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Prologue

I decided I should never give my feelings a name.

Call it love and self-loathing comes trailing after; call it hate and it feels too pitiful. In the end, only I end up exhausted. Leaving that whole tangled mass simply as the lump called Cha Seon-tae beside me didn’t seem like such a bad way of handling it.

01

Mother killed herself for everyone to see.

“Her dad basically murdered his wife, right? Kang Ji-yul’s maternal family was ruined by that man too. The son-in-law stole the company and kicked the whole family out.”

“Ugh, but self-immolation?”

“She loses her family because of her husband, and he’s out chasing other women every single day. I’d want to die too. That guy is pure garbage.”

“Exactly. Min-su’s parents got divorced because of Kang Ji-yul’s dad.”

“Gross. Disgusting old man still acting like that.”

Because she set herself on fire right in front of Father, me, and every household staff member in the most deliberate way possible, there wasn’t a single person in the neighborhood who hadn’t heard about it.

It had only been a few days. This was my first day back at school after the funeral. I had braced myself for the talk. Chin propped in my hand, I stared out the window until I couldn’t stand listening anymore, then jammed my earphones in and laid my head down on the desk.

It was a sensational enough incident on its own, and the people in our town had always been obsessed with our family—one of the wealthiest in Muze. In a conservative neighborhood where few people ever moved in or out, there weren’t many big events to speak of. Someone getting into a Seoul university or landing a job at a conglomerate was about as exciting as things got. Father’s sins made for far juicier gossip.

From the time I was little, I had heard the story endlessly: a bachelor from Seoul seduces the innocent youngest daughter of a rich family, gets her pregnant first, then snatches his father-in-law’s company and drives all of his wife’s siblings out so he can play king.

Father ignored the gossip. Mother suffered under it.

But what tormented her most was something else entirely.

Even after cutting ties with her own family, she had endured everything out of love for her husband—only for the rumors of him constantly sleeping around to finally culminate in her catching him in the act with his secretary. After that, even I could see she was unraveling.

“I at least believed he loved me.”

Whenever she muttered those words in a daze, I felt stifled. Of all things, Father’s heart was the one thing she should never have trusted. How many women had there been even before Secretary Seong? How could she still believe in love after seeing all that? I couldn’t understand it.

“You have to believe in people who deserve it.”

“That’s right. Believe in the things worth believing.”

“…….”

“Ji-yul, don’t you believe. A person’s heart can never last forever. Emotions have an expiration date.”

That scorching summer, Mother burned hotter than the sun itself.

From the second-floor window I watched her body catch fire and Father frantically spraying the extinguisher. She was rushed to the hospital, but she died anyway.

After confirming her death, my memories became scattered fragments.

The portrait photo. The noisy funeral hall. Grandfather spitting out his rage. The red-glowing incense. The smell of incense. Incense. Incense. Red fire. Burning. Fire. Mother.

“Hah…!”

A sharp sting lanced through my lungs. I sucked in a desperate breath and jerked my head up. The homeroom teacher standing at the blackboard stared at me in shock. I gasped, then collapsed straight onto the floor.

Hey, what’s wrong with her? Crazy. She’s having a seizure. Is she gonna die? Voices buzzed around me. Somebody help Ji-yul! Get her to the nurse’s office!

At some point everything inside my head went black.

When I came to, I was on the bed in the nurse’s office. I groaned and pushed myself up. Someone approached from outside and pulled the curtain open. The school nurse.

“Are you all right? You collapsed during class, so your classmates brought you here.”

Her pitying face seemed to already guess the cause of the fit.

“Senior year is already brutal with studying. You must be going through so much.”

“…….”

“Your homeroom teacher said you can go home early. If you’re really not feeling well, you should see a doctor.”

I nodded without a word and got off the bed.

Going back into the classroom after that spectacle would only earn me more uncomfortable stares, so I left the school building without even grabbing my bag.

Standing at the gate, I reached into my skirt pocket out of habit to call a driver, but it was empty.

Where had I put my phone? Maybe in my desk drawer, maybe in my bag. I blinked blankly, then simply started walking. It was a walkable distance anyway.

Dragging my slippers along, I suddenly found the neighborhood around school unfamiliar. I always came and went by car, so it had been a long time since I walked these streets on my own two feet. Back in first year I used to walk home with friends sometimes, but at some point there was no one left beside me.

