The con man’s daughter, Seol Ugyeong.
Even as years passed and the schools she attended changed, the modifier attached to her name remained the same. It was a scandal that would likely continue unless she moved to a different region or left the country altogether.
“Is he crazy? How could he think about running over his own daughter? What if she dies by accident?”
“Hey, the fact that he tried to cash in on insurance using his kid means he’s not sane to begin with. You think he cared whether she lived or died? He probably hoped she’d die. The death benefit would be much more substantial.”
Someone claimed to have seen it; someone else claimed to have heard it. That was how the whispering began, but for the crowd that loved to gossip, the truth was unnecessary. Their goal was to torment her, who showed no notable reaction either way.
Be that as it may.
The subject of the rumors, Ugyeong, didn’t even spare a glance at the loose-lipped crowd. She simply gripped the mechanical pencil in her hand tighter and read, memorized, and stuffed into her head as she drew lines across the important passages of her textbook.
Someone once said that after living life, studying is the easiest thing.
For her, too, studying was the easiest and most enjoyable thing. Since it would become something she couldn’t do once she fully entered the workforce, she couldn’t waste her study time. But.
“Fuck, it’s a whole family fraud ring. They probably planned it together to cash in on the insurance money.”
Even though she believed ignoring them was the only answer, the rumors clung to her tenaciously. That she was a con man’s daughter. That the con man wished for his daughter’s death. That her family were accomplices.
Regardless of how far the error ranged, she had no intention of correcting or explaining herself. Passing judgment on right and wrong was a waste of time and an emotional loss.
If she had wanted to belong to the group, she would have poured time and emotion into explaining herself and salvaging her tarnished image, but she didn’t.
She didn’t stop the crowd trying to ostracize her from the group and became a voluntary outcast.
She lived with earphones in at all times except during class. And she handled lunch with bread or milk brought from home.
It was better to be alone than to become a target of ridicule in the cafeteria where the entire student body came and went. Moreover, it was the only time she could be free, so her mind was at ease. The downside was that she lived with dizziness and headaches from being unable to have proper meals.
“Ah.”
It was the moment she had left the classroom to get some sunlight and was going down the hallway stairs that she heard the man’s voice. She had deliberately stayed pressed close to the railing to avoid bumping into the group coming up, yet the man was rubbing his arm with a frown as if he had received a great shock.
She, of all people, who had gotten oddly entangled in a dispute and was wasting her lunch break, found the situation extremely bewildering and unpleasant. So she ignored him and turned to leave.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
A rough hand snapped up and seized her arm. The force was so strong that she was dragged away without any chance to resist. In the blink of an eye, the man’s face drew close. From him blew a nauseating smell of cigarettes.
A name tag hanging crooked on his chest, a necktie pulled down to his solar plexus, a school uniform shirt with several buttons undone, and horizontally slit eyes paired with a scar beneath them all came together in harmony. In short, he looked like trouble.
“Seol Ugyeong.”
The man’s gaze peered around her chest. As if the name tag was merely an excuse, his true, vulgar intentions were revealed in the act of sticking out his tongue to wet his lips.
“I heard you’ve been cooped up in the classroom, making it hard to see your face. And here I am, getting a good look at that precious face?”
“Just my face? You haven’t heard the rumors about me?”
“Ah, those rumors. Yeah, I know. I was actually dying to ask you if I ever met you.”
The man glanced around lightly, then tilted his head and whispered.
“Did your dad really run you over with a car? Insurance fraud?”
A serpentine, gleaming gaze swept across her face. He seemed desperate to somehow inflict shame and humiliation upon her, but unfortunately, there wasn’t a hint of change in her expression.
“That’s right. I’ve been hit by a car and rolled down stairs. I never even thought about insurance fraud, but every time I got hurt, my dad smiled. That’s when I knew. It wasn’t a coincidence. It was planned. It was for the money.”
“…….”
“So I’ve been in and out of hospitals, and I’ve transferred schools several times. I don’t even know what will happen next. Since I’m such an ill-fated bitch, I might really die.”
The reason she had belatedly voiced the rumor was because she judged this man to be someone with influence in the school. It would probably be six of one and half a dozen of the other, but his reach and influence seemed far superior to those who flapped their treacherous tongues to spread words.
So instead, she confirmed that the rumor was true.
She intended to properly imprint herself in the mind of the man glaring up and down at her and scrunching his face as if to say, “What kind of bitch is this?” Not just any bitch, but a properly crazy one. So he would know not to associate with her.
