Chapter 7
***
The fever, barely brought down by the fluids, seemed to rise again.
Eun-jin pressed a hand to her throbbing temple and snatched the cup she'd been given as a gift for joining the company.
She flicked the cigarette into the trash can and set the cup down on the sink. When that didn't quell her anger, she tossed the mug into the trash.
"I lost my temper."
Ugh.
She wanted to kick Dong-jin's tongue out of his mouth right then and there, but she had no energy.
The wounds of heartbreak, her mother's pushiness, her brother's patheticness, and Cho Min-seong’s rough sex had left her feeling tattered.
"Come on, Eun-jin, sit down here. What happened, did Cho Min-seong see you?"
Mom tugged on Eun-jin's hand. Eun-jin flopped down on the living room floor like she was going to collapse.
Pain shot between her legs. Eun-jin glared at her mother, but her glare didn't strike a blow.
"Yeah."
At Eun-jin's words, Dong-jin pulled her drooping body closer to his.
"What did Min-seong say, is he going to let the matter go?"
Eun-jin burst out laughing.
She literally laughed like a madman.
She remembered Cho Min-seong’s voice asking Eun-jin if she was naive. They were a naive family after all.
"Why are you laughing?"
"Who’s worth 2.5 billion? You think he’ll just let it go?”
Eun-jin glared at Dong-jin with eyes that could eat him alive. Her mom rolled her eyes in disbelief at the amount of money he owed.
"That's.......
Eun-jin cut Dong-jin's lame excuse off mid-sentence.
"Whether they kill you or not, brother, I don't care."
"What?"
"They can do whatever the hell they want.”
Dong-jin's eyes widened at Eun-jin's words.
"Is that what you finally told me? You're going to live on your own?"
"I have to live!"
"Hey, Ha Eun-jin!"
"I wish I'd gone and heard something! You could have at least told me how much you borrowed, so I wouldn't have gone and done something stupid."
"I told you, I'm resentful!"
"Whether you feel guilty or not is your business! Why are you doing this to me!"
Eun-jin screamed, and her mom grabbed her hand.
"Eun-jin..... You're the only smart one in this house."
Eun-jin slowly closed her eyes and opened them.
"What can I do? Don't you know anyone in the police, or why, or the prosecutor?"
Eun-jin, who had been working in the legal department of a large corporation for three years, knew a thing or two about lawyers. Her ex-boyfriend was a lawyer, too.
Within the legal framework, the loan was money she didn't have to pay back. But Cho Min-seong was the other one.
Going to the police would only result in retaliation, and her brother was the stupid one who spent the gangster's money knowing that.
"Wrap your head around, mother! You sold a kidney for your son, and you say that?"
"Since when have you been so cold?"
"Cold, did mom call me cold?"
Tears fell from Eun-jin's eyes. She had been working for a large company for three years and still had no money in her bank account.
This was the result of living with a parasitic family.
Even ordering a chicken was a waste of money, adding to her worries. When other people went on vacation, all she could do to relax was to watch catch-up dramas at home.
With the money she saved, she helped her mom, who was struggling to make ends meet.
But her mom didn't spend the money Eun-jin gave her on herself. Instead, she collected the money and put it in Dong-jin's back pocket.
Even if her son was the worst person in the world, she'd had enough.
"That's right. You cold-hearted bitch, your brother is going to go out on a limb......."
"Mom, if you're going to do this, why did you give birth to me?"
"What?"
"Why did you give birth to me? You might as well throw me away now! I can't be your daughter anymore. I’m out of this family!"
Eun-jin sobbed like a child, her chest heaving.
There was no family for her anymore.
It felt good to think that she didn't have a mother at all.
"Ha Eun-jin, you really are!"
"Get out of here!"
Eun-jin roared. For a moment, her mom and brother were stunned into silence.
Eun-jin stomped toward the front door. She threw the door wide open and glared at her mom and brother.
"Get out of my house."
Dong-jin, his pride wounded, stood up first.
