My Throat Is Being Strangled!
My throat was being strangled! ……………
The shock of dropping the spoon sent splatters of kimchi stew broth flying from the earthenware pot. Red droplets landed on the back of Han Sol's pale hand. It was freshly boiled stew—hot enough to scald flesh—but Han Sol didn't even flinch.
She didn't bother wiping her hand, just stared blankly at me.
"……That."
Her lips finally moved.
"That red-haired woman?"
"Yeah."
"Dad's kid…… right? You sure?"
"……Yeah."
With my confirmation, the light faded from Han Sol's eyes. I could see the last ember of her hope being crushed under that single word.
Silence settled over the living room.
Han Sol started mumbling in a daze.
"Dad…… you said you wouldn't abandon me."
"Sol—"
"We're family. Even without shared blood, we're family. You said we'd be together forever."
Her murmured words stabbed into my chest like daggers.
"That kid probably looked just like her dad right from birth, huh? The eyes, the nose. Even a DNA test would say she's yours."
"Sol."
"No matter how hard I try—wearing your shirts, soaking up your scent, taking your seed into my body every night…… I'm still just some stranger with no blood tie."
"Don't say that."
"How's a fake supposed to hold on when the real one's here? How's a cuckoo's daughter in the bloodline supposed to win?"
My chest felt like it was caving in. Han Sol was dangerous right now. Her breathing grew ragged. Her nails scraped at the tablecloth.
Self-harm.
The behavior she'd stopped as the price for forcing a physical relationship on her own father. In her current state, it seemed entirely possible she'd start again.
I decided to calm her down as quickly as possible.
"Sol! Calm down. No matter what, you're my family."
"……."
"Please don't let those dark thoughts of hurting yourself take hold. We promised you wouldn't, remember? Right?"
I reached for her hand. Just as my palm was about to cover the back of hers—
Slap.
Han Sol yanked her hand away. My rejected hand hung in the air, lost.
She bowed her head deeply, breathing heavily, then drew in a long inhale. Slowly, so very slowly, she exhaled.
When she lifted her head, her eyes had completely changed.
"I know."
Her voice was chillingly calm.
"I'll keep the promise. I won't hurt my body."
She wiped the broth off her hand with a tissue. The red, swollen mark stood out vividly.
"But Dad."
"……."
"I can't forgive foreign matter invading our family."
Foreign matter. That's what she called my child—the life growing in Yeom Hana's belly.
Han Sol's voice grew firmer. Her crumbling mind seemed to rebuild itself on some twisted logic. But the reconstructed psyche was anything but normal.
"Dating? Fine. Sex? Whatever. Dad always comes back to me anyway."
She straightened the utensils on the table as she continued.
"But having a kid and becoming family…… that's not okay."
"Sol."
"I absolutely can't forgive that."
Her eyes showed no jealousy, no rage, no anxiety—just depths too profound to read. That blankness made it all the more terrifying.
"Make her…… get rid of it. You have to."
"That's—"
Impossible. I had to say it, but the words wouldn't come.
How did Han Sol interpret my silence? It showed in what she said next.
"I promised, so no self-harm. But that means I can do whatever I want to her, right? Isn't that fair?"
"Han Sol!"
For the first time, real steel entered my voice. What she'd said sounded like she'd attack Yeom Hana to abort the baby, no matter what. That, I couldn't allow.
"If you do something like that, I won't forgive you."
The harshest, most severe warning I'd ever given Han Sol since becoming Han Kang.
But she didn't waver.
"Then I won't forgive you either, Dad."
"You……!"
"And if you abandon me…… I won't have any reason to keep living."
It wasn't a threat laced with emotion. No pleading appeal. Just a calm statement of fact. Like saying one plus one equals two.
Dad abandons me. Then I die.
I was struck dumb, mouth sealed shut.
"Eat your meal. It's getting cold."
With those words, Han Sol left the kitchen without looking back.
The table held only silence, the still-warm kimchi stew, and an untouched bowl of rice.
I was left alone at the table too.
Lee Jin-ah's threat.
Han Sol's threat.
And the tiny life growing in Yeom Hana's womb.
Three blades closing around my throat.
……………
Two days passed.
Just 48 hours. But to me, it felt like 48 days.
I barely slept in that time. I took sick leave from work—claimed a cold, which wasn't a lie. My mind was the one suffering.
