Chapter 33
breathing slowly became weaker.
After losing consciousness, she closed her eyes.
Sorim buried her face into the hospital bed and cried bitterly like a child.
All the feelings she had once hated and resented melted away at Grandmother’s tearful apology, like snow melting.
Sorim forgave her.
Or maybe… she had been hurting this much because she had wanted to forgive her all along.
When Sorim stepped out into the hospital hallway, Song Taeha was standing in her way, calmly checking his wristwatch.
Even as Sorim was falling apart, he looked perfectly composed.
“How is her condition?”
His question was completely businesslike, without even a trace of sadness.
Sorim looked up at him with red, swollen eyes.
“Grandmother… she’s very bad.”
“……”
“She kept saying she was sorry while crying.”
Taeha, who had been silently watching, casually wiped the tears running down Sorim’s cheek with his thumb.
“There’s no need to put meaning into the words of someone who’s dying.”
“……”
“It’s all just pointless emotional waste.”
“How can you say that? She’s my only family…!”
“That ‘family’ again.”
He shook his head lightly, as if the word itself annoyed him.
“What’s the difference between the aunt who sold you off and the grandmother who abandoned you?”
His voice was filled with clear disgust and irritation, unable to understand Sorim’s feelings.
He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her toward him forcefully.
“Forget the past now, Yoon Sorim.”
“Ha…”
“Don’t let an old woman’s regrets hold back your future.”
“You really… don’t know anything, Mr. Taeha. You truly know nothing.”
“It’s not that I don’t know. I choose not to look. It’s a waste of time.”
Taeha lifted Sorim’s chin and stared straight into her eyes.
“What I can give you isn’t an old restaurant or an old woman’s tears.”
What he could offer was only numbers, power, and the dazzling path he controlled.
“A future more glamorous than you can imagine. A position where no one can look down on you—the lady of Yoonsan. That’s the best and most efficient form of love I can give.”
His words didn’t comfort Sorim’s heart. Instead, they felt like they were tightening around her throat.
He had no intention of sharing her grief over her dying grandmother.
He truly believed that covering her pain with his enormous power was enough.
“It won’t be long now—until Yoon Sorim completely becomes Song Taeha’s wife.”
He whispered softly into her ear.
“The day you finally become whole beside me is close.”
“……”
“Isn’t that a pretty decent ending?”
Feeling chills crawl over her skin, Sorim pushed against Taeha’s chest.
But he didn’t move back at all.
Instead, he pulled her tighter into his arms and wrapped his large hand around the back of her head.
“Today is the last day you’re allowed to be sad. Starting tomorrow, smile nicely—by my side.”
“……”
With her eyes tightly shut, Sorim realized something in his arms.
This man didn’t understand human emotions.
As the permanent farewell with her grandmother drew closer, Sorim began to see her own path more clearly.
Rather than living trapped forever in this glittering hell, it would be better to turn to ashes and scatter away.
Sorim clenched the hem of Taeha’s coat tightly and grit her teeth.
That night, seeing Sorim pacing the living room unable to sleep, Taeha brought out a bottle of vintage red wine.
As he poured it into a glass, he spoke casually.
“Have a drink. If you sleep deeply, you won’t think about anything.”
“…I don’t feel like drinking wine.”
At her response, Taeha set the bottle down and stared at her.
“How long are you going to protest because of that old woman?”
His eyes showed genuine confusion.
To him, the death of someone close was just the removal of part of a system—not something that required emotional pain.
Sorim squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again.
Was this what it felt like to shout at a wall? She felt helpless.
After thinking for a long time, unsure what to say, she simply shook her head.
“…I’m not protesting. I just don’t feel well.”
She forced herself to take a sip of wine.
The rich taste and black currant aroma spread lightly across her mouth, but it felt like swallowing sand.
“I’ll give your grandmother a grand funeral in Yoonsan’s name. That’s how we protect your image.”
The moment she heard the word “funeral,” her heart dropped. Biting her lip, Sorim barely kept herself composed.
“…It doesn’t need to be grand. She liked things quiet.”
“What the dead like doesn’t matter. Funerals are for the living.”
“……”
“How people treat you depends on how I handle your grandmother’s funeral.”
From the start, her opinion never mattered to him.
He was planning everything solely to mold Sorim into his idea of a perfect wife.
Overwhelmed by the dizzying speed of it all, Sorim quietly set down her wine glass and looked at her hands.
She could still clearly feel the memory of holding her grandmother’s dry hand.
Her grandmother’s regret became a new source of courage for Sorim.
‘Live with your wings spread,’ she had said.
The glamorous future Taeha promised would only break Sorim’s wings and lock her in a box.
Sorim looked at Taeha sitting across from her.
He was still elegant, proud, and overwhelmingly beautiful.
But inside that beauty, there was no soul.
He didn’t love Sorim—he only wanted his perfect collection to remain undamaged.
Sorim slowly let out a breath.
Her heart was beating irregularly, but her face stayed calm.
Taeha’s control seemed flawless, but that very perfection revealed an opening for escape.
Because he was completely convinced she would never leave him.
Sorim drank the cold wine while waiting for the moment this glittering prison door would finally open.
After visiting her grandmother in the hospital, Taeha often didn’t come home, claiming he was busy.
But it was Sorim who suffered more because of it.
Spending entire days without speaking a single word in this large, luxurious house felt like a poison that slowly dried a person out.
Sorim stared blankly from the living room toward the kitchen.
Not long ago, they had sat there together, eating warm soup face to face.
Each casual compliment from him had once filled her chest with warmth—now it flickered like a fading illusion.
Was my choice really right?
She wondered countless times.
Maybe signing the franchise deal he wanted and living comfortably inside the glamorous role he created for her would be easier.
Perhaps giving up hard cooking and living elegantly would be the better choice.
But whenever she touched the old notebooks of her mother and father on the study desk, Sorim’s resolve returned.
If she gave that up too, it felt like “Yoon Sorim” would disappear completely, leaving only the shell of “Song Taeha’s doll.”
