episode_0041

I was born in a cesspit.

It was a home filled with nothing but sickening poverty, violence, and contempt.

The man who was my father was a tattooed drunkard who would often get drunk and hit my mother and me.

The woman who was my mother, far from resisting him, would instead fawn over him and cling to him.

“You bitch! Don’t you manage your hole? Why is it so loose?”

“Ah! I’m sorry, dear! I’ll, I’ll tighten it more! So please, harder…!”

As if the fact that their young daughter was in the next room didn’t matter at all, the two beasts would entangle themselves every night, screaming vulgar sounds.

Sometimes, with the excitement of their acts still on his face, my father would lie using my mother’s naked body as a pillow and send me on errands.

That disgusting sight and the fishy smell still linger at the tip of my nose, a nightmare.

“I’m sorry, my daughter. Mom is sorry.”

My mother would often whisper and cry like that by my bedside as I pretended to be asleep, but I felt no sympathy at all.

The sight of the weak groveling obsequiously before the strong was simply abhorrent.

At least I, from a young age, vowed deep in my bones that I would never become a person like my mother when I grew up.

Perhaps I, Park Mina, was complete from that moment on.

To survive in this hell, I had to become ruthless.

Before getting hurt.

Before being trampled.

I had to crush the opponent beneath my feet first.

Dominate, or be dominated. In this world, there were only those two choices.

Coincidentally, I had the talent for it.

Perhaps it was thanks to my innate beauty from childhood; with a single eye-smile and a word in an endearing tone, boys my age would fall for me like fools.

I realized early on that this was my strongest weapon.

By the time I reached middle school, I was already the queen of a small kingdom.

The male students tried hard to win my favor.

The female students formed groups, watching my every move.

When I saw how a single word from me could change the entire class atmosphere and sway someone’s reputation.

A thrilling shiver ran through my entire body.

Even as I realized I was doing the same things as the father I so hated, I couldn’t stop.

However, even if I acted like a queen within the confines of school, the reality that the place I had to return to was a cesspit did not change.

If I didn’t escape this accursed home, I was destined to flounder forever in that dung heap.

I had to escape. As far away as possible, to a place where no one knew anything about me.

“Use this money to help with your university tuition.”

As high school graduation approached, my mother suddenly handed me an envelope full of money, God knows where she got it.

Did she at least have a glimmer of maternal love or guilt?

That night, my mother embraced me and wailed, but I didn’t shed a single tear.

That was the first day I escaped the hell that had bound me for over a decade.

I buried my face in the unfamiliar dormitory bed and cried silently all night.

I still don’t know if those tears were from joy, sadness, or the relief of having survived.

Now that I had escaped that terrible hell, my life would change.

How wonderful it would have been if things had unfolded as easily as that thought!

The values formed since childhood couldn’t simply be erased just because the environment changed.

Perhaps they even became more severe.

Conflicting desires constantly clashed within me: a hatred for men, yet simultaneously a yearning for the affection and attention I never received from my parents.

Relationships, which I was pushed into to satisfy those desires, always ended in disaster.

Men who approached me invariably coveted only my appearance, and behind their kindness, dark intentions seemed to show through.

I, as a person, was already too twisted to form pure relationships.

When I graduated from university and entered society, I despaired at how I still hadn’t changed.

Even in a new environment, places where people lived were ultimately the same.

Subtle psychological warfare, invisible struggles for hierarchy.

I got goosebumps at the sight of myself, just like before, discerning people’s weaknesses and weighing them.

It felt like a shackles I wanted to escape but couldn’t.

So when I joined Travel Wiz, I vowed that this time, I would start anew.

Forgetting my sickening past and my tarnished dating history.

To live as an ordinary office worker, Park Mina.

Was choosing a travel agency as my workplace due to an unconscious desire to just leave for somewhere?

Or perhaps it was simply because I desperately needed a stable job right away.

My first foray into professional life, once it actually began, was very different from what I had imagined.