The man in the mirror was a total wreck. Unwashed hair matted with grease, unshaven stubble roughening my jaw. Dark hollows shadowed my sunken eyes.
The textbook look of a ruined middle-aged man.
……What the hell do I do?
That question had gnawed at my brain for two days straight.
I had to protect the life growing in Yeom Hana's belly. No compromises there.
But I also had to cleanly resolve things with Lee Jin-ah and Han Sol. That was non-negotiable too.
A way to satisfy both conditions at once.
"Like that even exists……."
The mutter slipped out.
No one answered. Of course not. No such magic solution existed anywhere.
Faint sunlight filtered through the motel curtains. Purple wallpaper, faux leather sofa, rumpled sheets on the double bed. A familiar sight.
The motel where Yeom Hana and I had tumbled countless times.
But I wasn't here for that today. Didn't have the energy.
Lee Jin-ah.
[Get rid of that blood clot and keep going with me, or I'll expose everything and you lose your job, your life—everything.]
Han Sol.
[If Dad abandons me…… I won't have any reason to keep living.]
Two blades crossing, throttling my neck.
Whichever I chose, blood would spill from the other side. Mine, Lee Jin-ah's, Han Sol's, or Yeom Hana's—or the tiny life inside her.
"Fuck……."
The curse came with hot tears pricking my eyes. Forty-five years old, choking back sobs in a motel corner. Not just pathetic—historically disgraceful.
Then the bathroom door opened.
"Ajusshi?"
It was Yeom Hana. She leaned against the doorframe in a bathrobe, fresh from the shower—water droplets trailing from her hair ends.
Strangely, she brimmed with vitality. Her exposed neckline and collarbones gleamed smooth; even bare-faced, her skin had a subtle glow. Hormonal changes from early pregnancy? Or the leisure of victory radiating outward?
Wrecked me versus vibrant her. The contrast was so stark, it was unbelievable even to myself.
Yeom Hana looked down at me huddled in the corner, mumbling, and smirked.
"Good call meeting at a motel."
"……What."
"Imagine at a café. You'd have shown everyone ajusshi crying and muttering at your age."
No words, no energy to argue.
She walked over and plopped onto the bed beside me. The deep cleavage peeking from her robe caught my eye, but I had no head for that now.
"So. Things didn't go well?"
She tossed the question lightly, like asking about the weather or lunch.
Her nonchalance sparked a wave of resignation. No point hiding it anyway. She carried my child; we were entangled too deeply to separate.
"……Look, you kinda know already. I'm not just seeing you."
"Yeah, I figured. Ajusshi can't control his stamina anyway."
"Hear me out. I have a girlfriend."
"Uh-huh."
"And a daughter."
"Know that. So?"
"But both are dead set against it."
Saying it out loud made it even more hopeless. A guy who fooled around with his official girlfriend and his daughter, then knocked up his fuck buddy. Utter irredeemable trash by any measure.
"Not just against—one's threatening to ruin my life, the other—"
I couldn't finish. Couldn't relay my daughter's words about killing or dying.
Yeom Hana listened quietly, then tilted her head.
"Girlfriend's pissed, sure. Especially if she thought marriage was on the table. But the daughter? The cuckoo chick you raised from way back?"
"……Yeah."
"She shouldn't care, right? No blood tie, full-grown adult. Should be congratulating you on remarrying, starting a family, getting a little sib."
"It's—"
"Oh. Worried about inheritance shrinking?"
"……I'll explain. It's complicated."
I licked my dry lips. Stripping out the physical details, I laid out the bare bones of my relationship with Han Sol. How pathologically obsessed my bloodless daughter was with me. How terrified she was of being abandoned.
Even that sanitized version was plenty abnormal.
Yeom Hana nodded a few times as she listened.
"……Yeah, she's a huge problem too."
She spoke when I finished.
"Whoa."
A short exclamation.
"A daughter with mental issues, attachment problems, abandonment anxiety?"
"……."
"Ajusshi, you really farmed one hell of a spectacular daughter."
Yeom Hana burst out laughing, cackling away.
No concern in sight, no matter how you sliced it.
Her laughter echoed through the motel room. The laughing woman and the man who couldn't lift his head. The gap was so blatant, it was almost funny.
Not that I had the strength left to laugh.