A Crossing of Joy and Sorrow

He swallowed the curse he could not quite spit out and seized Yeon-jae's shoulders with brutal force.

"Answer me, Jeong Yeon-jae!"

The crushing grip digging into her shoulders twisted Yeon-jae's face with pain. And yet it was she who should have been the one hurting. The face looking down at her—on the verge of bursting—the thick veins standing out along his throat—looked far more agonizing than anything she felt.

"...Just how long were you planning to keep lying to me?"

He was clearly holding himself in. His teeth were clenched, fighting down the emotion that kept surging up his throat. Then, seeing Yeon-jae frozen stiff, he seemed not to know what to do with himself.

"Why did you do it? How long were you going to keep it from me?"

He asked her why. Those always-still eyes, that carefully composed mouth, twisted out of shape. He had been a man whose face never betrayed a thing. And now, emotion after emotion flickered across that face, moment by moment.

But Yeon-jae was unmoved.

Five years of raising a child alone. The tears that had once poured every night like a faucet left running had long since dried; they no longer came. The years that had passed without the child's father had dulled her, day after day.

I don't love this man anymore. I'm alone.

She had stubbornly reminded herself of her place, peeling away her lingering attachment piece by piece—so that she would not fall apart.

"...Forever."

Her frozen lips parted, and Yeon-jae forced the words out. Words she had kept locked in her heart all this time.

"You're the one who forgot me."

Yeon-jae pressed her finely trembling lips together. She had wondered if there would ever come a day in her life when she could let him go. She had loved everything about him. How could she let go of a man she had loved more than herself?

"I'm truly sick of it now. Of you. Of your family."

She thought she could say it now. That the Jeong Yeon-jae who had looked only at him no longer existed.

"So stop. That's enough."

I will finally let you go.

"Heart rate 186. That's normal."

The voice ringing in her ears made Yeon-jae's vision go dark. She closed her eyes, then opened them again. On the pitch-black monitor, a tiny white speck pulsed without rest. Each time the white speck swelled and receded, a fierce heartbeat thundered through the room.

"The sound is nice and strong, too—a healthy baby. It's 3.6 centimeters right now. Doesn't feel real yet, does it?"

"No..."

Yeon-jae stared at the monitor with somewhat dazed eyes, then shifted her gaze. The ultrasound probe gliding over her belly. The female doctor, who had been watching the screen with her, turned her head, and their eyes met in the air between them. The doctor smiled, her eyes crinkling, then pulled out a tissue and wiped Yeon-jae's stomach clean.

"That's how it usually is. We'll be able to tell the sex in about six weeks. Even if you're busy, you need to come in on your appointment days. The first trimester is critical."

The first time hearing her child's heartbeat. And the sex. The pregnancy that hadn't felt real even as she entered her tenth week now pressed down on Yeon-jae's heart with a heavy weight. When she had first seen those two vivid lines on the test, and even when the hospital had confirmed it—it hadn't felt like this. Twenty-six years of living alone. The idea that another life was growing inside her belly had simply refused to sink in.

"Next time, bring the baby's father along to hear the heartbeat. It feels completely different when you hear it together."

The doctor offered the words carefully, studying Yeon-jae's face. Knowing what she meant by that, Yeon-jae rolled her lower lip between her teeth and bit down. At the words the baby's father, a man took shape before her eyes. A man she had loved with a burning intensity—like a moth that throws itself into the flame even knowing it will die.

"You're unmarried, I see. You are planning to have the baby, aren't you?"

Morning sickness that hadn't existed before had begun, and as she felt her body changing, Yeon-jae had no idea what to do. The matter of the child was not something she could decide on her own. She had postponed the appointment again and again. She had only come because the hospital said she could delay it no longer. Watching her, the doctor seemed to take it as a given that Yeon-jae had made up her mind to give birth.

"I'll see you at your next appointment, then. Make sure you take your folic acid."

Having finished putting things in order, the doctor left the ultrasound room first. Left alone, Yeon-jae straightened her clothes and swallowed a low sound in her throat. Then, as a distant, dizzying feeling washed over her, she closed her eyes, and her lashes trembled without end.

If it had been up to her heart, she would have wanted him there with her a hundred times over. But the baby's father could not come. For two months now he had lain in the hospital, reduced to a vegetative state by the accident.

