Chapter 21  

Na AhJung

As I sat next to Lee Jihan in the fortune teller’s room, I was entranced, not by the fortune teller woman in front of me, but by the altar behind her. It was filled with brightly colored statues and large candles.

Enchanted by the unfamiliar sights, the fortune teller finally caught my attention by snapping shut her previously open fan.

“Young woman, if you marry this man, you will die.”

This random death announcement made my heart drop with a thud.

“Me?” I asked seriously, grasping tightly at my chest, fearful that my heart might actually fall out.

“Yes. If you marry this man, you won’t live to your potential,” said the fortune teller.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because you, my dear, are a water sign,” replied the fortune teller.

“Oh! You’re right. People do see me as a water sign. Oh, you are really amazing!” I said, surprised.

JiHan, who had been sitting next to me, laughed at my reaction but his laughter was not my concern. I gazed hopefully at the fortune teller with my hands folded in anticipation. She started to write swiftly on a piece of paper as she continued to explain.

“The signs are largely separated into five elements. Water, fire, wood, earth, and gold. Among these you are water, and not ocean water but lake water. Your surroundings are completely blocked. Because you are standing water, you aren’t able to break out of your rut.”

“Oh wow. Am I really like that?” I asked.

“Now, what is water’s complete opposite? It is the wood sign because trees drink the water. This man you want to marry is a wood sign, and he is surrounded by many others like him,” the fortune teller said, underlining JiKyung’s name several times.

“What do you mean there are a lot like him?” I asked.

“The wood sign is usually associated with luck in business and men. This man’s fortune includes either luck when it comes to work, or he has a lot of men...”

This amazing woman can even deduce that?! My breath stopped as I feared that the word ‘gay’ wouldl come out of her mouth, but JiHan interrupted.

“If a business man is destined to have good luck in work, then it makes sense that there will be a lot of men around him.”

“Well, yes that is true.” Fortunately, the fortune teller nodded at his comment, then reverted back to talking about me. “Anyways, this man is a wood sign. He is water’s complete opposite, a tree, and all around him, he is jam packed with other numerous trees. If you had been the Pacific Ocean, then it wouldn’t matter if you were surrounded by a hundred trees, but what are you? You are the water from a lake. This is stagnant water, that can be stolen by the trees. If it is completely stolen, you will dry up and die.”

I suddenly felt parched and swallowed dryly. “It...it can’t be.” I meekly tried to deny it, But Lee JiHan nodded his head.

“Of course. I knew it!” he said with a pleased expression on his face.

The moment I saw this, I started getting suspicious. Is this...a scam? Did he bring me here to intentionally make me think that my compatibility with JiKyung is bad? I scanned JiHan up and down suspiciously, then turned back to the fortune teller.

“Either way, I’m still going to go through with this marriage,” I said as carefree as I could. “Because without this man, I will die anyway. If I’ll die either way, I’ll just have to accept that my life will be cut short.”

Like a girl who had her heart set on taking a bullet for the man she loved, I fabricated an expression of love-filled determination and shot the look at JiHan in hopes of persuading him. Treating my expression as if it was cancerous, JiHan shot back a look of equal determination which vowed to get me away from his brother.

The fortune teller’s fan interrupted our staring match. Reflexively, I looked at the fortune teller. As ours eyes met, the fortune teller began to scold me.

“Young woman, why are you thinking of dying? You should live and meet a better man.”

“No. To me, this man is the best man in the world,” I insisted.

“What are you talking about? This man is not for you. If you want to live a better life, you need to meet a man of gold. Gold.”

“Gold?” I asked.

“With gold, isn’t it possible to make a faucet or an ax? And you are in need of those two things. You need the faucet to control the flow of your stagnant water and an ax to cut down the trees that suck you dry. So if you want to live, you have to find a man like gold.”

“Seriously?” I asked. “It’s not like it’s real gold. You want me to meet a man like gold? At least if it was actual gold, I could go to the jewelry shop and meet him. Where am I supposed to meet such a man? Even trying to figure out where to start will be a pain. What, am I supposed to meet a guy with gold hanging all over his neck?”

“He exists,” insisted the fortune teller. “To others, he’s sharp like an ax, but to his wife and his family, he is like a faucet that guides them. General SuYang was like that, you need to find a man like that.”

General Suyang...you mean that guy that killed his nephew and became king? He started a blood bath!”

A chill ran down my spine and my throat had become so dry from shock that I couldn’t swallow.

“Your future holds such a man. Just wait a little bit,” she advised me.

“No, I’m not going to wait,” I said, and shook my head vigorously in fear.

* * *

After we left the fortune teller’s place, I stared down at the talisman the fortune teller had forced into my hand, depressed. Supposedly, I didn’t feel like a stranger to her. Supposedly, her heart went out to me, and so she gave this talisman to me for free. It was meant to bring me luck, but somehow it only made me feel anxious. Next to me, JiHan unlocked the door with his car remote.

