The Day Yun Ayoung Became Obsessed with You
The days until discharge came and went.
No one came to visit me in the hospital room.
It was fine, though. Now we were all adults, and we had to respect everyone’s own time.
Even though I never received a single phone call.
Not a single text either.
Even if that were the case, it wouldn’t have hurt much.
“…Why?”
It wasn’t painful.
It was just… numb.
There was a strange gap between the pain and the numbness.
Reality felt distant.
The images in front of my eyes looked slightly off.
My body’s senses arrived one or two seconds late.
“………”
After a long time, my home was filled with nothing but dust.
Electricity and water had both been cut off.
I didn’t care much.
I lay down on the dusty bed.
Lying there, I stared at the ceiling.
That day simply ended.
***
“Um… yes. I understand. Thank you.”
I reconnected the electricity and water.
The money had already been handed over to my owner— no, the villain.
I borrowed a loan to repay the overdue amount as quickly as possible.
Next, I did a deep clean.
After cleaning, I emptied the refrigerator.
It was only after everything was done that I realized.
“I’m hungry…”
I’d been fasting for three days.
I ordered chicken and pizza for delivery.
I shoved every last piece into my mouth and vomited for a long time on the toilet.
***
“…………”
The phone still wasn’t ringing.
Most of the day was spent lying on the floor.
I had nothing to do.
It was boring.
There was no stimulation strong enough to make me go mad.
The movement of the flies flying in front of my eyes felt far more alive.
The fly’s mouth.
The fly’s front legs.
The fly flying and crashing into the window before falling.
So slowly, my head turned sideways…
“…Phone.”
I turned the phone on.
Still no texts came.
What exactly was I waiting for?
I had already cut him off in the first place.
***
“…………”
I opened the phone gallery.
Inside the gallery, countless photos had been taken.
And the majority of the most recent ones were of the owner and…
“………”
Only photos of the villain.
I’d been through every possible humiliation.
It seemed like I was doing everything to the point where I might as well have been burned to the ground.
Lewd expressions. Female expressions. Expressions I could never have imagined of myself.
Because of that, reality felt even farther away, and the shock didn’t hit.
It felt like the me in the screen and the me now were completely different beings.
Thud.
“Ah…?”
The phone turned off.
It was only natural since I hadn’t charged it for three days.
“…I hate it.”
In the black screen,
I was smiling.
***
“…………”
I stared at the phone all day.
It’s enough. Please. Stop. I’m begging you.
“……Haaa.”
In the photos of the owner, my appearance.
As I scrolled back, more and more photos with the unnies appeared, then photos with Sunwoo-nim.
In the photos, my face with Sunwoo-nim was distorted.
I deliberately avoided him.
I hated him.
I kept my distance.
Then I got close.
“Yeah…”
Slowly approaching him felt like dating.
When it finally reached the bottom.
“……………”
My face was brightly smiling.
The me who once smiled beside Sunwoo-nim—the me I used to be.
“………………”
My heart didn’t race with shock.
No palpitations. No emotions arose.
It was a suffocating silence.
That day, I could no longer look at the phone.
***
If love is expressed as a heartbeat,
It was only then that I finally understood what Sunwoo-nim was saying.
The foolish me. The stupid me. The thing I could never understand.
This time, only Sunwoo-nim realized it and told me.
“…Owner.”
The heartbeat in my heart.
The direction of my heart.
My heart no longer beat while looking at Sunwoo-nim.
It beat in perfect unison toward the owner.
The owner’s touch.
The owner’s embrace.
The owner’s breath.
The times spent with the owner.
And the reason I couldn’t erase the child inside my belly who was the result of that.
“……………”
Tears flowed silently.
That day, I cried without stopping.
***
The verdict is unanimous—death penalty.
“Ah…”
The owner died.
Nothing was left for me anymore.
***
“………………”
It felt like my heart had stopped.
My vision was filled with gray.
There was color, but I couldn’t feel it.
The body breathing was like an empty shell.
“……………”
I didn’t even feel like dying.
I just slept when I was sleepy, ate when I was hungry, cleaned when it was dirty…
I moved according to the procedures engraved in my body as if they were program instructions.
“Ugh… oeeeeek…!”
After eating dinner, I vomited.
My stomach hurt. My head was hazy.
Half-stumbling, I sat on the sofa and lay on my back.
…Thump.
“Ah…?”
My heart beat.
It wasn’t my heart.
Thump… thump…
“……Aaaa.”
The child’s heart.
The heartbeat of the child inside my belly. The sound of a baby’s pulse.
The heartbeat of an almost fully grown, unignorable child.
“Baby…”
I wasn’t alone.
I was with the child.
That was why tears flowed.
“Baby…”
Yes.
I’ll give birth and raise the child.
Even if it’s a child without a father, I’ll raise it well.
I’ll give birth, raise it well, and live a future where I raise the child with all my might even if I’m alone…
“No…!!”
No.
No.
No.
No.
“I don’t want… I don’t want…!!”
I didn’t want that future. That kind of future.
“I don’t want that at all…!!! ”
I wanted to go back.