I have to tell them today.

Yeon-jae looked down at the ultrasound photo and let out a deep sigh. Her belly would start to show any day now, and still she was the only one who knew she was pregnant. She stared at it with a troubled face, then, at the taxi driver's announcement that they had arrived, slipped the photo into her handbag.

When she stepped out of the car, a now-familiar landscape filled her vision. The entrance to a densely packed residential neighborhood in Seogye-dong. She walked down a narrow alley and came to a stop in front of a small, single-story house. A single luxury sedan sat parked before the modest home. She could picture exactly who the owner of that sedan was—the one who had summoned her here.

Yeon-jae looked at the name written on the signboard, then pressed the doorbell. Not even a few seconds later, the fortress-like front gate clicked open. As she passed through the entrance, she clenched a fist already damp with sweat. Her heart began to beat a little faster with tension—because of the woman waiting for her inside. A person who always made her feel like a criminal. Who made her shrink down to nothing.

As Yeon-jae passed through the inner door and headed toward the living room, the secretary who had been pacing—Min-yeong—recognized her and came over.

"Why are you so late? And why weren't you answering your phone? I told you the director had an appointment."

In truth, Yeon-jae had known her phone had been ringing nonstop in her handbag throughout the entire appointment. She averted her gaze from Min-yeong and looked inward instead. A single room at the end of her line of sight. The owner of the piercing voice that occasionally carried through the old wooden door: Pyo Myeong-hee—the only daughter-in-law of Gu-il Group Chairman Gu Ji-gang, and the director of the Gu-il Foundation.

Even with a secretary like Min-yeong, the woman summoned Yeon-jae as if she were a servant. Her stomach was already turning, and she hadn't even faced her yet. Yeon-jae swallowed.

"I wasn't feeling well, so I got up late."

She couldn't tell them she'd been at the hospital, so she made up a plausible excuse. From beyond the threshold, a voice rose, pitched high with excitement.

"Will it really happen?"

"Of course. When have I ever been wrong? There'll only be one, but... the Grandmother Spirit says it'll be a proper person."

"Thank you, Shamaness. Thank you."

"A house so starved for heirs, blessed with great fortune. Only good things from here on, Director Pyo."

Laughter mixed in here and there with the excited voices. She couldn't make out every word, but she could tell the atmosphere was warm and cheerful. Myeong-hee always became hysterical after visiting Hyeonwol-dang. After her husband died and her only son was in an accident, she had come to rely on the shrine even more. On days she received bad news, the following week was a path of thorns. Counting it as a blessing in disguise, Yeon-jae let out a sigh of relief.

A presence stirred from within, voices drawing closer, and Min-yeong moved toward the room first. The fortune-telling session seemed to have ended. Yeon-jae followed and stood beside Min-yeong just as the door opened and Myeong-hee appeared. She hurriedly bowed her head.

"Jeong Yeon-jae."

The deep resonance, like a scolding, made Yeon-jae flinch. When she lifted her head, their eyes met. Myeong-hee's gaze snapped up at her, sharp.

"What on earth do you think you're doing? Didn't I tell you I was going to Hyeonwol-dang at two o'clock today?"

"I'm sorry. I overslept."

Yeon-jae bowed her head once more. Anticipating the berating that would follow, she squeezed her eyes shut.

"Overslept? Jeong Yeon-jae, who do you think you are, getting up later than me?"

Unable to tell her she'd been at a prenatal appointment, she had added an excuse. That excuse must have grated on her nerves—displeasure coated Myeong-hee's voice. She took a step closer and shoved Yeon-jae's forehead with a few sharp pokes.

"Do you have any idea how much money we've poured into you alone? We went to the trouble of holding a recital, debuted you—and you can't even play the piano."

Each time Myeong-hee shoved her, Yeon-jae's slender frame was pushed back helplessly, then righted itself.

"Then at least be quick about things. What is it you even do? This is why you should never take in the poor. Leeches, the lot of them."

Irritation mixed into that piercing voice. Hysteria surged across Myeong-hee's face in an instant. If they had been at the Cheongdam-dong residence, she would surely have thrown whatever object was within reach. It was only because they were at Hyeonwol-dang that she was holding her rage in check.

