DDOS 01

Chapter 1

When Lee Hwa-shin barged into Yeo-eun’s life, her peaceful everyday routine was shattered.

“What do you even eat to survive?”

Moving busily around Yeo-eun’s tiny apartment and pretending to nag her about every little thing, Lee Hwa-shin behaved so naturally that anyone watching would have thought she was an overprotective mother.

It was absurd.

Just watching her open the refrigerator and freezer one after another, no one would ever guess that she was a woman who had become addicted to gambling and abandoned her own daughter as if she were nothing.

Why is she still alive?

“Look at this place. Why is it such a dump?”

Every day, the news was filled with stories of innocent people dying in horrific accidents. Just today, Yeo-eun had seen a report about a construction worker who had died in an accident at a construction site.

Then why is my mother still alive?

“Have you forgotten how to talk now, too?”

Why are you still alive?

She couldn’t ask that.

Yeo-eun stood with one foot on the threshold separating the living room from her bedroom and stared blankly at Hwa-shin.

Why had Lee Hwa-shin, who had suddenly disappeared one day, come back?

Throughout Yeo-eun’s entire life, her mother disappearing had been as common as eating a meal. Sometimes she would suddenly return. Other times, she would call asking for money.

Or she would babble about how some company president or some teacher or another man was desperately clinging to her, spouting useless nonsense about the men who supposedly wanted her.

But astonishingly, this time she hadn’t contacted Yeo-eun for years.

Naturally, Yeo-eun had begun to think that perhaps she really was dead this time.

Maybe that was too much to hope for.

“Oh dear, the only thing to drink is orange juice. This hasn’t expired, has it?”

Yeo-eun remembered absentmindedly accepting the juice from someone handing out religious pamphlets on the street while telling her to believe in Jesus. She hadn’t even known there was anything like that in her refrigerator.

Seeing Hwa-shin checking the expiration date on the boxed juice, Yeo-eun thought that her mother must have gone somewhere else and once again desperately clung to her own life, as she always had.

A dry laugh escaped her.

“Ha.”

Hwa-shin cast Yeo-eun a sidelong glance with her lovely eyes before sticking a straw into the orange juice.

“You bought more books you can’t even eat? How can you not have even one can of beer in your refrigerator?”

Five minutes ago, Hwa-shin had suddenly shown up at Yeo-eun’s home, looked through every corner of the tiny space because there was nowhere else to go, and finally collapsed into a chair at the dining table.

“Look at this cramped room. You don’t even have any clutter or dust. You’ve got a serious case of obsessive cleanliness.”

Her mother hadn’t changed at all.

Should Yeo-eun have considered that a good thing?

During the years when her mother hadn’t contacted her, Yeo-eun had secretly wished for her mother’s death while suffering from guilt at the same time.

But seeing that Hwa-shin was exactly the same as ever, all those years of being tormented by hatred and guilt suddenly seemed utterly pointless.

“You sit around the house reading books all day. Where do you think money is supposed to come from? How come you haven’t changed at all?”

Unfortunately for Hwa-shin, Yeo-eun’s profession was precisely the kind of job where money came from sitting at home and staring at books and a monitor.

She was a subtitle translator.

There were obvious signs on her desk that she had been working on a project that was due by tomorrow.

Yeo-eun had explained her job to Hwa-shin several times before, but there was no way her mother had understood it, much less remembered it.

Talking any further would only make Yeo-eun’s insides fester.

So she asked coldly,

“Did you run out of money, or did you get yourself into trouble again?”

“Hey! Kang Yeo-eun! Watch your manners when you talk to your mother!”

Hwa-shin, who had been sucking noisily on her orange juice, snapped sharply at Yeo-eun.

Yeo-eun didn’t back down.

“If you got yourself into trouble, that’s your problem. If you’re broke, sell that bag or those clothes and deal with it.”

Hwa-shin still looked extravagantly dressed.

Her bag, clothes, and even her shoes were enough to make her look like the wife of a wealthy family who could spend a considerable amount of money anywhere she went.

It wasn’t the kind of flashy appearance created by vanity merely to look rich despite having nothing.

Everything Hwa-shin was wearing was genuinely expensive.

Yeo-eun knew where those things had come from.

