Chapter 37
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 37
Chapter Title: Noona's Confession - The Truth Is, I...
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I was a winner in life from the moment I was born.
Born into a good family with good parents and a pretty face.
I spent my childhood surrounded by love from everyone, wanting for nothing.
Right around the time I started elementary school, I got hooked on the idea that if I just mastered golf, I wouldn't need to bother with schoolwork or cram school or anything else. So I started following Dad to learn it.
Swinging a club on a wide-open course suited me far better than sitting still and scribbling with a pencil.
The moment I picked up golf, everyone around me started fawning over me, calling me a golf prodigy and making a huge fuss.
I loved the praise, and I enjoyed golf itself. Before I knew it, I was hooked.
According to my pro instructor, I just had great instincts, anyway.
Power and touch, both natural talents. He said I was already way better than he had been at my age.
Even a famous pro put in a good word for me.
It wasn't just parental bragging. From then on, my parents decided seriously to raise me as a golfer.
Dad took me to the golf course every day. Mom spared no effort to support us so we could focus solely on golf.
Before long, our family revolved around me. Both Mom and Dad had eyes only for me.
Golf looks complicated, but it's surprisingly simple.
All you have to do is get the ball in the hole, after all.
But the other kids didn't seem to see it that way.
Tough? Hard?
Why can't they just do what the adults teach them, follow instructions?
I couldn't understand the kids my age who cried when things didn't go their way.
I racked up good scores and got praised. Before I knew it, that had become the most natural thing in the world for me.
I got used to the expectations... and to living up to them.
Comparing myself to the other kids around me, I couldn't help but realize I was special.
I really was a genius.
At the elementary school level, I was invincible.
As long as I didn't make some major blunder, victory was mine.
And thanks to the pretty face I inherited from Mom, I got treated even better than my skill warranted.
Thanks to my parents' connections—or maybe that "prodigy girl golfer" title—I appeared on TV shows several times.
If I just never quit golf, this kind of life would probably go on forever.
That's what I vaguely thought.
But that smooth ride came to a sudden end.
Jin Sun-hu. A boy Mom brought home from somewhere.
One day, he suddenly wormed his way into our family.
Mom called him my little brother, but I didn't need any brother by then.
He wasn't particularly cute—same as my little sister Mi-so—and the way he huddled in the corner like a rain-soaked kitten was just frustrating.
Why was this kid in our house?
Noblesse oblige? Some celebrity charity work?
Shouldn't you just donate money for that sort of thing?
I'd heard his story. Yeah, it was pitiful, but did we really need to raise him here?
I figured the weird new little brother didn't have anything to do with me, anyway.
He just trembled in the corner. Never talked to me or anything.
I decided to treat him like some piece of furniture or a pet in the house.
Mom's attention shifting from me to him felt natural enough.
I was past the age of needing her doting, after all.
But Dad was different.
Dad didn't like Mom's attention pouring onto the new little brother.
From then on, Mom and Dad started arguing over the pettiest things. They'd raise their voices pretty often.
Mi-so's cuteness usually smoothed things over somehow, but I was hitting puberty and starting to feel the stress build up.
Then one day, it all blew up.
Dad hit Mom.
No matter how angry you get, no matter how wrong the other person is, you never strike first.
Dad had drilled that into me endlessly.
It started back in my wilder childhood days when I'd throw punches before words.
But still, this was Dad—the one who'd taught me that.
Mom was an adult, but in my eyes, she was even more fragile than me.
I couldn't forgive Dad for laying hands on her.
Seeing red, I grabbed a golf club and swung it at Dad's head.
There was a sound like a watermelon splitting, and Dad crumpled.
Sun-hu, crying in the corner, watched with eyes gone wide—that image stuck with me.
Dad got carted off in an ambulance. Took a dozen stitches and a three-week injury diagnosis.
Mom scolded me. You can't swing a golf club at people.
But I could tell she wasn't really mad. And honestly, I didn't regret it much. I'd upheld justice.
That incident created the decisive rift between Dad and the rest of the family.
Dad stopped taking me golfing. He started staying out more.
He'd lost his place in the home. Getting hit by me was one thing, but being ignored by Mi-so—his baby girl who'd always fawned over him—must've hurt more. Mom went without saying.
Honestly, I felt relieved.
I was sick of hearing amateur Dad nitpick my game, anyway.
Not even a year later, Dad's affair with a young actress blew up.
The gossip rags made such a splash that he ended up divorcing Mom.
From the times he'd barely come home, I'd known it was coming.
Custody naturally went to Mom.
I didn't care if it was Mom or Dad, but I sure didn't want to live with some new stepmom.
Dad shacked up with his young actress, so we all got what we wanted, I guess.
And that's when I got a professional caddie instead of Dad.
The golf world was buzzing with male caddie sexual harassment scandals right then, so Mom worried a lot. But the pro caddie my instructor recommended was gay.
Gay...
These perfectly normal-looking guys doing... stuff with other guys?
Just hitting puberty, I'd sneak peeks at my gay caddie matching him up with random guys around us in my fantasies.
And the guy he matched with most in my head? Sun-hu.
