Chapter: 03
The woman frowned as if her head was hurting.
Without even realizing that she had collided with something, she only blinked her half-closed eyes and mumbled.
“R-room number 2……”
Tae-gyeong quietly looked down at Seo-ah.
Normally, he would have quickly escaped the situation or pushed the woman away with annoyance.
Had he suddenly developed hearing loss?
The woman’s trembling voice sounded faint, like it was coming from underwater.
Even though he had never wanted this, everything felt shocking, as if he had unknowingly been struck by something unknown.
And yet, the fact that every single expression on the woman’s face was being engraved into his mind second by second was truly strange.
“Excuse me, are you okay?”
Leaving behind Tae-gyeong, who was only staring blankly, Hee-jun, unable to watch anymore, spoke to Seo-ah.
“……Yes?”
At Hee-jun’s voice, the woman lifted her head as if she had finally regained her senses.
“……Ah.”
As if another wave of pain had come, her body suddenly tensed.
Surprised, Tae-gyeong carefully grabbed Seo-ah’s arms so she would not fall.
“Um…….”
He wanted to ask if she was okay, but Tae-gyeong could not easily make his voice come out.
He only swallowed a sigh, but perhaps Seo-ah heard the sound because she moved her trembling lips and spoke in a small voice.
“I’m sorry, but……”
Every time Seo-ah’s large eyes, filled with tears, slowly blinked, Tae-gyeong’s eyebrows twitched.
‘She’s…… talking?’
Even he thought it was a strange thought, but that was exactly how Seo-ah’s voice felt to Tae-gyeong.
Strangely enough, it felt unfamiliar, almost as if it was not human language.
Does this make sense? This is insane……
“Where is room number 2?”
“……”
At Seo-ah’s voice as she spoke again, Tae-gyeong swallowed the breath that was about to escape.
He did not know what was happening, but his own reflection, engraved clearly in her tiny tear drops, was visible.
Even his serious and foolish expression was exposed in detail.
Huh…… Am I possessed by something?
It was absurd.
An abnormal situation was unfolding before him, yet his mind had gone completely blank.
Still, he had to do something.
Because she was desperately looking for room number 2.
“Room number 2 is……”
Just as Tae-gyeong finally moved his lips to answer, a woman’s voice came from behind him.
It was from the funeral room they had passed earlier.
“Grandma, you’re going to collapse at this rate. Mom, please stop too.”
Seo-ah’s head turned toward the voice.
Had she found someone she knew?
Her face showed a mixture of several emotions, including relief.
“Uh, unnie?”
At the entrance of room number 2, after confirming the face of her husband’s older sister, Lee Dong-joo, she seemed to squeeze out the last of her strength, pulled her hand away from Tae-gyeong, and ran forward.
“Dong-joo unnie!”
“Se-Seo-ah?!”
After seeing Seo-ah, Dong-joo rushed out as if she had seen a ghost.
Then she hugged her and immediately turned around.
But it was already too late to hide Seo-ah.
Like a group of zombies that had spotted their prey, the elderly women swarmed over her in an instant.
“How dare you come here?! Who called you?! Who the hell called this damned woman here?!”
The first person to attack Seo-ah was her mother-in-law.
Following the punches she threw, the women who came out behind her continued with their screaming insults and kicking.
The words they threw at her were all vulgar and cruel.
The woman who ruined her husband’s life.
The woman who would destroy the family.
The woman born with a cursed fate.
Lee Dong-ha was the only son for three generations.
Even though times had changed, his family had treasured their only precious son, and now that he had died, all the resentment naturally turned toward the unfortunate daughter-in-law.
Was the mistake marrying their precious son, whom they never wanted to lose, to the daughter of the representative of a competing company with whom they had a bad relationship?
Or was it because of Jin Seo-ah’s energy, which, according to the shaman, attracted all kinds of misfortune?
Dong-ha’s mother exploded with the despair of losing her son, even though she had followed the shaman’s advice for years in an attempt to save him.
“You should have died! Not my son, you!”
Tae-gyeong’s head, which had been silently watching the scene, slowly tilted to one side.
Watching something that looked like it belonged in an old-fashioned drama happen right in front of him made him uncomfortable.
And hitting a woman who looked like she was about to collapse at any moment?
Tsk.
His eyebrows lifted slightly as he clicked his tongue.
“Why? What are you going to do?”
At that moment, Hee-jun, who was beside him, grabbed Tae-gyeong’s sleeve.
Tae-gyeong’s long, sharp eyes looked down at Hee-jun.
The light had disappeared from his eyes, and their depth sent chills down Hee-jun’s neck.
