Embedded Files
Psst! We're moving!
Everything visible wavered like a heat haze above a fire’s afterimage.
Someone spoke to her, and someone else brushed past, shoving her.
Haerin, barely maintaining her balance as her body yielded to the push, stood momentarily dazed. As if sinking into water, her body grew heavy and limp.
The world had collapsed.
As if it had never existed.
When the white cloth covered her younger sibling’s face, she seemed to have lunged forward. The medical equipment that had filled the space around her sibling’s sickbed vanished in an instant, leaving only her sibling draped in white. Why did it pierce her heart so?
She must have cried.
She seemed to have asked multiple times if it was truly over.
Someone grabbed her, preventing her from going to where her sibling lay. She must have sobbed uncontrollably, begging to be let go. Not yet, she had cried so sorrowfully.
People helping with the funeral came and asked her something, but she couldn’t even answer. Her vision spun, and a ringing echoed in her ears.
Even amidst all that, Chairman Park, who remained in the room, muttered something, but Haerin paid it no mind.
Death was far too sudden and heavy, leaving no room for other thoughts.
The things entering her vision lost their shapes and blurred, then flowed out of sight like water.
Being supported by someone, she walked mindlessly, and then she saw her own feet stumbling down towards the funeral hall.
An altar was set up in the blink of an eye, a portrait placed, and Haerin changed into the prepared mourning clothes.
Perhaps because the illness had been so long, everything had been prepared in advance. The funeral procedures progressed smoothly, but Haerin, who was performing them, couldn’t even discern where she was or what she was doing. She simply followed the instructions of those guiding her, mechanically completing the bare minimum of the rituals.
Following her sobbing mother and father, she sat down at the altar and barely settled in when she saw someone entering the hall. It was Chairman Park.
He was the first mourner.
________________________________________
Haerin’s family, having just come out to the altar, stared blankly at Chairman Park standing before them. He was an unexpected guest, and they couldn’t even guess what Chairman Park would say in this place.
“It’s truly regrettable that things have turned out this way...”
Chairman Park, standing before the altar, spoke without stepping further inside from the entrance.
Behind Chairman Park stood several bodyguards in black suits. Surrounded by them like grim reapers forming a screen, the moment Chairman Park’s next words fell, Haerin doubted her ears.
“It wasn’t something unforeseen, it was bound to happen someday. If you’ve kept your place roughly, then come out.”
Haerin blinked her throbbing eyes, looking at Chairman Park.
She couldn’t comprehend what she had heard. Haerin’s father, who also hadn’t understood, took a step forward and said to Chairman Park,
“If you’ve come to pay your respects, please come this way...”
“Pay respects? I’ve come to take what’s mine.”
“Your... yours?”
Confused eyes turned to Chairman Park.
Chairman Park, receiving the full attention of Haerin and the bereaved family, continued with a brazen face, completely unconcerned,
“A pregnant woman shouldn’t be at a funeral, wouldn’t you agree? I’m afraid of bad luck. You know better than anyone, my dear daughter-in-law, that what’s in your belly isn’t yours, don’t you?”
At Chairman Park’s words, Haerin’s parents looked at Haerin with shocked expressions. It was a fact they had kept hidden even from her parents. Haerin’s flustered mother turned to her and asked,
“Haerin-ah, you... you’re pregnant?”
Haerin, under the gazes of everyone present, said nothing. No, she couldn’t. No words came out.
It would be more accurate to say she was speechless with disbelief.
Instead of Haerin, who was faltering and unable to speak, Haerin’s father stepped forward, blocking his daughter.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about right now, but whether Haerin is pregnant or not, this is a funeral home. Aren’t you being too rude for someone who came to pay respects?”
Haerin’s mother, standing beside her, also stepped forward, raising her voice.
“We’ve endured until now, thinking of you as our in-laws and a more educated family than us. What kind of behavior is this, coming to a place where we’re holding a funeral!”
When Haerin’s mother, who had been shouting at Chairman Park, finally lost her temper and lunged forward, the bodyguards behind Chairman Park blocked her.
“What gives you the right to chase us all the way here and make such a scene! Who do you think you are! Who!”
One by one, people began to gather around the quiet funeral hall.
Haerin, who had kept her gaze fixed on the floor the entire time, slowly raised her eyes amidst the murmuring crowd.
She saw her wailing mother and her father with his sleeves rolled up, gesturing angrily. And then she saw the bodyguards blocking her parents and Chairman Park standing behind them, glaring at her.
Laughter escaped her.
Haerin began to laugh softly, like a deranged person, “Hehehe...” Then she burst into loud laughter.
“Hahahaha...”
At Haerin’s laughter, the gazes of the people who had been causing the commotion turned to her once more. As Haerin, her shoulders shaking with a forced laugh, looked at Chairman Park, her eyes held a murderous intent.
“...Such a wretched family.”
Her muttered words were filled with strong animosity. Hearing Haerin’s words, Chairman Park grew angry, pushed past his bodyguards, and stepped forward.
“What? What did you say? Are you daring to say that for me to hear?”
