Hellfire Looks Like Roses

There had been a time when Mom tried to run, abandoning even Woo-yeon. Dad tracked her down at a jjimjilbang in Gangwon Province — a place he had never set foot in before — and dragged her home. The price of that desperate courage was catastrophic. Mom’s nose was crushed flat, and three of her bones were broken. Which bastard did you make eyes at? I’ll dig those eyes out. Report me or run again and I’ll carve up your whole family — in-laws, cousins, every last one of them — with a sashimi knife. I’ll douse us all in oil and burn the three of us alive… Woo-yeon knew, with absolute certainty, that those threats could become reality.

Instead of reporting Dad, Mom told everyone she had fallen down the apartment stairs, and Woo-yeon had to stand beside her and nod, confirming that her mother’s story was true.

How had Dad found her that time?

Woo-yeon still wondered.

What would happen if Dad found her?

…That, she did not wonder about at all.

Whenever the anxiety came roaring in, Woo-yeon pulled out her sketchbook and drew. Now she drew the man. Only him. She had met him just once, and yet somehow the memory of him remained impossibly vivid.

His face was clean-lined and beautiful, his expression gentle. Thinking of those deep, warm brown eyes made the anxiety slowly settle; remembering that low, soft voice made tears well up for no reason at all. The face that emerged from her fingertips was always warm and peaceful — unlike anyone else’s she had ever drawn.

“Don’t worry too much. Your parents don’t know where this place is. I made them swear not to tell anyone.”

Shin Min-hee, the older social worker, soothed her, gently patting Woo-yeon’s back.

The moment she heard Dad’s tearful voice, a chill raced down her spine.

…So it had come.

She had blocked every number connected to her parents, but the 031 area code made her think it was Seolim Arts University — and answering that call was the fatal mistake. The sound pouring from the receiver spun a sticky web around her ears.

It was a familiar pattern. Dad could be so tender when he wanted to. If she had still been at home, she would have listened to words like these, shed tears of relief, and resolved to manage his moods better next time — never to provoke him again. After being beaten half to death in the evening, a gentle coaxing the next morning left you no choice but to believe it in a desperate rush. She never understood why. But that was how it worked. Contrary to what other people thought, belief left you no room to choose.

Amazingly, she didn’t believe it now. That she had fallen for such shameless sweet talk again and again, pinning her hopes on it — she could hardly believe that either. She had only left home, only been apart from them for a few days, and yet everything stood before her with the clarity of a blind man suddenly given sight.

If they dragged her back, it was over. Woo-yeon understood that instinctively. One word tangled in that pleading and she would be hauled down into hell like a water ghost seizing her by the ankle.

And a strange stroke of luck like Mapo Bridge would never visit a person twice in one lifetime.

Without a single reply, Woo-yeon hung up and left her phone at the shelter. She wanted to live — not die — and for that, she would have to sever every bond without mercy, whether sacred or worldly.

“Jin Woo-yeon, where are you! Come out before I smash this whole place apart! Come out!”

In the end, Dad found the shelter. How he had managed it no longer mattered.

He began bellowing her name from the front gate. Jin Woo-yeon! Woo-yeon! The roaring was so terrible it felt as if it would rupture her eardrums. Staff members ran out to stop him, but it was useless.

“You won’t even hear our side of the story and you won’t let me see my own daughter — what kind of law is that in this world!”

Finally Dad shoved past the staff and stormed into the shelter.

“I’m her father! The real father who fed her and clothed her and raised her all this time! You can’t do this to me!”

“Her mother’s been wasting away ever since Woo-yeon disappeared — why do you only believe a kid who doesn’t know any better? Why won’t you even listen to the parents! If her mother dies, are you going to take responsibility?”

“Do you know what it costs a parent to raise a child? Are you going to pour money into our Woo-yeon like she’s your own? Are you going to keep paying her tuition and living expenses and even her wedding costs to the very end? You’re not! Are you!”

Three or four staff members clung to him, but they couldn’t easily stop the rampage. Other kids stirred and murmured from every direction; sharp, nervous screams burst out intermittently up and down the hallway.

