Kim Yerim's demon is her own father.

He checks her homework, makes her rewrite the corrections and then rapes her as punishment. He "follows" her to school, i.e., he drops her to school and picks her up. He goes to work and expects her to do her chores and make the meals. Then, he checks her homework and punishes her, as mentioned before. He makes her follow a strict schedule and is maddeningly particular about it. He knows when she's lying and when she doesn't like every parent out there, which makes it difficult for her to escape.

The "she" mentioned is Yerim's mother, who she unites with to fight against her father. Yerim's mother divorced her father when Yerim was still a baby and she meets her daughter by chance and recognizes her. How they meet up is up to the reader's imagination. As it transpires, Yerim's mother is also an alcoholic, like her father, and is incapable of taking care of her. She doesn't rape Yerim, but she isn't exactly the best parent since it is shown that Yerim does all the chores and meals all by herself. She doesn't mind, because in her mind, all of this is expected from her as a kid and it's more of a duty/role than a chore.

Yerim wants to escape her father because there's this inherent feeling of disgust in her. She cannot explain why but she cannot accept his raping her as part of the daily schedule. Please keep in mind that Yerim doesn't explicitly know that what her father does is wrong, she only feels dirty.

She is then disappointed by her mother - when she expected her to be her savior - who sends her back to her father like she had when she was still a child. Yerim then has had enough and decides to poison her father's glass of wine. He dies in his sleep and she escapes.

The letters at the end of each poem spell out: "kill him". The chapter names are all synonyms of the word grotesque.

I was inspired to write this after watching the short film Mishka (on YouTube) and reading anklepings's Kang Seulgi Fanfiction "attachment". Both are recommended to you.

Thank you for reading Grotesque, dear reader.

~maits.