By Zephyria 
Yes, he deserved to die. I survived without dying just to kill that bastard. My reason for existence. The reason I had to survive. When I recalled that, my heart felt at peace, as if by magic.
The people who killed my parents, manipulated the case, hid the culprit, and pushed my life into a pit. I wanted to do the same to the people who had lived and enjoyed themselves, smiling effortlessly, as payment for the tears I shed, the pain I endured, and the agonizing death I faced until the end.
That I killed their child. I wanted to mock them with a brazen smile while hiding that fact. At the very least, I had the right to do so. I was the only person with the right to give it back.
∞ ∞ ∞
“Don’t be anxious. Don’t shake, and don’t worry.”
“Okay.”
“Why are you already pale? You’ve done nothing wrong. If your conscience pricks you even a little, if it feels like a prick as small as a thorn or a speck of dust, blame me. Tell yourself it’s a lie I made you tell, that you had no choice. If you set your mind that way, you’ll feel a bit more at ease.”
After parking the car in front of the main gate and before getting out, Kwon Yi-kang grabbed my shoulders to meet my eyes, checked my complexion, and pressed his lips softly against my cheek.
“Our baby, relax. I’ll be right by your side.”
“Mister, I’m not a baby.”
“You’re a baby in my eyes. You’re so fluffy with peach fuzz that I want to just pop you into my mouth in one go without even plucking the hair.”
Kwon Yi-kang bit my cheek firmly with his teeth and then let go; even without looking in a mirror, it was clear that one cheek must have turned bright red.
“Go out there brazenly with a face that knows nothing. Make Cha Baek-joo look like the biggest piece of trash in the world—well, he was trash to begin with. Make those people dread what might come out of your mouth. You know what I mean, right?”
He was basically saying to just do what I did yesterday. As I nodded firmly, Kwon Yi-kang stroked my hair, calling me a good boy, and unbuckled my belt.
I got out of the car and rang the doorbell. Normally, I would have just opened the door and walked in, but since today was a special day, it was a thoughtful consideration to let them be mentally prepared.
Passing through the main gate, I slowly climbed the stairs. It felt a bit unfamiliar visiting the house again after nearly fifteen days since I had staged a nude show and run away to marry Kwon Yi-kang. Upon entering the entrance, I was guided to the living room where the Fathers and my sister-in-law were seated.
Originally, there would have been six, or seven including Kwon Yi-kang. Even with Kwon Yi-kang, the space left by the eldest and the second-eldest felt somewhat empty for some reason. It didn’t mean I missed those inhuman scoundrels; it was just a feeling that a vacancy is certainly noticeable.
“Young Master! I heard you were with him yesterday. What on earth happened? A death by falling? What kind of nonsense is that!”
“Sit down first. Eldest, be quiet.”
I stared at my sister-in-law, who had become a widow at a young age. The image of her teasing my second-eldest brother, thrilled by the title of the next hospital director’s wife, was nowhere to be found.
My sister-in-law’s position must be awkward too. It would have been better if she had a child. Both parents-in-law are alive, her husband is dead, and she has no children. She must be walking on eggshells in many ways to hold out here.
An Alpha father who would never leave a hospital or an inheritance to a daughter-in-law not related by blood, or a sister-in-law who would never spend the rest of her life in chastity serving her parents-in-law. I felt that this would all come to an end soon, one way or another.
“Tell me. Everything that happened yesterday, without leaving a single thing out.”
“I already told Chief Bae. Do I have to say it again? Didn’t he relay it to you?”
“Tell me anyway. With your own mouth.”
I had to acknowledge the Alpha father’s spitefulness in calling me out just to make me repeat the same words. Holding the hand of Kwon Yi-kang, who was sitting beside me, I parted my lips.
“On the way home after dinner, I got a call from my eldest brother. He sent me an address and told me to come there. I told him we were on our way home from an outing, and he told me to come along. So I went. It was a house I’d never seen before, and some Beta woman opened the door. She gave us drinks, so I drank one and listened to what they had to say.”
As soon as the word ‘woman’ came out, the sister-in-law’s expression became sharp and sour. Father nodded, telling me to ignore her and keep talking.
“Hyung was already quite drunk. To the point where he could barely steady himself. What did he say again… I asked if he was having an affair, and he said that’s just how arranged marriages are. He also mentioned that my sister-in-law probably has quite a few men of her own.”
“Young Master!”
“He told me to say what was said. My only crime is repeating what I heard.”
“Can’t you be quiet? If you’re going to keep interrupting, go upstairs!”
