Chapter 73
“Since it’s a bit scary, please wait with me,” Sarin hugged Blue. The higher body temperature of the dog provided some warmth to her cold body.
Did Owen endure like this, having grown up with dogs?
The stories about the man, heard from others, occasionally made her wonder. She couldn’t even dare to guess how he managed to endure.
Just as she had waited for Owen here once, Sarin now held onto the dogs, absentmindedly staring into space without sleep or focus.
She slapped her cheek with her palm. Memories of being unable to resist Pavel’s gaze flooded back. While violent brutality was familiar to her, there was something eerie about the reptilian eyes, devoid of any warmth, suggesting he might actually kill.
It was similar yet different from Owen’s eyes.
Looking at Pavel, she realized how diverse Owen’s emotions were.
“Snap out of it,” Sarin tapped her own cheek.
Realizing she hadn’t changed her clothes, she stood up, and three dogs followed closely behind. As she passed through the bedroom into the dressing room, the dogs obediently stopped in front of the door, as if waiting for a lie.
Sarin went in and cautiously opened the drawer in its familiar spot.
Always there, like a signal to grab and flee.
Her hand always went to her passport first, but today her gaze lingered on the shining silver revolver. It was the first time she touched a gun.
Her fingers, warmed by the dog’s body heat, felt the chill as she touched the metal. In a world familiar with violence, it was not an unusual item. She stood there for a while, feeling the warmth melt away from her fingertips.
The face of the child asking if she would die, Pavel’s insolence before him, everything seemed uncertain.
Now that money was settled, the child needed a transplant. The chance of finding a matching liver was slim. Even if Owen somehow found her, or if Nikolai kept his promise after she left, the chance of the child surviving was low.
That little body was too frail to fight disease.
“Just coming this far is a miracle,” Sarin murmured to herself.
Coming here and preparing for a transplant without even receiving treatment in Korea was undoubtedly a miracle. When one thing is achieved, people naturally desire another.
What if Owen hadn’t spotted her then?
She would have returned to Korea empty-handed, watching her nephew dying every day, facing a different kind of hell, witnessing death creeping closer day by day.
Forgetting her intention to change clothes, Sarin stared at the revolver for a long time without leaving her place.
She couldn’t tell how much time had passed.
Without a doubt, her expression would be a mess even without looking in the mirror. She understood why Owen had insisted on going back to the hotel. He remembered his passing words, not wanting to show any vulnerability to the child.
Bitterly, Sarin attempted to smile. No, she tried to. But her breathing became erratic, and she could only hunch over deeply, gasping.
“Haha…”
Until now, Sarin couldn’t burden the man who had survived on his own strength with her own baggage. So she had to deny the changing relationship, his attitude.
She had told Pavel confidently that Owen would know how to swim, but in reality, she couldn’t be sure if he really wanted to come out of that water. Could she ask for help from Owen, who had built Eden City with Nikolai’s assistance?
That would be denying everything.
She recalled the words of Gaeyeon, who mentioned that Kirill had been wandering around, turning his back on his household and responsibilities.
Eden City was everything to Owen. Although their time together was brief, Sarin could understand that. This broken city was all Owen had, and she couldn’t expect him to choose her over everything.
“It just feels unfamiliar.”
The emotions she saw in the man she regarded as ruthless and cruel were like that. When we held hands underwater, it was unclear whether we wanted to die together or thought we should live together. Only, whatever choice he made at that moment, they both surfaced.
She remembered the first time she saw Owen. Life and death didn’t seem so important to him, who seemed indifferent and free.
How should she define this relationship? They should still be just bodies seeking pleasure, but this barren relationship couldn’t melt like candy he offered.
When Pavel reached out his finger to her, Sarin knew for sure. He had crossed a line without hesitation.
Having never experienced others being on her side, she never learned how to expect it. Wanting that was selfish, so she pushed it to the bottom.
“As my sister said, all my choices are the worst.”
So she desperately ignored the feelings he showed. She didn’t have the courage to grab that fleeting candy right away.
