standing on the same ground. But we’re not anymore. You know it. You know how completely different our worlds are!”
Ugly words, born from the inferiority complex she’d locked away for so long, spilled out.
Even though none of it was really Taeseong’s fault.
“You just… feel sorry for someone like me.”
“……”
“We haven’t seen each other for over ten years. Why would you love me? We’ve barely spent any time together! You’re just happy we met again and pity me, that’s all. You’re confusing those feelings for love!”
She couldn’t tell if she was clawing at herself or at him.
Taeseong’s face twisted as he listened in silence. He dragged his tongue across his cheek as though trying to control his emotions.
But when he finally spoke, his trembling voice carried raw pain.
“A mistake?”
“……”
“Nobody makes the same ‘mistake’ of loving someone for ten years, Haeyoung.”
His face was filled with a clear, unhealed wound.
“Usually… that’s what we call genuine.”
His eyes narrowed in a way that looked painfully tender.
“Yeah, when we were forced into that ridiculous marriage, I really did hate you. You were loud, reckless, completely overbearing.”
Though he didn’t shed tears, he looked as though he was crying.
“But at some point… being around you started to make me laugh.”
The confession he’d wanted to make at twenty, the words he had locked away in a box deep in his heart, spilled out now.
“When I didn’t see you, I missed you. I worried about you. I hated seeing you smile at other guys… but at the same time, I wanted to see you smile again.”
He bit his lip hard before pouring out the rawest of emotions.
“I just… liked you. Cha Haeyoung. You.”
“……”
“The first time I got drunk and watched you sleep through the night, I imagined a future with you. When spring came, I wanted to smell flowers with you. In the summer, travel to the ocean. In the fall, wander the streets hand in hand. And in the winter… I wanted us to see the first snow together.”
He drew a shaky breath, his voice cracking as he cried out.
“When I was twenty, my entire future was filled with you.”
“……”
“But you said you were glad I didn’t love you. You said that way, you could divorce me with a lighter heart.”
It was something he had carried in his heart for so long. He had tried to forget, but he couldn’t.
Because those were her last words to him.
He had cherished that memory, even though it tore him apart, afraid it might fade.
“So I didn’t even get to tell you I loved you. I gave up everything and went to the U.S. But then I ran into Moon Chakyung by chance… and she told me you loved me too.”
“Taeseong…”
“So I came back to Korea like a lunatic, desperately trying to find you.”
A tear slipped down Haeyoung’s cheek as she relived that moment ten years ago.
“But I couldn’t find you.”
She had paid off loan sharks by handing her brother ten million won, moved her grandmother to a hospital in another city with the help of Uncle Cheol-su, and sold their countryside house at a loss before disappearing.
Then she had lived quietly, moving from place to place with her grandmother, relying on help from acquaintances until she ended up here.
Life had been an uphill battle, and she had never once considered that Joo Taeseong might be looking for her.
To her, the memories of him were like a music box she could open when she was struggling—something precious and comforting.
But she believed that to him, those memories were nothing more than an old, dusty photograph shoved in a corner.
“Joo Taeseong. I… I…”
She couldn’t finish.
When did we start missing each other’s hearts like this?
Where did all these misunderstandings begin?
Why… why did things become so tangled between us?
She tried to dig up the answers from the distant past, but it wasn’t easy.
Their eyes locked in a long, heavy silence.
It was Secretary Park, who had been quietly watching the entire exchange, who finally broke it.
“…Executive Director, you really have to go now. If you leave now, you might still be able to make it up to him on the golf course later.”
His brutally practical words snapped Taeseong out of it.
He looked over at the pile of gifts on the table, then at Haeyoung’s face, filled with confusion and hurt.
And he spoke one last time.
“These… they’re my heart. I have no intention of taking back a heart I’ve already given.”
“……”
“If you really can’t accept it…”
“……”
“Then just throw it away.”
Leaving behind those words about the gifts—and his heart—Taeseong walked out.
Aftermath
Haeyoung sat in a chair, drained of all energy. She couldn’t take orders, couldn’t make drinks.
Do-hyun suggested she take a break, worried she might burn herself trying to make hot drinks in this state.
After clearing the incoming orders, Do-hyun approached her carefully.
“Noona, are you okay?”
“…No.”
She answered blankly.
She was not okay. She didn’t even have the strength to lie and say she was.
Do-hyun watched her for a long moment, then spoke in a tone far more serious than usual.
“That was a ten-year devotion.”
“…You saw?”
“Yeah. When I got back from the delivery, you two were fighting. Do you know how shocked I was?”
“Sorry. For making a scene…”
“No. You don’t need to apologize.”
He scratched his head awkwardly.
“I just… I felt bad watching you two.”
His simple sympathy made her smile weakly.
Love had a way of rendering people completely helpless.
It didn’t give you directions; it just left you alone on a deserted road.
Finding your way was always up to you.
But just like when she was nineteen, even now at thirty, she couldn’t find the path.
Love never matured.
Every other part of her heart had grown, but love alone had stayed frozen, rooted in place.
Silence
After that, Taeseong didn’t come to the café for four days.
More than anything, she wanted to apologize.
She wanted to say she was sorry for assuming she knew his heart. Sorry for speaking so harshly.
And she realized something:
The Taeseong she had thought would never go away, the one she’d found annoying at times… he was actually someone she couldn’t easily see unless he came to her first.
“When I was twenty, my future was full of you.”
Those words echoed in her ears like tinnitus, over and over, at random times.
Had he really loved her since then?
Why hadn’t she noticed?
Maybe she had been so caught up in believing he liked someone else that she had missed the small signs of his true feelings.
Maybe, back then and even now, she had been the one presumptuously defining his heart.
“Noona, you’re about to burn a hole through that door.”
“…Huh?”
Do-hyun’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts.
“You’ve been staring at the door all day.”
“I have not…”
“Should I replay the café CCTV for you?”
“…No.”
“You’re waiting for Taeseong hyung, aren’t you?”
She didn’t answer.
Do-hyun clicked his tongue and scolded her.
“Honestly, I wouldn’t come either. Noona, you were kind of harsh, you know? To a guy who’s loved you for ten years straight.”
“I didn’t know. I didn’t know. That’s why I said those things.”
“Tch.”
“If I’d known, I wouldn’t have said that. Not like that…”
“Noona, just accept his heart already. I’m a guy too, and loving one woman for ten years straight? That’s not easy. Especially for a guy like him.”
Haeyoung said nothing, just kept polishing a cup that was already spotless.
And Then…
That day too, Taeseong didn’t show up at the café.
After closing, Haeyoung trudged back to her small apartment.
“God, it’s cold.”
Maybe it was because her heart felt so cold, but the wind felt sharper than usual even though she was bundled up.
She stuffed her hands in her pockets and kept her head down, hurrying home.
“I’ll just wash up and go to bed.”
She muttered the words as she lifted her head… and froze.
Suitcases and duffel bags she recognized sat right in front of her green front gate.
“…What?”
Haeyoung pulled her hands from her pockets and walked quickly forward.
Just then, her landlady appeared from outside the gate, carrying a blanket.
“Oh, Haeyoung, perfect timing.”
“G-Grandma… What is this—”
“I’m sorry, but I need you to move out.”
