A Fall of Red Roses
Author: MsValeriev
Romance;Thriller
Chapter 1
My name is Min-ji. I was born into a house completely devoid of warmth.
Long ago, I was just a five-year-old girl who had already witnessed far too much for her age. Back then, I loved walking to the park. Sometimes I would examine butterflies, trying to catch one to add to my collection. It was comforting in moments, but doing it entirely without friends left an ache of profound loneliness.
My family was a well-known, wealthy dynasty-or at least, that was how it felt when my father, Min-jun, still held the status of a respected businessman. He was revered in our town. Everyone knew him as a wise, authoritative man who always carried himself with public dignity, a man who completely knew what he was doing. His business ran flawlessly, and on the surface, everything seemed picture-perfect.
But that was before I discovered he had been playing house with another family.
He had been cheating on my mother behind her back for three years. It started when I was five, and by the time I turned seven, the illusion shattered completely. Every single night, I woke up to the sound of my mother screaming from the depths of her throat. Her voice was thick with unbridled rage, agony, and the sharp sting of betrayal. From my bedroom, I listened to the devastating symphony of their arguments: the violent crash of furniture, the sharp shatter of glass hitting the floor, and the heavy, echoing crack of a harsh slap. I would curl up in my bed, hugging my knees tightly to my chest, desperately trying to make myself as small as possible.
It was agonizing to hear my mother suffer, trapped in a marriage she genuinely believed would bring her eternal happiness. She had once said yes to a man who kissed her gently, promising her the world and the devotion she rightfully deserved.
It was all a beautiful lie.
At one point, he had been a good man-a father who held his wife and children tightly in his arms as she read us bedtime stories.
But almost overnight, he transformed into a cold, distant ghost who ceased to exist for his own family.
My sister, my brother, and I became the ultimate casualties of his selfishness.
Day and night, we were forced to watch him bring that other woman into our home, treating her as if she were the only thing that mattered. He eventually replaced our very presence with the new children he had fathered with her.
Driven mad by the betrayal, my mother became deeply unstable. Year after year, she choked down the bitter memory of his lies. It broke my heart to see her deteriorate, knowing our father didn't care enough to look back at the living hell he had created for us.
I thought that was the worst of it. I thought the nightmare would eventually end.
But my innocent mind could never have anticipated the night my mother finally lost control. Through the cracked doorway, I saw her holding a kitchen knife, confronting her husband as he desperately shielded the other woman behind his back. The details blurred, and the next time I forced my eyes open, my father, that woman, and the infant she held in her arms were all sprawled across the floor, pooling in blood.
My mother stood over them like a wild animal, her trembling hand still gripping the crimson-stained knife.
She was completely gone, consumed by terror and shock. But when her eyes slowly drifted to meet mine, a smile spread across her face-a breathtakingly beautiful, tragic smile. It was the last expression I would ever see on her face before she turned the blade on herself, plunging it into her own chest.
. . .
"Wake up."
A deep, commanding voice boomed from above, followed immediately by a bucket of freezing water slamming into my face. The shock dragged me violently out of the darkness. My head spun as I found myself splayed out on the icy linoleum floor of the school hallway. My entire body throbbed with a heavy, agonizing soreness.
Blinking through the wet chill, I noticed dark blood dripping onto the floor, mixing with the puddle forming around my damp uniform. I shivered violently and tried to push myself up, but a heavy leather shoe connected brutally with the side of my head. The world instantly went white, the blinding pain amplifying the ringing in my ears.
"I said wake up, loser."
The voice spoke again, its edge growing sharper, far more dangerous. When I managed to lift my chin, the harsh overhead lights stung my eyes. Looming over me like a towering shadow was
Baek Sunha.
"What do you think you're doing? Get up," he commanded, his tone dropping into a cruel sneer. When I struggled to find my footing, he drove his shoe directly into my stomach. A ragged cry of pain escaped my lips as I curled into a ball around the impact.
All along the corridor, a crowd of students had formed. Fear was written plainly across their faces as they maintained a wide, panicked distance from the scene-like a pack of stray cats trying to avoid a lethal predator. And Sunha was a predator. He wasn't just a common troublemaker who bullied people for fun; he was a monster. An insatiable monster driven by pure violence, crushing anyone who dared cross his path. And right now, I was firmly in his crosshairs.
Sunha's hand suddenly clamped onto my arm with a crushing grip, completely indifferent to my agonizing winces. He hauled me roughly to my feet, nearly causing my weak knees to buckle, before shifting his grip to seize a handful of my hair. He pulled back so hard I was certain the roots would tear from my scalp.
"Do you think you're clever, Min-seo? You're just a stupid bitch trying to get attention with empty threats," a girl's voice venomously chimed in. It didn't belong to Sunha. It came from the girl stepping out from beneath his shadow:
Ji-woo.
