Chapter 24
The renovation work continued, and so did the days of Heena freeloading at Yohan’s house. As if by a silent, mutual agreement, no one brought up what happened that night. It was for the best. I should just bury it like this….
Ah, ah. This is, uhm, the head of Jinhong-ri village. I have an announcement to make.
At the sound that reverberated throughout the entire village, Heena, who was in the middle of eating, widened her eyes.
“Wow, the speaker performance has improved.”
“They said they replaced everything from the microphone to the amplifier with new ones a few years ago.”
Back when Heena attended high school here, turning on the microphone at the village hall would first be met with sounds of static, zzzt, screeech! It was a moment that made her realize a good amount of time had truly passed.
Students from Korea University in Seoul will be coming to our village for spring rural volunteer work.
“Huh? Hey, that’s your university.”
Heena pointed at Yohan with the tip of her chopsticks. Yohan gave a slight nod and stuffed a large mouthful of rice into his mouth.
So, ya know that harvest experience farm? The one with the vinyl greenhouse. Please clean it up nice and tidy beforehand, so our students can have a good experience, y’hear? Those who wish to help, please come to the village hall and sign up.
“What kind of work is helping the students?”
“You’ve never done rural volunteer work in college?”
“Have you?”
“Nope. So I wouldn’t know.”
“What the heck. You spoke like you knew, so I thought you were an expert.”
She didn’t know what it was, but it sounded like it would be fun. College students’ rural volunteer work! It had been a good eight years since she graduated, but in her heart, she was still in her fresh, early twenties.
“Let’s go sign up for that after we finish eating.”
Yohan’s hand, which was bringing a fried egg to his mouth, paused.
“You said you don’t even know what it is.”
“That’s why I’m saying we should try it!”
“Hah, you’re such a pain.”
In any case, they would know more about this Jinhong-ri than the college students coming for volunteer work. Heena was confident she could do whatever they asked of her.
✦⋆🍒.₊ ⊹
“You said I was being a pain, so why are you following me?”
Yohan, with the hood of his t-shirt pulled over his head, trudged along behind a cheerfully advancing Heena. Instead of an answer, he just waved his hand dismissively as if to say, “Just hurry up and go.”
Seo Yohan absolutely hated group activities. The reason was that they placed many restrictions on his personal affairs. Still, seeing as he completed his military service, it couldn’t be that he was completely incapable of group activities….
Suddenly, she remembered the time when Yohan left for the military and she was left waiting for him. At first, she had been secretly excited. Because of Yohan, who always wanted to be stuck to her side, there were many times she couldn’t go to gatherings with her friends.
“You just go out and party your head off. I’ll go AWOL and come hunt you down.”
That’s what the twenty-one-year-old Seo Yohan, with his short-cropped hair, had said in front of the training center. The way he said it with his eyes wide and bloodshot, it sounded like he meant it. A chill had run down Heena’s spine.
“P-Party? Who’s going to party? I have to get my life together now, too.”
She had replied, patting his back to reassure him. But Seo Yohan didn’t have a single grain of rice worth of trust. He enlisted after leaving behind the terrifying warning, “We’ll see.”
She didn’t know what he was thinking as he followed her now, but Heena, excited at the thought of a new experience, stepped inside the village hall.
“Hello, I’m here.”
“Well, well, if it ain’t the young’uns, you’re here!”
The village headman and Mr. Park, who were sitting down, shot up to greet the two of them. Heena was bewildered by the sudden welcome.
“We were just about to ask you two for a favor. Ya heard the announcement, right?”
“The one about the college students coming for volunteer work?”
“Yep! We were hopin’ you two could guide the kids around a bit.”
Yohan, who had entered the village hall a little later than Heena, paused as he was taking off his shoes upon hearing those words.
“I’d love to! We actually came by to see if there was anything we could help with.”
As Heena slung an arm around Yohan’s shoulder and lumped them together as ‘we’, Yohan slightly furrowed his brow and whispered.
“Since when were we a ‘we’? A moment ago you were asking why I was following you.”
Heena lightly ignored his words and continued speaking to the headman.
“Since our age gap with them probably isn’t that wide, the countryside might feel less unfamiliar to them.”