This hyung is angry!
Hee-jun shouted that in his mind.
Although Tae-gyeong always appeared carefree and playful, he was someone who became even weaker when it came to those who were weak.
It seemed that the current situation had touched that part of his personality.
“Please don’t do anything.”
“What?”
“Whatever it is. You can’t. That person……”
What is he talking about?
While muttering quietly to himself, Tae-gyeong turned his head back toward Seo-ah.
His eyes carried an unusual light.
It looked like, if things went too far, he might actually break through the crowd, throw the other man’s wife over his shoulder, and carry her away.
Oh my god!
Hee-jun grabbed his own hair.
No matter how unfair the situation was, she was still a married woman, and this was her husband’s funeral hall.
Before the things he imagined actually happened, he felt like he needed to get Jin Seo-ah far away from Tae-gyeong’s sight.
After making his decision, Hee-jun quickly pushed Tae-gyeong’s back.
“Let’s go out, quickly!”
“Don’t push me.”
The person who had not moved even once until then spoke irritably.
“I’m not going to do anything. What do you think I am?”
Even though he said that, the filthy insults thrown toward her continued to irritate Tae-gyeong’s ears.
It bothered him.
A while later, Seo-ah finally escaped from the funeral hall and sat down on the stairs outside.
It was only possible because Dong-joo had practically dragged her out and taken her away from the chaos.
“Why didn’t you avoid them properly? Why did you just let them hit you? Look at your face.”
Dong-joo touched the area above Seo-ah’s eyebrow where deep fingernail marks had been left.
At the sharp pain, Seo-ah closed one eye.
“What kind of temper do those old ladies have……”
Dong-joo seemed troubled by the wound that was obviously caused by her own mother.
Seo-ah’s mother-in-law had been the type of person who cried huge tears at the wedding because she felt her son was too precious to give away.
Throughout their marriage, she constantly pressured Seo-ah about why she was not getting pregnant.
But she probably did not know.
That her precious only son had never even touched a single hair on his wife.
The cold wind of sorrow seemed to have dried up even her tears.
Seo-ah struggled to open and close her stinging eyelids before speaking.
“Unnie.”
“Hm?”
“Why didn’t you contact me? I’m oppa’s wife. Did you think it was because of me too, like your mother did? That I was unlucky, so that’s why……”
Dong-ha had died the previous night.
Leaving behind unresolved questions about his father’s accident, he had finally pushed Seo-ah away and left the house.
While heading to the airport, he got into an accident and died instantly.
However, no one in the family contacted Seo-ah.
The reason she came to the funeral hall was because the driver of her father-in-law, unable to bear it any longer, contacted her separately.
“That’s not it.”
Dong-joo shook her hands and denied it.
She had argued with her mother, who told her not to contact Seo-ah, but the truth was that Dong-joo had been more worried about Seo-ah’s safety.
Because she knew something like today’s chaos would happen.
But now she regretted that not contacting her had not been the best choice.
“I’m sorry, Seo-ah. Thinking about it now, I was being short-sighted.”
Even so, among the Lee family, Dong-joo was the person Seo-ah relied on the most.
Because of that, Dong-joo could not help feeling guilty for hurting her.
Just as she was expressing her apology, a man’s voice called out to Dong-joo.
“Dong-joo noona!”
“What, what?! Kim Ki-young?!”
Surprised by the unexpectedly familiar voice, Dong-joo turned around.
There stood a man with a disheveled appearance, his eyes filled with tears.
Dong-joo blocked Ki-young with a pale face.
“You weren’t supposed to go to Canada?”
Kim Ki-young.
The name Seo-ah had heard countless times through Dong-ha.
The very person connected to the name that had upset her even on the day of Dong-ha’s accident.
“I was going to. I was going to go, but Dong-ha……”
“Kim Ki-young, stop! Everyone is not in their right minds right now, so just leave.”
Seo-ah’s gaze moved toward Dong-joo’s anxious face.
Because she had hurriedly stopped Ki-young from continuing.
But Ki-young ignored her and clung to Dong-joo.
“I’ll stay quiet. I’ll hide somewhere so his parents won’t see me.”
She had only heard his name.
The only time Seo-ah had actually seen his face was at the wedding.
But Seo-ah remembered Ki-young’s face clearly.
A man with more delicate features than ordinary men, who had looked strangely at her while she was waiting in the bridal room.
Dong-ha.
The thin voice that came through Lee Dong-ha’s phone late at night.
Because the man who softly called her husband’s name was none other than Dong-ha’s close friend, Kim Ki-young.
