LLU 40

“Arrived…”

Before the driver could even fully stop the car, I tossed a 50,000-won bill at him as if throwing it and flung the door open. Leaving behind the driver shouting “Student! Your change!” I ran into the hospital like a madman.

Having been confined in a room without moving for so long, my calf bones already ached after just a few steps. My legs quickly cramped up tightly, and my breathing became ragged and labored.

But there was no time to mock my drastically reduced stamina. Repeating frantic running and then walking in a daze, I entered the massive main hospital building. She was admitted to the VIP ward, they said. Panting heavily to catch my breath, I checked the location on the information board and boarded the elevator.

While heading to the top-floor VIP ward, the people riding with me kept glancing at me as I gasped and wheezed. But I paid no attention to that. In my head, there was only one thought: I had to reach her before Choi Junghan could do anything to harm my mother.

The elevator stopped at every floor annoyingly often. When all the patients got off and I finally jumped out last, I pressed the bell in front of the tightly closed door. Due to the nature of the ward, even the corridor was restricted so that no one could enter freely.

—Yes, are you here for a visit? Please show your visitor pass.

“I… this is my first time here today, so I don’t have a visitor pass. I’m the guardian of patient Pi Jeongin. She’s admitted here, right?”

The very first thing I needed to confirm was that. Was my mother safely here? Had Choi Junghan perhaps taken her somewhere else? Fortunately, a kind reply came immediately.

—Please wait a moment. I’ll verify your identity first.

Only after showing the nurse who came out right away my ID and family registry saved on my phone was I permitted to visit. The nurse smiled kindly and answered.

“She’s actually recovering quite well right now. Your timing is perfect.”

…Recovering? Mom? Had her condition been bad for a long time? Unable to understand the words, I blankly stared at her face.

Before I could even raise a question, the nurse’s footsteps stopped. After bowing to the nurse who had kindly guided me, I dazedly opened the hospital room door.

Perhaps for privacy reasons, the patient’s bed was not immediately visible upon opening the door. There was a long entryway-like space, and you had to turn one corner to see inside the room.

I could not step right in and took a deep breath first. From this moment, I was in the position of having to deliver a tremendous shock to my mother.

I was scared and anxious. There was no way I could not be tense. What reaction would my mother have when she heard my words? I could only hope that the shock she received would not greatly harm her body…

At that moment, my mother’s voice came through the slightly open door first.

“The eyes and nose seem to resemble yours. The eyelashes are really long too.”

“No, from what I see, the eyes are exactly like yours? You have long eyelashes too.”

Voices that were unbearably affectionate whispered. It felt as uncomfortable as secretly eavesdropping on lovers’ sweet nothings. Not because of the overly tender and intimate tone of their conversation. But because of the content that sank my heart straight to the bottom.

“How can he be so much like a chick…”

Mom…

“You really went through a lot. Thank you for giving birth to such a pretty prince.”

…In the end, she had safely given birth after all.

My mother’s childbirth had been scheduled, so there was no particular reason to be shocked. But I had been trapped in Choi Junghan’s house for far too long. Even while watching the dates pass on the TV screen, I had not applied that passage of time to my own life. Choi Junghan had turned me into an idiot through relentless rape and abuse that left no room to breathe.

That was why I had not known. That a full week had already passed since the start of the semester. That my leave of absence had already been processed without my knowledge. That my mother… had reached the full term and the time for childbirth was imminent.

That my desperate efforts to somehow safely rescue my mother from Choi Junghan had actually been completely useless. That it had merely been an entertaining show taking place in the palm of Choi Junghan’s hand.

My feet moved on their own. One step, one step… like an uninvited guest who should not be here, I completely silenced my presence and hid behind the corner.

Finally, far ahead, I could see my mother.

She was sitting on the bed, cradling a swaddled baby in her arms, gazing down at the child with the most benevolent eyes in the world. Bathed in the soft sunlight streaming through the window, my mother looked exactly like the Virgin Mary.

For some reason I did not understand, my throat tightened. Had my mother looked at me with that same face when I was born? No matter what the answer to that question was, something hot surged up inside me in waves.

Chairman Choi was sitting right beside my mother, pressed close. The way he sat there grinning foolishly with his mouth wide open made it obvious to anyone that he was a man who had just become a father. Whether fortunate or unfortunate, I could be certain that right now, Chairman Choi was genuinely happy.

There is no place for you to fit in there.

It felt as if someone’s voice was whispering that in my ear. It was my mother’s voice, and also Chairman Choi’s voice. Perhaps it even sounded like Choi Junghan’s voice.

……No, that was my own voice.

As I ran toward my mother, I repeated only one resolve in my mind. That from now on, I would no longer carry this heavy burden alone. No matter how happy my mother seemed with Chairman Choi, I would not hesitate to tell her about my misfortune.

The shock my mother would receive would be great, but I no longer wanted to sacrifice my own life for the sake of her mental health. I thought that I must not do so anymore.

But… but.

My mother, holding the baby, was smiling more happily than anyone in the world. She cooed at the child in a loving voice and met the baby’s eyes as if regarding the most precious thing. At this moment, no one could come between my mother and that baby.

The powerful bond wrapped in the name of maternal love made my mother the strongest person in the world. If anyone were to make the child she held unhappy, no matter who it was, my mother would throw her fragile body to protect the baby.

And at this very moment, the misfortune threatening the baby and my mother was none other than me.

That was exactly what Choi Junghan wanted to make me realize by setting this cruel trap. He had known everything. That the moment the shackle came off, I would immediately run toward my mother.

