25 years later….

Jihyo sat by her table. She closed her shop early today, and started cooking dinner already. She kept glancing out of the window, expecting her son to come anytime soon.

“Mom!” a young man called at he entered the house. Jihyo smiled warmly.

“Joon Hee ah…”

He glanced around and realised that she only just closed her shop. “Mom, I told you to stop working already,” he said. “Making those sweetened peanuts is hard work. And it’s not like you have many customers, anyway,” he said.

“You loved it,” she simply stated.

Joon Hee sighed. He knew it was because his father loved the peanuts, but he didn’t say it out loud. His hand unknowingly went up to the pendant he wore since birth. He did so every time he thought of him. He never got to see his father, and Jihyo never told him why. All he knew was that his father was a sailor. At least that was what Jihyo told the neighbours. Jihyo had never explicitly mentioned that he died, but rumours has it that he went on a dangerous expedition and never came back.

He never hated his father, but sometimes, he did wish that he was there for him. His only connection to him was Jihyo. She always told him stories about them (although he always feels that she was deliberately leaving out some parts), and he could see in in her smiles that she loved him so much.

If a person like her can love his father that much, then his father would probably be a really nice guy.

“Mom,” he said as he approached her. She looked up.

“Come to the mainland with me, mom. Then I can look after you.”

“It’s okay, Joon ah. I can look after myself.”

He looked at his mother. Her hair was getting whiter; her shoulders hunched with age. Her wrinkles were getting deeper, but her eyes never lost her shine. The very same eyes he has.

“Mom, do you really think that dad will return?” he asked. He knew why his mother refused to move all these years. His father bought this for her. She was still waiting for him to come back.

She didn’t reply.

“Mom, you know he’s gone. Otherwise he would have returned long ago, given that he loves you so much.”

“Joon,” Jihyo said warningly. He kept quiet, knowing very well that he reached her limit.

She served the dishes and they