Don't Pity Me

Jeong-i Halmae was the wife of the famous Gangju Group chairman, and she'd been living alone ever since she lost her husband. I didn't have much of a grasp on how impressive that was supposed to be, but I knew this much: a lot of people worked in this house. Even so, Grandfather didn't bother waiting for the errand-runner she always sent over. He sent me instead.

It was a kindness — so that Jeong-i Halmae, who had trouble getting around, could see me even one more time. I understood that.

"Yoonie's here?"

The housekeeper greeted me warmly.

"Did your grandfather send you on an errand? Good heavens, you walked here in this heat?"

"He specifically told me I had to come myself. Where's Grandmother?"

"At this hour she'd be, well..."

"The study?"

Jeong-i Halmae, like Grandfather, never let a book leave her hands even at her age. The two of them passed books back and forth and traded their impressions, and that was how they built their friendship. I couldn't overstate how intellectual and wonderful I thought that was.

"Hold on, Chae-yoon. Sit here and wait, would you? We have guests from the main house right now, so you need to mind your manners."

"Isn't this the main house? The main house is wherever the elders live, isn't it?"

"Well, yes, that's true, but we have guests all the same. Sit down — aren't you hot?"

The housekeeper bustled off toward the kitchen, promising snacks. The house was so vast it took an eternity just to fetch something to eat. But I'd been lying on Grandfather's sofa stuffing myself with cookies only a little while ago, and all I wanted was to hand over the book and go home.

The moment I was left alone, I headed down the hallway to find Halmae. She was usually in the study or her bedroom. Honestly, couldn't they turn on the air conditioner? It was boiling out.

The warning to mind my manners had already slipped my mind. Riding high on Grandfather and Jeong-i Halmae's favoritism, I'd gotten more than a little full of myself.

It didn't take long to regret not listening to the housekeeper.

The study door was open.

"Halmae..."

The moment I started to call for her, a sharp sound split the air — the sound of skin tearing open.

The sticky sweat on my arms, the hair plastered to my face — all of it vanished from my mind at once. I held my breath without meaning to. Before I could even register what was happening, that sharp sound came again, and again.

I knew it by instinct. This was the sound of a person hitting a person. Not the kind of punishment where you got your palm smacked with a school ruler.

I crept up and pressed myself to the gap in the open door. A cold sweat ran down my spine at the guilty thrill of doing something I shouldn't.

I could see Jeong-i Halmae from behind.

Her thin arm swung a switch even thinner than itself.

The switch whistled through the air and split white skin as easily as paper. With every wet crack came a breath — someone holding the pain in. I counted five, ten, fifteen. Jeong-i Halmae, who supposedly didn't even have the strength to walk, clenched her teeth and kept swinging, and with every stroke a vivid red welt scored the arm until it was packed solid with crimson.

That was the first time I understood what it meant to be crushed by the air itself.

I couldn't make a sound. I couldn't even think to stop it.

The back of Jeong-i Halmae as she swung that switch, as if a demon had taken hold of her, was terrifying. That wasn't the Jeong-i Halmae I knew. Jeong-i Halmae was the kind grandmother who called me cute no matter what I did, who called me pretty, who gave me candy.

"Do you even know what you did wrong?"

She flung the switch — broken at last — to the floor and spoke through her teeth, low as a curse. It was a voice I had never heard before.

"I don't know."

A calm, young voice. But even after being beaten until blood ran down his arm, the defiance in it hadn't bent even a fraction.

"Ha. Not even a whimper. Your mother was the same. A vicious little bitch, that one. Didn't know her place, and vicious on top of it... Threw herself at a man to climb out of her lot in life, got herself pregnant with you, then got bored and ran off, leaving behind the child she'd gone through labor to bear. With blood like that, of course you'd be just as vicious."

"I am my father's son."

"That's right. That's the only reason I'm going easy on you. Even if you've got that woman's blood in you — the kind who'd go crazy and start drooling at the sight of any man — you're still my excellent son's child."

Even to my ears, which couldn't tell the beginning of it from the end, Jeong-i Halmae's words sounded wrong.