Had that shop always been there? I spotted a sandwich place I’d never seen before and glanced at it, but no interest stirred.

After walking for quite a while, it hit me.

Where am I?

Because I had kept thinking unfamiliar, unfamiliar, I only belatedly realized I had wandered into a completely different neighborhood from ours.

Muze wasn’t a big city, but that didn’t mean I knew every corner of it. Especially someone like me who only ever rode between home and school—I was hopeless with directions.

I scanned the silent streets where not even a stray cat passed by, then simply let my feet decide. My head knew turning back would be more efficient, but the inertia of walking forward kept me moving ahead.

Honestly, I didn’t particularly want to go home quickly either. Since I was already lost, what was the harm in wandering a little longer?

“…….”

I pushed through an alley lined with villas on both sides. The farther in I went, the shabbier everything became. Near the entrance there had been clean, relatively new villas scattered here and there, but soon half-finished building skeletons appeared one after another.

Sandbags tossed around carelessly, discarded work gloves, shovels—it was clearly a neighborhood in the middle of development.

At the end of the alley the path split left and right. I was lightly considering which way to go when—

Screeech.

The sound of tires made me turn my head. To the right. Diagonally across from where I stood, a gray van was parked. Dark-suited men began pouring out of it.

When I spotted the baseball bat in one of their hands, I instinctively ducked behind a utility pole. Even so, a strange curiosity made me peer through the gap between the pole and the wall—and my eyes landed on the last man to climb out.

I hadn’t counted, but there were easily five or six of them. Among that group, he stood out so sharply it was only natural.

For one, he looked distinctly younger than the rest. On top of that he was exceptionally handsome, and his build was unusually large. Anyone who saw that crowd would remember him specifically.

While everyone else wore full suit jackets, he was dressed loosely in just a white shirt. He was also the only one with a cigarette between his lips—he stuck out in every way.

They exchanged a few words in front of the van, then filed into the building right in front of them.

The building had a sign with only those two characters. That was when I realized what the dark-suited group was.

“Jeonryeong? Those are just the thugs who supply hired muscle. Don’t worry about them. It’s convenient to have a few little companies like that around. I can’t feed all of Muze City by myself, can I?”

I had overheard Father’s arrogant phone call once. The word “thugs” had been so unfamiliar it stuck vaguely in my memory.

The first gangsters I’d ever seen in my life, and the best-looking man among them. I huffed a short laugh at the odd irony and turned left. Whether some complete stranger was a thug or handsome—what did that have to do with me? I lost interest just as quickly.

After walking a long while longer I came out onto a main road, flagged a taxi, and went home. Leaving the housekeeper to pay the fare behind me, I went up to my room and fell asleep. That was how the day ended.

Most of that year passed in much the same way.

02

On the spot where Mother died stood the angel statue she had sculpted herself. Father’s orders.

There wasn’t a soul who didn’t know why she had killed herself, so it was an extraordinary piece of performance art, but I didn’t bother commenting. It wasn’t just the statue—after Mother’s death, the number of conversations I’d had with Father could be counted on one hand, and I avoided even looking at his face whenever possible.

Standing by the window and looking down at the yard, I saw a few bouquets laid around the statue. Some the household staff had brought a few days earlier for Mother’s first death anniversary; others had been bought by a guest who had just arrived.

Looking at the statue always made me uneasy; I could never hold my gaze there for long. I let out a heavy sigh and closed the curtains just as a soft knock sounded.

“Ji-yul, it’s Oppa.”

At the familiar voice I stepped away from the window. When I yanked the door open, Do Ha-jin stood there smiling after a long time apart.

“How have you been?”

“Fine.”

“You knew I was coming? If you were home you could’ve at least come down to greet me.”

“I knew. Just couldn’t be bothered.”

“You’re still cute.”

He didn’t drop the smiling expression, as if my indifferent attitude was somehow endearing.

The last time I’d seen him was early this year, at a family dinner when he had briefly returned to Korea. Aside from a slightly tanned face, he looked as neat from head to toe as ever. I gave a cursory glance over the bangs that neatly covered his forehead and the black checkered shirt before he pointed into my room.

“Can I come in? I’m bored.”

“…….”

“The adults are talking business downstairs. I feel a little out of place joining them.”

“Come in.”

There was no particular reason to stop him, so I stepped aside without protest.