The Shredded Resignation
As soon as I stepped into the office, I dropped my bag onto the chair. Should I take off my coat too? No, I’d just keep it on. Everyone around me kept stealing glances at my face.
Ah, yes. As you can see, I’m the girl with the split lip and swollen cheek.
I let the sideways looks and the whispered murmurs slide right past me as if I hadn’t noticed them at all. I pulled the resignation letter I’d hidden inside my bag and slipped it into the pocket of my coat. A private meeting with Kim Dayoung. This was the moment to hand it in. The reason was more than enough to justify quitting. If anyone else knew my situation, they would have nodded and said quitting was obviously the right choice.
If I was lucky, maybe I could land a job at a different branch. If that didn’t work, I could always do part-time gigs. I clung to even the smallest possibility. After all, even though I was lower-tier, I wasn’t completely useless. I could still pull my own weight.
So.
I just have to avoid seeing Kim Dayoung.
If I could just avoid Kim Dayoung, who wore the exact same face as Kim Soyeon, everything would be fine. If I could stop thinking about Sister Soyeon every time I saw that woman… Time would heal the hollow space inside my chest.
Forget Kim Dayoung. Keep only the good memories with Sister Soyeon.
No one else knew about me and Kim Soyeon, but the two of us had been bound together with a bond strong enough to last. Back then, I thought it was enough that only we knew. Looking back now, I regretted that decision a little. It wasn’t that Sister had been against making it public. On the contrary, she had wanted to come out. I was the one who had opposed it.
I had always stopped her, insisting, “No, what will people think?” Now I regretted not leaving any trace that might let others realize I had been someone special to her. But Sister Soyeon had been so radiant that just looking at her was blinding. I was only a plain magical girl in the lower tier. That was why I had asked to keep it hidden. I hadn’t wanted to become a stain on her record.
If Kim Dayoung had known about me and Sister Soyeon, would she have approached me with even a little more caution? Or would she have mocked me even harder? The unanswered questions chased each other in circles inside my head.
“Haa…”
I severed the knot of those pointless thoughts with a sigh and stood up.
“Sujung, where are you going?” the woman sitting beside me asked.
“They called me up from the floor above for a moment.”
“Hmm… You’re doing okay these days, right?”
“Yes. I’m fine.”
I nodded at her concern, then checked my reflection in the small mirror on the desk. My expression was a little gloomy, but calm and gentle. I examined the corners of my mouth and the shape of my eyes.
Yeah. This should be okay.
I headed for her office upstairs. The spotless hallway stretched out beneath bright lights that stung my eyes, yet to me it felt like walking through a pitch-black forest where I couldn’t see even an inch ahead. The air was so stifling it felt like it was blocking my throat. I patted my chest and forced my feet forward.
Knock, knock.
“Come in.”
At the voice drifting from inside her office, I carefully opened the door and stepped through. But I didn’t approach her desk. I stopped a few awkward steps away, keeping my distance. I wanted to stay as far from Kim Dayoung as possible.
She was swinging her crossed leg in the chair. When Dayoung saw that I had stopped instead of coming closer, she frowned and crooked her finger at me. Was I a dog, to be summoned like that? Her gesture made the final period on my resignation feel ridiculously easy to place.
“What’s that in your hand?”
“My resignation letter.”
Her swinging foot froze mid-air. Her expression iced over. Dayoung stared at the paper in my hand as if she could burn a hole through it with her eyes. She slowly lifted her head and looked at me with an almost innocent curiosity, like she was staring at something bizarre.
“Resignation letter?”
“Yes. I’m quitting.”
“Quitting?”
She let out a short, hollow laugh.
“What am I going to do with this kid… Were you always this stupid, or did the beating knock your last brain cells loose? You think you can get away from me?”
“…No.”
“Then what is it?”
“I’m going to find something else to do.”
A snort slipped from between Dayoung’s lips.
“Where else is going to pay better than our branch? Planning to do some back-breaking labor?”
I pressed my lips together tightly. Dayoung tapped the desk with her finger and stared straight at me.
“Did you really think I’d just smile and say ‘Sure, go ahead’ if you told me you were leaving?”
“……”
“You know your sister took out that loan under your name, right? Well, that debt belongs to my capital company.”
She continued without waiting for my answer.
“Your name popped up on the blacklist. Blood really is thicker than water, huh? It never helps.”
“……”
“The staff wanted to sell you to a bar to cover the debt instead.”
Dayoung’s red lips curved into a grotesque smile.
“I had to work incredibly hard to stop them. And now you want to scurry off somewhere else like a little rat?”
The word “bar” painted my mind pitch black. Maybe Dayoung had known everything from the start. Or maybe she hadn’t just known—maybe she had been the one pulling the strings, coaxing Heeju into taking out the loan. I had suspected she might dig into my past, but I never imagined she would know about Heeju too. Of course investigating me would reveal Heeju. It was obvious.
The strength drained from the hand holding the resignation letter.
“That was…”
When I couldn’t finish and only moved my lips, Dayoung glared at me in disbelief.
“Did you think I was joking when I said I saved you?”
Still seated, she reached out her hand toward me.
“Give it here.”
I hid the letter behind my back, avoiding her outstretched palm.
“Sujung.”
Dayoung’s voice dropped.
“While I’m still asking nicely.”
I hesitated, then held the resignation letter out toward her hand. It wasn’t my will so much as raw survival instinct that moved first. Dayoung took the paper, unfolded it indifferently, scanned my name, and then twisted her lips.
“How very diligent. You even wrote one of these.”
She gripped the top of the letter with both hands.
Riiip.
Riiiiip.
