Part 1 Epilogue: Hell
Even today, Yurin looked at her beautiful Seona and thought the same thing.
She really had found herself an excellent husband.
She pressed her lips to his and stroked his face with fond affection, and Seona, as if returning the gesture, gently drew her into his arms.
After the wedding, everything she had done to him over the years had filled her with such regret that she finally deleted all the videos and apologized for every last thing. And she had kept her vow ever since — to live as an ordinary couple, to love him the ordinary way.
Two children who looked just like the two of them sat at the dining table. Twins, conceived on their honeymoon after the wedding. Now seven years old, the boy and girl both took after their parents. The girl had Seona's beauty mark and sharp, striking eyes — pretty enough to turn any man's head — while the boy had inherited Yurin's feline features and a sturdy, spirited air.
Even today, the twins watched their parents' affection and groaned, Gross, complaining that it gave them goosebumps.
Truthfully, no couple on earth was more devoted than they were. Having a child at twenty-one and still burning with this kind of passion at twenty-seven was no small feat. But through Seona's devotion, and through Yurin's own remorse and the hard work of changing herself, their love had only grown more certain with time.
She was currently an A-Rank Hunter and held a team leader position at the Hwaryong Guild. Her mother, the guild's representative, and Mina — Seona's mother, now the executive director and her mother's right hand — made for a formidable network of connections. Her mother-in-law Mina, in particular, trusted Yurin completely for how well she treated Seona. And Yurin, in turn, repaid that trust by taking the best possible care of him.
Sometimes the things she had done to Seona before their marriage, back when she was barely twenty, still floated up unbidden. Why had she done those things to him? It was as if some evil spirit had possessed her. Simply having Seona beside her had been enough to make her happy. And yet jealousy — the fear that he might be seeing other women — had driven her to commit the greatest regrets of her life.
She decided she would make him as happy as the pain she had caused him, and she resolved not to dwell on the past any longer.
A sharp jolt.
A sudden pain bloomed behind her eyes, a dull throb spreading through her skull. The headaches had been growing more frequent lately. At first they came only rarely; now they struck several times a day.
It was the weekend, and the whole family had plans to go out together. She needed to pull herself together.
When she became a parent, she had decided she would not do what her own mother, Yura, had done — filling every weekend with strangers invited into the house. She would take her family out instead, and make good memories with them alone. Her mother had always brought unfamiliar people home on weekends. Having other families over like that had been a considerable source of stress for both her father and herself. And when there was already so little time to gather as a family during the week, spending the weekend with outsiders mixed in was exhausting for the children, too — especially when those outsiders were adults, and especially when the adults' relationships carried the subtle tension of business. Children wilted under that kind of atmosphere.
She did not want to pass on to her own children the things she had felt growing up. Of course, it was during those childhood years that she had met the person who became her hope, the one she would spend her life with — her husband. But that had been pure luck, pure chance.
Taking that stroke of fortune by the hand, and bringing the children born of that fortune along with them, they set out for the amusement park.
Another jolt of pain.
Her face must have tightened, because Seona looked at her with concern.
"Honey, let's go to the hospital. You look like you're really hurting."
Seona had always worn that worried expression whenever anything happened to her. She had felt the sincerity of it every single day.
"No, I'm fine. Just a little tired. Let's get to the park — the kids are looking forward to it."
She smiled at him and insisted she was all right.
"Are you sure you're okay? Then I'll drive. You rest in the passenger seat for a bit."
He was so worried he offered to take the wheel himself. Seona must have been tired too — he had gone to his parents' house just last night. Yesterday had been her mother-in-law's birthday, but it fell on a weekday, and work had kept Yurin from attending. Seona had gone in her place, taking the children with him. She still had to work in the field and couldn't take leave whenever she pleased. The Gates that Hunters were obligated to close were emergencies on the scale of natural disasters; field personnel simply could not rest at will.
Still, within three years she was scheduled to transfer to an office position at headquarters. Her mother the representative, her mother-in-law the executive director — the highest peaks of the organizational line were her own parents and in-laws, and she herself was an A-Rank Hunter at twenty-seven. At a mid-sized guild instead of Hwaryong, she would have been guild master material, or at least executive-level. Her experience was still a little thin for that, so not every place would take her, but she more than met the minimum qualifications.
They were almost at the amusement park. Thinking about work on a weekend meant for her family — she must have been losing her mind. She was starting to sound just like her mother used to. But she had no interest in becoming a workaholic. There was already too little time to spend with Seona and their children.
