UNDERGROUND | JJK (Being Rewritten)

C H A P T E R 8

1 0 Y E A R S A G O

Mirae clutched the sheets tighter around her yet the cold seeped in through the gaps. A week past her conversation with Mr. Lee and the date of her escape was set. It would be on the day that her father set to be her first public appearance and officiating her relationship with Junwoo.

"When the party is already started, they will have to delay their search for you. The public won't be bothered about the running away of a daughter they didn't even know existed but if they catch a wind of a second daughter that too who escaped the mansion, the news would go crazy. Your father will be torn between maintaining his image and imprisoning his daughter and he would most definitely choose the former."

"What if he chooses me?"

Mirae said that to Mr. Lee with a strangely soft voice. In hindsight, that was the naivety of her young self speaking but Mr. Lee equally reciprocating that untouched softness said, "You've spent so long hoping he would choose you and he never did. Now it's time to hope that he doesn't."

Thus began her escape plan. A ladder would be placed below her window nonchalantly by one of Mr. Lee's trusted staff. The back gate would be kept unlocked and Mr. Lee would draft a rough directive map to reach Manho's Butchery in the back streets. The owner would tell her what to do further. The plan was simple and nothing too grand, just enough to blend Mirae in a place where people would never expect her to be.

The first time she had tried to climb down the ladder, Mr. Lee stood at the base of it as Mirae's shaky legs twisted and slipped multiple times. It was her first time to use a ladder in her life so as many times she apologized to Mr. Lee for being a bother, all he did was reassure her that she was already doing far better than anyone else could. The only issue was that the ladder ended behind the filthy hedge where the ground was wet and mushy. The vile stench pulled up bile from her throat the first time she landed there. But it was the small light from the back streets that highlighted the way of escape for her and she was motivated again. That day, Mr. Lee guided her to the back gate and only let her peek her head out to see what the street at least looks like. It was like teaching a baby girl her first steps all over again.

Mirae decided that she liked the quiet serenity of mundane life more than the impending silence that echoed around the mansion the next time she stepped into the back streets. The small alley like street was lined up as the back of houses and small apartments. Occasionally Mirae stared up at the lit windows of the apartments and catch a glimpse of someone cooking in the kitchen or someone letting in the evening air while sipping on a hot beverage. She liked to imagine the lives that these people lived. Maybe that one woman who smoked sitting on the big window pane of the lilac painted house was losing it all in love or maybe the old grandma who cooked with a big smile on her face that was even noticeable from far was awaiting her big family to come home and eat with her while they all talked about their day.

She liked to imagine them distraught but wanted to assure them a happy ending. It gave her a strange serenity. She started dreaming of a small place of her own. A tiny apartment or a small house with cosy rugs and worn out furnitures that would hold memories of the struggles of past and the patches on them would be bandaids of hope assuring that it would all lead to a happy future.

Mirae dreaded returning to her room, knowing that morning would be sooner than the blink of an eye and her mother would be on her tail making sure she looks flawless for her upcoming 'big day'. Mirae only shuddered thinking the same thought. Mina never left her room and occasionally when she did, her mother immediately sent Mirae back so the sisters never faced each other.