The following day dawned and Hae-kyung made her way to visit her father’s grave. She touched the glass that enclosed his remains and said. “Appa, na wasseo.” As she looked at her father’s smiling face in the picture, tears filled her eyes and she recalled the day fourteen years ago when he died.

Hae-kyung walked into the house four hours after school had let out. She sighed as her feet dragged and she dropped her backpack on the floor next to the door. She heard the pot boiling in the kitchen and wondered where her father went. She turned off the stove and went looking for her father. Their house wasn’t very big, there were only her room, her father’s room and a spare bedroom in addition to the living room, kitchen and bathrooms. She pulled open the door to her father’s room. “Appa, I waited for four hours, why didn’t you come get me?” She said as she entered but he wasn’t there. She headed for her room next and pulled open the door. Her father had been falling asleep in her room for a few days and she figured he was there again. As she entered her room, a note on her table caught her eye.

“My beloved daughter, I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you. I’m so sorry that you had to have such a shameful person for a father.  Everything that happened is my fault. I’m so sorry and I love you.” The note read. She read it again and again, a chill running up her spine.

“No” she said, “No, it can’t be.”

She turned around and saw her father hanging from the ceiling, her bedcovers a noose around his neck. She couldn’t scream, she didn’t know how to. She held his hand and tugged on it, “Appa, chebal. Don’t do this to me. How can you leave me by myself? How can you be so selfish to leave me by myself?” She said quietly. She tugged and tugged at his hand as a scream tightened but all that came out was a whimper. “Please.” She said.

She sat on the floor as the emergency team she called arrived and took her father’s body down from the ceiling.

“Haksen, what’s your name?” One of them asked her.

“Lee Hae-kyung.” She replied.

“Do you know the address of any of your relatives that you can go and stay with?”

“There’s no one.” She replied.

The emergency worker sighed and placed a hand on her shoulder. “We’re going to have to hand you over to the government. You can’t be here by yourself.” The emergency worker said gently.

Hae-kyung looked at the emergency worker but didn’t really see them, “Okay.” She said.

She was led away from the house without shedding a single tear over her dead father, little did she know that it would haunt her dreams for the next fourteen years of her life.

“I don’t resent you appa, I never did. You must have had your reason for taking your life, right? Something you were too ashamed to tell me?” She wiped the tears from her eyes. “I’m not married still. I have a good job though, a nice apartment and a very good car. I still can’t stand to be in an intimate relationship though. Did you kill yourself because of that perhaps? Because of what he did to me? I don’t resent you for it.” She drew a deep breath. “Okay, maybe I do resent you a little bit. You should have done something. You should have stopped it. You should have killed him.” She was screaming now. All the pain and anger she bottled up over the years poured out. “You should have done something!” She dashed the angry tears from her eyes. “I didn’t mean to raise my voice at you, you are my father after all. Isn’t that what you always said? I shouldn’t raise my voice at you. I’m sorry.” The words mixed with resentment and longing. She loved her father, she missed him more than she could say but she also hated him for taking the cowardly way out and leaving her all by herself. “I’ll come back another time, maybe I’ll bring Ki-joon along with me since you’ve never met him. Thanks to what you did, I gained a strong little brother whom I couldn’t love more if we were blood related. Goodbye.” She said, turned and left the columbarium.    

Ki-joon was preparing to open for the day, when he heard the bell above the door go off.

“We’re not open for another fifteen minutes, customer. You can wait if…” He started to say but he saw the person who arrived and his eyes widened in terror. She hadn’t seen him yet, so he contemplated hiding under the counter. He balled up his fists instead and decided to step forward to face her. “What are you doing here?” He asked, trying to keep his voice from shaking.

The woman, dressed in a very elegant skirt suit and black pumps, smiled back at him. “Is that anyway to talk to your mother?” She asked.

He scoffed at that. “How did you find this place?” He asked.

“I wanted to see you. Don’t I have that right as your mother?” She asked, taking a step closer to him.

He stepped back and put a table between them. “Don’t come any closer, I’ll call the police if you do.” He felt his hands because to shake and his stomach begin to knot up. He was twenty-seven years old but standing in front of her made him feel like a powerless thirteen-year-old again. He tried not to succumb to fear.

“Are you going to call the police on your own mother? Of course, you wouldn’t have changed. You’ve always been such an ungrateful child.” The smile dropped from her face and she smoothed her hair down. “I came to tell you that your father passed away.”

Ki-joon felt like the ground had gone out from under him. “You killed him, you finally killed him.” He said.

“What are you talking about?” She rolled her eyes.

“Did you beat him to death? What did you do to him?” He asked, trying to control the tremors in his heart.

“He was doing the dishes and slipped on some water he spilled. Are you going to blame me for something I’m innocent of? How can you be exactly like your father? So ungrateful after I sacrificed so much for the both of you. I broke my back and worked hard because your father was such a loser who couldn’t hold down a job. I see you’re following in his footsteps. Did you get fired from the law firm?”

“Is there proof that that’s what happened? How will I believe you that you didn’t kill him? I know what you are, you’re vile and disgusting.” He said.

Her face twitched and before he knew what happened, she reached across the table and slapped him across the face, tearing his lip with her ring. “You will respect me as your mother! Your father will be buried tomorrow, come or don’t come, it’s none of my business.” She said and walked out the door.

When he was sure he was alone, Ki-joon sunk to his knees and cried. “I’m sorry abeoji, I was going to come back for you. I was going to get you out of there. I’m sorry, so sorry.” He cried so much that he needed to throw up, so he ran to the bathroom. He emptied out the contents of his stomach before he passed out on the floor.

