♡ TL: Khadija SK
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1. Do not enter.
Beep… Beep…
Jin-ah’s hand trembled as she gripped the mobile phone while the ringing continued.
‘Please, please pick up. Please pick up the phone, Emily.’
Beep… Beep…
Despite her desperation, the beeping persisted.
For what seemed like an eternity, the sound was replaced by an emotionless voicemail system.
⟨We’re sorry, but the person you have called is currently unavailable. Please leave your name, number, and a brief message after the tone, and we’ll….〉
The voice sounded cheerful but devoid of any emotion, and Jin-ah slammed her phone down, pressing the end call button.
“Haa…”
With a long sigh, she flopped down on the stairs.
Turning her head, she saw the name [Emily Troll] on her mailbox, with a crudely scrawled name tag next to it reading [♡Tom Baker].
Jin-ah stared at the name for a moment.
She remembered the name underneath the name tag.
Declan Troll.
It was her father’s name, who had died years ago.
Emily Troll was her stepmother.
Although she was her stepmother, she didn’t live with her for very long.
Her stepmother came to live with her the year she graduated from secondary school.
With no intention of going to university, Jin-ah left her home and went straight to work after graduation.
Her dad and stepmom lived in a house just off the edge of London’s Zone 6.
It was a quiet village on the outskirts of the capital that she wouldn’t even call London, but it was idyllic, with sheep running around behind the house.
It took over 20 minutes by bus just to get to the nearest train station, and another hour to get to central London.
That’s not all.
Trains were habitually canceled due to strikes, line maintenance, and many other reasons.
As a result, Jin-ah was often late for work, and on some days, she had to stay overnight or get home very late.
If she couldn’t take the train, she would get off at the nearest stop and ride her folding bike home.
Those were tiring days.
But more than anything, it was Emily’s frosty glance that pushed Jin-ah to be independent.
When she came home, her stepmother would always ask, in a friendly tone:
⟨When are you leaving tomorrow?⟩
⟨What time do you plan on going out tomorrow?⟩
She would say that she was going to make breakfast for Jin-ah, but the emphasis on the word ‘going out’ was no mistake.
After that, her stepmother was more likely to say that everyone Jin-ah’s age was independent.
Eventually, a few months later, Jin-ah had to tell her father and Emily that she had found a place in London.
⟨London is expensive these days, so why don’t you stay a while longer with us and save up some money?⟩
Her father, a soft-hearted and introverted man by nature, looked sorry for Jin-ah, but Emily put her arm around him and patted him soothingly.
⟨Darling, Jina is at an age where she has to learn to be on her own, and while I understand your feelings, you must also understand her desire to be independent.⟩
She knows there’s little difference in pronunciation between Jin-ah and Jina, but Emily has never once tried to call Jin-ah by the correct name.
The first few years were pretty tough.
London is one of the most expensive cities in the world, and it’s not easy to make ends meet when you’re just starting out.
There was no security, so Jin-ah had to be extra wary of hooded men on the street, and it took forever to take a shower due to the low water pressure.
Worst of all, there were cockroaches crawling on the damp carpets from who-knows-where.
Still, she was at ease.
Jin-ah’s workplace was a French restaurant in a prestigious hotel.
Ever since she was a little girl, she knew she wanted to be a chef.
She told others that she wanted to make people happy with delicious food… but that was a lie.
Jin-ah was only working there to feed herself.
She could hardly eat processed food.
Even as a child, she would cry herself to sleep if someone put ham in her mouth, so it was obviously in her blood.
As a result, growing up, she faced many challenges.
For one thing, she couldn’t eat school lunches.
The UK has one of the worst school lunches in the world, unless you’re talking about a very expensive private school.
Jin-ah’s school, an average public school, served typical British lunches.
Fluffy bread, bright red sausages, baked beans from a can, soggy chicken nuggets, and fries…
The first day she had school lunches, she threw up everything she had.
After that, Jin-ah always had to pack her own food.
Fresh salad, hard-boiled eggs, and whole grains—unless her mother bought them from an expensive organic grocery store.
At first, Jin-ah’s mother wondered if her little girl was just being weirdly stubborn, but then she realized that she wasn’t lying when she said she’d bought it from an organic store, and when she tried to feed it to her, she threw up and shook it off.
⟨Blugh, it’s not organic!⟩
Being different makes Jin-ah an easy target for attack.
Despite her mixed race and her strongly oriental appearance, her taste in food earned her a new nickname: Organic, instead of being called Ching Ching Chong by those of lesser quality.
As she got older, the nickname was mixed with s*xual teasing.
