Chapter 22. Special Yug-Mi (3)

When I was thirteen, my brother caught me smoking in the square and told my mother everything. She made me take off the clothes I was wearing, and beat me with small pieces of string in a painful set, inside the bathroom so that the neighbors would not hear my cries for help and so that I would feel the pain of shame that she was feeling too.

Yoon was standing outside the bathroom, and he was begging her to stop. I am sure that if my brother could, he would never have told her about the dr*gs.

But it was that way that she discovered my marks. There were many. There were already all over my arms, wrists, stomach, thighs, and even on my ankles.

I remember how her face looked when she saw all these things on me. It was as if she was looking at a leper or a person with a highly contagious and rotten disease with disgust, fear, and shame.

It was the first time I had to tell her why I was doing it, and she got even angrier, forcing me to go see a psychiatrist.