ᴄʜᴀsɪɴɢ ʀᴀɪɴʙᴏᴡ

~25. A working sieve

SIDE X SIDE - Shears

As Jimin was sitting in front of Iseul, his eyes blankly staring at the boy, his head was in a faraway world. When Iseul blinked and tried to raise his hand a little, Jimin's lips stretched tentatively, but his smile didn't reach his eyes.

Rosenow's marriage was never free from ups and downs. It had more downs than ups. Her father had rushed them into marriage, and it wasn't a secret. They were in love, and getting together didn't seem wrong six years ago. But the force used by her father somehow left the brine in their relationship despite her thinking that love would be enough to glue them together. It was like a working sieve, dripping drop-by-drop poison in the concoction surely, but slowly. 

Jimin's father wasn't present in his life, and therefore, by extension, her life. She had met Jihyun only once and the boy had ended up getting an epileptic fit by the end of their meeting. She couldn't get herself to demand to see him again. She wondered if her mother-in-law was alive, would their situation be different?

Over the past years, she had made herself an ideal wife, and Jimin had made himself an ideal husband. At times when her father's involvement in their life grew, she realized that Jimin started doing things for her out of duty and obligation more than with feelings. The cultural difference between them has also been conflicting, but she'd gradually learned about the traditions and customs of Jimin's beliefs.

Despite all efforts, she sensed that Jimin had begun to cocoon himself. He came to loathe that her father controlled them in many ways, and he ultimately retaliated. She wasn't aware of Jimin's decision to leave her father's hospital or his interest in an art gallery until the very end.

Jimin did tell her about those things of course, but she wasn't involved anywhere in the decision-making and was only informed on a need-to-know basis while things were getting finalized. With her pregnancy, she could understand that her husband mightn't have wanted to stress her out with the details, but she still felt unwanted.

She blamed hormones for her feelings then. She blamed her family to some extent too, but now that she had recovered, she wanted back in.

What led Jimin to change over the years was nothing compared to the situation worsening at an exponential speed in the last few weeks. Perhaps it was more than guilt as she thought at first.

Her mother often read her bedtime stories as a child. She loved listening to fairytales and happy endings. But as she grew, her interest changed. She remembered that she'd once come across a forbidden read about witchcraft and how many tribes still believed in it and practiced it. She had ridiculed the idea at that time, not being of faith, but everything she'd read that happened to the victims was what she was now relating with Jimin.

She'd read that if a person was being cursed using black magic, they would look like they had lost all hope, they would zone out, wouldn't feel hungry, would fight needlessly, and they would feel angry all the time.

Jimin was completely trapped in his mind. He didn't want to eat. He didn't talk. He didn't even laugh. He was angry, she could tell, but on whom? She tried to ask him the reason, tried to be intimate with him, but all she got in return was a shell of a breathing skeleton in return.

The paranormal implication seemed ridiculous to her the very next moment of her consideration. She was a woman of science. She had to be logical.

So... Her mind went to the other possible extreme.