Chapter 1.2

The blatant mockery in his words briefly widened Seo-hwa’s eyes, but she quickly regained her composure. Knowing Seo Young-hoon’s penchant for spreading baseless rumors, it was hard to take his words at face value. 

“Don’t fall for his pretty face, that’s all I’m saying.” 

“I’m not interested.” 

When Seo-hwa answered curtly, Seo Young-hoon’s suspicious gaze quickly dissipated. 

“Yeah, a boring person like you wouldn’t care about men anyway.” 

“But why isn’t he hanging out with you?” 

“Why the h*ll would I play around with that lunatic? I just called him here to do some cleaning.” 

Seo Young-hoon snapped, muttering curses under his breath. 

“Let me make it clear—don’t pay him any attention. Just act like he doesn’t exist.” 

After delivering his stern warning, Seo Young-hoon walked past her toward his friends, who were calling for him. 

Trying to erase the foul words Seo Young-hoon had left behind, Seo-hwa’s gaze instinctively followed the path the man had walked earlier. 

What kind of family background did he have for Seo Young-hoon to mock him so openly? 

Her train of thought was interrupted by the boisterous laughter echoing nearby. 

‘What does it matter?’ 

Suppressing the brief surge of curiosity, Seo-hwa sighed deeply. The noise that had resumed weighed heavily on her. 

Was this really the time for her to be thinking about others? 

As dusk settled in, a heavy fatigue washed over her. 

* * *

Inside the building situated a little away from the pool, a drinking party was in full swing. 

The drinks flowed endlessly. What had started as a casual affair—drink if you want—soon turned into a pressure-filled drinking game. Even going to the bathroom required downing a drink, and returning late to your seat meant gulping down a penalty shot. 

She drank glass after glass. The liquor the kids had brought, claiming it was great, was so bitter it made her grimace. 

“Seo-hwa, we’re out of drinks. Go grab some more from over there.”  

The group that Seo Young-hoon called his ‘friends.’ Seo-hwa barely managed to slip into it as well. However, there existed an invisible hierarchy among them. A hierarchy divided according to family background. Seo Young-hoon sat at the top, below him Yoo Yeong-jae and Kim Hee-yeon. Below them Kim Young-won, Lee Byeong-jae……. At the very bottom was Seo-hwa.

Even with a father who was a hospital director, whenever she was inside this group, Seo-hwa was always at the bottom rank. She had once thought they were equals, but not now. That had been a naive delusion.

Seo-hwa rose from her seat without a word and headed for the room in the back. She knew the room was connected to the living room so the sound of their conversation would carry, yet the moment she left, the kids, as though they had been waiting, began bringing up an uncomfortable topic.

“Young-hoon, I heard that rumor. Is it true?”

“What rumor?”

“The rumor that after graduation you and Woo Seo-hwa are getting engaged.”

“Ah, that.”

“What, it was real?”

She had wondered why that story had not come up. Swallowing a breath, Seo-hwa briefly stopped walking.

“How did Seo-hwa supposedly soften up the Chairman? I’m really curious, that’s why. What did she do that he would have her get engaged to you? You two are not even dating.”

“Hey, what could that stiff Woo Seo-hwa possibly have done. Her dad is utterly devoted, you know. They say he is unbelievably good at flattering.”

“No, just how on earth does he flatter like that…….”

Seo Young-hoon’s group had subtly looked down on Seo-hwa. More precisely, they mocked Seo-hwa’s father, who toadied as though he would even lick the soles of the Daeam Group Chairman’s feet.

Even when such jeers reached her, Seo-hwa could not refute them. Because she herself could not understand such a father.

“Stop it, you guys. Seo-hwa will hear.”

Seo Young-hoon, who had been listening in silence, quelled their ridicule. Only then did the conversation that had been chewing over Seo-hwa as a side dish come to an end.

Seo-hwa bit down hard on her lower lip and took a deep breath. Rubbing her right ear, which had started throbbing again, she squeezed her eyes shut and opened them.

After fiddling with her earlobe and steadying her breathing for a few seconds, she masked her expression as though nothing had happened and walked to the living room. She set the liquor bottle on the table and sat back down as if nothing were wrong.

“Seo-hwa, why are you shaking like this.”

