－ LOST · K.TH

f o u r / w i t n e s s .

证 人
w i t n e s s

＞ S O O A H .

  －I said drop that!!!

  The woman however didn't seem to feel any concerned by the words that Sooah was screaming to her. She quickly checked the amount of cash that the precious paper envelope contained through the opening and tossed it in her pocket.

  －I gave birth to you, young lady. Therefore I am the rightful owner of this money.

  Sooah couldn't believe what she has just heared. Her mother was actually talking about parenting? When she had never really cared about her daughter to the point of ignoring her existence?

  She let out a cold laugh.

  －All right, then. Take it. Take it all. I have no fucking idea how the hell we're gonna pay our bills this month, but I guess that's just not my business anymore.

  At that moment she didn't even want to have her money back anymore. All that was on her mind was to set that damn house on fire. Make it disappear. Destroy it. She wished that she was 18 so that she could leave everything behind and live her own life without having to care about any of all this crap.

  －But remember, though, I don't fucking owe you anything. You're not a mother to me. Never was and never will be.

  And that's when things got out of her expectations. Sooah would and could never consider the slimmest possibility that her mother would actually react to those words. She thought that her saying it wouldn't make any difference since it was just how things already were, but hell knows was she wrong.

  －I am your fucking mother, Cho Sooah, I carried you in my body for nine months and went through the unbearable pain of labor to get you out into this world where you are standing!! How dare you say that I am not your mother!!!

  She threw the glass bottle that she was holding across the room. It crashed against the floor right in front of where Sooah was standing, making her let out a scream. She felt a sharp pain in her left cheek as the crashing sound reasonated in the air around them. The woman's entire body was trembling, and her face formed an utterly terrifying yet pitiful expression. The woman seemed out of her consciousness. As if she was possessed by some sort of spirit.

  Sooah looked into her eyes with a tearful stare. Not that she was scared by the shattered glass nor touched by her words, but furious about how she was acting. Sooah was raging. The most bothering part of all this was the fact that she was genuinely unable to define the cause of her anger because of the amount of elements that have been accumulated to provoke this reaction. It was purely and simply too much to bear with.

  Her, Um Sungmi, the woman who brought her into this shitty crap of a world without anyone's permission, who threw her into the hands of teachers as soon as she reached the age to go to school, who didn't even let her unlucky enough daughter meet her father and know anything more about him besides from the last name Cho, was now scrambling about the hardships of being a mother? What a fucking joke.

  －If you are my mother by the laws of nature, don't you think you should act like one too? Actually, you know what, who the fuck even cares about this shit. I don't want your 'endless love' and your 'caring' and shit. Don't wanna give you more reasons to think that I fucking owe you anything.

  She slammed the door of the frigde closed without taking anything from it and walked away without looking back. How could she be in the mood for food after that? At that instant, anywhere on Earth seemed a million times better than this house.

  And yet she had the chance to find herself just there.

  Sooah didn't however plan to stay where she was any longer though. She headed for the exit door with great strides while grabbing her bag on the way. The chant of sirens travelled to her ears through the unwell-isolated walls. They seemed to get louder and louder as the seconds passed by, but she didn't pay any attention to it. These weren't rare to hear in the neighborhood.

  Little did she doubt that this time, they were here because of her.

  As soon at she stepped her foot out of the door, she was greeted with the sight of three police cars with their lights on, parked right in front of the building in which she lived. Police officers came out of the vehicles one after another as they walked towards her petrified body.

  Sooah's mind had left her the moment when she saw those cars. All that she could offer was a blank expression and an open mouth. The men threw a glance at her before entering the building. One of them put a hand on her shoulder and asked her to follow then. She simply nodded as a reply.

  They broke in the apartment in which her mom still was and didn't wait to seize her by her arms. Of course, she fought against it, but all her efforts were in vain.

  －We have received an anonymous call claiming to say that he had witnessed physical abuse and violence.

  The officer quickly looked around the room and at the two women, one in complete shock and the other contorting herself to gain freedom. Pieces of shattered were still laying around here and there on the wooden floor and the fresh cut on Sooah's cheek was still shining scarlet red.

  －I can tell by what I see here that our witness did not lie.

  A younger man brought an ID card that he had found in a purse hanged on the door handle to his superior.

  The next six words that Sooah has heared will remain carved in her memories for the rest of her life.

  －Um Sungmi, you are under arrest.