Ah-reum walked into the café and wondered why they weren’t open since the sign said they ought to have opened twenty minutes before. She liked the sandwich that she’d had the day before so much, she had decided to come back again. “Hello, is anyone here?” She called out. “Sajangnim, are you open?” She called as she walked through the café, trying to find someone. She was about to head back out when she saw a hand poking out from behind a door. She pulled the door open and found Ki-joon, passed out on the floor. “Oh my God!” She dropped to his side immediately and tried calling out to him. “Jeogiyo, kwaenchanayo? Jeogiyo!” She shook him a few times and when he didn’t respond, she pulled out her phone and called an ambulance.

When the ambulance arrived, the emergency responder asked her to ride with them.

“I don’t really know him though.” She replied.

“You’re the one who called us and we will need you to fill out some information. Look around to see if you can find his ID or anything like that.” The emergency worker said as they loaded Ki-joon into the ambulance.

She looked around and found his wallet and phone in a drawer behind the counter. She grabbed both of them and got into the ambulance with Ki-joon.

Ki-joon woke up to use the bathroom and as he opened the door of his room, he heard his parents arguing.

“What did you just say?” He heard his mother yell.

“I’m not asking you to quit your job, I’m only asking you not to come home so late every night.” His father replied gently.

He pressed up against the wall to keep from bringing attention to himself as he snuck past his parents’ room. His father had lost his job a few months before and his mother had started staying later at work. One time, he had heard her call him a nuisance for trying to tell her what to do when he couldn’t even provide for the family.

“How dare you try to tell me what to do? Who’s the reason I’m working so hard? If you weren’t such a loser who couldn’t even keep a job, I wouldn’t have to do this.”

He heard his father sigh and he peeked through the opening in the door and saw his father kneeling while his mother paced back and forth. “I know it’s my fault, I’m really sorry. I’m trying hard to find another job. I’m only asking you not to stay out late so much. It hurts me seeing you come home late every night. I saw you the other day while I was buying the groceries, you were with that man you said was your co-worker. I want to believe he’s not the reason you’re coming home late.”

She laughed. “You think you’re still allowed to have pride, you’re such a pathetic loser. I can do whatever I need to provide for the family.”

“Yeobo, we’re not starving. Please don’t do this. Please, I’m begging you. I’ll try even harder to find a job.” He said and reached to touch her hand. She snatched her hand from his and pushed him away from her.

“Don’t touch me, can’t you see how angry I am right now? Do you want me to hurt you?” She kicked him before storming out of the room.

Ki-joon hid himself as she came out of the room so she wouldn’t see him. She threw open the front door and was gone into the night. Ki-joon stayed crouched where he was hiding, hand over his mouth, until he was sure she was gone. He’d heard his parents argue so many times before but he never thought his mother was the type to put her hands on anyone.

“He’s going to be alright. He seemed to have experienced something very shocking and his brain knocked him out due to the high amounts of adrenaline in his system. His heart rate has been calmed, so he should regain consciousness anytime soon.” The doctor explained to Ah-reum.

She thanked him and went back to his side. Just then, his cellphone rang and she looked at the caller ID, hoping it would be a family member. It read, “Nae Saranghaneun Hae-kyungie.”

“Yeobseyo. Ki-joonah mwohae?” Hae-kyung said when the phone was answered.

“Uhm are you a guardian?” Ah-reum asked.

“Who are you? Why do you have my brother’s phone?” Hae-kyung asked.

“I found him on the floor of the café so I took him to the hospital. If you can come here now, that would be great.” Ah-reum replied and told her which hospital they were at.

Hae-kyung drove as fast as she could and got to the hospital in fifteen minutes. As she ran into the ward, she saw Ah-reum straightening up the covers around him. “Hong Ah-reum?”

Ah-reum turned around and saw Hae-kyung. “Oh, what are you doing here? Are you here to see someone?” She asked.

“You found my brother? Is he okay?” Hae-kyung said, moving closer to where Ki-joon laid.

Brother, she didn’t realize Hae-kyung had a sibling. “Eo. The doctor said he was in so much shock that he passed out but he’ll wake up soon since they stabilized his heart rate.”

“Thank you for staying with him till now.” Hae-kyung said, holding his hand in hers.

“It was nothing really. I’m glad I was there on time, I’m not sure how long he had been passed out on the floor. Do you want something to drink?” She asked.

“No, no I’m good. You can leave now if you want. I’ll stay with him.” Hae-kyung said.

“Hmm Arasso. I’ll leave then, see you later.” Ah-reum said and after casting one last look at Ki-joon, she turned and left the ward. She got into her car, looked at the building and said to herself, “I really hope he’s okay. What could he have seen that scared him enough that he’d have to knock himself unconscious?”

Ki-joon opened his eyes and looked around. He noticed Hae-kyung sitting at his side, reading a book she was holding in one hand and holding onto his hand with her other hand.

“Noona.”

“Hmm, are you okay?”

“How did I get here?” He asked.

“Ah-reum found you passed out on the floor of the café and brought you here.” She replied.

“Who?”

“Ah-reum, my friend who I was having lunch with yesterday. What happened?”

He took a deep breath, “My mother came to the café.”

She dropped her book and searched his body. “Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere else?”

He shook his head gently. “She came to tell me my father died. Noona, my father died.” Tears welled up in his eyes as he spoke and she pulled him into her arms and let him sob into her shoulders.

“It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault.” She said.

Author's Note: Hey everyone, I'm back. So these are the chapters that I've already written, I'm having some trouble continuing because I'm so busy and the words aren't flowing the way I want them to. This story might be a little more serious since two of my main characters have such sad backstories but I'll try to not let it get too heavy. Tthank you for reading.