"Look at me!" Hwang Jo-yoon demanded.
"My husband must have been feeling generous not to kill you," Ji-woo said with a shrug, turning to walk away.
"At least he can still breathe, which is more than I can say!"
Ji-woo was done with this. The fear Hwang Jo-yoon once inspired in her had long since curdled into contempt. She turned her back on him.
"Your husband thinks he knows you better than I do?" Hwang Jo-yoon shrieked. "Does that bastard know a single thing about your family?"
Ji-woo froze. The words struck her like a physical blow, wiping all expression from her face.
"If he doesn't know, then your whole marriage is a fraud," he continued, his voice a poison dart at her back. Words failed her.
"What kind of man, what kind of family in this world, would accept a child like you? Do you have any idea how much people care about family background? It's how a woman is judged, how her worth is measured."
Ji-woo fought to keep her chin up, clenching her hands into fists so tight her short nails dug into her palms. The sharp sting was a welcome distraction.
"If you hid this from him, he could take you to court for an annulment. Had he known about your family, your husband probably never would have married you in the first place. He would have wondered if you were even capable of raising a proper family."
In that moment, Ji-woo wished for a tree large enough to swallow her whole, a canopy of leaves so dense she could disappear among its branches and finally breathe clean air.
"How can he live with the child of adulterers? It’s disgusting." Hwang Jo-yoon was relentless. "You're an illegitimate child. Isn't it true your father is actually your uncle?"
A wave of nausea churned in her stomach. Ji-woo clamped a hand over her mouth, fighting back the bile, but he wouldn't stop.
"Your life was a mess from the moment you were born. You came from filth. To think I ever pitied you, even called you pretty. This is what happens with bastards who don't have a real family...!"
Ji-woo couldn't hold it in any longer. She doubled over, emptying the contents of her stomach onto the pavement as Hwang Jo-yoon leaped back to avoid the splash. He had dragged into the light the one truth she had fought her entire life to keep buried. Ji-woo’s aunt was several years younger than her mother, whom their absent parents had forced to drop out of high school to raise her. In time, both sisters married and had children. But when Ji-woo's mother, long past the age where she was thought to be having more kids, suddenly became pregnant, there was only one possible explanation. An affair with her own sister's husband—a much younger man.
Her mother had called it "love." How could you betray the sister you raised like a daughter? How could you sleep with her husband, her first love, and call that love?
Once the truth was out, the two adulterers fled in the night, leaving a newborn baby in the wreckage of their homes. Her aunt was destroyed, betrayed by the two people she trusted most. And so, Ji-woo was raised by her aunt and by her mother’s abandoned husband. They became her parents, taking the place of the sinners who had run for the hills.
All that remained of two once-happy families were the betrayed spouses and the abandoned children, all of them choking on the same bitterness. Ji-woo grew up to the age of seventeen in a house that felt as hollow as a ruin. This was the root of her anger.
Her capricious aunt both cared for and hated her. She fed Ji-woo, whipped her for the smallest infractions, and, as she got older, would throw her out onto the street in the cold. Ji-woo would never forget the day she accidentally called the woman raising her 'Aunt'. She was forced to sit on the fresh welts from a whipping and write a letter of reflection for hours, tears streaming down her face, still not understanding what she had done wrong as she scrawled the words drilled into her: Because she was the errant child.
Her cousins—her half-brothers—couldn't stand the sight of her smiling. Though they shared the same tragedy, they blamed Ji-woo for their misfortune, for the sin that had created her. Every year, at every new school, they would secretly poison the well, spreading an endless variety of degrading rumors to her new classmates.
She heard them all, whispered in the hallways, scrawled on her desk. My mom said her mother had an affair and ran away. It’s worse than just being born out of wedlock. Dirty blood! If you look at her, you’ll die! I heard if you talk to her, your parents will have an affair too!
The whispers started in elementary school and followed her into adulthood. She had been forced to change jobs three times. No matter where she went or what ties she cut, her cousins were always there, gleefully uprooting her life.
As a result, she grew wary of men and distant from everyone, finding comfort only in being alone. Solitude was her sanctuary. The quiet continuity of her daily routine. A life lived completely and singly, like a tree.
She retreated further and further into nature. The only moments she ever truly felt at peace were when she was standing under the trees, trying to become like them, to exist on their silent, patient level.
Hwang Jo-yoon’s piercing voice sliced through her memories, dragging her back to the grimy reality. "He might hate me for it now, but in time, your husband will thank me." A triumphant smile spread across his face.
Ji-woo’s body began to tremble again.