Chapter 168: Happy Girl (1)
On the day of the audience preview.
Lee Hae-soo, holding the ticket Kim Si-woo had given her, arrived at the theater together with her younger brother, Lee Hae-shin.
“Noona, I searched up your ex-boyfriend—he’s super famous in the film industry, you know?”
“Be quiet.”
“Okay… But seriously, a movie? It feels like it’s been ten years since I last went to a theater. This place is huge.”
Lee Hae-soo felt both embarrassed and guilty watching Hae-shin look around the theater in wonder.
If she had been more capable, her brother could have come to places like this normally, just like everyone else.
“Here.”
Arriving in front of the screening room hosting the audience preview, Lee Hae-soo handed the tickets to the staff member checking them at the entrance and went inside.
“Wow…”
Hae-shin made an impressed sound and shoved a handful of popcorn into his mouth.
“Don’t drink too much cola. You’ll have to run to the bathroom in the middle otherwise.”
“Got it.”
The two of them sat in the seats indicated on their tickets and stared blankly at the screen until the movie began.
‘Something feels off…’
Even as the screening time approached, no one sat around them. And the seats were perfectly positioned in the middle-back row—supposedly the best spot for viewing. Lee Hae-soo couldn’t help but think of Kim Si-woo.
“Noona, there’s no one around us? This is literally the best spot ever.”
“I know… so please, just be quiet…”
Lee Hae-soo’s embarrassment started to outweigh her guilt.
Soon the movie began, and the title appeared on screen.
<An Unfortunate Girl and a Lucky Boy>
The moment she saw the title, the word “unfortunate girl” pierced straight into Lee Hae-soo’s mind.
***
Warm touches.
Bright smiles.
The pleasant feeling of a full stomach.
I can’t even remember the last time I had any of those things—my life has been nothing but misfortune.
My name is Choi Soo-yeon.
I’m nineteen years old, living in South Korea.
And right now, I live in a small, shabby semi-basement room.
“Hey! Get out here right now!”
The sound of a door being slammed open, followed by a familiar voice.
If I don’t go out now, I’ll be the one who pays the price.
“Why?”
When I stepped out of my room at his call, he slapped me across the face without a word.
Smack.
“Why? Because you deserve to be hit, that’s why.”
A man twice my weight hit me, and I collapsed without even being able to resist.
“Now even your expression stays blank. You don’t scream anymore either… Is that why? Money’s not coming in as easily these days.”
Even after slapping me, he still wasn’t satisfied. Looking at my emotionless face, he hit my cheek again while I was on the ground.
Smack.
Smack.
Smack.
To hurt even a little less, I curled up tightly and didn’t fight back.
“Huff… huff… Look at the venom in this bitch’s eyes. You planning to kill me too? Like your mother? You getting beaten like this is all your karma. You’re misfortune itself.”
He spat curses at me for a while longer before disappearing.
And the man who hit me was none other than the person called my father.
Of course, he wasn’t always someone who hated me or beat me.
It was all because of me.
Every misfortune began the moment I was born nineteen years ago.
They say someone else’s misfortune is your happiness?
In that saying, the “someone else” is me.
My misfortune becomes luck for the people around me—and that luck soon turns into happiness.
But the problem is that the reverse is also true.
My happiness brings misfortune to others.
When I was little, I grew up receiving so much love from my parents.
As a result, my father’s business gradually collapsed, and my mother was diagnosed with an incurable disease.
As always, the end of this story was misfortune.
My mother, already terminally ill, finally lost her life when I was seven years old. My father was left buried under a mountain of enormous debt.
After that, my father lived like a wreck, drowning himself in alcohol every day.
Still, he didn’t hit me.
Not until that one incident…
It was an ordinary day.
My father came home even more drunk than usual. I spread out the blanket and brought a pillow to help him lie down.
“Dad… lie down here…”
I called out to him like always, but the way he glared at me was different this time.
In the past, his eyes had carried a mix of pity and suspicion. Now, they were filled with clear disgust and hostility.
That look soon turned into action. A large hand flew toward my small face.
“It’s all because of you.”
That day became the first time my father ever raised a hand to me.
The first time I was hit.
I cried endlessly, but my drunken father soon fell asleep. The next morning, when he saw my face covered in dark bruises, he regretted it and left the house.
But when he returned, he was grinning from ear to ear.
With a thick wad of cash in his hand.
After hitting me and leaving the house, he had coincidentally bought a lottery ticket that won third prize.
It was too absurd to call it a coincidence.
From then on, my father tested whether hitting me was truly connected to his luck. He used violence on me again and again, and I could only be helplessly trampled beneath it.
When I was little, there were people who tried to protect me from that violence.
They reported my father to the police, but it was useless.
Instead, my father persuaded the villagers. At first, they didn’t believe him.
But curiosity drew them in. One by one, people started tormenting me—and they learned that his words were true.
They spat at me as I walked by, tripped me, cursed at me.
The more unfortunate I became, the happier the people around me grew. Eventually, the range expanded to the entire city.
The neighborhood where I lived saw skyrocketing property prices. The middle school I attended won award after award. My city was even selected as the most livable place in the country.
