CHAPTER 8
It was as if frozen blood was running through her veins, and her once flushed cheeks had turned visibly pale.
Since it wasn’t entirely unpleasant, Kang Taeyoon lifted an eyebrow slightly.
“Looks like you’re flustered.”
“……”
“Why, do you feel sorry pretending to be unhappy after dating, getting married, and even having a child?”
“……”
“Yeah, even you must think that’s a bit deceitful.”
He exhaled slowly, releasing a stream of smoke, and curled his smooth lips into a faint smile.
“Did you know? You’re the same age as my younger sibling.”
“…Yes, I know.”
“While you were busy dating, my sibling was in a wheelchair.”
“You know, right? Both legs were amputated below the pelvis.”
“……”
“They had a transfusion, but the blood circulated so many times that they said none of it was their own anymore.”
Kang Taeyoon lazily traced a circle in the air with his long fingers.
“They said it was all someone else’s blood.”
“The bones were shattered, so it took quite a bit of effort to piece them back together.”
“They were terrified of getting bedsores, trembling whenever they lay on the waterbed.”
“A kid who never even cursed before started swearing like crazy.”
“Oh, that wasn’t directed at you.”
“I mean my sibling.”
Through the fading gray smoke, a pale face flickered faintly.
“Why are you trembling?”
“Your body temperature is perfectly normal at 36.7 degrees.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Phantom pain… well, even narcotic painkillers didn’t work.”
“They clung to me and begged me to kill them.”
“They cried their eyes out.”
“But I couldn’t do it.”
“How could I kill them?”
“So I made cocktail mixtures of painkillers and injected them relentlessly until I found something that worked.”
“It’s funny, isn’t it?”
“At an age when they should’ve been drinking cocktails at a bar.”
“……”
“They endured it well though.”
“But then.”
Kang Taeyoon took a deep drag of his cigarette, his long dimple hollowing, and let out a bleak laugh.
White smoke slipped lazily from his red lips into the air.
“When you got married, my sibling got their engagement broken off.”
“I didn’t know.”
“I didn’t know, I swear.”
“I really don’t know what to say…”
“Was it because they hated the smell from the colostomy bag?”
“Or because they couldn’t get pregnant?”
“I mean my sibling’s fiancé.”
“I can understand it logically.”
Kang Taeyoon tapped his head lightly with the fingers holding the cigarette.
His dry voice carried an increasingly intense gaze.
“While you were living happily with your child…”
“My sibling… died.”
As his words reached the end, Jung-ha’s slender fingers began to tremble.
Even her fingernails turned pale, as if she might collapse at any moment.
Her hollow eyes were fixed somewhere on the ground, yet they held nothing.
She looked like a withered tree barely standing on dried roots.
“Do you know how they died?”
Kang Taeyoon watched her as he dropped the cigarette, burned to the filter, onto the floor and crushed it under his foot.
Then, slipping one hand into his pocket, he walked forward, easily breaking into the space Jung-ha had barely managed to keep.
“Like this.”
His cold fingers slowly wrapped around Jung-ha’s pale neck.
With the force, her chin jerked upward and her head snapped back.
His low-temperature gaze pierced into her vision like shards.
“Who do you think found them?”
“……”
“My mother.”
“……”
“Do you know what shock paralysis is?”
“When people are too shocked, they lose the ability to speak.”
“Just like my mother did.”
“……”
“You said it before.”
“That you wouldn’t live well.”
“You promised you wouldn’t, not until I forgave you.”
His eyes were cloaked in the dim evening darkness.
Cold, still, and as if a deep night could fall at any moment.
Layer upon layer of blue built up in his gaze, so deep it felt like staring into an abyss.
Cough, cough, her eyes burned and filled with hot tears.
Her veins felt like they were burning as her toes lifted off the ground.
Cough, cough, her airway bubbled as she clawed at his wrist.
A low laugh echoed grotesquely in the space.
Cough, cough, as the world spun and her vision darkened, her throat suddenly opened.
A ragged breath rushed out all at once, and Jung-ha collapsed, coughing for a long time.
Tears streamed down her reddened eyes in the long silence.