Far from free travel, I was stuck in the office, and the work was boring and repetitive.

Acting like a sweet and cheerful junior was incredibly exhausting.

Still, I comforted myself, thinking, “If I can just maintain this much peace.”

But that peace didn’t last long either.

“Did you hear? About Park Mina from the Marketing Team. They say she’s a complete man-eating fox.”

“No wonder she was so flirtatious with men. Her tail-wagging was no joke.”

They say the past is an indelible brand.

My past story, which God knows where it came from, circulated with all sorts of embellishments, turning into a scandal.

I was sick of it.

All I wanted was to do well.

I thought I had finally escaped hell.

‘If I don’t somehow get rid of this label…’

The first person who caught my anxious eye was none other than Lee Hyunsung.

An ordinary person, somewhat naive, someone you couldn’t tell if he was kind-hearted or just a pushover.

Exactly the type who used to fawn around me during my school days, who would grin foolishly if I just smiled a little and was kind to them – seemingly easy to manipulate.

Absurdly, the moment I saw him, a plan instantly formed in my head.

How to coax him, how to use him.

My resolve to start anew proved futile, as I had reverted to my old self.

The process was so smooth it made the time I spent agonizing seem pointless.

When I approached him as he was disheartened after being reprimanded by the team leader, feigning comfort and concern, and then arranged a drinking session, he fell for it helplessly.

Indeed, all men are the same.

-“How could you do such a thing to a precious junior?”

-“I don’t believe it.”

When I met his sincere gaze at the bar, disgust welled up inside me for having been swayed, even for a brief, fleeting moment.

‘Snap out of it, Park Mina. Those are just empty words. It’s pity!’

‘You have to be ruthless. You have to bite first before you get eaten.’

Surprisingly, sex with him wasn’t bad.

To be honest, it was quite good.

Unlike his ordinary appearance, his body was firm enough to make me covet it.

His clumsy yet rough movements gave me unexpected pleasure.

If only.

If only I had grown up in a slightly more proper environment.

If only I could have properly learned how to be loved and how to love.

Something might have been different.

But that’s all just futile fantasy.

I, as a person, was already so broken that I could only live in this way.

I didn’t really intend to go as far as filing a lawsuit.

If I could just quell the rumors, that would be enough.

So, I’m sorry, sunbae?

Thank you for being so good to me until now, but please become my scapegoat.

…Huh?

Whose voice was that just now?

More importantly, what was I thinking just now…?

“Because from now on, I’ll be receiving your apology in a different, more persistent way.”

[Suggestion turned OFF.]

****

Instantly, my consciousness surged to the surface.

A discomfort rose, as if I had been submerged deep underwater and someone had forcefully pulled me up by my hair.

As my blurry vision regained focus, an unfamiliar scene unfolded before my eyes, different from my studio apartment.

The peculiar pattern of the wallpaper.

The dreamy orange light streaming down from the ceiling.

The faint smell of air freshener and disinfectant that stung my nose.

“What is this?”

My mind was chaotic.

The sensation of the faux leather sofa against my back felt eerily alien.

I was certain I had been at the cafe, threatening Lee Hyunsung as planned, demanding money, and about to leave.

After that, what happened?

Wherever this was, it certainly wasn’t my home.

But strangely, it felt faintly familiar.

This lighting and smell.

“Have you forgotten already? Where this is?”

My heart sank at the terribly familiar voice that came from behind me.

“…Sunbae?”

Hyunsung, who I didn’t know how long he had been standing behind me, walked leisurely towards me.

His gaze, looking down at me, was chillingly different from what I had seen before.

“You had a very good time here last week, didn’t you? It was so hot, it’d be a shame if you’ve already forgotten.”

…

At Hyunsung’s words, I quickly darted my eyes around, scanning my surroundings.

Only then did I realize this was the motel where I had seduced him and spent the night last Friday.

“So, you remember now, don’t you? Where this is.”

The moment I heard those words, I reflexively pushed back the chair and stood up.

