Park Jinsu had used her mother’s lipsticks and makeup brushes to create a hopscotch at the top of the stairs.  Three months ago, it was something that would have got her into a terrible amount of trouble.

“I want to play,” she sang to herself as she hopped forward, wobbling as she tried to keep her balance on her left leg without dropping her favourite teddy bear.  “I want to play.”  She jumped, landing loudly on the double space.  “I want to play—” Another hop.  “And Mummy’s not home!”  She trilled the last word and then almost shrieked, flailing her arms wildly as she realised she couldn’t jump this one, as her mother’s eye shadow rested in the left side of the double space, which meant that square was out of bounds.  With a squeak, she toppled over, her right leg not prepared to take her full weight, and her teddy bear went sailing down the stairs.  It squeaked as it bounced off individual steps and finally came to a halt at the bottom, where it started up with the automated message from her big brother that was recorded inside it.

“Jinsu!  Jiiiiiiiinsu!  You can’t cry, okay?  Oppa’s going to come back to play with you soon and he’ll sing you to sleep.  They’ve got some really cool things in America and I promise I’ll bring lots of them back for you, okay?  And when you’re all big and grown up and in high school, maybe you’ll come out here too.  Listen, oppa’s got a funny joke to tell.  What do you call a chicken crossed with a badger?”

Jinsu was more preoccupied with the pain in her ankle and the graze on her elbow from her hard landing at the top of the stairs, and at the sound of her brother’s recorded laughter filling the stairwell, she burst into tears.

Jimin wasn’t there to play.  Jimin was a big boy, as he and Daddy were always saying, and big boys went to study abroad when they were sixteen.

Daddy wasn’t there to play, but he never was.

Mummy wasn’t there to play, and she always was.  Apart from for these past three months.  And Jinsu hated it.

Quick footsteps came running from the depths of the luxurious house as Jinsu sat there and continued to wail.

“Aw, deary me, miss, your mother’s going to have an absolute fit if she s