Chapter 82 - Chapter 79: Part 1 Epilogue - Hell
Yu-rin gazed at the handsome Seon-ah, thinking to herself once again.
She had truly found herself a wonderful husband.
As she pressed a kiss to his lips and stroked him with a tender, affectionate touch, Seon-ah hugged her back, returning the gesture with equal warmth.
After their wedding, Yu-rin had been consumed by regret for how she'd treated Seon-ah in the past. She had deleted all the videos and apologized for everything she had done.
She had vowed to live as a normal couple, enjoying a simple, genuine romance.
Two children, who bore a striking resemblance to her and Seon-ah, sat at the dining table.
They were twins, conceived during their honeymoon.
The seven-year-old boy and girl were the spitting image of their parents.
The daughter, who took after Seon-ah, had a beauty mark and sharp, captivating eyes that could bewitch any man, while the boy, who looked just like me, had a spirited, cat-like appearance.
Even today, they groaned at our public displays of affection, complaining that we were being cringey.
In truth, there probably wasn't a couple as lovey-dovey as us.
It wasn't easy to maintain such a burning passion at twenty-seven, especially after having given birth at twenty-one.
However, thanks to Seon-ah's devotion and my own efforts to atone for my past mistakes, our love only continued to grow stronger.
I was currently working as an A-rank Hunter and a team leader at the Hwaryong Guild.
My mother, the guild representative, and Seon-ah's mother, Min-ah—now the executive director and my mother's right-hand woman—were my most reliable allies.
My mother-in-law, Min-ah, trusted me implicitly because I was always so good to Seon-ah.
And I, in turn, took the best care of Seon-ah to repay that trust.
Sometimes, I would remember the things I had done to Seon-ah back when I was twenty.
Why on earth had I treated him that way?
It felt as if I had been possessed by a demon.
I was someone who found pure happiness just having him by my side.
Those were the regrets that haunted me most—all born from a jealous fear that Seon-ah might be looking at other women.
Determined to make Seon-ah as happy as I possibly could, I decided to stop dwelling on the past.
Zing.
Suddenly, a sharp pain pierced my head.
Lately, I'd been suffering from constant headaches.
At first, it was only occasional, but these days, it happened several times a day.
Since it was the weekend and we had planned a family outing, I had to pull myself together.
I had promised myself that when I became a parent, I would prioritize spending quality time with my family rather than inviting strangers over every weekend, the way my mother, Yu-ra, used to.
It had been a common occurrence for my mother to host guests every weekend.
Having other families constantly visiting the house had been a huge source of stress for both my father and me.
Moreover, since there was never any time for the family to gather on weekdays, having outsiders around on the weekends was draining for the children, too.
Especially when those adults weren't even my age.
When there was a mix of business relationships involved, the children would be exhausted by the subtle, heavy tension.
I didn't want to pass that same childhood experience on to my own kids.
Of course, I had met my current husband—my hope and the partner I would spend my life with—during that time, but that was a massive stroke of luck and coincidence.
Holding that lucky hand, I took the children I had birthed with my own womb, a gift that luck had brought me, and headed to the amusement park.
Zing.
The pain in my head returned.
Seon-ah looked at me with concern, having caught me frowning.
"Honey, let's go to the hospital. You look like you're in a lot of pain."
Seon-ah had worn that same worried expression whenever something happened to me for as long as I could remember.
I felt that sincere emotion every single day.
"No, I'm fine. I'm just a little tired. Let's hurry to the amusement park; the kids are looking forward to it, aren't they?"
I smiled at Seon-ah, insisting I was okay.
"Are you sure? Then I'll drive, so why don't you take a nap in the passenger seat for a bit?"
He was so worried that he insisted on taking the wheel himself.
Seon-ah must have been tired too, since he had visited his in-laws last night.
Yesterday was my mother-in-law's birthday, but since it was a weekday, I had been swamped with work and couldn't attend.
Instead, Seon-ah had gone to visit my in-laws with the children.
I still had to work in the field, so I couldn't just take leave whenever I pleased.
Since the gates that hunters had to close were emergencies akin to natural disasters, field staff couldn't just take time off on a whim.
Still, I was already scheduled to move to an office position at headquarters within three years.
My mother, the representative, and my mother-in-law, the executive director.
The top of the hierarchy were my parents and parents-in-law, and I was an A-rank Hunter at twenty-seven.
If I had been at a small or medium-sized guild rather than the Hwaryong Guild, I would have been at a rank where I could have become a guild representative or at least an executive.
Of course, because my experience was still lacking, I wouldn't be accepted just anywhere, but I met the minimum qualifications.
It seemed we had almost arrived at the amusement park.
To be thinking about work on a weekend meant for family—I must have been crazy.