"You don't even know how hard it is for me to do this, you cheap bitch!"
Dong-jin stomped past Eun-jin, shoving his feet into his crumpled designer sneakers. The hideous tattoo peeking out of his T-shirt was horrifying. She was embarrassed to think what the neighbors would think if a man with a tattoo like that came in and out of their house.
As usual, the mother followed her son's side instead of her daughter's, keeping an eye on Dong-jin.
Bang.
The door slammed shut.
The place was in ruins after the storm.
Eun-jin was left alone with a devastated heart. She was so overwhelmed that her tears wouldn't stop.
"Hmph, when did I have someone......."
Tears dripped onto the living room floor.
She barely dragged her unwashed body to bed after sex. She had no energy left to lift a finger.
All this time, she had been blind to the truth.
Birth was absurd. She'd never wanted to be born, and now she was abandoned.
Yes, Eun-jin was alone from the beginning.
Now she was going to face it.
***
A warlike weekend passed.
No word from her mother or brother.
Eun-jin had changed her cell phone number in a huff. It felt strange to change the number she'd had for more than a decade, from her school days, but she didn't want to be controlled by her family anymore.
Life at work wasn't so bad. It was bearable, except for the fact that she had to deal with her boss, Kim Ji-heon, the same lawyer who had abandoned Eun-jin the previous week.
As her coworkers left the conference room for lunch, Eun-jin pulled up an internet search on her monitor.
Her appetite was gone, and she didn't feel like eating. She was going to use this time to her advantage.
She scanned the real estate sites for office space for rent. She told the owner that she had to move out due to a change of circumstances, and luckily, he agreed. The tenant who had been behind on rent every month was more than happy to pay up and move out on her own.
She found a few suitable office spaces close to work, bookmarked them, and started calling around.
This weekend, she would be busy looking at properties.
It was a bittersweet new beginning.
She felt like she was the only daughter in the world who would move to avoid her mother's visits.
But she couldn't help it. Seeing her mother's tears would trigger her useless guilt again, and Eun-jin would have to carry her mother and brother on her shoulders like a burden for the rest of her life.
After closing the internet window, Eun-jin got up to get a cup of coffee. As she headed to the break room, a familiar face stopped her.
"Aren't you eating?"
It was Kim Ji-heon, the man who had whispered his love to Eun-jin until last week, now her ex-boyfriend.
How kind of him.
Worrying about her food after breaking up with her so abruptly.
Eun-jin answered his question like a knife.
"No. I'm not going to eat."
"But you still have to eat."
Kim Ji-heon apparently thought that Eun-jin was skipping meals as an aftereffect of the breakup.
Eun-jin looked at Kim with a cold face.
She didn't want to feel sorry for the man who had abandoned her.
"Yes, I understand."
Eun-jin pushed past him and headed for the break room.
In hindsight, she couldn't say that breaking up with him was a bad thing because he made her face reality.
Kim Ji-heon's bombshell breakup declaration, which revealed Eun-jin's family history, made her realize how stupid she was.
She didn't want to cover up the wrongness of the breakup anymore.
"When are you going to get over it......."
Eun-jin let out a long sigh.
It was hard to forget the memory of the one-time sex, which was as shameful as erasing her mother's existence.
***
-The number you're calling is disconnected.......
An unwelcome woman's voice came through the receiver.
After hesitating for days, Min-seong pressed the call button. He didn't think there was anything in the world that was difficult for him, but he never realized how hard it was to press the call button.
But even though he steeled himself and dialed the number, Ha Eun-jin's contact information had changed in the meantime.
"What the fuck......."
Eun-jin wasn't obligated to notify Min-seong whether she changed her contact information or not.
But the fact that she hadn't made him aware of it was disturbing.
On the bedside table, a handkerchief with a whitish, dried-up liquid lay in a messy pile.
The fact that he had masturbated alone while holding that piece of cloth, which was a mixture of Ha Eun-jin's pussy juice and his own, was a secret that he couldn't tell anyone.
***
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