Once. Twice. The resignation letter was brutally torn into four miserable pieces. With an elegant flick of her wrist, Dayoung tossed the shredded bundle into the trash can. She rubbed her fingertips together, shaking off the paper dust as if putting on a show.
My resignation letter… With two casual motions of her hand, it had scattered into nothing. My name and every hope written on that paper had been ripped apart along with it.
Both my hands curled into tight fists. My nails dug deep into my palms, but I didn’t feel any pain.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Dayoung spat. “When I tell you to come, you come. When I tell you to spread your legs, you spread them. That’s all you have to do.”
I fought back the sob rising in my throat.
“You just have to listen to me like a good girl.”
I stared directly at her—the woman who wore the same face as my dead lover while spewing such poison. My throat tightened until it felt numb.
“I don’t want to.”
Despite the resolve in my heart, my voice came out pathetically small.
“I can handle it myself…”
All trace of amusement vanished from Dayoung’s face.
“Ha.”
She let out a short, freezing breath.
“I break your spirit and you still manage to crawl back to life from somewhere.”
The chair scraped loudly as Dayoung stood up.
“Why are you like this? Seriously?”
I stumbled back a step, terrified. She began walking around the desk toward me, her smooth legs carrying her forward with deliberate steps.
“Is the woman who almost became my new sister-in-law really this stupid? No learning ability at all?”
The sharp click of her heels struck the floor like they were stomping on my heart. I instinctively retreated to keep distance between us. She advanced, I retreated, again and again, until my back finally hit the wall. There was nowhere left to run.
Dayoung closed the distance until she stood right in front of me. A cold, unfamiliar perfume—nothing like Soyeon’s—invaded my nose. It was the same face as Sister Soyeon, yet those deep purple eyes held only a chilling, violent nature.
Bang!
Her hand slammed against the wall beside my face. I tried to steady my trembling legs, but it was impossible. Her presence forced my gaze down to the floor.
“Sujung.”
Her voice was low and sticky, the kind that crawled down my spine.
“Do you still think you get to choose? You should be on your knees thanking me.”
With the face I had loved more than anything in the world, she was tearing my heart open with filthy words.
“Just stick a straw in me like you did with Kim Soyeon.”
Tears welled up and blurred my vision. The cold purple before me began to bleed outward like watercolor.
“Or do you want to be sold? Is that your kink?”
I lifted my eyes upward, not wanting to cry, but it was useless.
“You’re a magical girl, so you’d probably fetch a good price. Want to get dragged to a bar and fucked by dozens of men all night long? Or would you rather give it only to me?”
I could only listen as she spoke about my body like it was an object. Even though we were standing in a bright office at the end of a clean hallway, it felt like I had been dragged into the middle of a brothel. Every time she spoke with Kim Soyeon’s face, my sense of self-worth crumbled a little more.
Yet the most pathetic part was that the only person who could pull me out of this gutter was Kim Dayoung herself. I bit my dry lips and shoved my pride into a dark corner of my mind.
“…I don’t like the bar.”
“Oh? Then who should you be giving it to?”
Dayoung smiled viciously, waiting for me to say her name with my own mouth.
I squeezed my eyes shut once, then opened them.
“Who are you going to give it to?”
I already knew. I had no real choice.
“To… Kim Dayoung…”
The tears that had pooled at the corners of my eyes finally spilled over.
“You should call me Dayoung unnie.”
“…To Dayoung unnie.”
I wiped the hot trails running down my cheeks with my coat sleeve. Dayoung still had her hand planted on the wall, completely blocking any escape. I could feel her breath on my skin.
“Good girl. Aren’t you grateful?”
“…Yes.”
“Finally learning how to listen.”
I don’t know when it had happened, but my gaze had sunk far below hers. I forced strength into my shaking knees and stood up straight.
Her large hand slowly stroked the top of my head.
In that brief moment, Dayoung’s touch felt like Sister Soyeon’s gentle hand—the one that had once saved me. Soyeon’s image overlapped with Dayoung’s cold face. The suffocating pressure in my chest seemed to loosen, just a little. The fear that had swallowed my heart eased for a second and I felt almost at peace.
But Dayoung refused to allow even that tiny illusion.
“Who are you thinking about right now? Kim Soyeon?”
She jabbed my forehead hard with her index finger. My head snapped back like a roly-poly doll and bounced forward again. My whole body staggered.
“I’m the one who saved you, so why the fuck are you thinking about that dead bitch, huh?”
This time she shoved my forehead even harder.
Thud!
The back of my head slammed into the hard wall. My skull rang. The world spun, but Dayoung didn’t care.
“Huh? Sujung. That makes me feel like absolute shit.”
She reached out again.
Slap!
I raised my hand and knocked hers away. She was a magical girl too. She wasn’t someone I was allowed to treat this way. Human rights existed for a reason.
“Did you just slap my hand away?”
“…It hurts. Don’t touch me like that.”
“What? Wow, do you even realize how much I’ve been going easy on you?”
“This is abuse.”
Dayoung swept her bangs back roughly, her face savage. Her once-neat purple hair scattered wildly like a beast’s mane.
“I’m being so nice to you and you call it abuse?”
Crushed beneath her pressure, I fidgeted with my hands, reading her mood, before I finally spoke.
“If you have nothing more to say, I’ll be going now.”
Her eyes were too terrifying. Even though I knew better, it felt like Kim Dayoung would rip me to shreds. Two different people, yet on that face that resembled her so closely, the two of them began to overlap. Kim Dayoung was slowly devouring Kim Soyeon’s place and invading my mind.
A disgusting intruder.
The mere thought of Kim Dayoung—no matter how small, like a speck of dust—made my skin crawl with revulsion.
“Who said you could leave?”