“Yep, that’s great, just great. The students will be stayin’ at the old Jinhong Elementary School. It’s empty now since there ain’t a single elementary schooler in the village. We’ll get it ready, so don’t ya worry.”
“So what should we do?”
“Well, uh, ya know. Just take the students back and forth to the farm and make sure none of ’em wander off or get left out.”
“That’s easy! Right, Yohan?”
Heena jabbed Yohan’s side with her elbow and grinned. It already sounded so fun that a laugh escaped her on its own. Yohan, on the other hand, was running a hand through his hair as if it was a headache. But seeing as he followed her all the way here, it couldn’t be that he had no desire to do it at all.
“Sit down, sit down for now. Have ya eaten yet?”
“Yes, we’ve already eaten.”
“……”
“……”
A moment of silence fell. The headman and Mr. Park exchanged glances.
“We…?”
“Did you eat together?”
“This early in the morning….”
“Did you eat together?”
In that instant, she thought, oops. The villagers didn’t even know she was freeloading at Seo Yohan’s house right now. Eating every meal together had become so routine that she hadn’t even realized for a moment that she had misspoken.
While Heena was at a loss for words, Yohan suddenly cut in.
“Mr. Jeong’s house is under construction right now, so she can’t cook. Didn’t you two eat together as well, Headman and Mr. Park?”
At his words, as if they were quickly convinced, the headman and Mr. Park nodded their heads in unison.
“Ah, that’s right.”
“Right, right.”
Then they naturally changed the subject.
“Mr. Park, your house construction is almost finished now. You go and check on it every day, right?”
“Yep, it’s proceedin’ without any problems. Thank you, really. If it weren’t for you, young man, I wouldn’t have even dreamed of livin’ in a new house.”
“Don’t mention it. You must have had a hard time living at the village hall all this while.”
“My wife loves it. Says the house has become so stylish.”
It reminded her of that old popular TV show where they built new houses for people. For humanity, one’s own nest was an element that provided a more affluent life and a sense of stability. She couldn’t quite understand why he was so grateful to the contractor even though he had paid for the renovations with his own money, but seeing Seo Yohan’s proud expression made Heena feel good as well.
✦⋆🍒.₊ ⊹
It was her first time visiting the harvest experience farm, which was a vinyl greenhouse.
“They built it recently as the number of tourists increased. They said they often suffered losses when they let the general public into the fields or farms that are their livelihood.”
Yohan and Heena put on farm aprons over their comfortable clothes and stepped inside. The inside of the vinyl greenhouse was warmer than outside, as the temperature was set higher, and the smell of soil wafted over them.
“They said when the students come, they’ll have them pull out the strawberry roots and tidy up the potting soil.”
“The facility costs must be pretty high.”
After looking around the interior, Heena’s practical concerns came first. She imagined the heating bills in the middle of winter must be quite something.
“Can’t be helped. That’s what you have to do to prepare for spring.”
“Sounds fun. I want to try picking fruit, too.”
“After we clean up all this trash.”
She was secretly disappointed that she had never been able to go on a rural volunteer trip during her college days. Gathering cozily with her seniors, juniors, and classmates to pick fruits and vegetables, going to the valley to play in the water during breaks, and touring the country village… it would have been fun.
When she lived in Jinhong-ri, her grandfather wouldn’t even let her get her hands dirty. Saying that his grandchildren had to study hard and go to a famous university in Seoul, he took on all the difficult and unpleasant tasks by himself. Thanks to that, despite growing up in the countryside, she had never once picked fruit with her own hands.
Doing odd jobs inside the stuffy vinyl greenhouse, her body temperature quickly rose. Sweat poured down, and she wiped her forehead with the towel around her neck and fanned herself continuously with her hand.
“But it’s so hot in here.”
She grabbed the front of her t-shirt and shook it, creating a breeze. At that moment, Yohan suddenly grabbed Heena’s hand that was holding her shirt.
“Don’t… do that.”
Heena’s eyes went wide as she gave him a clueless look.
“Huh? What?”
Seo Yohan’s gaze was directed upwards. Finding Yohan’s odd gaze suspicious, she tried to meet his eyes, but Yohan adamantly avoided her gaze.
“I can see… everything inside.”
Ah… so that’s why.
Heena lowered her gaze. Beneath her flapping t-shirt, her bra strap could be seen, peeking out here and there.