At the sister-in-law’s sharp shout, the Alpha father reprimanded her in an angry voice. Though she shut her mouth quickly, her face was full of dissatisfaction.
“He said he supports our marriage. That the era of the fathers is already over, so the new generation should get along. That we’d make good business partners. He went on and on with that kind of delusional talk. So when I told him his approval wasn’t important at all, the atmosphere froze. Then that woman brought out some drugs to lighten the mood. It was a powder; I don’t know what it was. Hyung asked to speak with me privately, so we went out to the veranda. Since no one was paying attention to her, the woman took the drugs alone.”
As I continued in a listless voice, the Alpha father clicked his tongue. I couldn’t tell if he disliked the fact that his son had a second home, the drug use, or the fact that the second woman happened to be a drug user. It was hard to know exactly what point he found distasteful unless you were the Alpha father himself.
“Hyung got annoyed because I was being uncooperative. And then he smoked marijuana. Perhaps because the drug effect hit combined with the alcohol, he felt great and started making slips of the tongue, unlike his usual self. About how the second brother died from drugs. That he was the one who first introduced the second brother to drugs. That the second brother had killed someone in an accident in the past and ruined his life because he felt unnecessary guilt. But… actually, he was the one who caused the accident. He didn’t want a speck of dust on his career, so he swapped the driver for the second brother.”
At my smooth outpouring of words, the Alpha father let out a hurried cough. Not only the Omega father, who had been listening quietly, but the eldest sister-in-law’s eyes widened as she focused on my lips.
“He said he was quite smart as a child, but he changed completely after that accident. Looking back, he said it was a good thing he swapped the driver. A very good thing. He even mocked him, saying he was weak-willed for feeling bad about killing a few ants, essentially. He laughed and enjoyed himself, talking about how that’s what hosan is, or about background, and then he lost his balance and—thump.”
I summarized the story as concisely as possible, picking only the parts that would make Cha Baek-joo look like a legendary scoundrel. I changed the ending slightly, but I was still speaking the truth based on the conversation we had. As I organized and recounted it, I realized he really was a son of a bitch, and the small prickles of conscience I’d felt vanished.
Thinking about it now, it was a good thing he died. The world is better off with a bastard like that dead. I don’t know why I trembled so much yesterday just because I killed one person with my own hands. I felt as if the world had become a little cleaner.
“It’s strange.”
“What?”
“Yesterday, my hands were shaking, my body was trembling, I was scared, terrified, and out of it. But now that I’m organizing the story for Father… my eldest brother is really a bad guy. Wow, having an affair, doing drugs, killing someone while driving in the past, and pinning it on his brother. What a total piece of shit.”
At my conclusion, the faces of the people who had been listening with various emotions turned as white as dolls. They looked a bit bewildered and a bit appalled.
“That’s it. Can I go now? I think I need to meet the police. Why hasn’t the police contacted me? Darling, when do we give our statements?”
When I asked, tilting my head slightly, Kwon Yi-kang, whose expression had clearly softened as he noticed my change, gave a gentle smile.
“You needed some rest yesterday due to the psychological shock. Whenever your body feels okay.”
“I think I’m okay now. Shall we go? Father, I have nothing more to say. If you have nothing more to say either, I’ll head to the police station. It was good to organize things by telling you one more time. I can just go and give my statement like this.”
“Wait!”
The Alpha father, with the Omega father and the sister-in-law sitting on either side, looked somewhat troubled.
Why did you nag me to repeat a story you already knew, gathering the whole family together? You must have heard it from Chief Bae yesterday. Then you should have expected that nothing good would come out of my mouth. How are you going to clean this up?
The Omega father was the type who wouldn’t care even if the house was a total mess, but the sister-in-law, whose position had now become ambiguous, had heard all sorts of filthy stories, so cleaning up her side of things looked equally daunting. He’ll probably be ripped off for a massive amount of alimony when he kicks her out.
“Why?”
“Don’t just go there and babble recklessly; organize your thoughts before you go.”
“I think I’m sufficiently organized now. Sister-in-law, wasn’t my story easy to follow? I think I organized it very well. Was it hard to understand?”
Surely you don’t lack even this much linguistic ability? My arrow shifted direction and pointed toward the sister-in-law. Having heard an incredible story, the sister-in-law sat blankly and let out an ambiguous answer: “Huh? Yes. No?”
“I mean you only need to say what the situation was yesterday; there’s no need to babble about every single thing you discussed.”
“On the contrary, the police will probably ask for more detail than this. I bet they’ll even ask what I ate and drank there.”
“Do you intend to broadcast all the family’s shames!”