hidden hope

“It’s your fault. I never wanted you to be born. You ruined my life.”

Gwiboon stares ahead of her while her mother continues. This is nothing she hasn’t heard before but the words still sting, still hurt. She knows that if she lets her eyes water and the tears drop, her mother’s hand will connect to her cheek.

“Be grateful for all the things I have given up for you. You’re so selfish, always wanting to do this and that, not knowing how much I suffered.”

She tries hard not to close her eyes and sigh. It will do nothing to calm her mother’s anger. Gwiboon has learnt throughout her life, that there is no reason to do anything that can only strengthen her mother’s anger. Her mere presence is usually enough to aggravate the older woman further.

“Everything is your fault. I hate you!”

With those words, her mother turns her back to Gwiboon and lets her daughter alone in the living room. There’s no regret, no apology in the air and it won’t come. There is never any remorse.


30 seconds later Gwiboon exhales deeply and blinks quickly in succession to stop the tears from falling. It’s stupid, really, that she keeps hoping that one day there will be an apology, one day she won’t be told what mistake she turned out to be. No matter what Gwiboon does for her mother, she’s always left with the same words and the same feeling of insignificance.

She’s the reason her mother never became the singer she wanted to be, she’s the reason her mother met a horrible man, she’s the reason they’re in debt. Gwiboon is the root to all evil and it shouldn’t hurt her as much as it does.

She knows that in the evening her mother will leave and only return in the night, drunk out of her mind. If Gwiboon is really lucky, she won’t get a hit when she goes to find her to make sure nothing happens, because despite the hatred she’s met with every day, Gwiboon still cares for her mother.

Nobody seems to understand why, but it’s not that easy to give up. Just for once in her life, she would love to hear that she has done something good. A little praise, a small compliment. Anything to prove that her mother loves her.

So far there has been no signs and even though Gwiboon knows she should have given up when she was 18 and was hit for the first time, she still believes, she still hopes and prays for the day her mother tells her that she’s proud of her.


When the front door slams closed and envelops the house in eerie silence, Gwiboon takes another deep breath before she turns around on her heels and finds her way to her bedroom.

On her nightstand lies her phone and it lights up with incoming text messages. She takes one look at it before she decides she doesn’t want to talk to people. She doesn’t want to know what Taeyeon is doing or that Jonghyun is winning over Minho in some stupid video game. The only thing she really wants to do is forget herself and the words that her mother spewed towards her.

She climbs onto her bed, phone ignored as it keeps lighting up. The heat is turned down in her bedroom because she’s a nuisance that only spends too much money on irrelevant things and she climbs under her blanket in order to keep the cold away. Gwiboon doesn’t really mind it, however.

The cold is making her numb and it’s better to freeze than to hear the words over and over again.

She doesn’t expect it when the door bell rings. It’s not her mother, it’s too early for that. It’s not Taeyeon, Jonghyun or Minho either because Gwiboon hasn’t told them about the fights and the words. She brings her blanket with her, folds it around her to protect her from breaking down.

 She only opens the door an inch but the sight that meets her has her confused. On the other side of the door stands the neighbour’s son, shy smile on his face. Gwiboon blinks twice before she opens the door a little more.

“Hi,” he says like it’s the most natural thing ever.

“Hey,” Gwiboon says and sniffles a little.

“I saw your mother leave and thought… I don’t know, this is stupid. I just thought … maybe you could use some company?”

author's notes

I tried to write more but it just didn't work out. But it can be either platonic or romantic. It can honestly go both ways. I just wanted to write sadness and that's what I did. 

Winter is cruel and seasonal depression is even worse.