I didn’t know why I was here alone with that man right now.

My instincts were warning me to escape from here immediately.

But.

“Huh?”

My body wouldn’t move.

It was as if I was solidified in transparent cement; even when I tried to exert force on my limbs, they didn’t budge.

It wasn’t that my body was heavy or paralyzed; it was simply as if my body wasn’t my own.

The strangest thing was that I wasn’t tied up or restrained in any way.

“Ugh! Urgh…!”

“It’s no use, so stay still. Don’t waste your energy.”

As I struggled to break free, his cold voice fell upon my ears once again.

“Th-this, did you do this, sunbae? What did you do to me?!”

“What if I did?”

He snorted as if amused by my agitated voice.

“Th-this is blatant kidnapping and confinement! It’s not enough that you sexually assaulted a junior, now you’re doing this? Are you in your right mind?!”

At my outburst, he calmly shrugged his shoulders.

“I’m in my right mind. And, kidnapping? Confinement? What are you talking about? You came here on your own two feet.”

“Wh-what? That’s a lie!”

“It’s true. If you don’t believe me, you can ask the motel owner to check the CCTV later.”

His eyes, as he spoke with a tone mixed with mockery and certainty, didn’t waver in the slightest.

Did I really come here on my own two feet?

However, I had no memory at all after he took out his smartphone at the cafe.

Yet, his confident demeanor instilled an ominous premonition that his words might be true.

“So, what do you intend to do? After dragging someone to a place like this.”

I retorted with the last of my pride.

“It’s nothing much. Just want to have a heart-to-heart talk.”

Saying that, he took out a smartphone from his pocket.

Then he held the phone horizontally, as if recording a video.

The lens was aimed directly at me.

“Now, Ms. Park Mina.”

His clear voice, as if imitating an announcer, grated on my ears.

“Last Friday, did I really force you into the motel and have relations with you? Don’t lie, speak clearly and honestly.”

“Ha.”

You came all this way just to ask that?

Did he think I’d confess out of fear?

Just how foolish can he be?

Without even a moment’s thought, my answer was…

“What are you talking about? That night, I was the one who lured you with lies, sunbae. If you’re going to talk, at least speak clearly.”

…Huh?

Just now, what did I say?

“I see~.”

Whether I was flustered or not, he lifted the corners of his mouth in satisfaction.

“What was your reason for luring me? Answer this honestly, without lies too.”

“Well, it was to cover up the rumors about me that had spread around the company with a scandal involving you, sunbae. And while I was at it, to extort some money too.”

No, stop!

I screamed inwardly, but my mouth moved on its own.

“B-because you, sunbae, are so gullible and kind. I thought you’d be easily deceived. And since you have little presence in the company, there would be few people to take your side.”

Hyunsung let out an exclamation of admiration, lowered his phone, and glanced at me.

“Wow. I knew it, but hearing it from your own mouth makes it even more disgusting.”

“W-what did you do to me?”

Fear slowly began to creep into my heart.

I had no idea what that man had done to me.

“What do you mean, what did I do? You just confessed to everything.”

No.

I didn’t try to confess.

What I said just now wasn’t my will.

“I think your story is quite pitiful. And well, it’s not like I don’t understand how your personality became so twisted.”

My circumstances? My past?

What are you talking about?

What do you know about me?

“But, that’s that, and this is this. Whatever it is, you tried to ruin someone else’s life, didn’t you?”

All I could do was stare blankly up at him in confusion.

“So don’t feel too wronged or resentful. You brought all of this upon yourself.”

Before I could even grasp the meaning of his words, his voice pierced my ears once again.

Incomparably colder and sharper than before.

“Get up and take off your clothes.”

A pain like being pierced through the heart with an ice pick shot through me, and goosebumps erupted all over my body.

Even if I screamed curses and resistance in my mind, nothing would change.

My body slowly rose from its spot, independent of my will, and my hand went to the zipper of my outer clothing.