And so I turned nineteen—and that was when I first met him.
A boy who was the complete opposite of me. A boy who shone so brightly.
He appeared out of nowhere one day.
On my way to the neighborhood mart to buy ramen, I ran into the usual group that tormented me. They called out.
“Hey, where you going?”
“…”
Ignoring the boy’s words, I kept walking toward the mart—until someone grabbed me by the hair.
“Talking back again? Haven’t you learned? Your own dad abandoned you anyway.”
Smack.
“Hey, let’s step on her. I lost money betting yesterday—need to recover somehow.”
“Okay.”
One boy’s violence quickly spread to the others, turning into group assault.
“What the hell are you doing?!”
For the first time in a long while, I heard someone speak up to protect me. I let out a hollow laugh.
Another newcomer, huh.
In this neighborhood, anyone who spoke up as if trying to shield me was always the same type.
Someone who had just moved in.
I was infamous in this area. Anyone who lived here long enough would hear about me sooner or later.
The more miserable I became, the greater their happiness—so anything that might make me happy was thoroughly blocked.
Fortunately, even they didn’t want to cross the line into actual prison.
The boy who seemed to have just moved in stepped between me and the others.
“Ah… right, you just moved here today? Hey, it’s fine. You can hit her and no one will say anything.”
“What?”
“Wanna see?”
The boy dragged me past the newcomer and out onto the main street.
And astonishingly, no one reacted.
No—rather, they watched with expressions that said it was perfectly normal, passing by while saying things that would sound bizarre to outsiders.
“Hey, take it easy. If she kills herself, your whole family’s next.”
“Yes, yes.”
I had to be unhappy—but I couldn’t die.
As long as I stayed alive, their happiness would continue.
Because my happiness brought misfortune to everyone else, that was the only way it could be.
The newly transferred boy, unable to comprehend the incomprehensible situation, glared at the students while clutching my hair.
“You’re all insane…”
“Hey, my mom told me—she said the more miserable this girl gets, the happier we become.”
“Get lost.”
“No, I’m serious. I didn’t believe it at first either. But after I slapped her once, game items that never dropped suddenly did, and someone even gave me money out of nowhere. Ugh, so frustrating.”
Despite the boys’ words, the new transfer student hurriedly stepped in to shield me.
“If you want to hit her, fight me first.”
“Sigh… this is so annoying. Well, since you just moved here, I guess it’s understandable. Hey, let’s go. I already hit her anyway.”
“I should’ve hit her first if I’d known.”
“If I win at betting today, I’ll treat everyone.”
“Sigh… consider yourself lucky.”
The boys left behind an ambiguous warning—whether it was directed at me or the new transfer student—before disappearing.
“You okay?”
As soon as the others were gone, the transfer boy reached out to help me up, but I roughly swatted his hand away.
“Get lost. You won’t last long here anyway.”
His worried question was met with pure coldness, but Kim Jin-woo didn’t mind.
He was already smitten—her iciness only looked like dignified aloofness to him.
Worried the same thing might happen again, Kim Jin-woo trailed after me, talking nonstop, but I never once responded.
He followed me all the way to my house.
When I finally stopped in front of my door, I spoke to him.
“Just… leave already. You followed me all the way home?”
“Ah… sorry. And my name is Kim Jin-woo! See you next time.”
“…”
His “see you next time” didn’t reach me at all.
But this connection turned out to be far more persistent than I expected.
***
At nineteen, Kim Jin-woo had moved to the provinces because of his father’s business expansion—and ended up in the happiest city in the country.
Average incomes here were high, housing prices were sky-high.
Naturally, the school atmosphere was good too, so making friends wasn’t difficult.
On the way home from school with his new friends, he met her.
She was wearing a cap pulled low. Normally, he would have just passed by—but surprisingly, one of the friends next to him called out to her.
“Hey, where you going?”
The tone was clearly picking a fight.
The friendly classmate from just moments ago had vanished.
When the friend grabbed her by the hair, her face came into view—and the first thought that crossed Kim Jin-woo’s mind was:
‘She’s… really pretty.’
‘Completely… my type…’
Kim Jin-woo hurriedly stepped in to protect the girl who perfectly matched his ideal type, but the situation quickly turned bizarre.
In a commotion like this, someone nearby should have stepped in to help—but people just glanced over and walked past without interfering.
Worse, his friends looked at him like he was the strange one and spoke up.
They said the more miserable this girl became, the happier they got—and he couldn’t understand it at all.
Only after he steeled himself for a fight did the others finally back off.
Kim Jin-woo tried to help the fallen girl up, but there was no life in her eyes.
“You okay?”
“Get lost. You won’t last long here anyway.”
Her cold reply to his concern was pure ice, but Kim Jin-woo didn’t care.
He was already head over heels—her coldness only looked like proud elegance to him.
Worried something like this might happen again, Kim Jin-woo followed her all the way home, talking nonstop, but she never answered once.
After she reached her house, Kim Jin-woo went home with a new plan forming in his mind.
The only regrettable part was that he still hadn’t learned her name—but he found that out through his parents.
Along with the shocking stories his classmates had told him…
But it didn’t matter.
Kim Jin-woo had his own special talent, after all.