I must have been crazy.
Isn't that just like my mother when I was young?
However, I refused to become a workaholic like that.
I barely had enough time to spend with Seon-ah and my children as it was.
Our family of four bought free passes and played on various rides.
They say young children have endless energy, but seeing the kids asleep with their heads resting on Seon-ah's and my laps while we sat on a bench, I realized that wasn't necessarily true.
Perhaps thinking the same thing, Seon-ah looked at my face and smiled slightly.
I was happy.
And I felt good, knowing this happiness would continue.
It would last until the children sleeping on my lap grew up and had children of their own, right?
At the park, other women occasionally stared at my husband, Seon-ah, but I no longer felt jealous.
Because I now clearly knew that Seon-ah, the father of these children who only looked at me, had no interest in other women.
It was different from the past, when I couldn't trust him.
Because of that, I had been liberated from the dark desire in my heart to dominate Seon-ah.
Just seeing Seon-ah's happy expression as he looked at me as if I were lovely, it was certain that such things wouldn't happen in the future.
A little while later, when the children woke up, Seon-ah suggested we go to the zoo inside the park that the kids had wanted to visit.
I imagined the look of joy on Seon-ah and the children's faces and followed along.
The children were delighted to see the various animals.
It was exactly as I had imagined.
Seon-ah also smiled gently, clearly enjoying how happy and excited the children were.
"Mom, look at that! It's amazing!"
The girl who resembled Seon-ah said to me in a lively voice.
Even though she was my child, I thought she was truly cute.
A child who resembled Seon-ah in appearance but shared my gender.
Thinking that she was the crystallization of Seon-ah's and my love, she looked even more lovely.
"It really is amazing. Isn't the tiger scary, my daughter?"
Yu-rin said with a smile, wanting to play along.
It was a mother's smile that welled up from the heart.
"Yeah! It's not scary. It's actually cute!"
In her eyes, her daughter was cuter than the tiger.
However, the boy next to her shrank back a little and hid behind me when the tiger roared.
"Mom... I might not like the tiger a little bit..."
A boy with a slightly timid personality.
This child, who resembled me in appearance, had Seon-ah's personality.
"It's not scary if you're next to Mom. It's okay."
As I patted the boy's back and comforted him, my heart ached at the small touch of him holding onto me tightly.
They were children that Seon-ah and I had raised with great care, but in a way, they were our alter egos, so I couldn't help but find them lovely.
I wanted this kind of happiness to last forever.
Zing.
My head started to ache again.
This time, it hurt a bit more.
I closed my eyes tightly.
At the sound of Seon-ah and the children calling me with worry, I started to pull myself together and open my eyes.
However, all I saw was an unfamiliar ceiling.
My body felt stifled, as if it were wrapped in something.
I couldn't move my hands or feet.
I had to know what was going on.
No, I didn't want to know.
"Patient Yu-rin has woken up, Doctor. She's been having seizures since a week ago, and after she self-harmed all over her body, she hasn't been in her right mind since we put her in the special restraint suit for Awakened..."
"Ha... don't even get me started. A patient who goes that crazy is one of the few cases in my medical experience."
I didn't want to hear those women's words.
Where did the happiness that was by my side just a moment ago go?
Someone must have stolen it.
As that thought reached me, I tried to move my body again with a crazed scream.
As I clamored as if to ask for my happiness back, the two women, who had looked at me once, left the room with disgusted expressions.
"We've administered this much sedative, but there's no change. It's so scary."
"For now, there's nothing we can do, so let's wait until she calms down on her own..."
After struggling for several hours, I was just gasping for breath with a face covered in tears and saliva, as if I had run out of strength.
I fell asleep with the expectation that I would be able to taste that happiness again, with a sensation as if my consciousness were sinking back beneath the water.
Thus, in my dreams, I was regretting the things I had done to Seon-ah and imagining the happiness we would have had by now if I hadn't done those things to him.
However, every time the dream broke, hell unfolded for me.
Every time I realized that all this happiness was an illusion, I went increasingly insane.
I could only regret the things I had done to the Seon-ah I missed so much.
Yu-ra realized that Yu-rin's mental state had become unstable not long after she was locked in the detention center, and she eventually had no choice but to send her to a mental ward.
Perhaps because of her deep affection and longing for Seon-ah, every time she looked at her daughter, who was always searching for him...
The hatred her daughter, Yu-rin, had held for Seon-ah.
And seeing her daughter going insane from her longing for Seon-ah, she herself was also in pain.
Yu-ra also checked on her daughter's condition every day; hatred and sympathy for her daughter crossed her mind, and she felt that all of this was a hellish day-to-day existence for her as well.
With that thought, Yu-rin's screams were heard again.
Ah... you foolish girl...
> Part 1 end