"I'm... sorry."

"And you think 'sorry' is enough?"

Yeon-jae hung her head. Then, seeing her own endlessly trembling hands, she clasped them together. In truth, this kind of abuse meant nothing to her. She had endured Myeong-hee for over a decade now. In that time, she had grown dull enough to be used to it.

The reason she trembled was something else entirely. The resolve she had sworn—I'll tell her today—crumbled helplessly the moment she stood before Myeong-hee. How could she possibly say it to a woman who despised her this much? That a lowly, wretched sponsoree was carrying her son's child.

Gu Je-heon—the only grandson of Gu-il Group Chairman Gu Ji-gang, and Myeong-hee's only son. Je-heon was the baby's father.

At fourteen, Yeon-jae had begun playing the piano under the sponsorship of the Gu-il Foundation, where Myeong-hee served as director. And when she turned sixteen, she first set foot in the Cheongdam-dong mansion. Yeon-jae had been playing the grand piano in the spacious living room when she first saw him coming down the stairs.

"You play the piano like shit. There's no feeling in it. What do you think you're conveying with technique alone?"

A voice low enough to send a chill through her heart. The man who had come close enough for his breath to graze her lowered his head and pressed a key. His long, outstretched fingers rippled across the keys, dancing. Even as a melody so intoxicating it could melt her eardrums filled the air, Yeon-jae's gaze could not leave his eyes. It was as if the world had stopped.

"You're Jeong Yeon-jae, aren't you? Our family's sixth sponsoree."

His smooth lips twisted, a sneer spilling out. And when those ink-dark eyes turned on her, the man was branded deep into her heart. She had never met him before, but she knew who he was at once. Gu Je-heon. The sponsor's only son.

From the moment she met him until now, ten years later, Je-heon had been her entire world. Just thinking of him made her chest ache like this. He was the man who would be her first love and her last.

She had believed it was a love that could never be—until a year ago, when a single reckless night became the spark that lit the fuse, and the relationship continued. It was a relationship they carried on in secret, but Yeon-jae had been happy. Until Je-heon lost consciousness in the accident.

"Hah. What's the point of even talking? Nothing ever changes!"

The deep, irritation-laced voice reached the ears of Yeon-jae, who had been lost in thought. When she lifted her head, she saw Myeong-hee raking her fingers through her hair in agitation.

"You go inside and get the talisman the shamaness is writing."

With that, she walked out of Hyeonwol-dang. Min-yeong, who had been wearing an awkward expression at her side, soon followed after her. Only after every trace of their presence had vanished did Yeon-jae let out a ragged breath. Only then did it feel as if her airways had opened.

If just facing Myeong-hee was this hard, could she really tell her about the pregnancy? If that man would just wake up, all her worries would be solved. But she couldn't simply wait for Je-heon, who might wake at any time—or never. Yeon-jae rolled her lower lip between her teeth. The situation, to which even she could find no answer, was stifling and agonizing.

Thinking that standing here would change nothing, she approached the room. She had to collect the talisman and deliver it to Myeong-hee. When she turned the doorknob, the scent of burnt incense seeped through the crack and into her nostrils. Yeon-jae stepped inside and lifted her head. On the magnificent altar before her, candlesticks glowed with a faint, hazy light.

"The talisman?"

She looked first at the celestial maiden statue facing her, then turned her gaze.

"Take this."

Looking down, she saw a middle-aged woman seated at a long table. The eyes that stared at her so stubbornly were uncomfortably direct. Countless shamanic implements lay at her side. Yeon-jae had come to Hyeonwol-dang several times following Myeong-hee, but this was the first time she had come face to face with the shamaness. It had always been Myeong-hee alone who entered the shrine.

Even as Yeon-jae approached the table, the shamaness's gaze remained relentless. Feeling a strange sensation, she reached for the white envelope on the table—

"Don't you tell them about that."

"Pardon?"

About what?

At the topic thrown at her so abruptly, bewilderment rose on Yeon-jae's face. The shamaness's wrinkled hand pressed down with weight upon the envelope Yeon-jae had touched. Straightening up close to the table, the shamaness drew nearer and jerked her chin toward Yeon-jae as she answered.

Toward a belly still so flat it betrayed nothing at all.