"Haeyeon, can you come into me and your appa's room for a moment?"

      The young woman nodded tentatively, noting the serious tone that she very rarely hear from her mother. The last time she heard that kind of intonation, it was when she announced her relationship with Byeong Su. Shaking her head as she remembered that conversation, she told herself in her head that she really should have heeded her mother's advice.       "Sit, it doesn't do well for a pregnant lady to be stand for too long."       Haeyeon's eyes snapped to her mother in a flash, slightly parted as she froze halfway while about to sit on her parents' bed. She wondered if she had heard wrongly but even though her mother was standing by the closed bedroom door, she wouldn't have mistaken the look on her mother's face.       Falling to the bed, her voice trembled as she whispered, "Yoseob told..."       "He didn't", Mrs Yang spoke firmly as she walked towards her daughter, pulling a chair over and facing her directly. "I've been through pregnancy twice remember? And it's about time you stop pulling your brother down with you for every trouble you get into."       "What do you mean?"       Mrs Yang sighed, closing her eyes tightly with her lips curled in a deep frown. The older lady held the younger one's hands in hers as she took a long breath. Haeyeon's heart clenched as she saw clearly the wrinkles on her mother's face and when Mrs Yang's eyes opened, she was shocked to see that tears were in it.       Her mother never teared up. Not in front of them at least.       "Haeyeon ah, recently, I sense something different in our Yoseobie." She smiled sadly and gazed at the floor beside their legs, noting that it's time to clean out the carpet again. "Have you seen the way your little brother wakes up and head to work every morning?"       "Energetic and excited? He always has been this bubbly, hasn't he?" The young lady was getting even more confused than she was when her mother had called her in.        "It's different. Haeyeon ah, I think our little Yoseobie is in love."       Haeyeon's eyes widened as she pulled her hands away from her mother, a small part of her deep down telling her who her younger brother was in love with. "I don't think so. There's nothing different about him." Her words were sharp and curt, emphasizing her reluctance in dwelling on the subject.       Mrs Yang was persistent though as she abruptly stood up from her chair, dug through the drawer by the side of her dressing table, pulling out a piece of paper before settling back down on the chair and showing it to Haeyeon. "Do you remember this? Do you remember what went through your mind when you wrote this? Do you mean what you are saying about not knowing? Are you being truthful to me, or to yourself?"       The young lady stared at the piece of paper that was lying on her lap now. The edges were a tad crumpled, the paper was yellowing. However, the ink on it was still clear and defined. The message that she wrote when she was a nine year old girl was glaring at her.       "Do you remember why you wrote the message? I'm sure you do. Haeyeon baby, I'm not taking sides. As your mother, I love both of you equally. I just find the current situation so unfair for your younger brother and it's a situation which can be salvaged before the worst happens." Mrs Yang took Haeyeon's hands back in hers, "I will not say much, I don't need to spell everything out. But we are all adults now. We know what's right and what's wrong. We know that we should take responsibility for what we've done, be it right or wrong."       Squeezing the hands a little, she spoke in a lower voice, "Your dad and I will be there supporting you but I want you to make the right choice first."       Rising from her seat, she walked to the bedroom door and opened it. She was about to close it behind her when she decided to turn back and look at her older child. "Both of you will always be my little heroes."       The moment the door finally closed, the young lady broke down, sliding down from the bed and crouching on the floor as she clutched the piece of paper tightly. The message from her nine year old self.        "Appa and Omma, when Seobie gets out from the hospital all well again, I promise I'll be the one protecting him! I'm the big sister but he saved my life instead of me doing it! I'll be braver and be his hero from today onwards!"       Yoseob has always been the one helping her, and this was how she was repaying him. But what could she do? She didn't want to be a single mother. She couldn't...       ------       "Who are you trying to kid, young man? We've eaten more salt than you've eaten rice, don't think that you could hoodwink us!"       Yoseob held back the urge to take the nearest mop and throw it at the housekeeping department workers who were protesting and not listening at all. Be nice to the elderly, respect the elderly. He bit back a snappy remark and forced a patient smile that looked more like a grimace really.        "As I was saying, expanding the department has nothing to do with having new people to take over you. It's because the CEO understands that to do housekeeping for new guests within the three hours between check-out and check-in timings, for current guests who like their beds made after their outings, for more demanding customers who expects clean ups in the wee hours. It isn't easy for all of you and with the shift work, we can only imagine how tiring it is. With more people, work efficiency would improve and you get more rest too!"       "Of course you would like that," an older ahjussi, whom Yoseob tries his best not to notice the piece of chili stuck between his two front tooth, challenged him, "you want us to rest more and have little work until there's no work at all then we will leave on our own and the company do not need to compensate us right?"       The smaller male wanted nothing but to give him a stone slab, a hammer and a thick nail. It was as if that ahjussi was living in the Flintstones era. Such a backward mindset.       Taking a deep sigh, Yoseob addressed everyone in the department, "seems like nothing I say would assure you all. Shall I get the CEO to have a written agreement with every single one of you that you would still be rightfully and meaningfully occupied at work?"       "Half of us are illiterate here, don't think that we don't know that the agreement would be an unfair one!"       Seriously ahjussi, get a toothpick. Yoseob was about to speak as politely as he could again when a lady that looked she is in her sixties ran into the meeting room. The smaller male frowned as he took in the frailness of her body and wondered why would she continue this physically taxing job instead of asking for a transfer.       Mr I-need-a-toothpick spoke first, "where were you, senior? We all were very worried!"       The kind looking woman