The moment she stepped through the door, the tension hit her like a wave. Her father's eyes narrowed, cold and unyielding.
"You are so bad at studying," he spat, each word deliberate. "You'll never get a good job in the future."
Her mother's voice followed, sharp and cutting. "Yeah. Weird and PATHETIC. Remember, we raised you because of our parents. Otherwise… I would have abandoned you long ago!"
The words pierced her chest like ice. Her fingers tightened around her bag straps, knuckles white. Every syllable carried weight—not just shame, but the heavy history of expectation, of failure, of being unwanted.
Seo Yoon didn't respond. She never did. She had learned long ago that arguing or crying only made the storm stronger. Instead, she bowed her head slightly, folding her pain into a tiny, invisible corner of her mind.
Dinner passed in tense silence. Every bite she took felt like a test. Every word she didn't say was a shield. The storm outside her window could have been a hurricane, and she would have felt safer than the storm inside these walls.
Later, in the quiet of her room, she let herself breathe. Her hands traced the edges of her notebook, tracing letters she hadn't yet written, words she hadn't yet spoken.
They could say whatever they wanted. They could try to break her, humiliate her, make her doubt herself. But Seo Yoon had learned a secret: strength doesn't come from their approval. It comes from surviving their cruelty, from carrying on quietly, and from protecting the part of herself that they could never touch.
She whispered to the shadows of her room: I am not weak. I will not be crushed. I will rise on my own terms.
The tears came then, silent and hot, but she didn't wipe them away. They were proof she was still alive. Proof that even in darkness, she could feel. And proof that one day, she would take her life back from the hands that tried to control her.