“Seems like I struck a nerve.”
“What, what is it?!”
“Compared to the achievements you’ve built throughout your life, Chairman, your life is quite pathetic. A life where you can’t even receive a shred of respect from your granddaughter-in-law.”
Undeterred by Chairman Park’s furious demeanor, Haerin retorted, causing Chairman Park to react even more vehemently in his rage.
“You insolent thing! What money do you think you’ve been living so comfortably on until now!”
The fury of the octogenarian, who had never been treated disrespectfully by anyone since birth, soared to the heavens.
“Drag her out! Drag that thing out of here this instant!”
The moment the bodyguards rushed towards Haerin, someone blocked their path. The charging bodyguards halted in their tracks.
“Chairman! What do you think you’re doing!”
Having rushed over, Soohyun, though catching his breath, reached behind him and pulled Haerin behind his back. Soon after, Soohyun’s bodyguards arrived in a throng and surrounded Haerin and her family.
Chairman Park, who had paused momentarily to grasp the situation, smiled as soon as he realized it was his grandson blocking him.
“What else? I’ve come to take what’s mine.”
“Yours? Are you crazy?”
“You also have a loose tongue, saying whatever you please! Get out of my way!”
“Chairman! Don’t cross the line any further!”
“You villain, you knew about this too, didn’t you? You’re all in cahoots! I’ve been too lenient, and you dare to deceive me?”
Haerin’s gaze, fixed straight ahead, captured the intense confrontation between Soohyun and Chairman Park.
What is this? What kind of soap opera is this?
Chairman Park’s face, glaring at her with fierce eyes, looked like a demon crawled out of hell. If monsters that live by devouring people actually existed, they would have such a face.
But it was strange. Before, even the sound of Chairman Park’s breathing used to make her flinch, but now everything felt ridiculous.
She had been caught in Chairman Park’s snare, with her sibling’s life held hostage. So, a person with a weakness endured even the excessive demands of the superior.
But now it was all over. The contract had been broken a long time ago, yet he was acting so brazen. It was the first day of sending Jungin away, and she was seeing such a disgraceful scene in front of the memorial portrait.
Haerin gently pushed aside Soohyun, who was blocking her, and stepped forward.
“Chairman Park Yoon-hwa.”
Chairman Park, noticing the unusual intensity in Haerin’s eyes, frowned.
“Chairman, your life is truly pathetic. You are not respected by anyone in your family and are solely swayed by money and power. Now I understand why you tightened the noose around your own flesh and blood so much.”
“What do you know, you little thing!”
“You’re afraid, aren’t you? You’re anxious about what happens beyond your reach. You tremble every night because you’re afraid of the sins you’ve committed. You need to grasp and control everything to quell that anxiety. Because you know all too well that everyone around you is just waiting for a chance to stab you in the back.”
“Who do you think you’re talking to like that?”
“Then listen to me this once. You’ve never heard such words before, have you? Why? Did you want to pretend to be normal by watching your ignorant great-grandchild act cute? Does that erase your sins?”
“You, you wench!”
Without flinching at Chairman Park’s rage, Haerin strode closer to him. A ghastly aura settled on Haerin’s changed face, and a sinister light flickered in her eyes.
“You said nothing was mine.”
“That’s right. If you understand, then know your place!”
“I am no longer your possession. Neither is my child.”
“What?”
“This child is mine, and my family. Nothing belongs to you.”
Chairman Park, staring at Haerin who glared back with wide eyes, suddenly remembered that Haerin’s words were something he had heard in the past.
‘Mother, I know you look down on me, but I can protect my family.’
Someone’s vow to protect their family. Who was it?
Chairman Park’s pupils began to shake violently as he searched his memory.
‘Mother, please don’t do this. Don’t take my family away from me. Please.’
The voice of someone from the past, clinging and crying, echoed like an auditory hallucination.
That face overlapped with Haerin’s face, which was cursing him. He had felt it from the first time he saw Haerin. Those stubborn eyes clearly resembled someone he knew.
At that moment, the voice that relentlessly tormented her in her nightly nightmares pierced his eardrums.
‘Park Yoon-hwa, you can’t take anything from me. Even if I become a ghost, I will follow you to hell and make you suffer eternally!’
Kang Yeon-hee.
“Ah...!”
It was Kang Yeon-hee.
“You, you... the dead you... how...”
Only then did Park Yoon-hwa realize the reason for the unease he had felt since the first time he saw Haerin.
He remembered the look in her eyes when his son Taehoon brought the woman he wanted to marry, Kang Yeon-hee, for the first time. Haerin’s eyes had a resemblance to Soohyun’s mother.
It was the very gaze of his eldest daughter-in-law, who had loved her family more than her own life.
“Do you understand? You can no longer do as you please with anything I have!”
“Ye... Yeon-hee-yah.”
As Haerin stepped closer to Chairman Park, Park Yoon-hwa staggered backward, eventually collapsing onto the floor. His eyes rolled back as if seeing a ghost.
Google Sites
Report abuse