“You know if you carry that out in the open like that, its effects will be hindered. Hurry up and put it back in your bag,” he said.

At JiHan’s nagging, I put the talisman into my bag as my lips quivered. He walked a couple of steps in front of me, and opened the passenger side car door so I could get in.

“Get in,” he said.

Hesitantly, I sat down in the passenger seat as JiHan closed the door and walked to the driver’s side. He soon opened the door on his side and sat down.

“Are you sure this is fair play?” Getting the feeling that I was being played, I got up the courage to confront him.

“What does that mean?”

“You were already familiar with that place. If you had gone before me and told them to tell me that our compatibility was bad, then that’s not fair play.”

“If that was the case, it wouldn’t be fair play,” he echoed.

“Are you saying you didn’t?”

“I didn’t.”

“Can you prove that you didn’t?”

“How could I prove that? If I did something, there would be evidence, but what sort of evidence would there be if I didn’t do it?” asked JiHan.

“Well...that’s true,” I admitted.

I sat looking forward glumly with my lips sticking out like a duck. Beside me, Jihan started the car and started driving. As the car swerved away from the fortune teller’s and headed home, a brilliant idea struck me.

“Oh! Let’s try another fortune teller place. Somewhere we both have not been to. Then the result may be more objective.”

At my words, JiHan’s eyes crinkled in distaste and he glared at me. I got him! You aren’t confident going to another place huh? Don’t want to?

Confident in my instincts, I added, “Do you not want to? I guess...if we go to a place you don’t know then you might be at a disadvantage...so should we go?”

Lee JiHan smirked and turned his head toward the street and answered nonchalantly.

“We’ll do that then. Two people’s compatibility will be the same wherever we go anyways. This time you choose which place you want to go.”

For some reason, he was overflowing with confidence, as if the result was obvious and there was not a single doubt in his head that he would be proved wrong.

* * *

I changed the playing field entirely and chose to go to a tarot place on the street. Since it was a different style of fortune telling, I had high hopes that the results would prove to be better.

Contrary to my expectations, the tarot reader examined the card I had chosen and shattered my hopes.

“This marriage doesn’t look like it will work,” she said.

“Why? Our compatibility is that bad?”

“It’s not necessarily the compatibility, it’s just that there is another man who is meant to be your husband.”

“What?”

“Don’t get married, wait a little longer.”

“No way, that doesn’t make sense. Next month my fiancé is coming back, and two weeks after that is my wedding. How can I just drop everything and wait indefinitely? I won’t even know when he’ll show up.”

“Hmm...” The tarot reader touched his chin as if something was bothering him. Then he chose a couple tarot cards on his own and checked them. After considering the cards for a long time, he opened his mouth.

“There’s only of couple days left.”

“For what?”

“Your real husband. He will show up in a couple of days.”

After the tarot reader’s strange prediction, I realized this had been a mistake. Ugh...what a waste of money. This place is a sham.

* * *

Lee JiHan started his car smugly.

“Both places had the same result,” he said with satisfaction. “So why don’t you just give up on this wedding?”

“What? No way! They are all wrong! This doesn’t count. It doesn’t count!”

“We’ll find out whether it’s right or wrong in a couple of days. Since supposedly, your real husband is set to show up then.”

“Is a husband some sort of package, that he will be delivered to me in a couple of days?”

JiHan laughed at my comment. I felt like I had seen him laugh more today than I had for the last month. Of course, this was excluding his constant sneering or smirking. But why was it that my heart seemed to flutter a little every time I saw him smile...

“Just think of it like a package, and wait. I’ll go find him for you.”

“What?”

“I’ll find the guy that you will like more than my brother. I’ll go find him,” JiHan said without an ounce of doubt. It was as if he’d really believed every single word of the fortune.

“And why should I believe that?” I said skeptically.

“I’m just saying, be open to the possibility. It could happen.”

“No, no. Why do you even go to these places? Neither your mother nor JiKyung believe in this stuff.”

Lee JiHan, concentrating on the road in front of him.

“Because it’s fun,” he answered casually.

It was not a response I had expected, so I was unable to come up with a retort.

“Because it’s fun? This? This is fun?”

“You probably wouldn’t understand because your future’s not all that great, but my luck is phenomenal. Anytime I go to see my fortune, they all tell me how pristine it is, like the first snow of December. I was born with a golden spoon in my mouth, riding a golden carriage...”

He suddenly stopped talking and his expression became strangely dark.

“Riding a golden carriage and what?”

The moment I asked, he became very serious and shook his head.

“Anyways, my fortune is good no matter whom I ask. So from time to time, it’s fun to go hear about it.”

So basically, he goes to these places because he knows they will tell him nothing but good things? Psh. How great does your fortune have to be to end up acting like that? Well, it’s not like it’s hard to imagine. Even his birth is different from mine.