Starting Over (27)
"Please, I'm begging you, just leave me alone."
"...Oppa..."
"No, Eunbyul, seriously, stop!"
"It's not working, this... seriously. It's annoying. You only do it for her...!"
I keep telling her I don't remember that well because I was drunk, so why...
Usually, a birthday is a day when family gathers to clap, blow out candles, make wishes, and eat cake with whipped cream smeared on your lips. Or it’s a day to drive somewhere, buy something you’ve always wanted, and spend a happy day. But on her twenty-sixth birthday, Min Suyeon thought of something else.
'I want to live.'
Suddenly, the thought: I want to live.
'....'
In a way, that might have been her final cry.
The cool father who worked at a major corporation suddenly started looking like a shabby, powerless old man. The mother who used to treat her with calm, generous grace was gone, replaced by "Patient No. 1" in a hospital room, staring out the window every day, waiting for this tiresome life to end.
"I want to go to Seoul National University, too. Me too."
"Hey, do you think it's easy? Shut up,"
Her younger brother, who said he liked analyzing human hearts and chose his major based solely on the name, ended up in Business Administration instead of the Psychology department he wanted, thinking he had to get a job quickly to help their struggling family.
Min Suyeon was probably in her mid-teens when her father was laid off. The little girl who used to insist on a three-tier cake watched her mother hesitate in front of a bakery, wondering whether to buy a cake or not, and said,
"...I'm sick of cake. Let's just go eat a meal."
"Shall we? Ah... but still..."
"Hurry! Dad says he's coming home."
She was forced to become an adult, and as the years passed, she stopped dreaming of birthday feasts and started worrying about whether they could even afford a proper meal each day. In fact, food wasn't the only problem.
On her seventeenth birthday, her father had to leave for work as a construction laborer at dawn and couldn't celebrate. On her nineteenth, her mother was hospitalized, and she and her brother ate cup ramen, not even realizing it was her birthday. On her twenty-third, her brother went to the military, so she spent the day alone. And after that—
"...Haha."
She finally abandoned herself, the person whose birthday no one celebrated. Because she no longer had the age or the luxury to care about such things.
And so, on her twenty-sixth birthday, she signed up for life insurance, took the 4,200 won in her bank account, went into a convenience store, bought a slice of cake, stared at it without even lighting a candle, downed the glass of soju placed next to it, and thought:
'I want to live...'
That was the day. The day she stopped thinking she wanted to live. The day she became someone waiting for death.
But—
"Since I've paid, I've bought your time for today, regardless."
Haha... Was my time... worth anything?
"I will make sure you never suffer from financial difficulties again."
Bullshit... It's all just pity. Because I'm a pathetic beggar. You probably think I'm easy... You have so much, so you think you can help me...
"Just because you failed, do you think you should just sit down and cry?"
Honestly, I had a mountain of things to say to refute that right before I heard it, but after hearing it, I kept my mouth shut. Right. I really did fail and sit down. After getting cut from Total, on that bridge in Courbevoie, France. I really did squat down, grab the railing, and cry my eyes out. After that, I thought I’d never do this work again, that I’d just live on a salary.
'....'
But that psychopath's words kept coming back to me.
'Right... a psychopath, really....'
Why is he paying attention to me? That was the question, and the doubts triggered by it filled her head. The reason he wanted to give her money—was he really just going to make her work? No, isn't that the truth? Today, that man barged into a gas station where he was told not to come, spent money on the owner, and even paid off the debt to the loan shark for her. 41 million won. Money she would have to save for seven months without spending a single cent of her salary to accumulate.
"..."
So, watching him smash the loan shark's head with a bowl, force him to his knees, and lecture him, she wondered whether she should close the window or not. Because of the noise? The noise was one thing, but it was something else.
'If he asks me to do it today, I...'
'If I say I hate it, he'll probably tell me to pay it all back...'
'He's more ruthless than the loan shark...'
'He could even take my salary.'
'...Then...'
