Mountain Rose

03. The Spring Harvest

"Pretending not to be lonely, pretending not to be in pain. Pointlessly pretending to be okay, pointlessly pretending to be strong."

Agust D, 140503 At Dawn

"Thank you, Jimin," I said, reaching over to my brother and poking his cheek, "You always make the best soups."

He beamed. "I try."

"I think any woman would be happy to have you a husband," I added, "Someone who cooks, cleans, and does his best to be a scholar? Not only that, a heart of gold too? The perfect package."

Jungkook hid a smirk as I exchanged a look with Hoseok, before he cast a brief glance at the woman who was currently pouring more soup into her bowl of noodles.

Everyone knows our stepmother can't cook to save her life.

She cleared her throat. "I heard there was a chase in the market square today," she said to no one in particular, "Does anyone want to claim responsibility for that?"

Hoseok pretended to gasp in surprise. "I wonder what happened. Eunji, since you know those ahjummas, surely you must've heard something, huh?"

I pouted. "I'm not sure, I was too busy gathering herbs and buying vegetables for our Jimin to cook with."

Jungkook coughed, barely concealing the snigger he was trying to hide. "And I was too busy helping Jaehyun study for the entrance exam. I wouldn't know, either."

"That's enough," my stepmother chided, slamming a hand on the table, "I know it was all of you. Especially you, Hoseok."

A hand fluttered over my mouth. "Omo, Mother, then why did you ask?" I asked innocently, "You made me anticipate a dramatic story in my head."

That was the last straw, and my siblings began to burst into loud guffaws.

The woman's eyes were irritated, and she pursed her lips as I returned her gaze coolly.

When Father first introduced us to Stepmother, we could sense that she was clearly with him for the money. I suppose, in her defense, she did not know that he lived his life scamming the rich and giving to the poor, and neither did she know that he had taken in orphans and taught them how to steal.

Perhaps she thought he was a rich merchant, living off the capitalist earnings and the labor of the ones in poverty. Perhaps she thought she had wanted to be a lady who rubbed shoulders with the upper echelons of society. She had herself been from a well-off family, and never worked a day in her life.

She already had Jungkook by then, and was pregnant with another child, whom she eventually lost due to a miscarriage, and the father of the baby had been some scholar who had left her to pursue a life in the Court. Scorned and disowned by her family, Father took pity on her and they soon fell in love. He later brought her to our village, and we never forgave him for it.

Specifically because she seemed to be pretty much helpless, useless and a constant thorn in our side. While Father travelled out of the village regularly with the merchants, helping with the smuggling of prohibited goods across borders, she was always spending on unnecessary things like pretty hanboks and bejewelled hairpins.

As if she were a young woman wanting to attract a man's attentions.

Eventually she looked away from me, eating her noodles as she pretended to be unbothered. "Aren't you getting too old to be a petty thief, Eunji? All these running and stealing is not going to help you find a respectable husband."