"Why?" Yunah screams from the top of the stairs where she had been motionlessly sitting. And head snaps up to her, my Omega raring up in defense for the one we love the most, our precious Yunah.
On my sister's beautiful face is a look I have never seen on her before, a look that is a strange one for her.
My happy-go-lucky, sunshine personified sister looks livid. She looks like she is dancing on the edge of insanity, ready to fall in at any given moment, ready to give in and surrender to the pull of it. The look is one that I have seen on many of the innocent victims of my Father's tyrannical madness many times.
"Why?" Yunah asks once more, her voice cracking with the simple word, the crack in her voice being a mirror of the crack in her heart, "why do I have to be given away for your own misfortune?" She screams as she grips the railing of the elegant stairwell
"Choi Yunah!" My mother screams her name with a look of offense on her face, as if Yunah has done something scandalous. I stand still, unacknowledged like a ghost as I watch my mother and my sister scream at each other. Mother screams of hurt pride and Yunah, out of hurt love.
My silence is not out of not knowing what to say rather…Hwang Jaehyun has done it again, pulling on the one string able to bring me to my knees and grovel for mercy.
I am silent in hurt, ashamed of my inability to save my sister or my family. Ashamed that I had been kissing the same man that is causing my family to shake up in this way.
"Yunah, I am a good mother, all I have done is to pour my life out for you and your brother" mother says, her voice raised as she points to me as if I also have a big part in whatever this mess is…and maybe I do.
Maybe if I wasn't born this way…
"Mom it's hard" Yunah sobs, her eyes red from hours of holding back tears and pain, she looks utterly devasted and broken up on that staircase. Different from the way she had looked when I first walked in, her expressionless face at my first arrival reminds me of me, high on a pedestal, put together on the outside but in a thousand unfixable pieces on the inside.
A mess.
"What is hard? Getting married? Having power? What is hard?" Mother yells back at her, her tone stubborn and unwilling to understand or see what her daughter is aching to show her. My mother is just like that, nothing matters to her but herself.
"I don't want to be like you" Yunah says, her voice dropping from the intensity it had been projected with. The drop in volume comes with her shoulders dropping in weakness, this is the Yunah I know, a simple child who just wants to be happy.
My simple sister with a heart of gold.
"My daughter, don't you see?" Mother says, moving closer to the stair to stand at the bottom, she spreads her arms and gestures around the room, "I have everything"
"You have pain" Yunah says, and mother scoffs, "you have nothing but pain" Yunah repeats herself, needing our mother to open her eyes and see the truth for herself. Mother, instead turns around laughing like Yunah just said the funniest thing in the world.
This is the world we live in. We see but we look away. We act like they don't exist. I act like ignoring the reality of my world would make it less visible to my sister, but she sees it all. There is no hiding.
"I don't want that. My Oppa and I don't deserve that, can't you see…" Yunah says and rushes down the stairs still sobbing, desperate to make our mother understand.
"This is why Yubin looks down on us" mother suddenly screams and pulls at her hair, "mother" I call as I go to her side, "mother, that's enough" I say to her and hold her to stop her from inflicting damage on herself.
"Yubin unnie is nothing!, she is his most loved, yes, but you? Mom you are just a servant working on overtime for Choi Sanwoo" Yunah screams at my mother, "Yunah stop it!" I growl at Yunah and she stops in her track.
"That's enough" I say tiredly. "I have seen enough and I have heard enough" I say and let my mother go gently. "Is this what we have become?" I ask and Yunah bows her head as more tears stream down her face and her shoulders tremble with the sobs that escape her lips.
"Yunah, apologize to your mother" I say firmly and she sobs even harder, "I'm sorry" she says as she bows ninety degree. "I'm sorry mother" I say as well with a bow, staying low
for a few seconds.
As we both straighten, my mother has her face set in a frown, like she has won over us. "Let's go" I say to Yunah and pull her up the stairs and away to her room.
Once within the walls of her room, Yunah crumbles before my eyes and cries out in agony, "Oppa I feel like I am going to die, I can't do it" she sobs with her hands over face and body shaking with the pain from her heart.
"I will take care of it Yunah" I say to her gently with my hand on her shoulder, "look at me" I say softly and she does, "trust me" I say with surety.
"Oppa you don't understand what I have done…" she whispers, "you will hate me if you knew" she says and my heart skips a beat.
"What is it Yunah?" I ask her in concern.
"I..I bonded with a Hwang Clan member" she said and I stand up abruptly in shock.
"What?"