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I resisted the temptation to indulge in introspection. This strange situation had nothing to do with me.
their lives still stick stubbornly to my insides.
armored by the power of her own renunciation,
It was a body from which all superfluity had gradually been whittled away.
he found his wife’s patience and desire to do the right thing stifling, which made him still more inclined to see it as a flaw in her character.
An indiscriminate connection, their existences briefly aligned.
What seemed to be happening was that Yeong-hye was retreating from herself,
They were both descending further into silence.
maternal instinct
tree symbolism like what she saw in her dream
when did it all begin to fall apart?”
characteristically assuming responsibility over the events that transpired, relates to the motherly tendencies that were described earlier
unable to forgive that magnificent irresponsibility that had enabled Yeong-hye to shuck off social constraints and leave her behind, still a prisoner.
“Why, is it such a bad thing to die?”
In-hye could see that the role that she had adopted back then of the hard-working, self-sacrificing eldest daughter had been a sign not of maturity but of cowardice. It had been a survival tactic.
A man whose self-esteem was so easily wounded, who quickly became frustrated if the situation didn’t go his way.
All those scenes of flight he’d included in his videos; and yet, when he needed it most, such flight had proved beyond him.
“So there’s no need for us to forgive each other. Because I don’t know you.”
The feeling that she had never really lived in this world caught her by surprise. It was a fact. She had never lived. Even as a child, as far back as she could remember, she had done nothing but endure.
she could feel that gaping black wound still sucking at her, pulling her in.
The pain feels like a hole swallowing her up, a source of intense fear and yet, at the same time, a strange, quiet peace.
If it hadn’t been for Ji-woo—if it hadn’t been for the sense of responsibility she felt toward him—perhaps she too might have relinquished her grip on that thread.
In-hye stares blankly at the splatter pattern. A whirling galaxy of bloody stars.
