IKMHITM 13

࣪ ִֶָ☾. Chapter 13 ࣪ ִֶָ☾.

Kain’s face, which had grown gaunt from weight loss, filled out nicely. The dullness in her skin and the luster in her hair returned.

Before full-scale coloring began, Kain had completely recovered her former beauty.

“As expected, my eye never fails. You will be my ultimate masterpiece.”

She was now able to smile even at the painter’s words, which would have creeped her out before.

“I thought I told you not to smile.”

Though the painter himself didn’t actually like it.

“A woman is like a lotus flower in the mud! She blooms her most beautiful bud amidst misfortune and hardship!”

It was a flaw that he was a bit mad, but artists were rarely in their right minds to begin with.

Kain brushed it off as nothing. As she worked as a model, Yugen’s situation improved as well.

The villagers were desperate not to displease the painter, who had poured a massive amount of money into the local economy. Naturally, they stopped treating Kain—the model—and her husband Yugen as roughly as before.

If only things could stay this peaceful forever.

The painting depicting Kain was now on the verge of completion.

All that remained was to dot the final touch into her eyes, which were as black as black pearls.

Around that time.

“Your husband is having an affair with another woman.” Kain learned of Yugen’s betrayal.

Kain rushed frantically to the spot the painter had told her about.

It can’t be. There’s no way Yugen would betray me. It must be some kind of misunderstanding.

However, Yugen had been coming home late lately. And because Kain spent all day posing as a model, the couple barely had any time together.

Villagers were gathered in a tight circle near the well. Yugen was tied up tightly and suspended from the crossbar where the water bucket usually hung.

Kain’s heart plummeted.

“You shameless bastard!”

“How could a man with a wife go off sleeping with another woman?”

The villagers hurled insults at Yugen one by one. Each insult was accompanied by a shower of stones and clubs.

“Stop it!”

The woman who shouted those words and stepped in front of Yugen was not Kain.

“We aren’t that kind of filthy relationship. What we share are pure feelings! We truly love each other.”

She was a woman Kain knew from seeing her a few times. A widow who raised a lot of chickens… Hanhi, was her name?

Living alone as a woman made life hard enough, but Hanhi’s father was the village landowner. People treated her with utmost respect and bought her eggs at high prices.

That must have been why only Yugen was being condemned.

“Yugen promised to leave his wife and live with me.”

The words spilling from Hanhi’s mouth pierced straight through Kain’s heart.

“He is going to be my husband! Please stop beating Yugen.”

Yugen looked at Hanhi from beneath his swollen eyelids. He moved his bloodied lips, but he didn’t deny Hanhi’s words.

“It’s alright, Yugen. I will protect you.”

Getting to her feet, Hanhi threw her arms around the hanging Yugen and hugged him fiercely. Whether by accident or intention, Yugen let his head drop heavily toward her.

The moment Hanhi stood on tiptoe and kissed Yugen, everything went pitch black before Kain’s eyes.

When she came to her senses again, Kain was lying on a pile of straw. It seemed the villagers had carried her there after she fainted.

They had been savage and selfish people. Yet they must have pitied Kain enough to show this small kindness.

Which meant, of course, that the rumor about Yugen cheating was true.

Even now, the murmur of the villagers talking outside could be heard through the door.

“What is the landowner going to do from now on?”

“What do you mean, what! Is there a father who can beat his only daughter’s stubbornness? Besides, the lord’s heart is already breaking seeing his widowed daughter so miserable.”

“That bastard Yugen. A beggar who rolled in from nowhere just hit the jackpot.”

“Hush! What kind of manners is that toward the future landowner?”

The people burst into boisterous laughter. But the moment Kain stepped outside, a silence fell like a lie.

Trapped within the heavy, suffocating atmosphere, Kain forced the words past her lips.

“Yugen……………… Where is Yugen?”

“Listen here.”

“Where is Yugen? I need to see him. Let me look at his face, please. Won’t you?”

“Just forget it. Forget him and leave. That’s better for you too.”

She couldn’t do that. She had thrown away everything just to look at Yugen alone.

She had turned her back on the monastery she was meant to inherit, her strict yet somewhat affectionate parents, and the people of the monastery who were like sisters to her.

And yet Yugen had betrayed her! She couldn’t accept it without seeing his face first.

Fortunately, exactly one person helped Kain. It was the painter, who was an outsider just like her.

“Your husband, you say? I heard he’s being cared for up at the landowner’s house. By the landowner’s daughter, or whatever woman that is.”

It wasn’t even surprising anymore.