I wanted to go back to the time when I was still in the party.
I wanted to see Unnie-nim show off her strength.
I wanted to see Se-a Unnie complain about being annoying.
I wanted to see Ji-eon Unnie smiling while drinking.
And… Sunwoo-nim. Sunwoo-nim’s touch. Sunwoo-nim’s eyes. Sunwoo-nim’s voice.
“Why… why…!!”
There was nothing.
Everything I had longed for and expected had vanished.
It was shattered to pieces. Ended in a single moment.
“Why… why…!!!”
Crazy bitch.
Filthy bitch.
Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam.
I hit my head with all my might.
I slammed my face into the floor until my head shattered.
“Why… why…!!!”
Hot air escaped through my nose.
Blood droplets fell onto the floor.
Naturally visible was the child inside my belly.
An undeniable reality.
“I… what exactly did I do wrong…!”
Wrong? I did wrong.
The sin of rejecting his heart.
The sin of rejecting it yet boldly staying in the party.
The sin of continuously demanding affection from him even while staying in the party.
The sin of being unable to approach him honestly in the end— the sin of trying to resolve it through another man.
The sin of running away.
The sin of ignoring.
The sin of turning away.
Selfish and foolish sins.
“Ugh… hic… huiiiii…!”
The child inside my belly was life and a curse.
At least for her, it was.
It forced the reality I wanted to avoid.
It forced the stopped heartbeat to beat.
It forced me to remember the things I wanted to forget
and made my whole body roll toward the sharp reality.
And
Above all else, the cruelest point was.
“Why… why…!!”
I couldn’t kill her.
I couldn’t kill that child no matter what.
Even though I wanted to go back, even though I wanted to go back to that party era,
I myself couldn’t kill the child inside my belly, and that was horribly hateful.
Did I even like him from the beginning? Did I really love him?
Wasn’t it just because I was lonely and used him however I wanted?
“Stop…!”
It’s pitiful.
Kind and good Sunwoo-nim.
In the end, I used him up and the party was disbanded.
“Stop!”
Selfish bitch.
I only took and never gave back.
In the embrace you gave, you spit out curses or knives, you filthy bitch.
“Please… please…”
A hallucination that wasn’t heard.
The things that shouldn’t have been heard rang in my ears.
[Dirty…]
With Unnie-nim’s voice
[Disappointment, Yun Ayoung.]
With Se-a Unnie’s voice
[How much we did for you…]
With Ji-eon Unnie’s voice
And
“…Sunwoo-nim?”
Sunwoo-nim’s voice.
“Sunwoo-nim… Sunwoo-nim! Sunwoo-nim!!!”
It didn’t reach me at all.
Because I knew.
He wouldn’t unconsciously blame me for it.
That was why I couldn’t imagine it.
I couldn’t recall it.
I couldn’t bring up his voice that pushed me away.
And—because of that, Yun Ayoung went mad.
“I’m sorry! I was wrong!”
I wish he had at least scolded me.
I wish he had gotten angry. I wish he had resented me.
If he had slapped my cheek and said he was playing with me, I wouldn’t have been this miserable.
“Ugh… ock… oeeeeek…!!”
I vomited my guts.
Transparent stomach acid fell to the floor.
My mind was dizzy. My belly was burning.
“Sunwoo, hic! Ni-im… Sun, woo-nim…”
My whole body burned.
My temperature rose as if I were in boiling water.
My head was dizzy, my nose burning.
────Thump!
“……………!”
My heart was beating.
The heart I thought had stopped began to beat.
“…Sunwoo-nim.”
The more I called his name,
The faster. The stronger. The firmer. The clearer.
“I miss you.”
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
The heart that started beating madly was clearly not the child’s heartbeat.
Yun Ayoung’s heartbeat.
When I whispered his name, when I recalled him in my head,
The heart that had been frozen like a doll on a cat toy began to burn hot again.
“I want to be beside Sunwoo-nim.”
I knelt and confessed my heart.
Blood droplets from the tip of my nose gathered on the floor and formed a mirror.
“Sunwoo-nim…”
In the mirror made of blood,
“…I love you.”
Yun Ayoung’s face was clearly the smile of a woman in love.
***
A few days later.
I received a call from Hyewon.
It was that she would partially repay the financial loss from the legal response procedures against the mind-control villain.
“Thank you, Unnie.”
“You should tell Sunwoo-oppa instead. Thanks to the material Sunwoo-oppa gave us, the case progressed much more smoothly.”
“Um…?”
I heard there had been videos sent to Sunwoo-nim from the beginning.
In case, I gathered them and used them as evidence.
I was able to confirm myself as a victim, not a co-perpetrator, and secure a favorable position in the court judgment.
“Ah… aah…!”
Sunwoo-nim.
Even in this situation, he’s still looking out for me.
“I’m sorry I can’t visit you in the hospital. What can I say as a substitute, but if there’s anything you need or something you want me to do…”
“……Yes.”
Then, the more so.
“There is something I must ask of you.”
I will also look out for Sunwoo-nim.
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