That's around when I started noticing Sun-hu—the one I'd always treated like he didn't exist.
Sun-hu had this... weird sex appeal, even as a kid.
Couldn't put it into words.
Pheromones?
Nah, not quite.
Anyway, in my fantasies, Sun-hu was the most aggressive of all.
With that cute face, grabbing weaknesses to blackmail.
Ordering around, tormenting, humiliating.
I loved imagining those scenarios.
But that Sun-hu only existed in my head.
The real Sun-hu was still a scaredy-cat wimp.
Creeping around the house to avoid my eyes, jumping if our gazes met.
Like I was gonna eat him alive or something.
I'd bully him on purpose because I hated seeing him like that.
Which made him avoid me even more.
And Mom would catch me and scold me.
But watching him made me wanna pick on him anyway, so it was kinda his fault too.
If you're a guy, act with some guts.
Mom's skirt won't shelter you forever.
Time passed like that, and I became a middle schooler.
In middle school, I got special treatment as a golf prodigy.
Minimal classes, then off to golf every day.
Hitting my growth spurt, my height and chest ballooned.
New clothes felt tight after a month, and out with Mom, people mistook us for sisters.
My chest was the real issue.
Nothing like the other girls in class—bigger than most adult women.
Judging by Mom's size, it'd only get bigger.
Sigh...
The bigger they got, the more awkward golf became, but something even worse: men's stares.
Not just boys my age—grown men, Dad's age, grandpa's age.
Association officials, tournament staff—they'd touch my shoulder or back at every chance.
Naturally, guys started hitting on me too.
Their sleazy intentions were obvious—their eyes darting unnaturally to my chest.
If they'd just groped me outright, I could've sued for harassment.
Those sensitive middle and high school years were hell, obsessing over that stuff.
The only guys who didn't? My gay caddie and his boyfriend.
They even volunteered as my shield against the creeps.
If the caddie had been like the others, I might've quit golf and locked myself in my room.
In fantasies and reality, that gay caddie was always a godsend.
Even now as a pro, I work with him.
If there were more gays, the world would be a better place.
Compare that to that timid Sun-hu.
Can't even talk properly when he sees my face, but sneaks peeks at my chest like it's no big deal.
I'd yell in annoyance, he'd flinch and look away... then a few days later, back to peeking.
I told Mom, but she's always lenient about Sun-hu.
He's still young, it's fine—his stares aren't lust, just curiosity.
Third grade elementary these days, and kids know everything.
Ugh. Mom thinks Sun-hu is a kid no matter how big he gets.
If I hadn't stopped her, she'd still be bathing with him.
For his own good, it was time he graduated from Mom.
Right before middle school graduation, I got my semi-pro license.
Competition was fierce, but it didn't feel that hard.
Amateur level, after all.
Once I had the official cert, I hit the airwaves again as the "middle school golf prodigy."
My name got out there, and I landed my first real corporate sponsor offer.
I'd done junior golf wear modeling, but this was my first big company deal.
By then, though, all that attention was a burden.
The excessive expectations, the cheering.
Stuff I'd taken for granted as a kid now annoyed me.
I still had so far to go. Just a semi-pro.
I couldn't deny that the hype came more from other factors than pure skill.
Parents' business cards.
My face and body.
And the association pushing me as the next icon to boost golf's popularity.
Secular, sure—but inevitable.
If you're aiming pro, you live off popularity.
No fame, no sponsors, no tournaments.
Knowing that didn't make the pressure vanish.
Am I really worth this treatment? I asked myself that over and over.
As a kid, I thought I was the best. But by middle school, I started seeing the pro wall.
Puberty, maybe. Everything stressed me out back then.
My first tournament as a high schooler.
I made one impossible mistake after another, going ten over on a single hole.
The worst score of my life—even worse than elementary school.
I'd never tasted failure before.
So I had no idea how to overcome it.
My mentality shattered. I faked a wrist injury that wasn't there, forfeited, ignored the caddie's comfort, and took a cab home alone.
That day, my stress hit max.
If anyone touched me, I'd have killed them, that's how bad it was.
Unable to contain my rage, I got home... and heard unfamiliar music.
Piano. A famous classical piece I'd heard somewhere before.
Not a recording—live playing.
"Piano?"
The sound came from Sun-hu's room.
I knew there was a piano in there.
When he was little, he'd practiced often.
But I thought he'd quit ages ago.
When was that?
The day I yelled it was too noisy?
I'd been stressed then too.
The faint piano leaking through the wall grated on me, so I lashed out at Sun-hu.
After that, no more piano.
"But... was he this good?"
Even to a layman like me, Sun-hu's playing now sounded pretty decent.
It used to be a total mess. Or... was it someone else?
I opened Sun-hu's door, and the piano came through clear.
Sun-hu was playing. So absorbed, he didn't notice me.
Well, well. Even a worm knows how to roll, huh.
One side weak, the other shines? Was Sun-hu like that?
I crossed my arms, leaned on the doorframe, and listened.
"Hmph, hm-hmph hmm~♪"
I must've been humming along without realizing.
That's how Sun-hu noticed me.
"N-Noona?!"
Sun-hu jumped up like he'd seen a ghost.
