Epilogue 11

Deviant — Epilogue 11

She bit her lower lip and shot him a mock-offended glare, but he simply offered a casual shrug.

“Your birthday is in two days. And the day after that is your mother’s wedding. It would be stranger if I didn’t go. Besides, I wanted to see you in action.”

Andre let out a weary sigh and rubbed his face with his hands.

“I intended to just sit back and watch, but it’s proving difficult. I came over to tell you that you’re doing a great job. I’m proud of you.”

“Andre…”

Moved by his words, Miran’s eyes began to well up. Just then, a fellow trainee and a senior flight attendant, having finished their water service in the opposite aisle, stepped into the galley and froze.

Curious eyes darted between the two of them. Miran’s shoulders flinched, and she instinctively hoisted the water bottle toward Andre.

“D-did you say you wanted more water, siiiir?”

She asked hurriedly, pouring water into his paper cup. A smirk played on his lips as he replied.

“Yes. Please.”

Only then did she realize she had spoken to him in Korean. Panic set in, and she began to stammer.

“My, your Korean is truly excellent, sir!”

As she handed him the cup, Andre took it, his fingers briefly but intentionally brushing against her hand before letting go.

“Thank you.”

He pressed his lips together as if stifling a laugh.

“Is… is there anything else you require?”

Conscious of her peer’s prying eyes and her senior’s evaluative gaze, she signaled him with her eyes to head back to his seat.

But Andre didn’t budge. Instead, he tilted his head with feigned innocence.

“…Hmm. Peanuts?”

“Peanut… ah, you mean the peanuts…”

Miran grabbed a small bag of nuts and a napkin from the snack basket and held them out to him.

“맛있게 드십시요오!”

“Enjoy your snaaaacks!”

“Thank you. You’re very kind.”

Adding a final word of praise for all to hear, Andre finally made his exit from the galley. Miran turned around cautiously, gauging the reactions of her peer and the senior stewardess.

The senior leaned her head out to catch a glimpse of Andre’s retreating back, shaking her head in admiration.

“Wow, he is seriously handsome. For a second, I thought a movie star had boarded the plane.”

The fellow trainee chimed in immediately.

“I know, right? I’ve never seen a foreigner speak Korean that well.”

Unable to help herself, Miran blurted out while organizing the beverage tray.

“That man… he’s married. I saw it clearly; he was wearing a wedding ring on his left hand.”

The senior nodded as if that explained everything.

“Figures. Whether it’s Korea or America, the great ones are always taken. But I wonder what kind of woman married a guy like that? Don’t you think his wife must be some tall, drop-dead gorgeous blonde? If it were me, I could live off just looking at his face and never feel hungry. Even if he cheated, I don’t think I could stay mad at a face like that.”

“You’re so right, Sunbae!” the trainee added, buttering her up.

Beside the two of them giggling away, Miran let out an awkward laugh.

“Ah, haha!”

Then she turned away and sighed quietly to herself.

Maybe I should dye my hair blonde.

‘Anyway, not being able to get mad at a cheater just because he’s handsome?’

It wasn’t like they were village women beating laundry by a stream in the Joseon Dynasty. It was 1997, a mere three years away from the new millennium. Was that really something people still said?

The image of Lorraine Collins, a tall and elegant blonde, standing beside Andre flashed through her mind, irritation pricking at her. That scene, along with her experience on the set of The Gangster’s Pure Heart, was one of the memories she wanted to erase most.

It was etched so deeply into her brain that she couldn’t help it when it flickered before her eyes at the most unexpected moments.

Right then, a pain so sharp it felt like her insides were twisting seized her, and she felt a sudden, warm gush from below.

“Ugh…”

Miran clutched her stomach and slumped to the galley floor. It seemed her period had finally started. She felt a wave of relief that she’d had the foresight to wear a pad just in case.

But the cramps were excruciating, far worse than usual. Even though the plane wasn’t hitting any turbulence, she felt dizzy and a surge of nausea welled up in her throat.

“Oh my, junior! Are you okay?”

“Miran unnie!”

Her senior and her fellow trainee each grabbed an arm and hauled her up. She was ghostly pale and drenched in a cold sweat.

“Are you sick?” the senior asked.

“I’m alright. It’s just cramps, I think. I just took some painkillers.”

The senior nodded understandingly.