They were relics from the period when Hwa-shin had shone the brightest—things she couldn’t bring herself to let go of even when she had no money at all and had to come all the way here.

“What, then? You expect me to sell everything and walk around naked?”

Hwa-shin burst into laughter as though Yeo-eun had just told the funniest joke in the world.

Yeo-eun didn’t even feel like laughing.

She wasn’t angry, either.

A headache throbbed from her right temple.

Her deadline was tomorrow morning, and she didn’t have a single second to waste on Hwa-shin.

“Get out. Before I call the police.”

Of course, even if Yeo-eun called the police, there was nothing they could really do.

But if she wanted to drive Hwa-shin out, she had to say something like that.

Her mother had always lived her life committing all sorts of crimes, both big and small.

The way Hwa-shin flinched at Yeo-eun’s icy words and anxiously watched her was proof enough.

“You really don’t have any money? My feet hurt from wearing these shoes. I need to take a taxi.”

Yeo-eun no longer had the energy to shout, Then walk there barefoot.

Did she even have any money to give her mother?

Yeo-eun began calculating how much cash was in her wallet and how much she should give Hwa-shin, then stopped.

No matter how much she handed over, getting Hwa-shin out of this house immediately was what mattered.

After that, she would have to move.

The deposit and monthly rent are cheaper than the going rate around here, so I wanted to renew my lease and stay.

Yeo-eun had no idea how Hwa-shin had found this place, but living quietly here would no longer be easy.

Wherever Hwa-shin went, trouble was never far behind.

And cleaning up that trouble had always been Yeo-eun’s responsibility.

If she wanted to avoid going through that again, she had to get her mother out immediately—and probably move as well.

“Hm? Give me some money.”

Yeo-eun pulled her wallet out of the cloth bag lying near the dining table.

There were several fifty-thousand-won bills inside.

She took them all out and held them toward Hwa-shin. She didn’t even know how much they amounted to in total.

“Take this and just… hurry. Please, just go.”

Perhaps there was some benefit to knowing someone for so many years.

Hwa-shin snatched the money immediately and counted it, moistening her finger with saliva as she did.

At the same time, she got up, tucked her bag under her arm, and headed for the front door.

Her steps were surprisingly quick.

“I’m leaving because this place is disgusting. I came here after all this time just to see if you were doing well, and this is the thanks I get. What a fucking joke.”

Yeo-eun couldn’t even bring herself to wait for her to put on her shoes.

Just go already.

“You really need to fix that personality of yours. I gave you this pretty face, so why do you live without ever smiling? You should meet some men, too. A woman becomes prettier when she’s loved.”

Her voice was gentle.

And sincere.

Which somehow made it even more horrifying.

Yeo-eun turned her head, refusing to look at herself in the mirror hanging by the entrance.

There was something she could neither throw away nor run from.

The face inside that mirror looked exactly like the woman Yeo-eun hated most in the world.

Hwa-shin, meanwhile, continued adjusting her appearance for a long time in front of the full-length mirror Yeo-eun was desperately trying not to look at.

She examined her lips for quite a while, too. Even after drinking the juice, not the slightest bit of lipstick had come off.

She looked satisfied.

“I won’t come here for a while. So don’t worry.”

A lie.

“It’s not a lie.”

Hwa-shin declared it as though she had read Yeo-eun’s mind.

Then she took two fifty-thousand-won bills from the money in her hand and pressed them back into Yeo-eun’s palm.

The tips of Hwa-shin’s fingers, as she returned the bills, were painted a pale pink.

There wasn’t a trace of darkness in the smile she gave her daughter.

“Mom’s going to take a taxi to the police station now.”

What is she talking about?

Caught off guard by the sudden statement, Yeo-eun stared at her.

Hwa-shin was still smiling brightly.

That was the face Yeo-eun remembered.

A face without worry, anxiety, shame, or guilt.

Anyone would inevitably be drawn to that smile.

And Hwa-shin was extraordinarily skilled at using her face to her advantage whenever and wherever it suited her.

“If I turn myself in, they’ll… what was it? Take normal… normal participation or something into consideration, right? They do that in movies.”

Mitigating circumstances.

It took Yeo-eun a moment to understand what she meant because Hwa-shin said it so casually.

