Chapter 2
Would she actually get a proper medical examination?
Only then did Dong-in get up from his seat and stand in front of the coffee shop’s automatic door sensor.
Judging by everything he’d seen, even if she did get examined, would he be lucky if she didn’t simply forge the medical certificate?
The thought briefly crossed Dong-in’s mind.
There was no need for him to wave his hand. The door opened on its own a moment later.
The heavy iron gate opened with a deep, weighty sound. Even so, Ji-i couldn’t bring herself to take a step.
“6895…… No, I suppose I should call you Ms. Song Ji-i now.”
“…….”
Ji-i remained standing, waiting for the command.
“Ms. Song Ji-i, let’s not see each other again.”
Here, even if a door was opened from the inside, entering recklessly could lead to trouble.
“…….”
“I believe that once you leave, you’ll continue to live as properly as you did here.”
Come on. Come on.
“…….”
“You should go now.”
This was what she’d been waiting for.
Whew. Why is he taking so long?
“Thank you for everything.”
Ji-i politely bowed to the correctional officer before finally stepping out into the world.
Finally……
Separated by this unmistakable iron gate, seven full years had passed—eight years by the calendar.
Freedom!
And yet, it didn’t feel real.
She flinched when the heavy iron gate closed behind her once again. Standing outside in the world, she instinctively turned around.
“As expected, it doesn’t really feel real.”
Ji-i muttered with an indifferent expression.
But when she turned back around, a mocking smile briefly stretched to her ears before disappearing in an instant.
“Hello, Song Ji-i.”
Song Ji-ru—no, Im Arang!
“…….”
“Long time no see?”
Arang—the one and only person Ji-i never wanted to encounter again in her entire life—spoke casually from inside a car with its engine running.
Yeah. It has been a long time.
“…….”
During her incarceration, Ji-i had met several people who were purely evil.
Even though prisoners were called by numbers instead of names, and even though they lived inside correctional facilities, they weren’t fundamentally different from members of society outside those walls.
However, there were people in society whom one had to deal with while remaining especially wary and keeping one’s guard up.
They were none other than people who were one hundred percent evil.
With such people, no laws, social norms, or common sense worked unless there was some kind of profit or personal interest involved.
It was the same even if the person happened to be a woman.
“You’re looking quite fine.”
She’s probably one of that kind.
People like that were never reformed.
They repeatedly committed evil deeds, accumulating convictions until they eventually ended up serving life sentences—or became the kind of people whose lives ended at the scene of their crimes.
Judging by that standard, was Im Arang a promising candidate for such a future?
The only difference was that she hadn’t yet had the opportunity.
More precisely, Arang had been given that opportunity, but Ji-i had taken the fall for her instead.
“…….”
“I guess the prison food suited your taste?”
I wonder if she flinched. Did I show any emotion?
“…….”
It wasn’t because her pride had been hurt.
It was more like a conditioned reflex.
During those eight years, whenever Ji-i openly revealed her emotions, she always had to pay for it several times over. It invariably ended with her being subjected to things she didn’t want by a group of people.
So at some point, whenever a situation arose, she had instinctively begun controlling her facial expressions first.
The place where she’d spent eight years was a system that forced you to swallow whatever you were feeling and protect yourself, no matter what was going on inside, simply so you could survive.
After living there for eight long years, perhaps she’d become completely two-faced.
Tsk!
She clicked her tongue after once again instinctively controlling her expression.
“Get in.”
No matter how utterly rotten Arang was, Ji-i had already passed through the iron gate and left the prison, the place that had cut her off from the outside world.
Here, no one would demand that she pay a price for doing something she didn’t want to do…… right?
More importantly, the ground beneath her feet now belonged to the realm of law. Even if she briefly let an emotion show on her face, nothing would happen because of it.
“…….”
Tsk!
Only then did she inwardly click her tongue once more and continue walking past.
“That old man.”
Arang drove alongside her at the same pace and sneered.
“…….”
Is Grandpa still alive?
Sure enough, Ji-i’s footsteps abruptly stopped against her will at Arang’s unexpected words.
“You must be curious about what he’s doing now, right?”
He’s really still alive?
“…….”
She slowly turned her gaze toward Arang.
Haa…… Am I really going to believe that woman?
Ji-i clicked her tongue again and resumed walking.
In fact, even the word human was too generous a description for Arang.
Right. An object. I was an idiot for ever trusting that object.
As she resolved never to acknowledge her again, not even with a glance, Ji-i’s fingernails dug painfully into her palms.
Only then did she realize that she was walking one step at a time, desperately suppressing the trembling of her clenched fist.
“Have you ever slept with a man?”
Once again, the car Arang was driving approached at Ji-i’s walking pace, and she casually asked the question out of nowhere.
“…….”
It hadn’t even been a minute, but that didn’t mean Ji-i’s resolve to never deal with Arang again had weakened.
It was simply that she couldn’t bring herself to completely ignore her adoptive grandfather, whose name and even surname she didn’t know.
Perhaps this was why people said that no matter how badly a person was beaten down, their innate nature never changed.
Ji-i knew perfectly well that Arang had some ulterior motive. During the past eight years, she’d learned through bitter experience that when faced with someone who was pure evil itself, the best course of action was simply to have nothing to do with them.
Even so, there was nothing Ji-i could do.
If it hadn’t been for Grandpa, she would have been reduced to ashes more than ten years ago.
She had been cut off from the world for seven full years—eight years by the calendar—but because she didn’t even know the name or surname of the adoptive grandfather who had saved her life, she naturally had no way of knowing whether he was alive or dead during all that time.
But considering that this object had deliberately shown up in front of her on the very day she was released, there was a good chance she knew where Grandpa was, wasn’t there?
“I’m asking whether you’ve ever slept with a man.”
“…….”
Worried about her adoptive grandfather’s fate, Ji-i stared silently at Arang.
This time, she had no intention whatsoever of hiding what was in her eyes.
Her expression barely changed, but the murderous intent and hostility in Ji-i’s gaze flew straight at Arang, completely raw and undisguised.
“I asked whether you’ve ever slept with a man.”
Arang gestured toward her with her chin.
That’s as vulgar as it gets…… Ah, who am I to think that?
“What exactly are you trying to say?”
But before long, Ji-i couldn’t overcome her disgust and self-loathing, and her expression revealed it all as she asked Arang in return.
After eight years of life in isolation, Ji-i was far removed from the innocence that would have prevented her from understanding the words Arang had used.
That was where Ji-i’s prejudice began: correctional facilities had a tendency to turn normal people into problematic ones when they were isolated inside them.
And it was understandable.
Cut off from the outside world, Ji-i had been forced to learn about all kinds of inappropriate things that were as far removed from ordinary life as one could imagine.
