Refrain from Obsession - Chapter 1 - 1. Rise

‎‧₊˚✧[1. Rise]✧˚₊‧

“Kyaaah! My Lady!”

Right after hearing the scream piercing her ears, Aer’s eyes filled with the hazy sky as she moved away from the ground.

Splash-

The chilling sensation enveloping her entire body made her dizzy for a moment, and then her heart started beating violently. She kicked with both legs, but her dress got in the way, only resulting in constricting her body more.

Her body fell sharply downward under the pressing force from above.

Even underwater, Aer stared at her mother with wide-open eyes. Is that what someone possessed by a demon would look like?

No, it was her birth mother who had pushed her daughter into the water…

Aer wanted to live and tried with all her might to shake off her mother, but her fingers clung to her desperately, as if to take her as a companion.

‘Mother, why……’

Even though she had loved her mother, craving affection, why must she endure this?

Hot tears welled up even in the cold water. More than resentment, her heart was breaking with sadness.

Why must her life be so miserable?

Not only rejected by her close family but even having her life threatened, this reality was so devastating that she stopped struggling with her legs.

What would happen next was easy to imagine without thinking. Her heart was beating frantically, and her chest tightened.

The moment her toes touched the bottom of the pond, Aer completely gave up on living. 

At that moment, the pond churned. The water moved rapidly in one direction and then rose, carrying her and her mother.

Splash-

“Haaah!”

Aer inhaled deeply, taking in fresh air.

“Cough.”

Beside her, her mother spat out the water she had swallowed.

 “What on earth is this nonsense!”

 A thunderous voice boomed over the two who hadn’t regained their senses. Aer looked up at her father standing tall, her eyelashes trembling.

Even though she wasn’t a child anymore, her father still looked enormous, suddenly making her feel afraid.

“How dare you do such a thing in my house?”

Her mother, pale-faced and soaked from falling into the water, had eyes as lively as ever. Glaring fiercely at her father, she said,

“Let’s divorce. I can’t stand living with you anymore.

“……Ha.”

Her father snorted at her mother’s words. The two looked at each other as if they would devour one another.

Watching her parents like this, Aer clutched her spinning head and bit her lip.

She bit it until blood seeped out and flowed, grasping the grass beneath her hand.

If she didn’t do that, she felt like she might start shouting at her parents.

Her fingertips trembled, and her body, which had been cold, suddenly felt hot.

The two had never shown interest in their daughter Aer since she was young.

Watching her parents, who didn’t even spare a glance at their child who had nearly died, Aer heard something breaking somewhere inside her.

As dizziness overcame her as if she were crumbling from her toes upward, she reached out her hand, but no one was there to support her.

Thud-

Aer collapsed on the floor, not even attracting the attention of the employees, and slowly lost consciousness as her eyes fluttered.

Just before she completely lost consciousness, an irritated voice pierced her ears.

“I’m the one who’s sick of this. Fine, let’s divorce.”

The relationship between her parents, which had been like walking on thin ice for 16 years, finally broke.

With the sensation of falling through the crack of the breaking ice, she completely lost consciousness.

 ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

 Aer was having a long dream. Like a lucid dream, she realized she was walking through the dream world. 

As she quietly observed strange objects and people in unfamiliar attire she had never seen before, the world distorted and disappeared, and she slowly opened her eyelids.

The dark bedroom that came into view was a familiar place.

Aer, feeling uncomfortable with her whole body drenched in sweat, struggled to raise her upper body.

She turned on the lamp at her bedside and, feeling a thirst as if her throat was being torn, picked up the small kettle placed on the bedside table.

Without even thinking of pouring it into a cup, she put her mouth directly to the kettle’s spout and gulped it down.

If someone had seen her like this, they might have been shocked. It was behavior unlike her usual self, who valued dignity above all else.

“Ah, so… that’s why my life was so miserable.”

It was an odd thing to say as her first words upon waking.

She had fallen into an icy pond in the middle of winter and barely survived. Aer’s body, which was already weak, couldn’t endure and had to suffer from a terrible fever.

During that time, she recalled her past life.

And she learned why she had to grow up so unhappily.

From her earliest memories, her parents were always busy fighting. That’s why Aer always had to be on edge, watching their moods.

“Under the moonlit moonlight…”

It was the title of a web novel she had read in her past life.

It was a common cliché story with a ‘dump the trash, get a Mercedes’ plot, but it was extremely popular due to its three-dimensional characters and the author’s excellent writing skills.
T/n: In Korean culture, the phrase “Mercedes Benz and s**t cars”(I translated s**t car here to trash)  is often used metaphorically to describe a stark contrast between wealth and poverty or high status and low status. When someone is described as a “s**t car” in Korean slang, it means they are considered low-class, undesirable, or even contemptible. It implies that the person lacks refinement, sophistication, or social status. It’s a derogatory term used to criticize someone’s character, behavior, or social standing, suggesting that they are inferior or unworthy. And in this case, it’s because her father is trash.