Her soft, hidden inner heart, buried under harsh words. When he came back in after sending the loan shark away, the harsh words didn't come out easily. Watching him, she thought about the future she would soon face, and because she was already preparing her mind to endure it, the words she hadn't asked about spilled out easily.
'Condoms...'
'...But I told him I had AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases...'
That was the only STI she knew. She was a woman who had planned to handle her first sexual experience as a one-night stand at a club. She had zero knowledge about sex.
So she,
'...'
That man is going to violate me now, I have to endure this shame, if he paid a huge sum of 41 million won, I have to endure it... She endured it while thinking those things. It was a life that would end soon anyway, so what was the point of contraception? She thought that once they did it, he would know all her words were lies, and he would surely sneer at her for being a virgin. After that, given his stubbornness and wealth, it was clear that not only had she brought a man into her studio apartment for the first time, but she would also have to sell her smiles while being forced to roll around with him all day.
"What are the conditions?"
So she asked. How far are you going to ruin me? At that moment, she thought it would be nice if he just let her live. She thought it would be nice if he just violated her enough not to kill her, in exchange for paying 41 million won and keeping her alive. She’d heard that depending on a person's taste, some people enjoy putting on handcuffs, blindfolds, using strange vibrating rods or clothespins, or even using gags.
"Does a person change this much just because you caught one thug?"
"Shut up."
Yeah, you asshole. Don't say anything else, just spit out what you want to do. ...Then I'll match it as best I can. Fuck... Just don't kill me... she thought. She was sure that if she were him, she would want to kill herself too. She had endured a long conversation filled with profanity. She was sure she would have to endure it even if she were grabbed by the collar and thrown to the floor right now, but—
"Obviously, you'll be working at GPL."
"Is that all?"
There was no way that was all. It was clear he was going to have a lot of sex now. A married man, a man with a social status so high she could never reach it. There was no way a man who had so much money he didn't know where to spend it wouldn't have other conditions. He’ll start talking soon. She imagined him ejaculating like he was excreting waste, then acting like he was done with his work and trying to go home, but she couldn't hide her stunned expression when she heard his next words.
"Well, is there anything else you need?"
Why, why is that the end? You want to fuck me, don't you? You're the same, you fucker, you're a guy with a dick, too. You're going to make a fuss about wanting to squeeze my tits... aren't you just a guy in a hurry to shove it in, ah... am I doing this because I said I have AIDS? I'd rather that be it, ha... No, but still, a man who burned 40 million won in one day... is just going to leave without doing anything? Really?
So all she could do was envy him. While he smoked, she stared at him intently. Why? Because he was just a bit of a strange person. To put it bluntly, a psychopath. ...Right, he is a psychopath. She slowly goes near the mirror. She stares at her reflection, strokes her arm where the loan shark grabbed her, and smooths out her wrinkled clothes a little. Without realizing it, she felt quite embarrassed when she saw in the mirror that she had been crying. She wondered if that man had seen her crying.
"Anyway, I'm going."
. .
"If I just work... you'll give me money?"
Right, he’d just hand over that huge amount of money if she just worked? She looked in the mirror, reviewed what he said, and let out a hollow laugh. It didn't make sense. She was sure he had other intentions, but she thought about him coolly walking down the stairs and turned her gaze back to the mirror.
"..."
She knew her breasts were large. Breasts she wanted to just chop off because they were annoying to move with. And the number one target for sexual harassment by many men. It was annoying. She, who wore the thinnest bra possible to avoid highlighting her breasts as much as possible, looked in the mirror, slowly unhooked her bra, and took off her underwear. And on the tag, she saw,
"...This much would catch anyone's eye..."
A bra without padding. The tag said 65H. It was definitely enough to catch anyone's eye, but he had stared straight into her eyes and spoke passionately throughout their conversation. As if he had zero interest in her breasts. And that was,
"Amazing."
She had never met a man like this in her life. A person who went on his way after saying what he had to say without giving her breasts a single glance. It was the first time she had met such a person.