MM Ch 3 part 2

PR by neji

2 AM.

The warmth of the heated room made me a bit drowsy, so I opened the window slightly. The chilly stream of wind quickly cooled the spacious room. With a blanket draped over my shoulders, I rubbed my dry eyes with my hands. Then I went back to checking the notes around my wrong answers for the second time.

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Please read the following text and identify the implied meaning behind paragraphs a, b, c, and d.

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I quickly read through the paragraph and organized the themes in my head.

One day, a man woke up only to find out that he had transformed into a bug. Unaware of why or how he had turned into a bug, he endured the scorn and contempt of his family.

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The irrationality of existence, or the elemental loneliness of human beings. The answer was number two. Check.

The head of household who had been the main breadwinner of the family had transformed into a disgusting bug overnight. Soon, his family’s contempt began to bubble up to the surface. He either shut himself in his room or hid underneath the furniture. The only one in his family to take pity on him was his younger sister, and he only managed to survive by eating the crumbs of food she brought him.

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The annihilation and alienation of mankind as mere tools in a proprietary society. The answer was number four. Check.

“Ng…! Ah… Ahhng!”

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Inside a quiet room where the cars outside could be heard so clearly, my hand suddenly flinched and began to tremble as it held the mechanical pencil.

My heart sank. I underlined the same word and moved my lips as I tried to quickly finish reading the paragraph.

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His family no longer saw him as human and began to treat him like a bug. They’d confine him in another room and openly complain that ‘that thing’ needed to disappear.

The severance of family relations. The absence of communication.

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“Ah! Professor! Nng!”

The man could not speak, but he could understand everything they said. However, because his appearance had changed, he was merely a horrid bug in his family’s eyes. They were worried that other people would recognize who he was. They wanted to kill him.

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“Ah! Ugh! Good! Nng!”

Damn it!

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Tap. The lead of her pencil broke as it ripped through the paper. Instead of answering the question, I threw my pencil at the window.

“Haa…”

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I felt as if my blood had cooled in an instant. It felt like my racing heart was going to burst out of my throat.

The room my mother shared with her husband was on the other side of the house, past the kitchen and the study. Even if they participated in passionate relations as a couple, they were on the other side of this large space, so there wasn’t any reason why I should have heard them from my room.

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However, I could hear my mother’s moans so clearly as if only a wall separated us.

I recalled the nightmare from middle school. I hadn’t been able to go to the bathroom because of the way my mother and her lover had acted like beasts in the shared spaces of the apartment. I held my bladder as I waited but ultimately ended up going to the veranda and urinating at the drain there. This had taken place on a similar night like this one.

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My hand trembled and my teeth rattled. It had been a long time since I’d experienced the ringing in my ears and the vivid noises of sex, but the shock had not dulled at all. Actually, it seemed to have gotten worse. The rage caused my mind to go blank.

Lee Kyuwol had already notified the family that he was going to sleep over at a fellow athlete’s house tonight. The small sliver of hope I had placed in Professor Lee now shattered into a million pieces.

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I was not amazed nor impressed by this man, an educator who looked down on others from the ivory tower his son had built. However, I had at least expected him to be a man of culture and reason. It seems my one-sided hopes were misplaced.

My shortsighted mother had managed to seduce him, but how could any sane human being start having sex like a beast when the light in his stepdaughter’s room was clearly on next door? Completely disillusioned, my hand trembled as it crumpled the paper.

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Thump.

I burst out of my seat, and my chair crashed to the floor from the sudden movement. I walked past it and opened my door. Sure enough, the panting noises were coming from the bedroom next to mine. It was an unused guest bedroom that was connected by a powder room.

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Without putting on my slippers, I walked barefoot down the corridor that was only illuminated by auxiliary lights and made my way to the kitchen. When I regained some of my sanity, I glanced at the knife block and pulled out a silver fruit knife. Then I walked back towards the powder room and stood in front of the door as my body shook.

“Haa… Haa…”

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I wanted to open this door immediately and shout at the rutting beasts inside. If you don’t shut up right this instant, I’ll kill you all. I wanted to yell and scream, but I remained frozen in my spot and couldn’t move. Wasn’t I the disgusting hypocrite for holding my breath and eavesdropping on their intercourse?

“Honey, ah, darling, aaahng…!”

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“Ugh! Huu…! Ugh!”

I could hear the sound of skin slapping and my mother’s moans growing louder. Professor Lee’s breaths were also quickening. I remained standing in my spot as if my feet were glued to the floor. I felt strange. Like a suffering, helpless animal.

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“…That’s understandable.”

I heard someone murmur from behind me, and my heart crashed to my feet. I almost dropped the knife. I whipped around like a startled animal.

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Lee Kyuwol was standing in the dark corridor. Holding onto the knife with both hands, I trembled as I let out a breath.