Only then did Yeo-eun’s brows furrow.

“The police station?”

Hwa-shin curved her lips into a beautiful smile.

“It’s nothing serious, so don’t worry too much. I just think it’ll be safer inside than out here, so I’m going in.”

Yeo-eun had experienced no small amount of humiliation trying to secure even this tiny rented apartment.

Yet this woman, who had probably never experienced such hardship even once, was discussing the safety of a jail cell without a shred of shame.

“Still, I did give birth to one very pretty daughter.”

Apparently, shame wasn’t the only thing she lacked.

She had no regrets, either.

Yeo-eun slapped away Hwa-shin’s hand when it reached up to stroke her cheek.

Hwa-shin merely smiled sweetly, as though she found Yeo-eun adorable.

“My daughter, I love you. Okay?”

Leaving behind nothing but those meaningless words, Hwa-shin slammed the front door shut.

The malfunctioning digital door lock, which had been making a strange noise whenever it opened or closed for the past few days, played a half-broken melody.

The sound of Hwa-shin’s footsteps gradually fading away beyond the door mixed with the door lock’s melody, creating a strange harmony.

Yeo-eun sank down right there in front of the entrance.

No tears came.

It didn’t take long for Lee Hwa-shin to leave the shabby villa after entering it.

The woman who emerged in clicking heels lightly tapped the back of a little girl, perhaps five or six years old, who was squatting in front of the villa watching ants, and helped her stand.

Then she immediately took something out of her bag and placed it in the child’s hand.

The little girl quietly looked at Hwa-shin, nodded, and walked into the villa.

Afterward, Hwa-shin cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted loudly.

“Mommy loves you!”

The words could be heard clearly even from inside the car.

The man sitting there with his chin propped on his hand, watching the scene, eventually burst out laughing.

“What a load of bullshit.”

Manager Kim, who had been wiping his glasses before putting them back on, flinched.

But he straightened his posture and pretended he hadn’t heard anything.

At that moment, Hwa-shin, who had started walking down the alley again, suddenly stopped when she spotted them.

It was far too nice a car to be sitting in such a shabby neighborhood.

Did she notice us?

But Ki Seung-do was wrong.

Apparently, she had simply spotted a taxi passing beside them.

Hwa-shin waved her hand with an extraordinarily dramatic gesture, and the taxi immediately stopped.

Click.

The door closed.

“Should we follow her?”

“Leave her. I have someone tailing her. Looks like she’s leaving the kid with her daughter.”

Seung-do looked up at the villa from inside the car.

The place looked unbelievably shabby, with its shattered windows crudely patched together with strips of tape.

“What was the daughter’s name again?”

“Kang Yeo-eun.”

Kang Yeo-eun.

“When should I go see her? If I go in right now, she’ll be fucking bewildered, won’t she?”

No answer came.

He hadn’t really been asking for one.

For some reason, he kept rolling the round, oddly unobtrusive name around in his mind.

“Now that we know where the kid is, let’s go.”

“Will she be okay? What if she throws her out?”

“Manager Kim. Do you really think Lee Hwa-shin is someone you can take lightly?”

Seung-do pulled a cigarette from his jacket pocket and put it between his lips.

Click.

The lighter sparked.

Smoking in the car had become a habit because there was no one around who could tell him off for it.

“If she didn’t have something to fall back on, there’d be no reason for her to make this kind of mess.”

“I’ll finish this one and then we’ll go.”

Now that they knew where she was, that was enough.

With that thought, he smoked the entire cigarette.

Just as he’d expected, the little girl never came back out of the villa.

Hey, you must be fucking bewildered right now, too. Right?

He was talking inside his head to a woman whose name and face were all he knew.

At the same time, he was calculating what kind of bastards would show up at the funeral ceremony he would have to return to.

Then—

Ding.

A text message arrived.

He hadn’t saved the number, but he recognized it.

It was probably one of the lackeys he’d assigned to keep an eye on Lee Hwa-shin.

But the contents were unbelievable.

[Lee Hwa-shin involved in a traffic accident. Vehicle half-destroyed.]

His head went blank.

Then he laughed.

What the fuck is this now?

You’ve got to be kidding me.