The Woman at Room 2

The woman furrowed her brow as if her head ached.

Without any awareness of what she had collided with, she only blinked her half-closed eyes and mumbled.

"R-Room 2……"

Tae-kyung stared down at Seo-ah in silence.

Under normal circumstances, he would have made a swift exit from the scene—or shoved the woman aside in irritation.

Had he suddenly come down with hearing loss?

Her faintly trembling voice reached him as if through water, distant and hazy. He himself had never wanted this, and yet everything struck him with shocking force, as though some unnameable thing had seized him in his unawareness. And stranger still, every shift of the woman's expression was being etched into his mind second by second.

"Excuse me—are you all right?"

Leaving Tae-kyung standing there frozen, Hee-jun, who could no longer watch, addressed Seo-ah.

"……What?"

Seemingly coming to her senses only at the sound of Hee-jun's voice, the woman lifted her head.

"……Ah—ow."

Her body curled in on itself again as though a fresh wave of pain had struck. Startled, Tae-kyung carefully caught her by both arms to keep her from collapsing.

"Uh…… ahem."

He wanted to ask if she was okay, but the words wouldn't come easily. He swallowed down a sigh instead, and as if she had heard even that, Seo-ah moved her reluctantly parted lips and spoke in a small voice.

"I—I'm sorry, but……"

Each time Seo-ah's large eyes, brimming with tears, blinked heavily, his brow flinched.

That voice…… talk to me?

Even he could see it was an absurd thought, but that was how her voice registered to Tae-kyung. Unnaturally, jarringly, as though it were not human speech at all.

This can't be real. What kind of insane……

"Where is Room 2?"

"……"

When Seo-ah opened her mouth a second time, Tae-kyung swallowed back the breath that had been about to escape him. Somehow, he could see his own face clearly reflected in the small drop of tears clinging to her lashes.

His gravely stupid expression, laid bare in all its honesty.

Ha…… what on earth has gotten into me?

He was dumbfounded. A situation completely off the rails was unfolding before him, yet his mind had gone utterly blank.

Still, he had to do something. She was searching so desperately for Room 2.

"Well, Room 2 is……"

Just as Tae-kyung barely managed to move his lips to answer, a woman's voice sounded from behind him.

From that very Room 2 they had passed by.

"Grandma, you're going to collapse like this. Mom, please stop."

Seo-ah's head turned toward the voice. As if she had spotted someone she knew, her face held a mixture of relief and other emotions besides.

"Oh—Sister?"

At the entrance of Room 2, upon confirming the face of her husband's sister, Lee Dong-ju, Seo-ah seemed to wring out her last ounce of strength, shook off Tae-kyung's hands, and ran.

"Dong-ju! Sister!"

"S-Seo-ah?!"

Having spotted Seo-ah, Dong-ju rushed out breathless as though she'd seen a ghost. Then she pulled her into an embrace and immediately turned her back.

But it was already too late to hide Seo-ah.

Like a swarm of zombies that had caught its prey, the pack of elderly women descended on her in an instant.

"How dare you show your face here?! Who invited you? Who called that wretched girl here!"

The first to strike was Seo-ah's mother-in-law. The blow she swung was followed by the women's torrent of abuse and a flurry of kicks.

The girl who ate her husband. The one who'll drag this family to ruin. That cursed fate of hers.

The insults hurled at her were vulgar beyond measure.

She had been the sole heir for three generations. Even in a changing era, with the precious son of a privileged family dead, all the blame naturally fell upon the ill-fated daughter-in-law. Perhaps the seed of it all had been marrying their son—whom they couldn't bear to lose to anyone—to the daughter of a rival company's CEO, with whom relations were far from friendly. Or perhaps it was the aura of Jin Seo-ah, who, according to a shaman, dragged misfortune wherever she went.

Dong-ha's mother had consulted that shaman for years, and now the despair of having failed to save her son even with her curses erupted all at once.

"It should have been you who died! Not my son—you!"

Tae-kyung, who had watched the scene in silence, tilted his head to one side without realizing it. Watching something out of an antiquated drama unfold before his eyes left a sour taste in his mouth. Throwing punches at a woman who already looked ready to collapse.

Tsk. With the careless click of his tongue, his brow arched crookedly upward.

"What is it? What are you going to do?"

In that instant, Hee-jun at his side grabbed his sleeve. Tae-kyung's long, narrow eyes looked down at him.

The light had drained from his eyes, and their depth sent a chill crawling up the back of Hee-jun's neck.

This guy is angry!