She had hidden her expression, but perhaps had not managed to hide the trembling of her hands. Glancing at the fingertips with which Seo-hwa was clutching her sleeve, Seo Young-hoon smirked nastily.

“If you do not feel well, shall I call the Director?”

“Do not mind it. It is just a little cold.”

“Yeah? Well then, whatever.”

It was always like this. She knew now. That Seo Young-hoon was enjoying this situation. The sight of Woo Seo-hwa being mocked, hurt, enduring humiliation. And the sense of superiority he felt when, like a hero, he blocked the arrows raining down on Seo-hwa.

“You are going to stay late today, right? It is my birthday.”

“……Yeah.”

Seo Young-hoon, his eyes slightly unfocused as the alcohol began to circulate, whispered softly. Each time he leaned to her ear and whispered, Seo-hwa’s body stiffened like a robot obeying commands.

She longed desperately to bolt under the pretense of going to the bathroom, but because Seo Young-hoon snatched her wrist, Seo-hwa had no choice but to sit there in an awkward posture.

She only imagined it in her head. The sight of her kicking away from this drinking gathering and leaving. The scene of her shouting boldly in front of the kids who had talked behind her back, ‘I also do not want any engagement with a guy like Seo Young-hoon.’

Make sure my efforts are not wasted.

At the same time as the imagining, her father’s stern voice and icy gaze vividly formed before her eyes.

The fear and helplessness of that moment had soaked in deeply like a habit. Clenching her quivering fist tight, Seo-hwa pressed down her heaving body.

“Do not tremble so much. I will tell the Director well that thanks to you it was a pleasant birthday.”

“…….”

“Grateful, right?”

Between her father and Seo Young-hoon there had long been an invisible connection. What Seo-hwa did toward Seo Young-hoon, how well she did, every bit of it reached her father’s ears.

On days she displeased Seo Young-hoon’s mood, beatings flew at her, and when Seo Young-hoon was in a good mood she could savor calm for a while. Seo Young-hoon regarded Seo-hwa’s shame and wounds as though they were tools proving his own superiority.

It was a dreadful daily life that had continued for years.

“Here, drink more. You are downing it in one shot.”

Seo-hwa gripped the glass of liquor that Seo Young-hoon handed over. The sneering mouths and mockingly laced gazes of the people surrounding her wavered vividly. She swept over them and tilted back her head.

The taste of the alcohol going down her throat was all the more bitter. That bitterness slid along her esophagus and spread to beneath her chest.

* * *

“Hh…….”

She had drunk so much her head felt like it would split. Her vision was blurry and drowsiness pressed in. She endured by willpower alone. Apparently, she was not the only one drunk; when she came to her senses the wide living room was already a wreck.

Shattered liquor bottles and leftover side dishes were scattered in disarray, and several drunk kids had collapsed, dozing against the sofa. Even the people who had stayed drinking until the very end were all gone, dispersed who knew where.

Seo-hwa also floundered, buried in the intoxication. If she closed her eyes, it felt like she would be sucked into a deep darkness. Though she ached to just sprawl on the floor like this, she did not want to lose consciousness in a space full of eyes that mocked her, so she barely endured by pinching the flesh of the inside of her arm.

She went outside the building to shake off the drunkenness. Feeling the damp wind brushing her face, she walked aimlessly toward a dim spot. Stopping on the path that connected to the back yard, she sank down with her back against the outer wall.

Breathing the outside air let her catch her breath a little. She was nodding, letting the alcohol wear off for quite a while when—Bzz—sharp vibration rang from the phone in her pocket.

It was her father’s call. After a few seconds of deep breathing, she pressed the call button.

[Are you doing well? You delivered the present to Seo Young-hoon?]

“Yes.”

[Yeah, what did he say?]

“……Ah, that.”

[He didn’t look disappointed, right? Do you know how hard it was to get that. He’d better have liked it.]

“He liked it. He said thanks.”

She parted her lips and, in the end, let a lie out. She could not bring herself to say that Seo Young-hoon had tossed the present into the pool and shown not the slightest interest.

[I was worried it might be a gift beneath Young-hoon’s class, so that’s a relief. From now on you have to try harder. Since the Chairman’s mouth has already produced talk of an engagement, you have to treat Young-hoon even better.]