Moonjeong - Chapter 1

Swish. Swish.

I was in the middle of slicing up a watermelon that the manager had unexpectedly brought over, saying it was a gift for the lady of the house. The heavy iron door creaked open, and the hot, humid air from outside rushed into the house.

“Oh, it’s so muggy. This humidity just makes it hard to breathe,” a voice, heavy with the heat, sighed. It seemed like Mom had come back a bit early from her outing. With sticky watermelon juice still on her fingers, Chae-on headed to the living room and saw Hee-jung just stepping in through the front door.

“You’re back, Mom?”

“Yoon Chae-on. Why are you home at this time?”

“Vacation starts today.”

“Oh, really? That’s good. It’s so hot, you should stay in the cool house.”

Hee-jung dragged her right leg as she came in and plopped down in the middle of the living room floor.

“Hold on a sec. I was cutting up a watermelon.”

Chae-on quickly finished up in the kitchen. She washed the knife and cutting board clean and placed them on the drying rack. The neatly sliced watermelon went into the fridge. The emptied watermelon rind was divided up and thrown into a bag, which she tied up tightly.

“What’s with the watermelon?” Hee-jung leaned over to look toward the fridge and asked.

“The manager stopped by while running errands nearby and said it was a task from the lady. He said to bring it to our house.”

“Oh my, they thought of us again.”

“Yeah. I cut it up and put it in the fridge, so eat it whenever you want. It’s sweet.”

“Oh, thank you, sweetheart. I should call and thank the lady.”

At those words, a slightly sour expression flashed across Chae-on’s face.

“Why bother… We’re going there tomorrow anyway.”

“Come on. Still, you should say thanks right away. You should send a message to the lady later. I’ll give you her contact.”

“……”

If she had just said to pass along her thanks, it would have been enough. Chae-on bit her lip slightly, holding back the words.

She always found it hard to understand why they insisted on buying fruit at a high price from an expensive department store when they could get it much cheaper at a regular fruit shop. But they never really turned down the occasional gift of pricey fruit, especially since Hee-jung enjoyed it so much. Hee-jung’s gratitude was separate from Chae-on’s discomfort. Chae-on watched Hee-jung make the call with a look full of unease.

Hee-jung worked as a housekeeper at the home of Mr. Kim in Hannam-dong. It all started when she began working as a caregiver for Mr. Kim’s elderly mother.

As her illness worsened, Mr. Kim’s mother lost her appetite and strength. However, one day, after trying the seasoned crab that Hee-jung brought, her appetite miraculously returned. She barely touched hospital food, but she always ate the home-cooked dishes that Hee-jung occasionally brought. Mrs. Im So-young, who had noticed how attentively Hee-jung cared for her, then offered her the housekeeping job.

‘Mother won’t live much longer. There’s no sign of improvement, so we thought we’d take care of her at home until the end. After all, she’s my mother-in-law, but she’s a mother to him.’

‘So, you’re planning to care for her at home for now?’

‘Yes, we should. That’s why I was wondering if you could stop the caregiving work for a bit and come work at our house, at least while Mother is here.’

‘Ah, well…’

‘You know how generous my husband is. We’ll make sure you’re paid well enough that you won’t find it lacking compared to anywhere else. We recently had a lot of contracts secured after successfully negotiating for another Jun Gwang building in the Suwon industrial complex.’

Just as Hee-jung had to shoulder life’s burdens too quickly, Chae-on also matured much faster than other kids her age. She easily picked up on the subtle bragging and condescension in Im So-young’s words, implying that she wouldn’t find such good pay elsewhere. But whether Hee-jung noticed or not, she seemed to take Im So-young’s words quite seriously.

Chae-on didn’t really like Im So-young.

‘Hey, if a girl like you, who has nothing, looks as pretty as you do, you’re going to have trouble later on.’

Every time Im So-young saw Chae-on, she furrowed her eyebrows and said this. She acted as if she was concerned, but to Chae-on, it always sounded like a curse. She hated being constantly reminded of her own lack of means.

And then, there was her sickening hypocrisy.

Im So-young would hand over luxury scarves and bags to Hee-jung, pretending they were gifts. But Chae-on knew that these were items Im So-young herself used, only giving them away when they were out of fashion or when the market was flooded with fakes, making them hard to dispose of.

Once, while talking to her assistant, Chae-on overheard her say, ‘We can just give out-of-fashion things to our caregiver. That lady’s not in a position to see such things often.’

To the ladies who lounged in the living room or garden, pretending to be elegant, Hee-jung was nothing more than a trivial topic to gossip about whenever they happened to notice her.

‘Honestly, I’ve never seen our lady disagree with me. She’s truly a good person. Whatever you say, she just nods and agrees.’

‘True, it’s rare to find someone like that. You’ve got good people around you.’

One day, when Chae-on went to pick up Hee-jung, she was shocked by the way Im So-young, surrounded by women adorned from head to toe in expensive brands, praised her mother. They talked about Hee-jung as if she were an obedient pet, saying she was a good person because she was so compliant. It was all so deceitful, even though their faces showed no malice.

‘But isn’t she too pretty for this kind of work? Didn’t her husband die in an accident?’

‘I even suspected my husband when he suggested hiring her. I thought, is he considering making her his mistress? Am I going to become the wife who brings in a concubine?’

Unaware that Chae-on was listening from behind the garden wall, they laughed and chatted. Their pretentiousness was matched only by their vulgar minds.

Did money make people vulgar, or were they just people who didn’t deserve the luxury they enjoyed? Sometimes, Chae-on envied their ability to live such lavish lives, yet she was also disgusted with herself for thinking that way. Because…

As she was lost in these cynical thoughts, Hee-jung’s muttering broke through.

“They’re not answering the phone.”

With a puzzled look, Hee-jung tilted her head and placed her phone on the living room table. With a groan, she stretched her legs out, her face twisted in discomfort.