“To think that Father was that trash…”

That was it.

Aer’s father was the idiotic sub-male lead in the story who had rejected the female lead’s love.

It would have been fine if he had just rejected her, but he even insulted and mistreated her.

Despite that, when the female lead later ended up with the original male lead, he belatedly regretted it and desperately tried to hold onto her.

The result of that continued until now. 

He was a father who, unable to overcome his parents’ pressure, even married another woman, but still couldn’t forget the female lead and neglected his family.

So her mother became increasingly exhausted and had hysterical outbursts towards her children. As it got worse, she eventually tried to end her life along with Aer.

The hand gripping the bedding trembled.

Even though she could calmly recall the past like a third person with her past life’s memories, her body’s reaction, etched with the memory of being on the brink of death, was different.

Her fingertips grew colder with the absurdity and unfairness of it all.

Aer got up, feeling a rising sense of frustration. She crossed the bedroom and approached the bay window.

Curling up there, she looked outside.

While lost in thought, recalling the contents of her dream, she suddenly became curious about the current point in time.

“…In the main story, didn’t the female lead and male lead get married and have a happy ending?”

As Aer pondered deeply, her reflection in the window caught her eye.

A pale white face from illness, delicate features, and vivid blue hair that was a trace of being the child of the S**t Car family.

Lastly, the pink eyes that she might have seen in the novel were indeed mentioned in a single-line description in the side story, confirming that she was the daughter of the S**t Car family.

Leaning against the bay window and examining her appearance for a moment, she muttered with a sudden thought.

 “Could this be…”

As the work was popular, readers had high expectations for side stories. The author of <Evening Primrose Under the Moonlight> released a side story like a Part 2 as per readers’ requests.

The content of the long side story could be summarized in two points.

The love story of the main couple’s adorable youngest daughter.

And…

“The poetic justice that wasn’t properly resolved in the main story. In other words, the downfall of the S**t Car family…”

She covered her mouth with both hands as the content of the side story gradually came to mind.

She was a character who had only appeared in a few lines. A character who later even received pity from the original female lead, a very minor supporting character among supporting characters.

Her sad and painful feelings slowly turned into anger. Her pale cheeks flushed with rising heat.

“Ah, this is so infuriating…”

In the novel, she was already dead before the family’s downfall. And that too, from an illness that could have been easily treated.

Awakeners and Healers.

They must be paired. If not, it can even lead to loss of life.

This was one of the core elements of this novel.

Most people manifest early as Awakeners or Healers, but the original Aer, who manifested late, couldn’t meet her pair and eventually died from losing control of her overflowing energy.

Not even the mansion’s employees, let alone her family, knew about this, leading to her lonely death. In the original side story…

That’s why she was the only character from this family that the original female lead pitied.

“…”

Aer clenched her hands together, her eyes filled with determination. She couldn’t just die like this.

Even if she couldn’t find her pair, there were plenty of ways to survive.

If she prepared well in advance, there was nothing to worry about.

Dawn was breaking.

Suddenly, there was a commotion outside. Wondering what could be happening at this hour, she slightly raised her head to check below.

At the entrance of the mansion, there was one luggage cart and one regular carriage.

And servants started coming out in a line, carrying luggage. It looked as if they were moving, and she couldn’t take her eyes off the scene.

Then she remembered the words she had heard before fainting.

[I’m the one who’s sick of this. Fine, let’s divorce.]

Her father’s cold voice.

Her mother was busy glaring fiercely and persistently at her father.

Lost in thought for a moment, Aer suddenly stood up. Despite staggering, she entered the dressing room and found a thick coat to put on.

Having decided to take very good care of her body from now on, Aer carefully fastened the front. 

Her mother was surely in the process of moving out.

She no longer had any intention of craving affection from her mother. That would have been the case even if she hadn’t recalled her past life.

She had left her affection for her mother at the deep bottom of that icy pond.

Still, there was one thing she absolutely wanted to ask.

The employees she encountered while hurriedly going down the stairs looked at her with surprised, wide eyes.

But that was the extent of their reaction. A child neglected by their parents naturally didn’t receive proper treatment from the employees.

Having grown up like that, not knowing what was wrong, Aer only now realized their attitude was disrespectful after recalling her past life.

However, right now, she needed to see her mother more than that.

Spotting her mother about to board the carriage, Aer shouted.

“Wait a moment!”

 Erika, who didn’t know she had woken up, turned around with a slightly surprised expression, then immediately responded with an expressionless face.

“Why are you calling?”

At the emotionless voice, Aer deliberately spread her shoulders wide, instinctively shrinking.

And looking straight into her mother’s eyes, she asked.