FALLING SLOWLY ||Complete||

Medusa - the protectress

The war had begun decades ago.

Yoo Myung Sung sets the water running and washes her hands as she thinks. In the mirror over the faucet she could see herself, if she stopped enough, she could see her battle worn face. There are bags under her eyes, the pallor of her face, her sunken eyes - she didn’t look like that before the war had begun.

She washes her hands again and again trying to think - regrouping - cutting the losses. It was what she was best at, she reminds herself. Rising from the ashes. And this is just another battle - the war is far from over.

At first it had been against her father. The man she hated to the tips of his silvery hair. The control, the demand, the need to make an example out of her - she had wanted to escape that. It was the simple case of a caged bird when she was young. He decided what she wore - whether it suited the family image, the style of her hair, the courses she took at school.

She flew away at the first chance and fell in love. It felt like the road to freedom - even for a little while. She thinks of it now and wonders if - but the thought leads no further. Myung Sung does not have an imagination, somewhere down this twisted path her soul had curled and blackened and lost its softness. She can no longer imagine riding into sunsets like she had - before the war.

It was her father who brought the first battle to her door, catching her unaware, shuttering her bubble. The man she had loved was no prince of fairy-tales. Ready to fight the dragons that kept her in. Instead he had shackles of his own, expectations, greed - he loved her - but not enough to choose her at the risk of forsaking his family.

She could have given him a new family - she remembers that hope - it is a faint memory, of all good and fragile things that she were. They crushed it rather brutally - her family was cruel like that.

“Your baby was stillborn.”

There had been no emotions on her father’s face as he announced, his cold eyes piercing her soul - catching her unguarded - unarmed and unaware - plunging the sharp edge of his words to the core of her heart. She believed him and lost that first battle.

There is something addictive about love. That makes you relapse, go back to trust the people who stabbed you in the back. There is something seductive about love, that lulls your logic into an oblivion. Otherwise she wouldn’t still love the same man who had forsaken her for his father’s wealth and married the woman his family had chosen.

He just wanted his father’s money. He was nothing without it - without the family name backing him up. It was not just for him - it was for her too. He could give her the life she was used to - the life she deserved - the life of a queen! He would divorce that woman as soon as he gets the money - it could be any day now - they just had to hold on for a little while.

And she fell into the same pothole of hopes and dreams and trust - foolish of her, she could see now.

“No one prays for the devil, darling daughter,” her father had sounded vindictive. There was no warmth behind his words of endearment. “Although he is the greatest sinner in the world. Because second chances are not given to repeat the same mistake more elaborately.”

“We don’t have time!” She tells him desperately. Her memory fails her when she tries to recall how she had escaped the clutches of her home, a few stolen moments where they were face to face. “You don’t have anything to worry about now - with your father gone. Divorce her - marry me! Save your child…” she adds the last as an afterthought, her last attempt at making her case.

His face is buried in his hands, the long sigh that escapes him breaks her heart even before he speaks a word aloud.

“Before he died - he changed the conditions - remade his will. It is as if he knew what I was planning to do. The business - the money - I’m merely made a trustee on behalf of a future daughter of mine. A daughter not a son!” He shakes with suppressed fury. “The legacy of my ancestors - he’ll just hand it over to some other family on a silver platter! That’s how much my father hated me!”