“I Don’t Want to Live Like This in My Next Life”

"Today is my first live stream since the divorce, right?" Yeju spoke familiarly in front of the camera. The lights illuminated her face, and her eyes in the mirror shone like glass. A slight upturn of the corners of her mouth, a calm tone. It was the very woman the millions of subscribers of the 'Ye.Ju.Ha.Da' channel remembered so familiarly. "Today, I'm going to show you the hottest summer color makeup these days—" she said, sweeping the brush in her hand naturally around her eyes. However, the chat window was anything but natural. — "Kicked out of a chaebol family and you're still acting all high and mighty lol" — "What did your ex-husband do to deserve this, seriously?" — "You relied on your looks to live it all off, and now it's a divorce in the end." — "Oh, does this woman still have subscribers?" — "But the makeup really did turn out well today." — "Am I the only one who thinks she's pretty? She's insane." — "Is it genetics? Or fillers? I'm curious..." — "What lighting do you use?" — "Cinderella has to go home when the clock strikes lol" — "Former SB Group daughter-in-law... and now a YouTuber again? Her life is amazing." At first, I tried to ignore it. In a world tainted by gossip anyway, she had braced herself for the ridicule that would be poured down on a divorcee. But the comments did not stop, and just as a bruise spread over glamorous makeup, her insides welled up with tears. She stopped using her makeup brush. Her lips trembled. —I didn't start over for this. Just... I wanted to live true to myself... But the world's gaze toward her was too brazen. She put down the brush and picked up the mouse. "Enough. Everyone, get lost." She said coldly and ended the live broadcast. As the screen went black, a sudden silence washed over her. It was too quiet. She slumped onto the bed and picked up the remote. —Let me turn off my thoughts for a moment. She turned on the television. A news channel played on autoplay. "A meteor appearing for the first time in three hundred years is expected to pass over the Korean Peninsula around 2:17 AM today—" A hazy night sky and a meteor shower simulation image appeared in the background. Yeju stared blankly at the screen, then her gaze fixed on the real-time subtitles at the bottom. [Breaking News] SB Group Daughter-in-law Kang Ye-ju Returns to YouTube, 'Ye.Ju.Ha.Da' Live Broadcast Becomes a Hot Topic "Ha..." Ye-ju let out a sigh. Then she lowered her head. That single small subtitle touched her heart as if tearing it apart. Clearly, all I wanted was to live as myself. My name, my face, my way of speaking, my entire private life were being consumed as news fodder for someone. Love, divorce, sadness, laughter—everything was just someone's 'views.' She looked up at the night sky beyond the window. For a moment, an unusually bright star flashed by. The nights in Seoul were always glamorous, but that day, it felt even more suffocating. ... As the night deepened, feeling stifled, Ye-ju went outside to at least go for a drive. She stepped onto the driver's pedal barefoot, having taken off her high heels. As she left the city full of lights and headed toward the dark national highway, her expression grew grim. Outside the car window, the lights of Seoul were shrinking into tiny dots. Even the gum she had chewed full in her mouth tasted nothing. She just wanted to leave..