If Owen just wanted to keep her by his side because of uncertain feelings, Nikolai would undoubtedly take Eden City from him and ruin everything he had built up to now.
Owen was suited to live as the king of Eden City, in his own Owen-like way.
At some point, she felt bitter when she looked at him. She hadn’t expected to feel such emotions when seeing someone in such a desperate position.
The more she knew, the more Sarin found Owen intimidating and difficult. She hoped desperately that all he wanted from her was rough, mindless sex.
“Yeah, it’s not going to work.”
Maybe if she left quietly, everything would be okay.
Eden City would still operate under Owen’s rule, and he would continue to live as the jaded king here.
As Sarin returned to the bedroom, dragging her sore legs, she saw him again.
Thump.
Thump.
Thud.
Their eyes met as she sat on the floor, leaning against the bed. Holding a ball in one hand, he was lightly bouncing it on the floor, almost like playing with the dogs.
The three dogs were panting around him, focused only on the moving ball. The tie was loose, thrown casually on the bed at some point, and his dark black dress shirt had a couple of buttons undone.
Owen, who had been tilting his head slightly, looked slowly at Sarin.
“You’re here already?”
In a strained voice, she barely asked, “You must have seen that the child is asleep, so it wouldn’t have been such a short time.”
Owen responded with a subtle smile. The afternoon had passed, and dim light signaling the night was barely filtering through the slightly open curtains. Indeed, a considerable amount of time had passed, enough that she couldn’t tell how long she had been standing alone.
She couldn’t even remember when she had returned here in the first place.
“Oh, I was going to change clothes….” Sarin said, feeling like she needed to justify herself as Owen’s penetrating gaze seemed to observe her still in the same clothes. As she heard his response, his gaze slowly shifted towards the end of Sarin’s arm. It was then that Sarin realized one of her arms felt heavy.
“You know how to shoot?”
A gun was in her hand.
She thought she was just looking at it, but somehow it ended up in her hand. It felt as if she had revealed a secret by just looking at it. She knew that there was a passport next to the revolver, which made her expression awkward, as if she had been caught.
Owen tossed the ball high in the air with the hand holding it before catching it again.
Thud.
The ball dropped into his palm frighteningly close to her.
“Come here.”
Her hand holding the gun trembled.
Despite Owen’s gesture to come closer, Sarin’s entire body trembled so much that she couldn’t take a single step. He licked his lips slightly as he looked at Sarin.
“I just…”.
“Sarin.”
“I, I just touched it without thinking.”
“Come here.”
He called Sarin with a face that wasn’t accusing. Eventually, when she reluctantly handed it to Owen, the weight of the gun in her hand felt as heavy as a thousand pounds. In what state of mind did she bring this out? She kept biting her lips as if trying to say something incoherent.
As Sarin handed it to Owen, who was sitting down, his hand reached out.
“Oh….”
“You have to grip it like this.”
Owen, with a voice that seemed indifferent, guided Sarin’s other hand to hold the revolver properly.
As he placed her little finger on the trigger, his golden gaze looked at Sarin standing there. Due to his large hand wrapped around the gun, coincidentally, the barrel was facing him. Even if Sarin reflexively tried to change the direction of the barrel, he didn’t flinch.
“Owen.”
She didn’t know why she had to confront him. In the end, she called out to him with a weary voice.
“When you shoot, be careful of the recoil.”
She thought she wouldn’t have to shoot it herself. She never knew what he was up to. As she quietly waited with a tired expression, Owen’s eyes softened kindly.
“Why would someone who can’t do bad things have this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who do you want to shoot?”
With her eyes closed weakly, Sarin raised her head. In fact, the target she wanted to shoot had been decided from the beginning.
She always wanted to run away. After denying reality and sending away her other half, she truly wanted to feel at ease. The short rope that had caught her ankle was white.
Sometimes, when the desire to feel at ease penetrated deep into her heart, she would even have unpleasant thoughts. When she drank alcohol, these thoughts became even more intense. Sarin sometimes found herself silently tearing her chest apart while lying on the cold, hard floor.
It seemed like Owen would understand why he had stayed still in that dark water.