Whether it was her chest or throat that hurt, she couldn’t tell.
Under the cold shadow dominating her vision, Jung-ha composed herself and barely steadied her body.
It felt as though layers of her dignity were being stripped away, but through her roughened throat, she forced out her heavy sincerity.
“I hope… you can be happy.”
“Happiness?”
Kang Taeyoon let out a low scoff as if he had heard something absurd.
He brushed the back of his neck and stared at the woman buried in darkness.
“Work under me.”
“Right beneath me.”
“Within my radius.”
Startled, Jung-ha looked up.
His dark eyes were deep.
A chilling cold crept up her spine.
“You… don’t like me.”
“Do I need to make you understand that?”
“You’re uncomfortable seeing me.”
“You’re wrong.”
“……”
“It’s not discomfort.”
“It’s disgust.”
“……”
“But.”
“You smile when I’m not around.”
“And.”
“When you see me, you look like you’re already dead.”
If I am your unhappiness, then you shouldn’t leave me.
Feel it.
How miserable it is to live.
—
The office without the lights on was dark and cold.
Kang Taeyoon sat in his chair, staring blankly at the wall where light filtered through the blinds in striped patterns.
On the desk, used wet wipes were scattered carelessly.
They were traces of him wiping the hand that had gripped her neck.
“I’m sorry, but I cannot accept your offer, sir.”
Seo Jeongha refused.
Perhaps it felt less like a refusal and more like defiance.
What did she say after that?
With a half-ruined throat, she stammered and offered condolences for his sibling’s death.
With eyes still full of shock, she said she felt deep responsibility for what had happened.
A nauseating disgust rose within him.
Strictly speaking, blaming Seo Jeongha was unreasonable.
He knew that.
A brief outing to celebrate her father’s birthday.
Any child might have done the same.
Thinking, “My pitiful father, at least I should do well for him.”
But shouldn’t that moment of self-satisfaction have been handled more responsibly?
In front of an alcohol-dependent father, she should have at least hidden the car keys properly.
Especially if there had already been prior incidents.
He knew it.
In the end, Seo Jeongha wasn’t guilty.
She hadn’t committed anything punishable by law.
The crime belonged to her father, Seo Jong-jin, not to her.
But it was too simple.
His family’s misery was still ongoing, yet hers had ended so easily.
After the accident, she had lost consciousness.
When she woke up, she couldn’t remember parts of the accident or what happened on Big Island.
The memories were fragmented, like disconnected film scenes.
“They say you can try medication or hypnosis to recover your memories… want to try?”
It wasn’t that she hadn’t tried.
But something felt blocked, and the memories wouldn’t return.
After that, she didn’t bother anymore.
She wasn’t curious about the five months spent on Big Island during her vacation.
It was obvious what it had been.
Parties, hobbies, friends, alcohol.
Even though memories usually returned quickly, she didn’t regret not recovering them.
Because she felt guilty for living carefree while her father suffered.
She hated her maternal grandfather for looking down on her father, yet she had lived idly on his money.
She neither wanted to forget nor could forget.
Her father died instantly, his organs crushed beyond repair.
Her younger sibling, who was about to get married, lost both legs, gave up dance, lived in a wheelchair, and eventually hanged themselves after a broken engagement.
And Seo Jeongha’s father, Seo Jong-jin…
“What kind of trash is this, wasting my time?”
“I heard you leech off your father-in-law like a parasite, and now you’re trying to suck my blood too?”
“A movie? You brought this garbage for me to review?”
“It has no commercial value.”
“I can tell at a glance.”
“Stop hanging around this industry and find another job.”
“You’ll be better suited for anything else.”
“I hear you’re good at living off women too.”
In other words, he was the same kind as Kim Piljong.
The kind who humiliated his father, broke him, and drove him into a miserable hell.
And all of it under the orders of Lee Moon-sik, chairman of YN and his maternal grandfather.
So Seo Jong-jin killed his father twice.
Once in spirit, and once physically.
A blade grows sharper the more it is honed, until it even cuts the hand that sharpens it.
A faint, stimulating scent of blood stirred a strange excitement.