Hee-jun screamed it inwardly. For all that he seemed infinitely frivolous, Tae-kyung was always softer toward the weak, whatever the matter might be—and apparently the current scene had struck a nerve in exactly that disposition.

"Don't do anything. Please."

"Like what?"

"Anything at all. Nothing, okay? Not with those people."

What is he even talking about?

Quietly muttering to himself, Tae-kyung turned his head, and the look in his eyes as they settled on Seo-ah took on an unmistakable intensity.

As if, given half a chance, he might charge right into that crowd, sling someone else's daughter-in-law over his shoulder, and burst his way out.

Oh my god.

Hee-jun clutched at his own hair. However unfair it all was, she was undeniably a married woman, and this was her husband's funeral. It felt as though he had to get Jin Seo-ah far out of Tae-kyung's line of sight before whatever he was imagining could come to pass.

As if his judgment had been honed to a blade, Hee-jun swiftly shoved Tae-kyung's back.

"Let's go. Now!"

"Don't push."

The man, who hadn't budged an inch this whole time, said irritably.

"I'm not going to do anything. What do you take me for?"

Even as he said it, the rotten curses still being flung at her grated on Tae-kyung's ears.

So distracting.

A short while later, having finally escaped the funeral hall, Seo-ah sat down on the steps outside the building.

It was thanks to Dong-ju, who couldn't bear to watch any longer and had practically dragged her out to safety.

"You have to learn to dodge, not just take the hits. Look at your face."

Dong-ju reached out to the ridge of Seo-ah's brow, where deep fingernail marks were stamped.

At the stinging pain of the touch, Seo-ah screwed one eye shut.

"Old women and their tempers."

She seemed troubled by the wound, which was surely left by her own mother. Seo-ah's mother-in-law had been the sort of woman who, even at the wedding, had wept bitter tears over the loss of her precious son.

Throughout the entire marriage she had badgered Seo-ah about why no child was coming—utterly unaware, no doubt, of the fact that her son, the sole heir of three generations, had never so much as touched a single fine hair on his wife's arm.

Perhaps the bitter, cutting wind had dried up even her tears; Seo-ah opened her mouth, blinking her tender eyelids heavily.

"Sister."

"Yes?"

"Why didn't anyone contact me? I'm his wife. Did you think, like your mother, that it was because of me? That I'm bad luck, and so……"

Dong-ha's death had happened only last night. Leaving behind unanswered questions about his father's accident, he had refused Seo-ah to the very end and walked out of the house—and on the way to the airport, he had crashed, dying on the spot.

Yet not a single member of his family had contacted her. She had only learned of the funeral because the couple's longtime driver, unable to bear it, had reached out to her himself.

"It's not like that."

Dong-ju waved her hand and shook her head. She had argued with her mother over the order not to contact Seo-ah, but in truth, Dong-ju had been more worried about her safety. It was obvious she would face a scene like today's chaos.

Only now was she regretting that staying silent had not been the best choice.

"I'm sorry, Seo-ah. Thinking about it now, I wasn't thinking straight."

Among the entire Lee family, Seo-ah had relied on Dong-ju more than anyone. The sense of having betrayed that trust sat uneasily on her heart.

Just as Dong-ju was pouring out her apology, a man's voice called out to her.

"Sister Dong-ju!"

"What—Kim Ki-young?!"

Startled by the unexpectedly familiar voice, Dong-ju whirled around. There stood a man, a wreck of himself, trembling on the verge of tears.

Dong-ju stepped in front of him, her face drained white.

"Weren't you supposed to be in Canada?"

Kim Ki-young. The name Seo-ah had heard from Dong-ha's mouth until it wore on her.

It was the name—its owner—that had been needling at her thoughts even on the day of Dong-ha's accident.

"I was going to go. I was going to, but Dong-ha……"

"Kim Ki-young, enough! Nobody's in their right mind right now. Just go."

Seo-ah's eyes turned to Dong-ju's face, which was awash in panic. She had hastily cut off Ki-young's words.

Even so, Ki-young paid her no mind and clung to Dong-ju.

"I'll be quiet. I'll stay hidden somewhere, out of the family's sight."

Seo-ah had only ever known the name; the only time she had actually faced his face was on her wedding day.

But she remembered Ki-young's face with perfect clarity.

A man with features finer than most, who had gazed at her in the bridal waiting room with a strange, unreadable look.

—Dong-ha.

A late night, a soft voice drifting through Lee Dong-ha's phone.

The man who had called her husband's name so tenderly—that man had been Dong-ha's closest friend, Kim Ki-young.