Why Couldn't She Smile Even After Revenge? – Moon Dong-eun from “The Glory”
Moon Dong-eun never cried—not from the beginning.
Instead of tears, she picked up paper. Every time violence tore through her world, she reached for a pen. No one knew that pen would one day become a blade. Her sorrow lived in silence, and her silence cut deeper than any scream.
No one ever said sorry. So she decided never to forgive.
Revenge wasn’t a decision. It was the only dignity she could afford to survive. Some said, “Isn’t that enough?” But no one ever asked, “Has she breathed a single pain-free breath since that day?”
She didn’t live to destroy. She lived to stand in front of the world and say, “You were wrong.”
She had always been alone. And she stayed that way. She didn’t know how to lean. And when she tried, it felt like standing on air. Even when she wanted to trust, she couldn't. Even when she wanted to smile, her face didn't remember how.
So even when Joo Yeo-jeong reached out with warmth, she stepped back. Not out of fear, but because she had spent her life surviving alone.
She had pulled herself from the hands of her abusers. Just because the revenge ended didn’t mean the fingerprints faded. They stayed. In her sleep. In her bones. They woke her at night and gave her a reason to rise in the morning.
For her, revenge was never about justice. It was about making it to tomorrow.
So no, she didn’t smile in the end. Watching the world crumble didn’t bring joy. She had been broken for too long to remember how it felt to be whole. She knew— what truly collapsed wasn’t her enemies. It was her.
She didn’t pick up a weapon to ruin others. She picked it up to stop the ruin within.
She wasn’t evil. She simply lived in a world where no one called her pain evil. So vengeance became the only thing that spoke for her.
She endured to stay alive, resented the need to endure, and in that resentment, she held onto the pieces of herself that still remained.
And in the very end, she chose to reach for one hand.
Joo Yeo-jeong’s hand. Not to kill. But to live. And maybe— for the first time— to love.
