Prey - Chapter 24
Suhyeon ignored Seol Hana’s voice behind her and kept walking.
As Suhyeon walked past the house covered in foreclosure notices, she heard Seol Hana’s voice behind her again.
“I’m telling you, we should just tell her. She needs to know what’s really going on.”
Suhyeon stopped in her tracks.
When she turned around, Seol Hana was staring directly at her.
The moment Suhyeon saw the smirk curling up on Seol Hana’s lips, she felt a sense of foreboding.
“What are you talking about?”
Seol Hana’s smirk grew wider, as if she were enjoying herself. The more her lips curved upward, the stronger the feeling of dread grew in Suhyeon.
“You’ll be shocked when you hear it.”
“I asked, what is it?”
Suhyeon’s sharp tone didn’t faze Seol Hana, who continued smiling, as if she were about to tell the most amusing story. Then, with her lips lifted in a satisfied grin, she spoke clearly and deliberately.
“Your mother is alive.”
For a moment, Suhyeon couldn’t believe her ears.
“…What?”
Four years ago, when she received the news that her mother had passed away from COVID-19, Suhyeon had been studying abroad in the U.S. Due to the pandemic, she couldn’t enter the country. By the time she finally made it back to Korea, the funeral was already over, and all that was left as a nameplate at the columbarium.
A nameplate and a picture labeled with “Oh Kyung-hee.”
The guilt had tormented Suhyeon for so long, and she was just beginning to feel a little better.
But what?
Her mother is alive?
As Suhyeon’s eyes wavered, Seol Hana looked down at her extravagantly manicured nails and spoke as if it were no big deal.
“She’s only alive because she’s on life support right now, but that costs a lot of money. You know, since Dad’s business failed, we can’t afford it anymore.”
Suhyeon glared at Seol Hana, her eyes full of intensity.
“Do you think I’m going to believe that kind of lie? It’s clearly recorded in the family registry…”
Park Young-hye deceased.
“The truth is, it wasn’t an illness, it was an accident.”
Suhyeon froze and turned to look at Park Young-hye.
“An accident? What do you mean?”
Park Young-hye let out a sigh.
“She planned to die. She kept insisting that your stepfather take her to Mount Seorak, and when they finally went… she jumped.”
Jumped…?
The words she heard wouldn’t settle in Suhyeon’s mind. What is she talking about? Is she saying Mom tried to kill herself?
Suddenly, a vision of a pitch-black night sea flashed in Suhyeon’s mind.
Gasp.
She recalled the image of her mother walking toward the crashing waves, and she inhaled sharply. At that moment, Park In-ok twisted her lips.
“She must have hated the sight of me. She’s a terrifying woman. Already sick, and she does something so cruel to make the rest of us live with guilt for the rest of our lives…”
“My mom wasn’t like that.”
Suhyeon’s gaze hardened. But Park In-ok only stared back at her, unfazed.
“What right do you have to look me in the eye like that? How weak must you have been for Oh Kyung-hee to make such a choice? How desperate would a mother have to be to abandon her child like that? Sure, I’m a bad woman, but you weren’t even in Korea, too busy with your studies, right?”
“At that time…”
Suhyeon’s throat closed up. She wanted to scream that it was all nonsense, but Park In-ok’s words pierced her heart.
If what Park In-ok was saying was true, that her mother made that choice because of her…
Once again, the vision of the pitch-black sea squeezed Suhyeon’s heart.
‘Mom! Mom!’
The sound of the waves crashing.
Her mother walked straight into the freezing sea without looking back.
Suhyeon squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again.
“Do you have any idea how shocked we were? And yet, we spent so much money trying to keep
her alive, even though she was practically a corpse.”
“Stop lying. Then why does the family registry say she’s deceased?”
“There were… circumstances. Honestly, no one knows when she might actually die… Anyway, is that really the point? The important thing is that we kept Oh Kyung-hee alive, right?”
Suhyeon steadied her mind as it threatened to waver.
“I won’t believe it until I see it with my own eyes.”
“Then go check for yourself.”
“!”
At Park In-ok’s nonchalant reply, Suhyeon’s eyes wavered.
Seeing the resolve in Suhyeon’s eyes falter, Park In-ok continued.
“I’ll give you the address. Go see for yourself if you don’t believe me.”
