I’d rather be hated for who
I am than be loved for who
I’m not.
☆☆☆
Chapter1
Prologue – The Glass Slipper Breaks
The wind blows, making my hair flutter. The hair that hadn’t been trimmed for a long time was so rough it was dry and brittle.
The forearm that came into view was as skinny as a winter tree branch. The calves would be no different. The legs slightly revealed from under the fluttering skirt hem had skin so faded it reminded one of an old person.
The scattered dark blue bruises looked like age spots. They seemed even more so under the bluish moon. Probably, if someone saw, they would think a skinny doll was precariously walking on the terrace railing.
I had never seen a night with such bright moonlight as today before. Is that why? Emotions I wouldn’t normally feel are surging up.
It was a strange emotion mixed with emptiness and sorrow. It was like resignation. It was such lethargy that I felt like I might collapse at any moment.
If music had flowed from somewhere at this time, how nice would that be? Then I would have danced like a marionette with its strings cut. At the same time, I would have reminisced about the past as if it were natural.
Here, there is one uninteresting fairy tale. It’s the story of the stepmother and stepsister who envied the beautiful and kind stepsister. The gossip of the villains who tried to take everything from her but ultimately failed.
As in all old tales, the kind-hearted stepsister marries the crown prince and lives a happy life, and the bad stepmother and stepsister who tormented her spend a miserable remainder of their lives and are forgotten from everyone’s minds. This obvious content was no different even in reality.
“But no one asks ‘why did they torment her?’ Don’t they, Roena?”
Right now, in front of me stands that beautiful and kind stepsister from the fairy tale. Perhaps she came running despite her dignity, what flows from her lips is only the rough breathing that has risen to her throat.
The expression of shock upon seeing her stepsister precariously standing on the terrace railing was one she would never make in her usual self.
“What are you thinking? Come down. Come down and talk to me. Anything is fine, so come down and say it!!!!”
So, I couldn’t help but laugh. About this absurd situation.
People said. That she and I are polar opposites. Yes, I admit it. We were like water and oil. A relationship that no matter how hard we try, we absolutely can’t get along. A terrible ill-fated connection that we shouldn’t have met from the beginning.
But even if we met as strangers, we, no, you and I who would have felt deep disgust, became ‘family’ due to fate. In the world of nobility where innate distinctions are clearly drawn.
The union of Viscount Wischwaltz, who has a 15-year-old daughter, and a commoner who has a 16-year-old daughter didn’t look good from the outside. Because he could have chosen a young, cultured, and childless pure virgin as his second wife.
However, the viscount chose my mother who was living in poverty, and some gossips chattered about it as if it were the romance of the century and a beautiful union.
But most people except for a few were not tolerant toward the second wife and her daughter. Anything with the word ‘new’ attached tends to cause wariness, unfamiliarity, and inexplicable rejection.
Especially if what they own is so superior that it can’t be compared to the new thing.
In fact, love is an emotion that fades at some point, so it’s bound to end someday. Even if it’s the stepfather’s affection for my mother, it was no different. Even if right now everything revolves around my mother and me.
So, we were prepared. That someday the stepfather would suddenly look at reality with cold eyes and take care of his true bloodline. So, let’s enjoy this affection to the fullest now and humbly accept the future that will come later, we resolved.
But other people couldn’t endure it. They sharpened their blades as if the world would turn upside down any moment and drove my mother and me into a corner.
Especially, I was a thorn in their eyes. That was because of the stepsister ‘Roena’ who was around the same age.
The family members feared that, believing in the stepfather’s favoritism, I might threaten the position of Roena, the heir to the viscount family. They trembled thinking the viscount, blinded by love, might be bewitched by my mother’s words and hand everything over to me.
So, they tried to emphasize that I was a person far too unworthy to enjoy these things, and a girl so inferior that she couldn’t even be compared to the stepsister.
It was truly a simple task. Since there was Roena who was perfect in everything, they just had to constantly compare and frustrate me.
While gently provoking my pride that was rampaging like a colt hit by the sun, immersed in the new world. After all, a wench who played in the streets couldn’t possibly beat a girl who was a lady from birth.
Their prediction was all too accurate. The stepsister’s talent was very astonishing; if I knew one, she knew ten. What I could barely do by reducing my sleep at night, Roena easily followed with a single demonstration. Even if I tried desperately to keep up, the gap didn’t narrow.
Like an insurmountable huge ‘wall’. Sometimes my efforts were depreciated because of her who was too outstanding.
