The Textbook of a Lover - Chapter 73

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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73.
“Cha Kyung.”
“Mother, what brings you here in the middle of the general assembly?”
“Do-ah isn’t your scapegoat.”
“……This isn’t the place to discuss such things.”
“As I said before, it’s not about sacrificing anyone. I told you that being with her would make you both happy. There’s no reason to break up over that.”
Cha Kyung looked down at his mother. Deep shadows had gathered beneath Jeong Hye’s eyes.
“Please stop. This isn’t something I want to hear here.”
“Do you know Do-ah is still in the hospital?”
Cha Kyung’s footsteps, which had been turning away, froze.
“She’s suffering terribly too. You’re in pain from the separation as well, aren’t you? I’m not just saying this for your sake. Do-ah is in just as much agony as you are…….”
Bang.
At that moment, the sound of metal shattering rang out from the Conference Hall Lobby.
A large metal sculpture that had been installed for the end-of-year season had detached from its base.
The heavy metal structure tilted and came crashing down toward where Cha Kyung stood.
“C-Cha Kyung―!”
Jeong Hye screamed.
Cha Kyung instinctively shoved his mother aside and twisted his body, but the edge of the structure struck his left shoulder and arm directly.
Blood began to seep through the torn suit sleeve.
“Cha Kyung!”
Jeong Hye rushed forward and grabbed her son’s shoulder.
The surroundings erupted into chaos in an instant. Staff members crowded around, and someone shouted for an ambulance.
From the Family Seating Area in the distance, Gyul-seon could be seen jumping to her feet.
Cha Kyung stared at his increasingly blood-stained sleeve. It was the first accident since Do-ah had left his side.
When she had been with him, not a single incident like this had ever occurred. The moment she vanished, everything fell apart.
He didn’t believe in superstition. He still didn’t.
But how was he supposed to explain this?
He slowly raised his head and looked at Jeong Hye. Her face had turned pale as paper.
The blood soaking his sleeve had cracked the conviction he had repeated to himself countless times.
“How could I possibly keep Do-ah at my side like this!”
Cha Kyung cried out in anguish.
* * *
“You should rest a bit on the weekend.”
Gyul-seon offered the remark sympathetically as she watched Cha Kyung, who had finished his preparations early Saturday morning.
“It’s fine, thank you.”
Since he and Do-ah had parted, the air in the house had grown cold and heavy.
Gyul-seon and Jeong Hye had noticeably spoken less, and the number of side dishes on the table had dwindled sharply.
As the saying goes, you only know a place once it’s gone.
In this short span of time, he had come to viscerally understand how deeply Do-ah’s presence had seeped into this household.
Winter was already setting in. Cha Kyung turned on the car’s heater, wiped away the moisture that had fogged the windshield, and set off.
Snow that had fallen the night before lay piled on the bare branches.
Passing cars moved slowly, crushing the calcium chloride scattered at dawn.
Then, glancing absently to the side, Cha Kyung realized he had taken the wrong route.
“Damn.”
A short curse escaped his lips.
This was the road to Do-ah’s Apartment, not to the office.
It was already the third time this week. At this point, it seemed like he was doing it intentionally.
Even as Cha Kyung mocked himself, he didn’t turn the wheel and drove straight ahead.
Thus arriving in front of Do-ah’s apartment, he pulled into the Parking Lot beside the familiar building and looked up.
This was a prime spot of sorts. It wasn’t obvious to passersby, yet he could see clearly when Do-ah came out.
The odds of spotting her were only thirty percent; seventy percent he wouldn’t see her.
If Do-ah didn’t emerge even after waiting this way, he had no choice but to give up and turn the car around.
There was no poverty of spirit quite like this.
“How is this any different from stalking?”
Just as self-loathing washed over him in waves, a familiar silhouette appeared from the Apartment Entrance.
In less than an hour, there she was. His luck today was extraordinary.
“Beautiful as always.”
In her Ivory Long Coat paired with a Pale Pink Knit and a Fluffy Muffler, she was utterly lovely.
