Before Her Very Eyes

Chapter 28

Yoon Soomin decided to name her baby "Jeonghan," because "Jeong" meant clean.

As dirty as the affair that spawned him had been, she was determined to not let that impurity rub off on her newborn. She wanted to give him a good life, even if he was born out of wedlock in these circumstances.

She also wasn't going to let his father shirk the responsibility of taking care of him. So when the damned father, sitting on his expensive CEO office chair in the top floor of the skyscraper, refused to acknowledge his illegitimate son – created from a lewd encounter with her, his secretary, in the company's bathroom stall – she threatened him. Either he gave her money every month so she could take care of him for the rest of the boy's life, or she'll take him to court and expose the affair to the public.

He wouldn't let that happen. He gave her a building to shut her up, but he also plagued her with a curse that would torment Jeonghan for the rest of his life.

-

Arin began to realize that maybe what Hyojung had told her was true. Hearing his curse, word for word, silenced her and quelled that raging hatred in her heart, just a bit.

She also felt guilty bringing up his mother.

Jeonghan looked dazed and lost, as if he were reliving something traumatic in his head. She understood; she had her own share of trauma, and she knew very well that saying a curse out loud is like opening a curtain that hides and buries past tragedies.

She could think of nothing to say to him, but she did have some strange and sudden urge to make him feel better. It was weird: she went from wanting to shame and insult him, to wanting to comfort him in a matter of minutes.

As a gesture of solidarity, a proclamation that she understood his pain and empathized with him, she began to recite her own curse out loud. She could tell from the way his eyes focused that he was listening to her, and for the first time ever, she felt connected to him.

When the last lines fell from her lips, he responded with: "shut up. You're being too noisy."

That was his curse talking to her like that. She knew that now, so she no longer felt shut down, upset, or self-conscious.

Maybe Hyojung was right: if Arin had known about Jeonghan's curse all along, she might not have hated him as she did now. But for sure, she could have never loved him. Even now, totally bare and vulnerable before her, all she could do was pity him.

"You should have told me about your curse," she said to him. "I could have never known you without your curse, so you would have been safe. How can I feel anything about someone I've never met."

"Stop talking," he mumbled, but he didn't meet her eyes. He was still looking at the floor, completely aloof.

A long silence followed as Arin grappled with the words of Jeonghan's curse, making out his story in her head: he was specifically cursed to make his mother hate him, so when she came back to him that one day, he had to push her away again.

The curse also offered a condition and a warranty: if he ever showed kindness, he would feel pain, and then the devil would "take reign." She remembered when he saved her from what he thought was a bad situation with Woozi, and how he squirmed and cried with pain afterward. He then turned into a monster, which ended in him trying to jump off the building. She also remembered what happened just a few hours ago, when he forced himself not to throw Meemo off the edge of the building, and then turned into that same possessed monster. The curse explained everything: whenever he went against his curse and forced himself to show kindness, he would feel pain, then he'd turn into the devil.