⟨It was fed only good things and raised well. How delicious it would be to taste it.⟩
〈Yes. They’re so meaty, it’d squeal if we held them … I suppose organic things are different.⟩
When the topic of organic farming came up in class, a few male students looked at Jin-ah and chuckled.
Their gazes were on her breasts, not the organically raised duck on the screen.
Some of them even made a gesture of cupping her breasts with their hands, and they weren’t even trying to hide it from her.
D*mn b*stards.
Muttering one of the few Korean curses she knows, Jin-ah ignored them.
Her face was Asian, but her body was as mature as a Westerner.
In fact, she was more developed than her peers.
She wondered why her breasts were growing if she couldn’t eat well because of her picky palate.
The year she started secondary school, her mother, who had carefully packed her lunch every day, divorced her father and returned to South Korea.
⟨Why? Why do you have to go?⟩
There was no typical shouting, no swearing.
Jin-ah’s father just stared at her mother across the table, tears streaming down his face.
⟨I told you before we got married, I can’t stay here for long. Didn’t you notice that I’ve been acting strangely lately? I’ve been seeing things, saying strange things. If I stay, it’ll only make things harder for you and Jin-ah. I have to go back and ward off the evil.⟩
And her mother cried too.
Jin-ah was old enough to understand what her parents were talking about, but she couldn’t understand the shamanistic beliefs of Korea, a country she had never visited.
Or maybe she just didn’t want to understand.
All she knew was that her mother was leaving her and her father.
She said she cared about them so much, she said she loved them so much…
‘Yet She abandoned us.’
After her mother left for Korea, she contacted her via messenger.
[Jin-ah, it’s your mom. You can reach me this way].
Jin-ah stared at the text for a moment, then saved the number.
Not as ‘Mother’, but as ‘Korean woman.’
Years passed, and when her father remarried, Emily came into Jin-ah’s life.
Her relationship with Emily had been so-so since she became independent.
It was always a delicate relationship that was hardly love at all.
It was only after her father’s death that things changed.
⟨What am I supposed to do with my life now?⟩
When Jin-ah returned to her father’s house after the funeral, Emily clung to her, sobbing.
She was extremely disturbed.
Even if Jin-ah wasn’t physically close to Emily, she was legally her stepmother and someone who genuinely missed her.
Jin-ah took some time off work to look after Emily.
But the more she did, the more Emily clung to her.
⟨Now, I only trust you. You’re my daughter, Jina.⟩
At every meal, in front of a carefully laid table, Emily hugged Jin-ah’s shoulders and kissed her cheeks, overwhelmed with emotion.
Jin-ah felt awkward, even more so than usual, at the exaggerated emotion, but she didn’t mind it.
It was the greeting her birth mother used to give her many years ago.
⟨Don’t worry, Emily. I’m here for you.⟩
Jin-ah felt a long-lost hand on her shoulder, and she choked up.
The Korean woman messaged her often.
[How are you doing? Mom misses you all the time. I love you. Call me if you need anything. Would you like to come and visit me in Korea?]
Lies.
And yet she didn’t come to Jin-ah’s father’s funeral.
Jin-ah was more attracted to someone who would say, [I need you, I love you my daughter] right next to her, than someone who would only say [I love you] through messages.
Eventually, Jin-ah quit her job as a chef at the hotel and started working in restaurants around her home.
Her salary was halved, and her workload increased, but she had no choice but to take care of Emily.
As time went on, she realized that this was not enough. It was just eating away at what little money she had.
⟨Emily, I’m thinking of starting a business.⟩
⟨Start a business? With what money?⟩
⟨You know, my dad’s savings. We could use that as seed money….⟩
⟨No! That’s the money your father left me, and you have no claim on it!⟩
The cold, stern voice refused to talk further.
Jin-ah grew nervous.
She was thinking of opening a catering business, especially since there were more and more garden parties, both large and small, these days.
If she could establish herself early on, she could make a lot of money…..
Jin-ah tried to get a loan, but banks were not very generous to a young woman working in a local restaurant.
She hadn’t even made an appointment for a loan interview because she had been rejected at the initial screening.
–Good evening, Miss Jean-Antoine Troll. I’m the estate lawyer for your maternal grandmother, Frida Troll.
But then, a man in a fancy suit approached her and said:
–Frida Troll has left you something.
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T.N: Hello, this is Khadija~♡ I hope you liked the novel (人 •͈ᴗ•͈) just as a little note the FL’s name in the raw is Jin-ah … But the lawyer called her Jean-Antoine (-_-;)・・, so I assume that Jin-ah is only a nickname derived from Jean-Ann or something since they are Korean and do not pronounce words the same way as English people~ So I’ll just keep Jin-ah since it’s in the raws to avoid confusion