Woo-yeon, who had locked her door and hidden inside, could not go out. It wasn’t that she wouldn’t — she couldn’t. The moment the shouting thundered through the corridor, her whole body went rigid and she couldn’t breathe. Clutching her throat, gasping, she collapsed onto the floor. The world before her eyes turned pure white.

When she came to, she was in a hospital. She had no idea how much time had passed, and she didn’t want to know what had happened afterward. Woo-yeon spent the hours trembling on the bed in the farthest corner of a six-person ward, the blanket pulled all the way over her head. Every time the door opened, it felt as if she were being strangled.

She had underestimated Dad. She had trusted the world far too recklessly.

After the scene he had made, she wouldn’t be able to stay at the shelter any longer. But if she left, she had nowhere to go. Come to think of it, she had no money either. Shelter fees, dues — the places money needed to go only kept multiplying. Woo-yeon hugged her knees and stared blankly into her thoughts.

F-first I need to get a part-time job…

A part-time job won’t even cover living expenses, let alone tuition.

She could hear the man clicking his tongue in pity. Thinking of him brought tears welling up again, like a conditioned reflex.

He was right. Working herself to death at part-time jobs wouldn’t solve anything. Mom had said just getting through a month cost 1.5 million won. Tuition, expensive materials, all those miscellaneous bills — she’d have to scrape together at least a million won a month. The school currently wouldn’t approve national scholarships or student loans, and even if that changed later, she couldn’t apply without parental consent.

“Hhh, shit, how am I supposed to make 2.5 million a month on part-time work — not even 250,000…”

The tears wouldn’t stop. Just paying five million won had felt like a dream, and now she was supposed to earn five million every two months. Even Unnie Hyun-mi, who worked at Dad’s gym until ten at night swallowing every filthy curse thrown at her, only made 1.45 million a month. How was someone bad with numbers, clumsy at work, unable to greet people properly, who mumbled through every sentence, supposed to earn that kind of money? She was so terrified now she couldn’t even leave the hospital room — what miracle was she supposed to pull off?

So even if she somehow held on, was one semester all she got?

Standing on Mapo Bridge, sobbing her thanks to that man, the future had looked entirely rose-colored. Now all she could see before her eyes were the raging flames of a Buddhist hellscape. Come to think of it, the color of roses and the color of hellfire were rather similar.

The feeling she’d had on the Bridge of Life had been much the same. At a glance the Han River seemed a fresh, living blue — but set aside a few glittering white flecks that briefly fooled the eye, and it broke down into black, dark gray, indigo, Prussian blue: colors that belonged to death. The beautiful sentences written on the bridge were nothing more than tiny sparkling highlights, there to make you forget the darkness for a moment.

“Woo-yeon, how are you feeling? Do you think you can sit up a little?”

“M-Ms. Shin Min-hee… Huh?”

She blinked blankly. Behind the social worker, a familiar figure in a black suit was following her in.

…Lee-won?

Woo-yeon couldn’t even manage a greeting — she yanked the blanket over her head. Whether from shock, joy, or sheer embarrassment, her heart was pounding hard. He had been about to come closer, but when he saw her he stopped short, eyes widening.

“I heard your… parents came all the way to the shelter. …They said you collapsed, so I was very worried. How is your arm?”

“……Yes. I got hit with a golf club, b-but luckily only my left hand broke.”

“I… see. That’s fortunate.”

“Dad was still half-drunk, that i-idiot probably mixed up right and left…”

Woo-yeon managed to poke her face out from under the blanket and forced a smile in his direction. But the sound of her laugh came out all wrong. He pressed his lips tightly shut, as if holding back words that wanted to escape. He clenched his jaw so hard that a fine peach-pit pattern appeared along it.

Even after the third memorial Mass had ended, Lee-won had been so ill he could barely get out of bed for days. But the moment he heard that the call was from the hospital where Woo-yeon had been admitted, his mind snapped sharply awake.

“A hospital? Not the shelter — a hospital, you said?”

The social worker told him how Woo-yeon’s parents had come to the shelter and caused a scene — and then delivered the unexpected news that Woo-yeon was urgently asking to see “Mr. Han Lee-won.”

The moment Lee-won heard about Woo-yeon, a dull ache pressed down on his chest.