I didn’t know why he was home when he said he’d be spending the night somewhere else. Since when had he been behind me? He looked at me with a strange expression on his face. With the knife pointed in his direction, I remained rooted to my spot as my body trembled. I could still hear my mother’s loud moans through the powder room as she had sex with Professor Lee.

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Lee Kyuwol began to slowly approach me. I couldn’t even look away from his gaze. A silence deeper than the sea swirled around us, and it continued to grow even deeper amidst my mother’s loud moans.

He stopped and frowned as he whispered to me in a soft voice.

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“This isn’t the first time this has happened, is it?”

I smelled the faint aroma of liquor on him. The dark corridor seemed even darker. As my heart jolted inside my chest, I felt a wave of anger rush through my veins.

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“…Shall I kill them?”

He didn’t pay any mind to the knife in my hands. As if he didn’t care about my dangerous, sensitive condition, he took a step towards me. My mother’s moans grew shorter and faster. Smack, smack. The sound of slapping skin rang in the air.

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Holding the knife in both hands inside this dark corridor, I drew in a ragged breath and bit down on my lips until they bled. Lee Kyuwol raised a brow and murmured again in a clear voice.

“It’s annoying, so… should I just kill both of them?”

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His voice slightly went up an octave as if he were excited. If he had gotten excited from listening to a live performance of my mother’s sexual intercourse, I would not have been able to criticize him.

“Huu…”

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With my teeth clenched, I let out a sigh, completely humiliated. A moment that I did not want anyone to see was exposed, and I was overwhelmed by a sudden urge to disappear.

Lee Kyuwol had not only caught my mother and his father having sex.

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He knew that these two completely ignored my existence in this home. He saw my truth and how I wanted to kill them. However, I didn’t even have the courage to follow through and merely trembled as I held a knife in my hands. He’d seen it all. I gave up and looked away from his eyes. I could only scurry away like a cockroach.

“Aah, hng! Aahng! Ah, honey, good…!”

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I returned to my room and slammed my door shut, but the sounds continued. My body went limp, and I flopped down on the edge of my bed. I gazed out the window at the twinkling lights of the Hangang Bridge.

“Haa…”

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A long sigh left my trembling lips. If I fell from the twenty-sixth floor, it would be an instantaneous death. However, if I opened the window and jumped out right now, it wouldn’t feel right. It would be too much of an excessive gift for my mother.

I could still see the knife trembling from my peripheral vision. It was a well-sharpened knife made out of stainless steel. It faintly reflected the light and gleamed silver. It seemed to be speaking to me. Telling me that there was nothing better it could cut than my own body.

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Die. You can just die. Either way, living doesn’t truly feel like living anyway. Right?

I slowly brought the knife to my left wrist. I saw the blue veins running beneath my pale skin. If my mother discovered my bloody corpse first, would she cry for me out of guilt? Or would she scream out in shock? Either way, just the thought of her reaction alone made my body tremble with delight.

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Within the darkness, my bedroom door silently opened. Lee Kyuwol saw me sitting on the edge of my bed, clenching the knife. He slowly walked over to me and didn’t react at all.

Tap.

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He fiercely grabbed my wrist, and the knife automatically left my limp grasp and fell to the floor. I watched him pick it up, walk over to my desk, open the bottom drawer, and throw it inside before closing it. I gazed at him like a person who had lost consciousness.

After he returned to my side, he slowly bent down. One of his long legs knelt on the floor, and his face was at my eye level. A dim, deep silence flowed in between us once again.

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The sexual intercourse was still in full swing one wall away, and Lee Kyuwol and I were in the same room. There was nowhere left for me to hide.

“Aah, honey…! Honey, honey…! Nng! Haa, nng!”

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All of this was my fault. I painfully bit down on my lips.

Yeah. This is my parent. I didn’t even amount to an insect in her eyes. I was merely a cockroach hiding in the room next door. I also did not know why I was still alive. If I were just an insect from the very beginning, why was I even born in the first place?

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The screams I had carved into the journals I had already burned to crisp were now silently being whispered through my eyes as I opened my lips.

“…Don’t you know… how to knock?”

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My voice trembled because I was trying to hold back my tears. I knew better than anyone that what I just said was ridiculous in a situation like this.

Even if Lee Kyuwol sneered at me, it didn’t matter. No, rather, I wanted him to look down on me. Isn’t it ridiculous that you’re pretending to be strong in front of me? Do you even have the right to act all confident and arrogant in front of someone like me? I would have rather wanted him to ask me these things as he looked down on me.

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“Sorry.”

Instead of sneering at me, Lee Kyuwol apologized in a curt voice.

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“…Get lost.”

My eyes grew warm. This was why I hated him. Even though he looked at my scowling face and saw all the twisted thoughts inside my head, he didn’t look away.

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“…I said get lost.”

“Sorry.”

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Although I hated how they had sex for everyone to see, I was helpless to do anything about it. Instead of calling me a silent doll and criticizing me, he whispered to me as if to console me, and I… hated it.

