Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Seoryeong shrugged, showing indifference. She chose one of the tea sets, tore open the packaging, and carefully placed it in the teacup. As she poured hot water over it, a rich color gracefully brewed.

“I behaved nicely as I was taught.”

“…?”

“Like a well-behaved puppy, with great humor, and pretty.”

She neatly organized the remaining tea bags and continued speaking.

“You know it too, Doctor. I tried to live righteously. I took care of and cherished even those who were dying. It was a job with no productivity at all.”

“…”

“But still, look at me now.”

Seoryeong gracefully approached, placing the teacup in front of the doctor. He felt his throat getting dry. He clasped his damp hands together under the table.

“What could have been the problem?”

His pitiful expression seemed somewhat theatrical to the doctor. The man quickly drank the warm tea to hide his expression. There was no time to savor the taste.

“Why do people give birth and then abandon, run away after loving, and betray even those they cherish?”

“…”

“Why did you do that, Doctor?”

As he was setting down the teacup, his hand made a mistake. When he looked up, Seoryeong was looking at him with a cold gaze. Then, she closed her eyes again and started laughing as if nothing happened.

“It is said that in the old days, the mafia mixed black tea with poison to punish traitors.”

“…!”

It felt like all the blood was washed away from his face. The doctor’s hand wandered precariously around his neck.

As before and now, her big, pretty eyes were dull and emotionless, like unpainted beads. However, throughout, that gaze remained steadfast.

That much hadn’t changed since her childhood. The determination to obtain whatever she wanted, using any means necessary. The doctor’s lips trembled.

“Hey, dear… What did you do to me?”

“You made me a schizophrenic patient. Without that, I would have served a prison sentence without a word.”

“Tsk…”

That part hasn’t changed since I was young. If you want something, you have the tenacity to get it at any cost. The doctor’s mouth trembled.

“Hey, dear…”

“You turned me into a schizophrenic patient. “If it weren’t for that, I would have been sent to prison.”

“Tsk…”

“Are you scared?”

“I-I…” … ”

At that moment, the doctor, gritting his teeth, pushed Seoryeong away and stood up.

Poisons, no matter how small they are, dissolve the internal organs. He felt a squeezing abdominal pain and tried to somehow get out of the treatment room.

However, his flabby legs flopped down before he could take a few steps.

“Doctor, don’t turn your back on me.”

Seoryeong said, placing her knee somewhere on his spine.

“Ugh!”

“Who ordered you?”

“I-I don’t know about that…Ugh!”

When Seoryeong put her weight on his knees, he screamed. She put her arm inside his open mouth and turned up the volume of the TV.

“I need to find out. It seems to be related to my husband. I’m sorry, but when it comes to my husband’s affairs, I lose my temper, doctor.”

Suddenly, the doctor’s arm was released, and he gasped for breath, drooling.

“I don’t… I really don’t know. I just… received a request…”

“What kind of request?”

“They wanted to see your medical records.”

Medical records? Seoryeong tilted her head expressionlessly.

“So, you manipulated the medical records as well?”

“That, that won’t harm you at all—”

“Sorry, but I wanted to be caught attempting to defect to North Korea.”

“!”

“It was my plan. They caught me red-handed.”

The doctor seemed to give up, releasing tension from his body. Seoryeong, too, tiredly leaned against the sofa after lifting her knee off him. Then, casually, she gulped down the red tea on the table.

The man stared at her in horror. His stiffened eyes twitched in spasms.

“You… you…!”

“So, exactly who was it? Where did these people come from?”

She wiped her lips, wet with tea, with the back of her hand. Only now did the doctor realize that she had played him, this audacious patient.

Or maybe, all the accumulated misunderstandings and fears had exploded at once. He breathed out a voice that sounded relieved, caressing his throat.

“I don’t know if they were trying to reassure me, but they claimed to be some kind of national agency. There were no business cards at first, but later on, they even gave me a business card from a printing shop.”

A printing shop or a publishing house… Seoryeong mumbled, her breathing laborious. It hurt as if her neck was punched, though there was no place to blame. No, in truth, she wanted to believe in Kim Hyun until the end.

She didn’t believe the words from Blast agency she hired at first. How could she? She couldn’t allow them to tell her how fool she was. She must have unknowingly developed such arrogance.

Deep insid, Seoryeong still clung to that flimsy hope that her husband was real…

But with the suspicious reaction of the National Intelligence Service and the testimony of her doctor, there was no longer any excuse to turn away from the truth. The denial of reality she had secretly clung to was gradually unraveling.

The spiderweb they had woven was so clear, and she was the only one who didn’t know. Stupidly, she was the only one who didn’t know.

Seoryeong covered her eyes with both arms. A sense of defeat washed over her.

Kim Hyun, you did deceive me…

And then, he left her.

He didn’t just disappear; he completely left her.

“…You kindly taught me how to put up a mask, doctor.”

“Y-yes…”

“In that sense, today’s counseling will be the last.”

“What…?”

Fatigue weighed down on her shoulders. It had only been a few days since she had been caught after attempting to escape. Now alone, she had to prepare for reemployment and find her husband.

“I’m going to break everything associated with that mask.”

“…!”

She wanted to live kindly and be loved, but nothing was genuine.

If even the time she believed to be the happiest in her married life was just someone’s manipulation—

Love, trust, they were all just pitiful and worthless words. In this world, there was nothing that wasn’t tainted with falsehood except for her nasty true self.

“Goodbye, doctor. Take care.”