Biting my lip tightly to stifle a groan, I was dragged to an unfamiliar space I had never set foot in before. My room, the kitchen, the living room, his study. Apart from those places, there was nowhere else I was allowed to step, so it wasn’t surprising. One thing was certain: this was a place the chairman would never set foot in. It was a place where people who had a position higher than her would never go. As soon as I realized this, a sharp hand flew to my face.
Slap!
My cheek stung instantly. I could tell that it wasn’t just from the pain of being hit by a harsh hand. Having been hit so often, it was easy to distinguish between bruising, scratching, and tearing. This was the feeling of something tearing. A hand with a large ring struck my cheek again. Sparks flew before my eyes. The ring left a scratch that tore my flesh open, making me feel faint.
My mom slapped both of my cheeks repeatedly, as if her anger wouldn’t subside no matter how much she hit me. Just as tears were about to burst out, my mom, who had been gritting her teeth while using all her strength to hit me, finally opened her mouth to vent her rage.
“You fucking, disgusting! You bug! Who told you to wander around this house as you please?!”
As she spoke, unable to contain her rage, her fierce hand struck my head. I couldn’t understand why she was so angry that she didn’t even think to hit parts of my body that wouldn’t be visible. Despite feeling dizzy from the blows to my face and head, I couldn’t make sense of it.
“How dare! You disgrace me like this!”
Finally, even the inside of my mouth was torn. I barely swallowed the nausea that rose up from the foul taste of blood.
“Where did you think you’re going without permission?!”
I had learned over many years that I mustn’t resist when my mom hit me. Resisting only prolonged the time. My mom had no intention of listening to me and would hit me until I couldn’t make a sound. More precisely, she wouldn’t stop until her anger was spent. Talking back would only fuel her anger. My words had never once reached her properly. So, I had to remain completely passive and powerless in the face of her violence, like a person without a mouth.
I should have done so.
“…I had permission.”
But this time, I didn’t.
I didn’t know why. I talked back, despite never usually doing so. Maybe it was because I felt so unfairly treated.
I realized it was a mistake the moment the words left my mouth. But I couldn’t take back what had already reached her ears. Seeing her expression harden with terrifying intensity, I felt a chill of terror. There had been countless times when I was scared of my mom, but now I wished I could disappear from this world right away. At the moment when the fear that I might really die if I didn’t run away overwhelmed me-.
Crash!
Something heavy came flying at me. Without the time to dodge, it hit my head and fell to the floor, shattering into pieces. As I lost my balance and fell to the ground, a kick came flying at me without giving me a moment to catch my breath.
“Permission? Permission?! Who the hell do you think you are!”
It wasn’t just because I wandered around without permission.
“I can’t even go anywhere except my room, the closet, and such! Nowhere!”
My mom went mad with rage at the fact that I had received permission.
“I can’t! Myself! Wander around this house as I please!”
Red flames blazed in my mom’s eyes. Wherever her gaze landed, a kick followed. It was when my body rolled to one side from the force of her kicks.
“Ah! Ack! Mom, wa-! Wait a…!”
“You piece of shit! Who the hell do you think you are to get permission? Who let you ?”
My screams never aroused any sympathy in her. Glass shards clung to my body. Only then did I realize what my mom had thrown. The suffocating pain was incomparable to anything before, making it impossible not to scream.
“You’re now lying too? Do you think I’ll be fooled by that?!”
Even as I writhed in agony from the pain tearing at my body, my mom continued beating me, believing I was trying to scream to call for help. Her eyes were wild as if she wouldn’t stop until I was dead.
“Die! Die! You should have died in my womb! I should never have given birth to you!”
Wham! Along with the sound of something breaking, my head throbbed. My vision blurred. My mom, who was trampling me while screaming, gradually faded into the darkness. My consciousness was slipping away. Would she stop her violence if I passed out? But at least it wouldn’t hurt anymore. I wouldn’t have much regret even if I died here.
The insulting words didn’t make me sad. I wasn’t sad about my existence being denied.
It only reaffirmed that the most foolish choice I had made was to continue this miserable life where my very existence was denied.
* * *
I wished I could disappear from this world right now.
Thinking that, I lost consciousness. But, as always, my eyes opened again.
How persistent. It would have been better if something had gone wrong, leading to death, but once again, I stubbornly survived. Lying sprawled on the cold floor, I blinked slowly.
Where was I?
It was dark, but not cramped. The space was suffocating, but it wasn’t stifling. Gradually, as my vision focused, I could start to make out my surroundings. It resembled his study. There were many things like bookshelves. But instead of books, the shelves were lined with bottles of a uniform shape. It slowly dawned on me, I must be in a wine cellar. A place that only the house staff would frequent, and only in the evening or at night. Though my mom had yelled at me that she could only go to her room and the dressing room, she evidently knew more about this house than I did.
I was in too much pain to get up. My entire body was torn, so I couldn’t even tell where it hurt the most. If I went back into the house, my mom would fuss over me as if I had gotten into a fight with friends, even though I hadn’t been to school in the first place.
What time could it be now? I had no phone, not even anything like a wristwatch. I had no way of knowing. I closed my eyes again and held my breath. I really wished I could sink into the ground and disappear like this.
‘Even the air you breathe is a waste!’
When I was still young and couldn’t even speak properly, if I whimpered and cried because I couldn’t express myself, my mom would stifle my mouth, saying it was noisy. When that didn’t stop my crying, she would cover both my mouth and nose and say, with disdain, that even the air I breathed was a waste. I sometimes thought the same. What’s the point of struggling to breathe and live like this?
“Haa, haa…”
The breath I had been holding eventually burst out. I felt so miserable that I thought I might cry.
I already knew the answer. I didn’t have the courage to die. I was too weak to even die.
As I kept blaming myself repeatedly, something came to mind. A thought I shouldn’t have. I slowly opened my eyes again. There was nothing visible in my blurry vision.
But once the thought emerged, it wouldn’t go away. The thought I might have consciously and repeatedly suppressed was now raging in front of me, as if I had forgotten how to swallow it back down. That thought was…
What if my mom disappeared? Instead of me disappearing from life?
Once the doubt started, it spread like a dry flame, uncontrollable in all directions.
Why did I have a mother?
It wasn’t that I longed for a normal mother like others had. It wasn’t because I resented the fact that our mom lacked maternal love, or because I was sad that she treated me as an unwanted appendage. I genuinely wondered if there was any need for her at all. Such a blasphemous thought surged up.
I once heard stories about children attending school from an orphanage. After hearing those stories, I realized that my mom was no different from their director. No, in fact, those children were better off than me, at least in that they weren’t beaten or starved for days if they disobeyed. Orphanages were often targets for social issues regarding child abuse, so at least those directors paid minimal attention to that.
Even though I had come to live in a luxurious mansion, even though my room was bigger than all the houses of my mom’s men combined, nothing had changed for me. Lying on the broken bottles in a windowless cellar after being beaten by my mom, I asked myself.
Did I really have to live with my mom?
If my mom were gone, maybe my life would be a bit better.
It was a vile thought, contrasting with the hopeful expectation I had felt during the tranquil, radiant morning.
Until this morning, I thought maybe I had finally found where I belonged. I indulged in the illusion that the world had changed. But in reality, I had never been invited into this world, and there was nowhere I truly belonged. My world could never change. I had to accept that. That was my reality.
With those thoughts, I closed my eyes again, helplessly.
At that time, I didn’t know.
I didn’t know what terrible form my wish would eventually take.
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