“If I’d known you had a backstory like that, I might’ve had the sense to steer clear. Are you just gutsy, or do you want to be miserable too?”
“What?”
“I’m telling you not to get involved with me. Misfortune is contagious too. Be careful you don’t get run over by a car driven by your parents.”
At those words, which drove the nail in deeper, the man’s face flushed red.
He wasn’t the type to be scared by such talk, but his pride seemed considerably wounded. Even out of spite for being bested by a crazy bitch, the man would keep his mouth shut. If anyone gossiped about her, he would click his tongue and tell them to shut up, and then the rumors would die down. Even so, she would probably never shake off the label of “con man’s daughter.”
“Fuck, what’s with that crazy bitch?”
Watching her walk away, the man made a dumbfounded expression. At his group’s suggestion to leave, he reluctantly moved his feet but stopped after a few steps.
“Ah, fuck. This is so damn annoying.”
The man quickly turned around and went down the stairs. The moment he exited the building, his steps quickened at the sight of her back. And without hesitation, he grabbed her by the nape.
Ack! A scream rang out.
“Wh-what do you think you’re doing!”
Before the man, whose eyes had gone wide, resistance, defiance, and help from others were all meaningless.
The place she was dragged by ruthless hands was the back of the building where sunlight didn’t reach. It was a spot with sparse foot traffic, as lunch break was coming to an end.
Feeling her spine grow cold, she twisted her body relentlessly as if making a last-ditch struggle. While she hopped about as if embers had landed on the soles of her feet, the man’s feet, which held her down, were becoming a mess.
“Let go of me, I said let go!”
“Argh, fuck!”
The female body shoved by formidable force struck the wall and bounced right back. Before she could regain her balance, a flying hand snapped her jaw. By the time she felt a sharp pain, she was sprawled on the ground. Thud—along with a dull friction sound, a footprint was stamped onto her white blouse.
The reason the man was so enraged was because she had stepped on his foot. He had only ever made others submit and had never been on the receiving end, so it was a considerably bewildering moment. Fuck—the curse word slipped out automatically.
“Where does this crazy bitch think she...”
The man, who had been bent over dusting off his dirtied foot, trailed off and raised his eyes slightly. It was because her breathing, crushed against the cold ground, sounded unusual.
“What’s with her? She was running her mouth fine earlier; did she pass out already? Hey, open your eyes. Come to your senses.”
The man prodded her head with the tip of his foot, then grabbed a fistful of her limp hair.
“Hh-ack.”
With her head forcibly raised, she looked around. Her vision was entirely blurred. Her head was ringing, and she felt her organs twisting, rendering her helpless. The voices of the guys chattering about something merely buzzed in her ears.
“Fuck, where does this bitch who can’t even take one punch get off acting like this?”
Her face, freed from the man’s grip, plummeted straight down and scraped against the bare ground. Something like sand or dirt touched her cheek. The moisture-laden ground was damp and smelled fishy. The autumn sky that entered her blurred vision was so vividly blue and clean that it inspired awe even in this situation.
The weather is nice; should I just die?
Even while living under the same roof as someone who had given up on being human, she hadn’t thought about wanting to die, but suddenly such a thought occurred to her. *Should I just die.*
Still, since you only live once, she had once harbored a vague dream of graduating from university and getting hired at a decent company. But now she didn’t know. She wondered what was the point of living so miserably and pitifully, and only sad thoughts grew—that misfortune begets more misfortune.
“Can you kill me?”
“What?”
“If you can, try killing me.”
“Why would I kill you?”
“…….”
A stranger’s voice cut in.
It was exactly then that the group’s gazes moved in one direction, and a heavy silence fell.
“...Taeheon hyeong.”
Yun Hajin, who had fit in with the group yet also stood apart, called his name.
*Fuck, we’re screwed.* Someone else muttered a curse under his breath.
The frightened crowd gradually retreated backward, leaving only one man behind. It was a silent signal proving that he was the one who had tormented the powerless weakling.
The man who quietly rolled his eyes, assessed the atmosphere, and approached Taeheon in a posture as flat on the ground as if nothing had happened.
“Hye, hyeong. It’s, well, you see.”
“Yes, well, you see.”
Taeheon repeated the words in a gentle tone. And he twirled the candy stick in his mouth with his hand.
“I, I mean, it wasn’t on purpose. This girl was being annoying so... ugh!”
It was in an instant that the candy stick was shoved down the throat of the man who had been making excuses this way and that with an expression of grievance.