“Ah! Aah! Aahng!”

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The actress one wall away let out her shrill cries as if she were shooting a pornographic video.

Lee Kyuwol’s piercing eyes watched as I bit my lips and slowly lifted both of his hands. A familiar warmth touched my ears. The layers of sand walls that surrounded me suddenly melted away.

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I usually avoided making any contact with strangers, but I was unable to pull his hands away from my ears. All I could do was lower my heavy eyelids and close my tear-filled eyes.

Drip, drip.

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My sorrow had reached its limit, and it began to trickle down my face before splashing onto his body. Because his large hands were holding my head, I couldn’t lower my head. All I could do was close my crying eyes and bite my reddened lips.

When I was very young, there was a time when I went to the beach during the wintertime with my mother and some unknown man. That was the first time I’d seen the sea with my own eyes. The waves crashed down on the shore and bubbled away. I couldn’t look away. It was overpowering. I faced the salty wind and stood there for a long time.

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I looked far off into the horizon and saw where the sky touched the land. As I watched waves that were larger than me crash down, I was filled with awe. With my mouth wide open, I watched as if I were bewitched. In the blink of an eye, the wave towered over me and swallowed me into complete darkness.

I was swept away in an instant. My limbs floundered, but my feet did not touch the ground. Extremely salty water entered my eyes, nose, and lips.

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Save me.

Someone help me.

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Please save me.

As I writhed in the water, when I opened my eyes, I was spit out by the waves and was crawling on the shore. My mother, who had been smoking somewhere far away, and the unfamiliar man finally discovered me and began to run over. I saw this last before I lost consciousness.

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It was the first instance where I realized how small and insignificant I was in the face of Mother Nature. The moment I was swallowed up by the sea, I realized that I was alone in this world.

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“Whenever you want to see the sea, all you have to do is bring this to your ear, and you’ll be able to hear it. So don’t do something so dangerous ever again.”

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As I was lying in a hospital room, the man held out a conch shell to me. Could he have been my biological father? Or was he just one of the countless men my mother dated?

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The only thing certain in my foggy memories was that when I woke up in the hospital, my mother was not by my side. I was a cumbersome existence she had to hide.

After that day, I never returned to the sea. And I never brought the conch shell to my ear. I was afraid of the sea. I did not want to remember or experience the intense loneliness ever again.

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When Lee Kyuwol covered my ears, I didn’t hear the sea. All I could hear were my cries growing louder and softer. Just like the days of my childhood where I was unable to endure the intense sorrow surging up, I felt like I was crying underneath my blankets.

As loneliness continued to burn within me, I slowly opened my eyes.

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Lee Kyuwol was here. As if he were here all along. As if he were a part of the darkness all along, he was watching me. The faint headlights of the cars crossing the bridge outside the window illuminated his face.

“Ugh…”

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I couldn’t stop the cry from bursting out of my lips. In this moment where I felt incredibly lonely and humiliated, I felt relieved that I wasn’t alone.

In the moment when I wanted to give up on my life, when I felt terrible and frightened, I was not alone. Someone was by my side. This fact filled me with such intense relief that my body couldn’t stop shaking.

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“Huu… Aah, uugh…”

Suddenly, I realized how much I had yearned for someone’s touch. My desire to be alone and solitary had been a bald-faced lie. If it were true, I would not have felt such relief at the fact that I was with someone now.

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Until now, these unfamiliar emotions had never burst out of my lips. All the pent-up loneliness was released through my salty tears and trickled into my mouth. My face twisted underneath Lee Kyuwol’s gaze as I cried like a child.

My mother’s moans gradually faded away and grew faint. I wasn’t sure if it was because they had finished having sex or whether it was because my ragged breaths grew louder and choppy. Lee Kyuwol continued to watch me until I fainted due to exhaustion and fell into bed. 

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I woke up when the alarm clock on my desk rang. Lee Kyuwol had disappeared. Everything had returned to its place, and it was now morning.

Like a dry, withered plant, I feebly got up and walked to my desk. I opened the bottom drawer.

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I saw the silver knife that Lee Kyuwol had thrown into the drawer last night. The sharp blade gleamed in the sunlight, as if to prove to me that last night hadn’t been a dream. I swept my tongue over my dry lips and looked at my reflection in the mirror before looking back down.

Inside the same drawer, there was a wrapper of the granola bar that Lee Kyuwol had given me several months ago.

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There was no way he hadn’t seen this last night. I had hidden it somewhere deep inside the drawer because I didn’t want to be caught, but he had seen it. I wonder what he thought when he saw it.

With swollen eyes, I put on my school uniform as I was lost in thought.

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It was all for the best. I had hit rock bottom, and I couldn’t fall any further.

Now that he had seen my weakness, whether Lee Kyuwol decided to sneer at me or ignore me, it was something I needed to handle