BLRFC 01

Chapter 01…

Emergency Meeting at the National Intelligence Service.

“We have determined that Kim Hyun-cheol is currently hiding out on ‘Haesam Island’ off the southern coast.”

The information was that an industrial spy who had leaked a prototype sample of the next-generation all-solid-state battery, which could mark a major milestone in the development of South Korea, had gone into hiding on a small outlying island off the southern coast.

“Even the people from the main island barely know the name Haesam Island, yet he somehow managed to find it and hide there.”

Tae-joo, who was sitting with his legs crossed and idly tapping his toe, pointed with his chin toward the screen displaying the PowerPoint presentation.

“Are you sure it’s Kim Hyun-cheol? You can’t see his face clearly.”

At Tae-joo’s words, his subordinate moved to the next slide.

The screen then showed Kim Hyun-cheol, wearing horn-rimmed glasses, drinking makgeolli with someone who appeared to be a local villager. He was dressed in a sleeveless undershirt and loose traditional pants.

“Even for a traitor, his social skills seem pretty damn good—wait.”

Tae-joo’s eyes, which had been mocking the criminal, widened to an almost unrecognizable degree.

As if unable to believe what he was seeing, Tae-joo shook his head repeatedly and stood up.

Then he slowly walked toward the briefing desk.

He gestured for his subordinate to step aside and tapped on the laptop screen.

The more he zoomed in, the more the face of a young woman standing behind Kim Hyun-cheol, holding a handful of weeds she had pulled from the ground, filled the screen.

She had an innocent, youthful face that made her look no older than a college student.

Despite her cute appearance, she wore an extremely gloomy expression.

“Team… Leader? Do you… know her?”

Tae-joo did not hear his youngest subordinate’s worried voice.

Completely focused on the woman on the laptop screen, his eyes reddened.

Then, with trembling fingers, he slowly traced the outline of the woman’s face on the laptop screen.

“I found her. Our youngest….”

It had been twelve years since his youngest little sister had been kidnapped.

Haesam Island.

“Hey! Balbali!”

At Sang-hyuk’s call, Hae-som flinched as she picked peppers in the vegetable garden.

It was Park Sang-hyuk, the neighbor who had tormented her terribly since she was young.

Like Pavlov’s dog, her body shrank instinctively whenever she heard his voice.

“Are your ears plugged? Get over here, you damn mutt!”

Hae-som let out a quiet sigh and threw the peppers onto the ground.

Then, despite her displeasure, she obediently walked toward Sang-hyuk, who was sitting on the wooden porch.

That bastard always comes over and acts like he owns the place whenever Mom isn’t around.

Hae-som frowned irritably before remembering her mother, who went to the main island for several days once every two or three months.

Mom would probably be back around dinner time.

Today was July 11. Her birthday.

Right. Relax your expression. Don’t pick a fight with that bastard for no reason.

“Ah, seriously! The moment I have to get up myself, you’d better know you’re getting hit!”

Hae-som, who had been trying to stay calm while thinking about her mother, sighed and quickened her pace.

When she reached the front of the wooden porch, he pressed a backscratcher against her stomach and poked her repeatedly as he asked,

“What’s with you? Were you sighing just now? And what’s with that disrespectful look in your eyes?”

“No.”

“‘No’ is informal speech. Damn it.”

“You told me to speak informally before. You said you hated hearing me use polite speech.”

“Are you going crazy because the dog days are approaching? Why are you barking and making such a damn fuss?”

Hae-som forcibly swallowed the suffocating breath rising from her chest.

Endure it. This too shall pass.

How much delicious food and pretty clothes would Mom bring her when she came?

Endure it. Just endure it.

She resolved herself and once again silently repeated her own name in her mind.

Born on July 11, Yoon Hae-som.

From the moment she had come to this island, she had repeated those words to herself several times a day so that she would never forget.

She also repeated the names of her real parents and their home address.

Unfortunately, she had eventually forgotten the address of the house where she had lived as a child.

The one fortunate thing was that she still remembered the names of her older brothers, whose real parents had named them by incorporating the words of the Korean national flag, ‘Taegeukgi,’ into their names.

‘Tae’-joo, ‘Geuk’-joo, ‘Gi’-joo.

Ha… But what good did that do? Aside from their three-syllable names, their faces had become hazy in her memory.

Had she been ten years old? Or nine?

“Sweetie, shall we go to Mom’s house?”

It meant that it had been so long since Gyeong-hae, the owner of this house and the woman Hae-som now called ‘Mom,’ had taken her away that the memory had become distant.

It was when she turned eighteen, when she had grown considerably more mature, that she truly began thinking that she had to escape the island.

She had become afraid that she would forget the faces of her mother, father, and older brothers, and she tried desperately to escape somehow.