All four of them bought unlimited-ride passes and spent the day on attraction after attraction. People said young children never ran out of energy, but looking at the twins now — heads pillowed on her and Seona's laps, fast asleep on a park bench — she wasn't so sure. Seona seemed to share the thought; he glanced at her face and smiled faintly.
She felt happy. And the thought that this happiness would keep going filled her with warmth. It would continue until these children on their laps grew up and had children of their own.
Every so often at the park, other women would glance at her husband. But she no longer felt any jealousy. She knew with certainty now that Seona — the father of these children, the man who looked only at her — had no interest in other women. It was nothing like the old days, when she couldn't trust him. That knowledge had freed her from the dark, possessive desire that once lived inside her, the urge to dominate him completely. One look at the happy expression on Seona's face as he gazed at her with such love was enough to know that those days would never return.
A little later, when the children woke, Seona suggested they visit the zoo inside the park — the place the kids had been wanting to go. Yurin went along, already picturing how happy Seona and the children would look.
The children lit up at the sight of all the different animals. It was exactly as she had imagined. Seona, too, watched their excited delight and smiled softly, clearly pleased.
"Mom, look at that! It's so cool!"
The girl who took after Seona called out to her in a bright, lively voice. She was her own child, and yet Yurin found her impossibly adorable. She looked like Seona, but she was a girl — the same gender as Yurin herself. The thought that this child was the crystallization of her and Seona's love only made her more precious.
"It really is amazing. Aren't you scared of the tiger, sweetheart?"
Yurin smiled and played along, the expression a genuine mother's smile rising from deep inside her.
"Nope! Not scared. He's actually cute!"
In Yurin's eyes, her daughter was far cuter than any tiger. But the boy beside them flinched when the tiger roared and hid himself behind her.
"Mom… I think I kind of don't like the tiger…"
A slightly timid boy. He had inherited her looks, but Seona's personality.
"It's not scary if you're next to Mom. You're okay."
She patted his back gently, and the small hand that clutched her tightly made her heart swell. These were the children she and Seona had raised with such care — in a way, extensions of herself and of him. How could she not love them?
She wished this happiness could last forever.
Another jolt — sharper this time. The pain hit harder than before. She squeezed her eyes shut.
Seona and the children's worried voices called her name, and she gathered herself and opened her eyes again.
But all she saw was an unfamiliar ceiling.
Her body felt constricted, as if something were wrapped tightly around her. Her hands and feet would not move. She needed to understand what was happening. No — she did not want to understand.
"Patient Yurin is awake, Doctor. She's been having seizures for about a week now, and she was self-harming so badly we put her in a special magic-suppressing suit for Awakened. She hasn't been lucid since…"
"Don't even get me started. A patient this violently unhinged is one of the rarest cases I've seen in my entire career."
She did not want to hear those women's voices. Where had the happiness that had been right beside her gone? Someone had stolen it from her — she was certain of it. The thought sent her thrashing, screaming like a madwoman, trying to move her body. She howled as if demanding her happiness back, and the two women looked at her once, their faces drained of color, and left the room.
"We administered this much sedative and it still barely makes a dent. She's terrifying."
"There's nothing more we can do for now. Let's just wait until she calms down on her own…"
After thrashing for hours, Yurin's strength finally gave out. Her face was a mess of tears and drool, and she could only gasp for breath. Consciousness sank beneath the surface again, and she drifted off with the hopeful expectation that she might taste that happiness once more.
And so, in her dreams, Yurin continued to regret everything she had done to Seona, imagining the happiness the two of them might have had if only she had never done those things.
But every time she woke, hell unfolded before her.
Each time she realized that all of that happiness was an illusion, she went a little more mad — and all she could do was regret, over and over, everything she had done to the Seona she so desperately longed for.
Not long after Yurin was locked in detention, Yura realized her daughter's mind was coming apart, and in the end she had no choice but to have her committed to a psychiatric ward.
Whether from tenderness or from longing, Yurin was always calling for Seona. And every time Yura looked at her — at the hatred her own daughter had inflicted on him, and at the daughter now going mad with yearning for him — she suffered too.
Yura checked on her daughter's condition every day, hatred and pity for her colliding in equal measure, and for her as well these days felt like hell.
With that thought still in her mind, Yurin's screams reached her once again.
Ah… you foolish girl…