Each time her breath emerged, a white mist bloomed above the muffler and dissipated, like a winter sprite.
Cha Kyung buried his face in the steering wheel, wishing this moment would last forever.
“……!”
In that instant, Do-ah’s gaze turned toward a cheese-colored cat stretching in front of a flowerbed.
Patter-patter―
But the creature, having leisurely extended its body, happened to approach toward Cha Kyung’s car.
“Mom, look at the kitty. Can I keep that cat?”
“No. How sad would the cat’s mother be if you took it away?”
Startled by the chatter of a small child passing nearby, the cat suddenly crawled underneath Cha Kyung’s car.
“Oh! The cat went right under the car!”
At the child’s words, Do-ah turned her head without thought. Cha Kyung instinctively ducked down below the steering wheel toward the dashboard.
After a moment, holding his breath and barely peeking out with his eyes, he was relieved to see that Do-ah had not pursued the cat but walked away in the opposite direction.
“Phew―!”
Cold sweat trickled down his spine.
Scrunching himself up in someone else’s Parking Lot on a Saturday morning, terrified of being discovered.
Cha Kyung couldn’t help but seriously wonder where exactly his life had begun to unravel.
The following evening, Cha Kyung found himself sitting in yet another car. This time, thinking he ought to change vehicles, he had rented a silver domestic mid-size sedan.
The tinting was dark enough that the interior was barely visible from outside.
He parked in a spot diagonally across from the apartment, beyond the reach of the streetlight, and turned off the engine.
If he told himself from a year ago that in the future he’d be doing something tantamount to stalking his ex-girlfriend outside her apartment, he’d probably be called insane.
Shortly after six in the evening, a familiar silhouette appeared at the end of the alley. Cha Kyung’s gaze snapped toward it like a magnet.
Do-ah was approaching in the same coat as yesterday, carrying a Convenience Store Bag.
“Is she eating properly?”
Even from a distance, her frame appeared noticeably thinner. What’s more, what she held was a convenience store bag.
Cha Kyung’s hand reached unconsciously for the door handle, then fell away.
He wanted nothing more than to get out right now, take Do-ah’s hand, and whisk her away to some renowned tonic cuisine restaurant.
‘No, I have to endure this. This is why we’re separated.’
The reproach that followed—if that were the case, why had he come to see her?—brushed against his mind, but at this distance, his misfortune wouldn’t reach her.
Even if there were some effect, he was in the car; perhaps the vehicle would shield her from whatever it was.
Clinging to such foolish hope, he couldn’t tear his gaze away.
‘……Pathetic.’
He had lived scorning superstition, and now he was calculating whether metal could block the penetration of bad fortune.
Cha Kyung sighed and started the engine. Originally, he’d planned to watch her for a moment and then head to the office as scheduled, but he wasn’t in the mood.
Thinking that for the sake of Gyul-seon and Jeong Hye, who worried about him coming home past midnight, he should return early today, he turned the steering wheel.
But when he arrived home, something he could never have imagined was taking place.
* * *
Boom, boom, boom-boom-boom-boom!
“Sea Dragon King and Mountain Spirit, look upon us, we beseech you――!”
Ding-a-ling, ding-a-ling.
The moment he opened the entrance door, the sound of drums and bells and incomprehensible chanting poured forth all at once.
Cha Kyung, hand still on the doorknob, froze.
“……What is this noise?”
The sound was coming from upstairs. Specifically from the direction of his own room.
Without properly removing his shoes, he stepped into the living room, and both Gyul-seon and Jeong Hye descended the stairs simultaneously.
“Ch-Cha Kyung! What brings you home at this hour!”
“You said you’d be coming home late today.”
Both their faces had gone as white as paper.
“I came home early.”
Cha Kyung looked up at the ceiling. The drum continued to ring out loudly.
“What exactly is happening in my room?”
“W-well, you see…….”
As Gyul-seon’s lips trembled, Cha Kyung didn’t wait for a reply and strode briskly up the stairs.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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