In fact, I who started knowing nothing and she who was reviewing what she already knew should have received opposite evaluations. That would have been the right thing.
But in the world of nobles, since they see young ladies like Roena as the absolute standard, I always had to wear the label of an inferior student.
What was despairing was that there was no one who ‘properly’ taught me so I could fairly compete with her. Even my own maid who served me turned away from me, so what more is there to say?
What the maids in the mansion did was cleverly hide the unfair start and constantly compare her and me, making me suffer from inferiority. Thus, frustrating and frustrating me again to make me hide in my room.
But they didn’t know. They overlooked. That even if I feel frustration and suffer from inferiority, I’m not the type to just stay locked in the room and burst into tears.
The colt fueled by malice, instead of running away to a corner of the room, came to hate and detest the stepsister and tried to steal everything from her. So, when the stepfather died in a storm while out on trade, I put my mother forward and seized the real power of the viscount family.
And as if to vent the accumulated resentment, I started to torment Roena and her followers by pushing them into the damp basement. I abused the most noble young lady of the viscount family by using her like a maid harshly. As if I couldn’t endure otherwise, very viciously.
But as in all fairy tales, the happy ending is always the protagonist’s share. As everyone said, the owner of the viscount family is ‘Roena’, and I overlooked that she is the protagonist of this story.
Only my mother and I didn’t know the decisive moment that everyone had been patiently waiting for. That many people wished for Roena to someday fly brilliantly again and smile happily.
Now, what more should I say?
That Roena, who had suffered as the wicked stepmother and stepsister, went to the imperial ‘ball’ with the help of those around her who pitied her, caught the eye of the crown prince, the heir to the throne, and rose in status all at once?
That she saved us who should have been imprisoned for abusing and tormenting the young lady of the viscount family?
Roena said this was a new opportunity. She said it was a chance to start over. So, she whispered softly that she released my mother and me.
But for other people, this was nothing less than an opportunity to repay the pains of the past. In the end, only misery repeats.
So, let’s rather end it. The ill-fated connection with her who pretended not to know while knowing all this, and with everyone who trampled me to protect Roena. Also my life that foolishly fell for their schemes and rampaged like a fool.
Now, look here. This dramatic stage. Long loosened hair, a pure white dress without any decorations. One woman precariously standing on the terrace railing. One audience who came rushing upon my contact. It’s truly the best direction to end this absurd comedy. It was regrettable that I couldn’t laugh out loud.
Instead, I quietly asked Roena who was gesturing for me to come down quickly.
“Just one question. ……Did you really know nothing?”
“What do you mean? Please come down.”
“Answer me. You knew, right? That from some point, something was going wrong! But you were hiding behind everyone, just peeking out.”
I was always curious. While everyone in the viscount family was moving as a group, why was only Roena, who was at their center, unaware.
Sometimes comparisons were made so blatantly visible, yet Roena was looking at me with a very calm expression. Probably, the meaning in those eyes toward me was ‘Why can’t you do this easy thing?’
“Yes. But I thought everyone did it like me. Because it had to be so natural, I couldn’t understand sister’s feelings.”
“Yes, you knew everything. I wasn’t wrong.”
“But it’s the past. We can start over. If you just come down from there. So come down here. Oh, please.”
No, we are already cracked. In the name of malice and inferiority. There was a perfect fracture between her and me that could never be mended. That’s why the resentment toward her becomes hatred, soon transforms into killing intent, and rushes to the worst situation.
Yet, the reason I can smile is because I can picture myself becoming the victor in the end.
That she lived happily ever after with the crown prince is the end of the fairy tale? No, this is the true end of this story.
“Roena.”
I called her name in a gentle voice. And to Roena who flinched in response to my call, I murmured.
“I hate you.”
I hope you suffer remembering my death for the rest of your life. So that in the happy life that will unfold ahead, I exist as a ‘wall’ and you constantly taste frustration. At the same time, I hope the image of me falling right before your eyes always lingers.
So, I could fall pleasantly, accompanied by her scream. Down from the terrace brightly lit by moonlight, like a fallen bird. Accepting the tremendous pain felt all over my body like vicious pleasure.
But why am I alive and moving now? Why is Roena, younger than my last memory, standing before my eyes?
“Nice to meet you. I’m Roena. Are we becoming family now?”
Why is the stepfather alive?
Am I dreaming right now? Or is it God’s prank to make me taste pain again?
What’s certain is that I have returned from death, and I have to repeat the vicious reality I tasted before.
All too despairingly.
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BY Anna 💓