Was she beating that kid's arm to a bloody pulp because he was his mother's child? What had he even done wrong? Jeong-i Halmae, panting, staggered. I flinched without meaning to, but I still couldn't bring myself to rush in — and unlike me, the boy who'd reached out to steady her was shoved back at once, his back slamming into the wall.

"Who said you could touch me?"

"..."

"Stay here and reflect until you understand what you did wrong. Don't you dare come out until I say you can."

"..."

"You're not going to answer me?"

"Yes, Grandmother."

Jeong-i Halmae's slippers scraped across the floor. Startled, I ducked around the corner of the hallway. I fled without making a sound, crouched down, and prayed she'd go the other way. But Jeong-i Halmae walked straight toward where I was hiding. What now? Should I pretend I knew nothing — call out to her like I'd just arrived? I didn't need a mirror to know my face was a wreck of shock. My heart was beating so fast I thought it might stop.

"Ma'am!"

From the other direction, the housekeeper's voice called out to Jeong-i Halmae.

"Chae-yoon's here. She came on an errand — shall I send her up to the study?"

"Yoonie's here? Walking, in this heat?"

"I know. It's only June and it's already this hot."

"Sending a child out in this weather — what if she gets heatstroke? I told them I'd send someone.... First things first, we need to get some food in her. Do we have ice cream in the house?"

"Yes, ma'am, there's some left from last time. You told us to keep it stocked so we'd have it whenever Yoonie comes. I'll get it ready."

Jeong-i Halmae changed direction, heading toward the housekeeper's voice. The tension drained out of me and I sank down right where I was. I was too confused. What had I just seen?

The sound of the switch splitting skin clung to my ears, thick and sticky.

Maybe I'd dreamed it standing up.

That doubt was why I chose to look into the study again. To check whether I'd been dreaming with my eyes open — whether the Jeong-i Halmae who worried I'd get heatstroke was really the same woman who'd beaten someone like a demon possessed her. The humid air stabbed my throat like a thorn. My fingertips trembled for no reason.

The study was still open.

"..."

"..."

The boy was half-swallowed by shadow, starting from the top of his head. He noticed me and lifted his eyes.

It wasn't a far distance. Not really.

The air was still suffocatingly hot, so I couldn't understand why the air on his side of the room felt as cold as midwinter. My gaze dropped to the arm stained red. He followed my eyes down, his face twisting. Then he yanked his sleeve over the wounds to hide them.

It wasn't tears or sorrow that flushed his face — it was shame, and that was the only heat in that disconnected air. I lost myself staring at the neat, pale face buried in shadow. I had never faced an atmosphere so still and so violent at once.

"Was it fun?"

"Huh...?"

"You were peeking. Like a little rat."

His voice was sharp enough to cut, and I just flapped my mouth like an idiot.

"That's not — I wasn't... Are you... are you okay?"

"Do I look okay?"

Look, then — the boy lifted his arm and smiled, a bitter, twisted thing. I couldn't look at the wounds straight on. I squeezed my eyes shut.

I never lost a war of words, not anywhere — and yet somehow nothing would come out. I wanted to snap back, but the bloody arm and the sound of the switch clogged my throat like a wad of overcooked rice. That reaction of mine, though, seemed to have wounded his pride instead.

"What, do you pity me too?"

His eyes were red with rage, hot as fire.

"Stow the pity. I'm not someone you get to feel sorry for."

"What are you talking about.... Who's pitying..."

Anyone. I was.

I'd only ever gone head-to-head with kids from my class. I had no idea what to say in a moment like this. More than anything, I was so confused.

The Jeong-i Halmae who'd always been so kind to me had beaten that boy like a demon, and this boy had taken dozens of blows without a sob, without even a groan. He was smaller and skinnier than I was.

And more than anything, I was disappointed in myself — ashamed — that I'd witnessed the whole thing and, instead of stopping it, had just held my breath and watched. Blood rushed to my face until it burned red.

"If you'd just apologized, if you'd just said you were sorry..."

"I didn't do anything wrong!"

Emotion surged up in him, and the boy snapped at me, sharp.

"I didn't do anything wrong, so what am I supposed to apologize for?"