Mistress of Time & her 12 Mates

8. this isn't what i signed up for

“You rotten pig! You don’t move a finger to help pay any bills and mooch off me. All you do is whine about your unfortunate life and do nothing to make it better! And still, you have the audacity to ask me to pay for your hair color expenditure?! Work a little someday, will you!!”

“Yah! Yah! Yah! Who are you cursing at?! I’m your husband, respect me before I get mad and do something you will regret! You don’t want me mad, you whore!”

“Earn my respect, you living trash!”


I unlocked the wood carved door of our ancestral home with as much stealth as I could and tiptoed my way inside.

“I’m home,” I whispered to no one in particular as I heard a vase being smashed to ground and someone throwing a water bottle across the rooms of the hallway. I took off my shoes and sneaked them inside the shoe-cabinet, slowly tiptoeing my way inside.

Thank Lord the woodboard flooring was recently refurbished and didn’t jump to stereotypically creak underneath my feet to call upon doom.

My parents were fighting as usual and it didn’t concern me anyways. I had mastered my escape route years ago and I would have made it out alive from the battle field— if not for my mother’s scarily accurate hearing ability.

I was halfway through the staircase when, “You!” My mother shouted out loud and my heart dipped a tad. The sinking feeling consumed my entire being. Here we go again.

“Have some respect and greet your parents when you’re home, Kang Hyejin!” Though being born and raised in Korea, her accent and dialect were absolutely perfect to the T. To the point where every word from her mouth sounded thick and sharp.

Respect. Big word.

I sighed vehemently, gripping my backpack tighter as I turned back to smile at her. A big stretch of my lips in faux representation of optimism.

“Good evening mother,” I chirped and she pressed her lips in a thin line, beady brown eyes scrutinizing me suspiciously. She was short, both my parents were, but held herself with a might that demanded attention. She was a woman of many judgements, few expressions and loads of questions.

“Why are you late?” She questioned, eyebrows furrowing at my presence. She stepped up the stairs and stopped midway in front of me. Her athletic figure was accentuated with biceps as she crossed her arms against her chest and stared up at me. “You look eerily different... Did you do something with your face?”

Though I had the benefit of height, being on a stair-step over hers, her eyebrows smushed together as she studied my soul with her cat-like gaze through her slanting eyes.

“No mother, I was just helping the art club with preparation for the freshman event,” I lied promptly, smiling at her. I’m sure she could feel my hot breath on her face, but it didn’t matter when in pursuit of truth.

Certainly, she did not look convinced.

“You look too clean for that,” Voiced my wannabe lawyer of a father. Curling his finger through the lush curls of his almost balding hair, he leaned against the wall at the end of the staircase and pointed out his observation, “Your clothes look as good as new.” His words were laced with a heavy Daegu accent.

“We have aprons for that dad, and soap,” I replied with raising my clean hands in my mother’s face while resisting an eye roll on the way.

“Well, you go around doing free labour without receiving anything in return. Nothing you do has any sort of monetary gains. Get me some money home, then maybe this charity would be worth it,” Mother huffed out, rubbing her thumb and forefinger against the fabric of my dungaree.

We as humans are a curious race, constantly striving to create things to advance our standards of living — wanting an easier footing at life.

One could call it greedy, but we would beg to differ. We veil it under pretty terms like progression, advancement and improvement.

Our moral compasses are constantly being deflected with mountains of selfishness and we forget about simple things like togetherness.

Charity.

Helpfulness.

Love.

“I’ll start earning the day you let me leave here and live,” I replied, clipped with my words and fingers involuntarily cracking against the side of my thighs.

“Yah! Kang Hyejin! How dare you talk about leaving us?! You are our only daughter and sole breadwinner! You are our responsibility and we are yours! Who are we supposed to count on if you’re gone! Huh?!” Father snapped at me before I could turn and leave.

“Yeah!” Mother joined in, pulling father up beside her. “How can you be so ungrateful after we gave birth to you and raised you?! You dare talk about leaving us?! Apologize this instant, you disappointment!”

And there is was. The core of all my insecurities shouting at me with flared nostrils and a red face. She heaved in deep breaths as father held her from her waist and rubbed a soothing caress on her back. To calm her raging temper and apparent betrayal.

Hypocrites. They all were.

“Yeah maybe if I wasn’t born, the world would have been a better place for you,” I replied through gritted teeth, jaw clenched and fingers bending against my thighs.

I wanted them to crack but they wouldn’t budge.

“Shut up you fucking—” Father started, but I zoned him out. Stomping upstairs, I could feel mother stopping father from charging right at me.

He was growling, muttering good for nothing curses at me while trying to manipulate the situation to his benefit.

“She’s a whore of a daughter. Absolute good for nothing. You come down with me honey, and drink some water. Come down, I’m here for you,” He whispered in her ears and all I could do was stab my finger nails in my palms and feel the pain override the emotion of misery that was consuming my whole being. Each step was one I took towards my awaited doom

Walking inside my room, I shoved my bag on the bed and tried to control my breathing.

“Good for nothing.”

The birds were chirping merrily outside the window and the sheer thought of their glee made my blood boil. Warmth rushed through the entirety of my body and I couldn’t feel the pain from my palms anymore. I opened and closed my fists to stab my nails further in my palms, deeper, harder, but I felt nothing. It was numb.

Adrenaline had consumed me.

“Disappointment.”

“Whore.”

“Trash.”

Cars honked on the road outside, drivers hurling curses at each other while trying to make way. My hands flung to my ears, the voices were too loud. They needed to stop. My feet gave up on me. I fell on the flooring and curled myself in a foetal position, trying to pull at my hair to distract myself from the things around me. Noises. Too many of them. Distractions. Too less of them.

It’s almost as if I could hear everything.

“Never done any good.”

“Such a liability.”

“What an expense.”

I couldn’t feel the air around me anymore. Oxygen. It was gone again. I gasped for it but my throat rivalled a sandpaper. I sucked in broken breaths but my nose felt hot and dry. Crusty. Burning. I pinched it, rubbed it, pulled it, trying to produce any sort of moisture. My mouth went equally dry. Tongue limp to words.

“We’re always here for you.”

Hypocrites.

“Worthless.”

I scratched my head, wanting to stop my mind from thinking. My heart, it felt heavy, dipping lower and lower until it was one with my gut. Disgusting.  My sides, they hurt, as if the ribs were closing in the cavity.

I wanted to snap my fingers, wanted to concentrate on the calmness of the sound of bones cracking. But they were limp.


STOP.

“We do so much for you.”

“We care for you, we know the best. Listen to mum and dad Hyejin.”

I could hear it. The tapping of a bird’s beak against the window of my room. It was the pigeon I fed on afternoons. Adora. It was kind and cute. Loving and silent. But the tapping wasn’t. It felt like it was digging a hole in my head. The beak piercing my ear drums that I was so desperately trying to block shut. I bled so that the words could seep through.

“Dreams don’t earn you money, child. Study science. Be a doctor.”

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.

Honk. Honk. Honk.

Words. Words. Words.

It was all incessant and it wouldn’t stop.

SHUT UP. SHUT UP. SHUT THE FUCK UP!