Chapter 12: The Quiet Oath of Yunseo
The night air in Yunseo's room was always a little too still. It carried the silence of things unspoken—anger swallowed, hurt ignored, and love that used to be louder.
He sat by the window with his books open, pretending to study. His mom sat at the edge of the bed, folding clothes. Her hands trembled more these days, but she still smiled like nothing was wrong. Yunseo could tell she was exhausted from trying to hold a family together that didn't want to be whole.
Tonight, she had defended him when his father accused him of breaking Minjae's tablet. The accusation came suddenly, in front of everyone. His father's voice was sharp and cold: "You broke it out of jealousy. Don't lie to me, Yunseo."
Yunseo had opened his mouth to deny it, but before he could speak, the woman—Minjae's mother—sighed dramatically, clutching Minjae to her side. "He's always staring at Minjae with such cold eyes. It was only a matter of time before he lashed out."
His mother had spoken up then, voice shaky: "I'm sure it was an accident. Yunseo wouldn't do that."
But her defense fell on deaf ears. His father just scoffed and muttered something about favoritism and ungrateful children.
Later that night, Yunseo stared at the cracked ceiling of his room. He hadn't touched the tablet. He'd seen Minjae drop it two days ago while running around with a juice box in hand. He hadn't said anything then, and now he regretted it.
He felt the ache of injustice deep in his bones. But more than that, he felt a kind of quiet fury—not the kind that screamed or shattered things, but the kind that simmered and sharpened resolve.
He glanced over at his mom again. She was trying to sew a button onto one of his father's dress shirts. The thread slipped from her fingers more than once.
"Mom," he said quietly. "One day, I'll take you away from all of this."
She looked at him, startled.
"I'll study harder. I'll get into the best school. I'll make it. I swear," he said, his voice low but certain. "And when I do, I'll make sure no one ever treats you like this again."
Her eyes filled with tears, but she nodded. She believed him. She always had.
From that day forward, Yunseo changed.
He didn't argue when things were unfair. He didn't try to explain when his father twisted the story. He just wrote more notes, solved more problems, and learned to wear silence like armor.
His teachers began to notice the shift. Yunseo, who once blended in with average scores and quietness, now sat in front, answered questions without hesitation, and submitted assignments days early. But he never boasted. He never smiled with pride. He simply did what needed to be done.
When Minjae got praised for reciting a short poem in class, Yunseo returned home with a perfect math test and quietly placed it on the refrigerator. No one said anything.
At night, while the rest of the house dimmed into comfort and TV noise, Yunseo sat under his lamp with textbooks open and eyes wide with determination. He memorized, he questioned, he practiced.
He didn't see grades as numbers anymore. He saw them as steps. Out. Forward. Away.
Every insult thrown his way only made him hungrier. Every time his stepmother claimed Minjae was the "bright one" or his father rolled his eyes at Yunseo's silence, it fueled him more.
He started to eat alone. Study alone. Live almost entirely in his mind. It was the safest place to be.
His mother tried to help, but she was shrinking more by the day. She stopped speaking up at meals. She flinched when his father raised his voice. And sometimes Yunseo wondered if she was giving up.
So he worked harder.
By the end of that year, Yunseo placed top five in his school. He received a certificate, which he folded carefully and placed in a drawer. He didn't show his dad. It would only be dismissed. Instead, he showed it to his mom, who hugged him tighter than she had in months.
"I'm proud of you," she whispered. And that was enough.
He started helping classmates after school, tutoring them for extra money. He saved every bill in a box under his bed. Not for games. Not for things. For escape. For college. For her.
The more his stepmother called him "cold," the more he hardened. The more Minjae got praised for things Yunseo taught him, the more Yunseo bit his tongue. He couldn't afford rage. Rage didn't get scholarships. Rage didn't build futures.
He became good at hiding. Not just from people, but from pain. From fear. From wanting things he could no longer have.
Sometimes, when he walked past his father's study, he heard laughter—Minjae and his father watching something, playing games, bonding. And it hurt. Not because he envied Minjae's joy, but because he remembered a time when he was the boy in that chair.
But he pushed the memory aside. He had work to do.
And so, Yunseo studied. Not for glory. Not even for revenge. But for freedom.
One day, he told himself, they would ask how he did it. And he would look them in the eye, steady and calm, and say:
"I built myself from everything you broke."
And that would be enough.