She was right there. My living nightmare.
That absolute psychopath.
Ji-woo had spent months making my life a living hell, mocking me ruthlessly in front of the entire class. She was the one who had systematically cyberbullied my sister, posting relentless insults about our family online. She was the sole reason my sister had tragically ended her own life long ago.
But my thoughts short-circuited. Wait... what did she just call me?
Min-seo?
I froze in absolute shock, my mind suddenly flooded with a paralyzing wave of confusion. Min-seo was the name of my deceased sister. Why on earth was Ji-woo addressing me by the name of the girl she had driven to suicide?
Terrified, I forced my gaze past Sunha's broad shoulder, catching my reflection in the large glass windowpane behind him. The words died instantly in my throat. What I saw left me completely paralyzed.
Staring back at me from the glass was a familiar face with long, raven-black hair and striking purple eyes completely different from my appearance i used to see through the mirror of my room.
Min-seo. It was undeniably her face, but it was moving in perfect synchronization with my own movements. Is my mind playing tricks on me? Or am I somehow wearing my dead sister's face? It felt entirely impossible. She was dead. She had been gone for a long time.
"I... I don't know what you're talking about..." I croaked out. The words tore through my throat, revealing a raw, scratching pain I hadn't realized was there.
The only response I received was a devastating strike across my cheek. A sharp crack echoed as my jaw absorbed the impact. Sunha's face was twisted in pure fury, dark shadows casting over his features to make him look entirely unhuman. He towered over me, a predator cornering helpless prey, his hand still raised from the merciless slap.
"Deaf, ungrateful bitch," he spat.
In that brief, agonizing moment, the pieces of reality began to violently click into place.
"What threat did you make?" he demanded.
"I don't know-"
Another heavy slap rattled my skull.
"I said, what threat did you make against my girlfriend?" he roared, tightening his grip on my hair.
"I don't know! I really didn't do anything!"
The blows kept coming-one after the other-until my cheeks burned a fierce crimson and my jaw throbbed so violently the bone felt ready to splinter. My vision blurred into a hazy smear of colors. My head spun fiercely; I hadn't eaten a single meal in two days. Ever since my father's company went bankrupt after his death. I had been surviving alone in the ruins of a dilapidated, abandoned building. I had absolutely no one left in the world to hold onto.
"Do you hear me?" Sunha growled.
"That's enough, Sunha... maybe she just needs a little rest," Ji-woo purred.
My knees gave out completely at the sound of her voice. Ji-woo stepped forward, casually shoving Sunha aside. Her touch was purely sadistic as she reached down, bypassing my hair to clamp her fingers directly over my face. Her sharp nails dug deep into the skin of my cheek, tearing small scratches that sent warm trails of blood trickling down to her hand.
"Cry, Min-seo... cry," she whispered maliciously against my ear. Her breath was sickeningly hot, contrasting sharply against my freezing skin. I felt as though I were being suffocated inside a block of ice. Stop calling me Min-seo! my mind screamed in a burst of unexplainable rage. My heart felt as though it were being systematically carved into pieces and thrown into a consuming fire. I despised hearing Min-seo's name leave her lips-but I couldn't understand why the reaction was so visceral.
"I... really don't know..." a ragged gasp escaped my torn lips. My throat was entirely parched.
Before I could breathe, Ji-woo's hands shifted to my throat, squeezing with a lethal pressure, as if she genuinely believed I deserved to die right then and there. She choked me as if she wanted to break my neck and add my silence to her collection of terrors.
As the lack of oxygen began to turn my vision black, disjointed memories began to assault my mind like old, reopening scars, bringing with them a profound psychological agony.
. . .
"Min-ji, you're so useless!"
"Min-ji, don't touch my toys! Your hands are dirty, eww!"
"It was Min-ji! She stole my toy!"
My head throbbed to the rhythm of the phantom voices. Suddenly, I saw a memory through the eyes of my childhood self. I looked down at my hands-small, delicate, and soft-holding a single, worn-out toy. I remembered that afternoon vividly. I had been sitting quietly on the floor, watching Min-seo fight with our brother over a toy they both desperately claimed as their own. I was entirely innocent. A good, quiet little girl who just wanted to be loved.
*RRRIP*
An abrupt, heavy silence had blanketed the living room.
"Mama! The toy-"
"Mamaaa! Min-ji broke the toy!"
I had been sitting right there on the rug, watching like an innocent rabbit. So why did they blame it all on me?! Why me? Why was it always me?!
*SLAP*
The memory of the sting on my delicate five-year-old cheek felt incredibly real. I had survived a living hell without a single sin to my name, only to receive a harsh strike from the mother I loved more than anyone else. All the while, my siblings stood safely behind her skirts, completely devoid of guilt for framing their sister. Their expressions had been sorrowful, but never for me. They only mourned the toy they wouldn't get to sleep with that night.