But every time, Gyeong-hae held her back.

Besides, the island where she was trapped was a tiny outlying island located far from the main island.

Even if all the villagers were counted together, there were only three households: the village chief and his wife, Sang-hyuk’s family, and an elderly couple in their eighties.

None of them seemed to have any particular connections on the mainland, and except on market days, hardly anyone came and went from the island, making escape difficult.

In the first place, it meant that boats hardly ever came to the island.

Very occasionally, employees from the Marine National Park or electrical construction workers would come to measure environmental indicators or deal with problems with the power supply, but every time that happened, Gyeong-hae locked Hae-som inside the house.

Even on this tiny island, Gyeong-hae was regarded as a crazy woman, so the villagers never told outsiders about Hae-som’s existence.

That did not mean that Hae-som had been abducted by Gyeong-hae in some overtly inhumane manner.

It was only after some time had passed that she began to realize that she had been kidnapped and brought to this island.

The day she was kidnapped.

On her way home from school, an unfamiliar woman approached her, claiming to be a friend of her mother.

Naturally, she had been suspicious at first. But the woman knew her parents’ names and even the hospital where they both worked, and she showed Hae-som photographs of herself with them.

At that age, when someone presented evidence like that, it was harder not to believe her than to be deceived.

Above all—

“Auntie has a daughter about your age, too. Would you like to be friends with my daughter?”

“…….”

“My daughter is sick and can’t go outside. Would you be a good girl and come with me to play with her?”

Hae-som had been a precious little girl who had grown up knowing nothing but love, so she was moved by the news of the poor child.

But after following the woman a long way, there was no child there. There were only a few pieces of clothing and some toys that belonged to the girl.

Whenever the woman began crying loudly while fiddling with those things, Hae-som would hold her hand.

When the woman thanked her, Hae-som felt a pang in her heart.

That woman, Gyeong-hae, treated her extremely well.

So well that Hae-som could not shake off her pity for her.

Her gaze was so affectionate and tender that Hae-som could almost mistake her for her real mother.

“Daughter. Are you awake?”

At some point, she began calling Hae-som her daughter.

Hae-som thought it was because they had grown close, but Gyeong-hae truly regarded her as her daughter.

There was nothing unpleasant about Gyeong-hae’s affection, but Hae-som missed her mother, father, and brothers.

So whenever she cried and threw a tantrum, saying that she wanted to go home, Gyeong-hae would suddenly change her expression and pick up a switch.

Hae-som even ran desperately toward the shore in an attempt to escape, but Gyeong-hae soon caught her and severely punished her.

And at the time, Hae-som had been too young.

Whenever Gyeong-hae apologized, said she was sorry, and gave her delicious snacks, Hae-som simply forgave her.

That was how she became accustomed to living on the tiny island, where Gyeong-hae’s daughter did not exist and Hae-som was ultimately the only person by her side.

One day, as she grew older and began instinctively realizing that something was terribly wrong, she made a serious attempt to escape the island.

But Sang-hyuk, who was old enough to be her uncle, caught her and dragged her back.

“Once you become an adult, you’re supposed to be my wife! Where do you think you’re going?”

It was Gyeong-hae who saved her then.

“If you so much as touch a single hair on my daughter’s body, I’ll gut you, you bastard! Understand?!”

After that day, Gyeong-hae took even greater care of Hae-som and kept her hidden.

“Daughter. Don’t abandon Mom. You’re all Mom has… Sob….”

She even told Hae-som every day that she loved her.

“You only think about yourself! You ungrateful little bitch! Do you think you can live without your mother?”

Of course, there were many times when she suddenly changed.

And so, twelve years passed.

Because Hae-som had lived under Gyeong-hae’s brainwashing for so long, she gradually became numb and helpless about living on the island.

There was no school on the island, and Gyeong-hae refused to send her to the main island, so Hae-som received no formal education.

Fortunately, there were plenty of miscellaneous books in the attic of the house.

Whenever Gyeong-hae occasionally left the house, Hae-som did nothing but read.

Through those books, she gradually became able to sense that there was something seriously wrong with Gyeong-hae’s mental state.

The more she realized this, the more she felt guilty about leaving Gyeong-hae alone on the island, but her desire to escape grew like madness.

“You damn—! Your older brother is talking to you, and you’re thinking about something else?! Damn it!”

A large part of that desire was because of this bastard.

Because of the shameless, conscienceless man who had been giving her lecherous looks ever since she turned twenty.

It was truly horrifying. If she stayed here, she would definitely end up marrying that bastard.

“Learn to appreciate the value of your husband and start practicing serving him properly in advance, you damn mutt.”

Her husband? Ah, seriously.

Should I just slam my head into his?