Chapter 29

Chapter 29

“If I just ask, you’ll do it?”

He had said he would kill someone if she just asked. She had thought it was a joke.

She had never thought about wanting to kill someone, nor did she think she ever would.

Eating delicious hotel food in a luxurious suite and receiving plenty of affection from a man had clearly made her mistakenly believe the world was bright. After being beaten by Yoon-gun, the harsh reality was once again felt to the bone.

“You think I can’t?”

“I think you chose the wrong place.”

Yoon-gun lying on the floor covered in blood. His hand, which had mercilessly struck her cheek, was surely crushed and broken joint by joint under Jae-heon’s foot. It was clearly a brutal scene, but…

“Jae-heon, this is a hospital.”

It felt as if a thorn that had been stuck in her throat for a long time had been removed, and she felt relieved. Even though her mind told her it was wrong, a smile kept creeping out.

“A place to save people, not kill them.”

The words were her taking back control. For the first time in forever, Goyo felt a little hope, a small belief that she could change things.

“Hmm, that’s true.”

Jae-heon smiled, his eyes curving. It was a captivating smile that could captivate many women. It might have been an artificial smile, but at least he seemed quite pleased with Goyo’s answer.

Goyo sighed in relief at the fact that Yoon-gun’s beating and Kwon Jae-heon’s punishment were all over.

“Haa, hoo…”

As the tension was released, her legs lost strength. Her body swayed, and her vision blurred.

“Hey! You, Lee Goyo!”

Jae-heon’s voice was faintly heard. Was it just her imagination that his voice sounded desperate?

She took a step to go to him, but her body collapsed powerlessly. Her memory cut off, and darkness came.

***

14 years ago, around Christmas.

A cramped basement apartment in a rundown building.

Blood sprayed, painting the air red as her father crumpled to the floor. The child, eyes wide and unblinking, knelt beside him.

“D-dad?”

“D-don’t… cry, baby girl…”

His dying words hung in the air, a ghost in her ears. The image of his tear-streaked face, twisted in pain, seared itself into her memory, a brand on her soul. He was all she had, her only family, now slipping away.

“D-don’t look… Close… your eyes…”

His arm, heavy and failing, reached out to shield her from the horror, but it fell limp before it could reach her face. The worn carpet beneath him drank in the spreading pool of blood.

The scene shifted, replaced by something colder, more clinical.

Darkness pressed in from all sides, a suffocating weight. The air was sterile, colder even than the damp basement she knew so well.

“Child’s name?”

“Lee Goyo.”

“How long have you lived there, Goyo?”

“Always lived there.”

The same questions, over and over. Only the faces changed, the adults in their starched white coats, their expressions a mix of pity and doubt.

“So, you were kidnapped at a very young age.”

“…It’s my house.”

The “moldy basement” Yoon-gun spoke of with such disgust was her home, the only one she’d ever known. What was a forgotten storage space to a spoiled rich kid was her sanctuary, the place she’d lived since she was a baby.

“Who did you live with?”

“My dad.”

“That man isn’t your father, Goyo.”

“He is my dad…”

“We can’t help you if you lie, sweetie.”

No one believed her.

The adults in white coats kept pushing, pressing her to remember the moment she was taken, to conjure up memories of a life before the basement, a life that existed only in their minds.

“My dad isn’t a bad person.”

“Sweetheart, that man is a bad person.”

A middle-aged man standing next to the adults spoke coldly. That man, the boy’s father, kept correcting and changing what the child said.

“Your father kidnapped my son and tried to kill him.”

“Kill him?”

“Yes. He was a very bad man. And if it’s revealed that you’re his daughter, you’ll become a bad person too.”

“I’m bad too?”

“You can be a good girl if you do as I say, want to do that?”

“…How?”

“Remember this well. You were kidnapped. You were rescued along with our son, thanks to his sacrifice.”

Who was evil, and who was good?

  *

14 years later, the present.

Han-young Hospital.

She opened her eyes to a white ceiling. Not her room, not the hotel where she spent the night with Kwon Jae-heon.

There was a faint smell of alcohol in the air. Turning her head, she saw an IV drip hanging from a stand, the fluid slowly dripping into her body through a tube.

‘Guess I passed out.’

The last thing she remembered was Kwon Jae-heon’s panicked expression. She’d grabbed his arm and collapsed into his arms, and he must have brought her straight to the hospital.

It had been a continuous string of tension since Friday. She’d pushed herself to keep Kwon Jae-heon by her side, following Lee Yi-taek’s orders to make a connection with him. She’d ended up in a hotel room with him, giving herself to him.

She’d been intimate for a whole day, leaving her body wrecked, and before she could even recover, she’d been beaten by Lee Yoon-gun. There was no way her body or mind could be okay.

“Dad…”

Her body ached, and she dreamt of her deceased father. A wave of longing washed over her, choking her throat. Her nose tingled, and her eyes burned. Goyo pressed the sleeve of her gown against her eyes, stifling a sob.

Goyo didn’t have many memories of her father. She was only six years old, and the trauma of the incident had damaged many of her recollections. But the memories she did have were precious. Whenever those fragmented memories surfaced, threatening to break apart completely, Goyo’s heart ached.

‘Who did my little girl get so pretty from?’

‘Goyo and Dad will live together forever.’

In those scattered fragments of memory, Goyo’s father was…

He loved carrying her inside his jacket, and he always bought her favorite chocolate milk on his way home from work. And when Goyo was sick, he seemed to suffer even more than she did.

When she had a fever, he would stay up all night, dabbing her with a cool cloth. When she scraped her knee, he would apply medicine and gently blow on it, afraid it might sting.

When she had a stomachache, he would rub her belly with his palm, saying his hands had healing powers and she would feel better soon, and like magic, her stomach would always feel better.

Thinking about it now, her father couldn’t take Goyo to the hospital. She was an unregistered child, a ghost in the system.

‘Dad will make a lot of money and give my little girl a good life.’

Goyo’s heart ached whenever she thought of her father.

Even if it was a romanticized version, in those fragmented memories floating like buoys on a vast ocean, her father was always a good man. Not someone who would kidnap and sell people. Just because he lived in a damp basement apartment due to poverty and wore old clothes didn’t make him a criminal.

Goyo’s heart ached whenever she thought of her father.

Was her father really a bad person? Was he the villain the world made him out to be? Was he a criminal so evil that he deserved to die?