“Shall I take you there?”

In the gloomy dead of night, Kain went with the painter all the way to Hanhi’s house.

Through the thin paper-lined door, silhouettes flickered in the candlelight. The shadow of a woman tenderly feeding rice gruel to a lying man.

The woman set the bowl down and kissed the man.

The lying man did not refuse.

Their shadows merged more deeply together, and the light went out.

“How unfortunate. After seeing that, what words could you possibly have left, even if you had ten mouths?”

The painter’s comfort didn’t reach Kain. Her devastated state of mind could not be expressed by borrowing every word in the world.

Yugen, how could you.

Kain’s head felt burning hot, as if it would burst with rage.

At that moment, she caught the sculpting knife clipped to the painter’s waist gleaming in the moonlight.

It was a sharp blade, capable of slicing away both her heart—boiling over with betrayal—and the utterly hateful man right before her eyes.

……Thwack.

Thwack, thwack.

Only when the pain threatened to tear her arms from their sockets did Kain finally snap back to reality. She was covered from face to chest in warm, sticky blood.

Hanhi had screamed and fled a long time ago. Yugen, whose injuries were severe, could not run away.

His eyes widened as he saw Kain charging at him with a knife.

“Yugen, is it true that you betrayed me?”

“Do you really love Hanhi? Say something, anything!”

Yugen did not deny it. Kain assumed his silence—lips trembling with a terribly distorted expression—was due to guilt.

Right. What else could a traitor possibly say?

The moment she saw the messy traces of rouge smeared around Yugen’s mouth and neck, Kain’s sanity snapped.

And in the end, it had come to this.

“Yugen.”

Dropping the knife, Kain grabbed her limp lover’s hand.

It was a hand she had held hundreds of times, yet it felt unfamiliar.

It was too cold, too hard……………… possessing no more vitality than the bark of a dead, withered tree.

<You any come end good guy. if meet that to won’t you>

Her father’s words had been right.

“Ha. Hahaha. Ahahaha……………….”

Hot tears streamed down Kain’s cheeks.

At that moment, the sound of clapping drifted in from somewhere.

Clap, clap, clap.

The painter, who had been watching from behind, approached with a leisurely stride.

“You finally did it. You pulled it off splendidly………………… The moment I first laid eyes on your eyes, Kain, I knew. You were different from other pretty little girls.”

Without any fear of blood-soaked Kain, he stroked her head.

“But truth be told, Yugen never betrayed you once.”

“Wh-What……………?”

“I’m the one who told the villagers to do it. Since they’re destitute folks, they never refused. There is nothing easier to manipulate than wretches who sell even their dignity for money.”

The painter reached out and grabbed dead Yugen’s hair.

Gripping his lower jaw and forcing his mouth wide open, he exposed Yugen’s mangled throat.

“It might be hard to see in the dark. I completely ruined his vocal cords. So he couldn’t even utter a single word about being wronged.”

The painter let go, and Yugen’s head dropped heavily to the floor.

Realizing the full picture at last, Kain gripped the sculpting knife with a feeling of boiling fury.

“You, how could you……………!”

Yet she could not overcome the man’s strength.

“Ah!”

Dropping the knife, Kain tumbled to the floor. The painter ruthlessly crushed Kain’s knee beneath his foot.

“Gaaah!”

The painter grabbed Kain’s face with both hands as she writhed and crawled on the ground.

“This is the exact face I wanted to see! Betrayal, a sense of loss, pain, despair, regret……………… It’s far more colorful and ecstatic than I expected.”

From afar, the sound of villagers summoned by Hanhi running toward them echoed through the air.

“I must be going now. I need to capture your face on canvas before I forget it. Kain, you shall continue to live and breathe inside my painting.”

Laughing, the painter declared it an honor. Stepping back, he kicked the sculpting knife rolling on the floor toward Kain.

“My final mercy. Thank you for your hard work.”

Beyond the doorway where the painter exited, the flickering flames of torches held by the villagers cast a glow.

Only one choice remained for Kain.

“Yugen……………… I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

The one who had betrayed him was me. He had looked only at me, just as he promised. I was the one who couldn’t trust him and turned my back.

How painful and terrifying it must have been? How wronged and resentful he must have felt, dying by my own hands?

“Wait just a little longer. I will atone to you with my death.”

Kain’s trembling hand raised the knife high. And just as she was about to strike down.

The rattling rosary on her wrist made her hesitate.

Focus returned to Kain’s eyes.

Wait a minute. Since when did I start referring to myself as ‘Kain’?

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･