That was why he released me on the day of my mother’s childbirth. So that I would see this scene with my own eyes. So that I would witness in person this new family landscape born from my mother’s delivery…

I felt like someone who had forgotten how to exist. Like a petrified statue, all I could do was stand blankly in that spot.

But soon even that became too much. I could not even bear the breaths I exhaled and had to stand there with trembling legs that shook uncontrollably.

I could neither turn and run away nor dare to insert myself into that family. I had nowhere to go. In this world right now, there was not a single place where I could entrust my body and mind.

No home, no school, no dormitory, no family to take me in… nothing at all.

I no longer had the strength in my legs to keep standing. The moment I made a sound, I would become an uninvited guest who shattered and trampled this peace. Having seen this perfectly beautiful family scene with my own eyes, I was now nothing but useless dregs. A lump of misfortune that should not exist here.

“You’re here?”

At that moment, a solid warmth gently embraced me from behind. A very small voice wrapped around my ear like a snake, soft and smooth.

In the familiar scent of the man who had silenced his presence just like me, I staggered helplessly and let my body collapse into his arms. As if on cue, every last bit of strength remaining in my body drained away. Choi Junghan, who caught my swaying form with steady security, whispered tenderly.

“Yes, good boy. It’s okay.”

I knew that he had meticulously stripped away my bones and flesh with exquisite care all this time, and now he was finally about to begin a satiated feast.

But even so, I

“We should go back now. To our home.”

had nothing left to do but fall powerlessly into the predator’s mouth.

His voice, soothing me who was exhausted from bone-deep, aching loneliness, was far too gentle. And the words “our home,” carrying a sense of belonging, were far too sweet for me—who would have nowhere to go even if I wandered to the edge of the world…

I slipped into the arms of the man who had broken me with weary, staggering steps.

Even though several weeks had passed since “that day,” I still often encountered it in my dreams.

What kept replaying was not the scene of my mother holding the baby, but the memory of Choi Junghan gathering up my dazed self and bringing me back to his space.

“Did you see your mother’s face? She really looked so happy.”

Choi Junghan, who had brought me back home from the hospital, spoke gently as he undressed me. He laid my limp, puppet-like body on the bed, spread my legs, and pushed inside. The act felt utterly natural.

“Now that little brother has been born too, I’m thinking of calling her Mother from now on. She’ll be happy, right? Suddenly gaining two sons at once, hngh.”

“……”

“But the eldest and the second are fucking each other. Haha, what a pair of filthy bastards.”

Even while hearing that horrible mockery, I could not protest. Not a single word. I simply shed tears endlessly and entrusted myself to his hands.

The memories of spitting at Choi Junghan, glaring at him, cursing him, and kicking his body felt distant, as if they had never existed in the first place. I could offer no resistance at all to this stepbrother who violated me recklessly and devoured me like a beast.

I cried the entire time I was taken that day. It felt as if my heart had completely melted and was pouring out as tears. I had no idea where so many tears were coming from.

No—had there ever been a wick of heart in me to begin with? It seemed like something that had never existed from the start.

I tried to think that it was just a scheduled birth and that nothing would change in my relationship with my mother. My mind desperately tried to keep from collapsing, to find any way to survive.

But I already knew. I could not deny it. In truth, because that child had been born safely, I had lost the place I could return to. That I could no longer tell my mother what had happened to me.

Because I was afraid. Afraid of the image of one family shattering into pieces the moment I revealed the truth.

And yet at the same time, the wounded, broken self inside me wept and screamed. I just wanted to live. It was only natural to tell my mother what had happened to me. Her happiness was important, but wasn’t my survival important too?

Yet I had no choice but to turn away from that tiny voice inside me that cried out for myself.

Because the image of my mother holding her newborn baby and cooing at it had burned itself into my eyes like a brand and would not fade. I did not have the courage to shatter the peace between those two people bound by sticky solidarity, nor the courage to take a father away from a newborn child.

“Come on. Don’t be so weak. Crying over something like this?”

Choi Junghan whispered as he wiped away the tears of someone who had lost all will to fight.

“They say that when a younger sibling is born, you feel like your mother has been taken away. But what can you do? Even if you’re jealous, you have to accept it.”

“……”

“Instead, I’ll cherish you. So don’t worry.”

The hand stroking my face was tender. The tears I shed kept flowing endlessly down the back of his hand.

After that, the same routine repeated. As if nothing had happened at all.

He still rapes me, exploits me, confines me. He takes away my freedom and will as if it were natural. The only acts he permits me are those within the purely animalistic realm of eating, sleeping, and excreting.

How foolish it had been to hope that he would let me go once March came. Choi Junghan had blocked my path of retreat by arbitrarily putting me on leave and canceling the dormitory, and by showing me the scene of my mother’s childbirth, he had destroyed the last remaining nest I had.

From the very beginning, he had never intended to let me go.

“…The weather’s nice.”

I stared quietly out the window and muttered that to myself for no reason.

Even up until the day I took a taxi to the hospital where my mother was, it had been quite chilly, but now the scenery outside the window was fully spring.

Petals scattering under the flowering trees, people leisurely riding bicycles, others walking dogs or jogging.

I blankly looked down out the window from within the perfectly built fortress. From this penthouse, the world below looked as small as a picture on a postcard the size of a palm.

It was an unfamiliar sight. It felt so unrelated to me that it was almost alien. Just a few months ago, I too had been melting into that scene, yet now those memories felt vague and distant, like a dream I had woken from after sleeping through it all.