“Ugh, stress can really make period pain worse. When I was a junior, one of my coworkers actually fainted mid-flight because of the stress and cramps. Go sit on the jumpseat for a bit. I’ll call you when I need you.”

Miran bowed her head low.

“Thank you. I’ll just sit for five minutes and come right back.”

The senior didn’t miss the chance to deliver a lecture.

“Managing your stress and your health is part of your job performance. You have to work through the pain unless you’re literally about to pass out. Grit and guts! That’s how all of us seniors survived.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, Sunbae. Thank you.”

Miran bowed again, stopped by the restroom, and then practically collapsed onto the jumpseat.

Something was definitely wrong. This bleeding was far outside her normal cycle, and the flow was terrifyingly heavy. She popped another painkiller, determined not to let anyone see her collapse on a plane. She pushed through on sheer willpower. One moment she was gripped by the fear that something serious was happening, and the next she was comforted by the simple fact that Andre was on the same flight.

She endured for hours on grit and guts. Between the pain and the medication, her head felt hazy, her mouth was bone-dry, and a dull ringing echoed in her ears.

Even in that state, she managed to discreetly slip Andre a note telling him to meet her at the far end of the arrivals hall, the spot closest to the airline’s main building, before she started helping with the landing preparations.

Once all the passengers had disembarked and the cabin and galley were cleared, Miran followed the other flight attendants through immigration at Gimpo Airport.

She attended the debriefing in a daze, even receiving feedback on her OJT flight from the manager. She felt as though she had answered as best she could, but she couldn’t remember a single word she had heard or said.

Miran’s footsteps faltered as she headed toward the arrivals waiting area to meet Andre. Her senses were dulling, and her vision flickered. A distance that should have taken only a few minutes to walk felt like an endless journey.

Arriving at the hall, she blinked her glazed eyes slowly and scanned the room. Despite being an international airport, there weren’t many foreigners around, so the towering figure of Andre should have been easy to spot.

“Miran!”

His voice came from behind. She turned around slowly.

“Andre…”

The moment his face clouded with worry came into focus, she felt as if the support holding up her spine had suddenly vanished. The world went black.

—

Miran woke with a start at the sharp, clinical scent of disinfectant. Her eyes stung under the harsh glare of fluorescent lights, and she winced, knitting her brows.

“Miran! Are you awake?”

Her eyes snapped open, and she turned toward the sound of Andre’s voice.

“Andre…”

Startled by her own choked and raspy voice, she coughed to clear her throat. An IV needle was pierced into the back of her hand, and fluid dripped steadily from a glass bottle through a tube.

As she tried to sit up, a pilled, sky-blue blanket slid down her chest.

“Stay down. I’ll go tell them you’re awake and come right back.”

Andre cupped the back of her neck and gently pressed her shoulders back down.

Lying back on the bed, she slowly took in her surroundings. She must have collapsed the moment she saw him at the arrivals hall. She felt as though she’d managed a deep sleep, catching rest wherever she could find it.

Miran touched her lower abdomen, checking her condition. Fortunately, the wrenching pain was finally gone.

It was absurd. For Kang Miran, who prided herself on being the picture of health, fainting was an unthinkable turn of events. Even during school events where she spent all day baking under the scorching midsummer sun, she had remained perfectly fine. She vividly remembered standing tall while everyone else was dropping like flies.

It was only thanks to that iron stamina that she had managed to survive her OJT flight on sheer grit.

Now that she felt a bit more human, her thoughts immediately turned to Juran.

‘She must be worried sick. Surely I can be discharged now?’

Miran slowly pushed herself up into a sitting position. Though she felt a dull ache in her abdomen and a slight wave of dizziness, it was manageable.

When Andre returned and saw her sitting up, his brow furrowed in disapproval.

“I’m okay now, Andre. I want to go home. My mom will be worried.”

“I already called her to say you’d be a little late.”

As Miran’s eyes clouded with concern, he quickly added, “I told her we were on a date. Besides, you need to get some tests done.”

“What kind of tests? It’s just cramps…” Miran mumbled, trailing off.

She didn’t want to stay in the emergency room any longer. She had a nagging, bad feeling about this.

“No, you aren’t ‘just’ okay. You went into hypovolemic shock.”

Andre rubbed his face with one hand.

Only then did she notice how sunken his eyes looked and how the color had drained from his lips. Come to think of it, while she was the one who had collapsed, Andre might have been the one who suffered the greater shock.

“Hypo… shock? What is that?”