CH 56

“Look at me!” Hwang Jo-yoon shouted.

“My husband must have been generous, to not have killed you.” Lee-yeon shrugged her shoulders and tried to walk away.

“At least he gets to breathe normally, unlike me!”

Lee-yeon was bored with this conversation. Her fear of Hwang Jo-yoon no longer plagued her. She turned to leave him behind.

“Your husband thinks he knows you better than me?!” Hwang Jo-yoon screamed. “Does the bastard know about your family?!”

Lee-yeon stopped, frozen in her tracks at his words. Her face went blank.

“If he doesn’t know about your family, then you have a fraudulent marriage,” Hwang Jo-yoon continued on, behind her. Lee-yeon could not think of the words in which to respond.

“What kind of man in this world, what kind of a family, would accept a child like you? Do you know how sensitive people are about family circumstances? This is how a woman is judged to be worthy of marriage.”

Lee-yeon barely managed to keep her head high. She clenched her fists as tightly as she could. Her short fingernails dug deep into her palms, bringing a sensation of pain.

“If you hid this when you got married, he could even go to a court and ask for an annulment. If he had known about your family’s status beforehand, your husband probably would not have even married you. He would have doubted if you were a woman who could manage to take care of a family.”

At this moment, Lee-yeon needed a tree large enough where she could disappear amongst the branches. Hidden in the leaves of such a tree, she could relax and breathe in the clean air of the world.

“How can he live with the child of adulterers? It’s disgusting.” Hwang Jo-yoon was relentless. “You are an illegitimate child. Did I not hear that your father is actually your uncle?”

Lee-yeon felt like she was going to be sick. She covered her mouth, fighting to hold back the bile. But Hwang Jo-yoon wouldn’t stop.

“You were born with a mess of a life from the very beginning. From filth. To think that I pitied you and even told you, you were pretty. That’s why bastards that don’t have a true family are…!”

Lee-yeon couldn’t hold it in any longer and bent over vomited the contents of her stomach. Hwang Jo-yoon quickly stepped back to avoid the stream. The truth she fought so hard to conceal was out. Lee-yeon’s aunt was several years younger than her mother. Lee-yeon’s mother had to leave high school and raise her sister, as the parents were absent. As time passed, each sister got married and had children. However, when her mother suddenly became pregnant with Lee-yeon, though she had supposedly given up sex due to her age, there was only one obvious explanation. She had been caught in an affair with her sister’s husband. And a much younger man, as well.

Her mother had even called it “love”. How could someone cheat on a sister who she had raised like her own? That too, with her own brother-in-law. How was that love?

After the fact was discovered, the two adulterers fled in the night, leaving the newborn baby behind in a shattered home. Her aunt was destroyed, betrayed by her older sister and her husband, who had been her first love. So Lee-yeon was raised by her aunt, and her mother’s husband who remained behind. They became Lee-yeon’s parents, taking the place of the sinners who ran for the hills.

The only thing left, in what used to be the homes of two happy families, were the spouses who lost their partners and the children who had lost their parents. All of them struggled with a sense of betrayal. Lee-yeon grew to the age of seventeen in a home that seemed as hollow as a ruin. This was why she had such anger.

The capricious aunt took care of Lee-yeon and hated her at the same time. She fed her, whipped her when she misbehaved, and threw her on the street in the cold when she became older. Lee-yeon remembered one day when she accidentally called the woman who was raising her ‘Aunt’. She was forced to write a reflection letter for hours, while sitting on the fresh welts of a whipping and tears streaming from her eyes. She still did not understand what she had done wrong, as she repeated the words ‘Because she was the errant child.’

Lee-yeon’s cousins/ half-brothers couldn’t stand to see her smile. Even though they shared the same tragedy, they would accuse Lee-yeon of being responsible for the misfortune and sin. Each year, whenever she moved up to a new class in school, they secretly spread a wide variety of degrading rumours amongst her classmates.

She heard every single one of them: My mother told me that her mother had an affair and ran away leaving her behind. It’s more horrible than just being born out of wedlock. Dirty blood! If you make eye contact with her, you will die! I heard that if you talk to her, your mom and dad will also have an affair!

The rumors had started when she entered elementary school and continued until Lee-yeon became an adult. She was forced to change jobs three times. Wherever she went, or whatever ties she cut off contact with, her cousins were there to uproot her life.

As a result, she had become wary of men, distant from people, and was happier to be alone. It seemed like only solitude could save her. The continuance of a quiet life. Maintaining her daily routine. Living a life that complete and alone, like a tree.

She began to retreat to nature even more. The only moments she felt relaxed were under the trees. Lee-yeon tried to become one with the plants, to exist on the same level as them.

Hwang-Jo-yoon’s piercing voice cut through her thoughts and reflections, drawing her back to reality. “He may hate me at first but, over time, your husband will thank me.” Hwang Jo-yoon smiled like he had achieved a victory.

Lee-yeon’s body began to tremble once more.