It had been a long day at the office and Mr. Kim was glad to finally get to go home. He didn’t need to work that day, it was supposed to be his day off. But someone had called in sick the day before and he figured he could use the extra hours, so the man volunteered.

On his way from work to the train station he had passed by a shop. In the window display was a gold chain necklace with a charm in the shape of a key. It was a ways off from the girl’s birthday but he decided to get the necklace for his daughter. He knew she would love it. It was a bit expensive for the man’s income, but since he had picked up those extra hours he thought that it should be fine.

And so he bought the necklace. Excited to return home and give it to his daughter. She deserved at least something for always being a good and decent person, and not to mention she was doing very well in school.

He finally returned home at midnight after the two hour ride from the city. When he walked through the front door he kicked off his shoes and went upstairs to check on the girl. But when he opened the door to her room she was not in her bed. Odd he thought.

The girl never stayed out late. If she went out for the day she would always be home before 8 p.m.

He ran downstairs to check if there would be a note waiting for him. Whenever his daughter would spend the night at her friend’s house she would always leave a note. The man figured that’s what happened.

But in the kitchen there was not even a single piece of paper. He started worrying. Maybe she forgot to leave one.

He thought to go to her friend’s house to inquire about the girl, but it was too late in the evening. And so he reluctantly went to bed. He did not rest well that night, maybe only getting 3 hours of sleep.

Would she be there when he went to check on her? Was she okay?

He certainly hoped so.

The morning came and Mr. Kim quickly threw on some clothes and started out the door. He jogged down the road, toward his neighbour’s house. He thought to ask them before going anywhere else, just to find out if they had seen his daughter.

The woman that had answered the door told him that she had not seen the girl return home. Only when she had gone out to the library had the woman seen her. He quickly thanked her and was off again. This time to his daughter’s friend’s house.

The mother was the one to answer the door. She denied that the girl had been over, explaining that she and her daughter hadn’t seen her at all that week. She asked if everything was okay. The man shook his head and said that his daughter was missing.

Mr. Kim practically ran to the police station. It was quite a sight to see a man burst through the door of the small building. He rushed up to the front desk and started to tell the secretary what was wrong. She had a difficult time understanding the rambling man. Only catching the words “daughter” and “gone”.

She asked the man to slow down and calmly explain his situation. He took a deep breath and did as she had asked.

After being questioned by an officer a missing person report was soon filled out. They had assured Mr. Kim that fliers would be posted around the town and the neighbouring towns as well. The officer told him to go home and they would let him know if they got any calls regarding the girl. And so he grudgingly returned home.

As he started up the stairs he stopped at where the photo of his family was hung. It was the last time the three of them had been a happy family. The last picture taken before his wife had died from being struck by a car the next day.

The man pulled the photo from its spot on the wall and slowly walked up the stairs to his room. He sat on his bed and held the photo up to his chest. And that is where he cried.

There was only three times in his life as a grown man in which he had done such a thing.

The day his daughter was born, she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, the spitting image of her mother. Although the baby girl did have his nose, which he was quite happy about, since she at least had inherited something from him. As he held her for the first time, he began crying. The man had helped to create this tiny human. And he cried more when she had looked up and smiled.

The second time he cried was that fateful day when he received the call that would change his and his daughter’s lives. He didn’t want to believe it, but when the two rushed into the hospital and saw the pale woman with cuts and bruises painted across her skin, they knew. She was gone. She would never smile at them again, she was gone.

And finally the third time, at his wife’s funeral. She was clothed in her favorite dress, the one their daughter picked out for the woman’s birthday the year before. She was beautiful laying there in the casket, but she would have been more beautiful if she had been smiling. Her big toothy grin that outshined the sun. It was what he most looked forward to during the day. But it was gone, permanently taken from the world so that everyone could no longer enjoy that darling, dazzling, wondrous sight. The tears poured from his eyes as he watched the casket lower into the ground. It was the last time he would see her, hear her, hold her. She was gone.

And now he lay on his bed, crying as he gazed upon the two best people that ever happened to come into his life. He didn’t want to think what might come of his days if he lost his precious daughter as well. He didn’t want to lose her too. He had already lost so much.

Mr. Kim waited days upon days, many sleepless nights followed. The residents of the town would go to his house and try to comfort the man. But the look of anguish that plastered the man’s face never once left. He didn’t crack a smile at even the funniest jokes. He seemed so lifeless, and everyone worried for him.

It was a month later when Mr. Kim received the first call from the police station. They said that someone had noticed a girl that looked like his daughter in the next town over. He was ecstatic, finally she’d come back to him. But the next day, when an officer went to check it out, it turned out to be a false lead.

That’s what happened for the next five months. He kept track of them, there was 14 in total. 14 times he had gotten his hopes up, 14 times he was let down.

It had been one day, seven months since the girl had gone missing, that another call came in. They felt that it really was his missing daughter this time. They had given him a description of the girl and it matched her perfectly.

He was sure of it. This time it really had to be her. That was what he had been thinking the entire train ride. He was going to get his baby girl back.

His hopes were quickly dashed as he saw the girl sitting on the bench near the front desk of the police station. She looked very similar to his daughter. They easily could have been sisters, but it was not her, not his daughter.

After the mistake had been cleared Mr. Kim returned home. This time the train ride felt much much longer than earlier.

Days, weeks, months, and years passed by way too quickly for the man’s liking. He was brought back to the day he last saw his daughter. It had been late in the morning, nearly 11:30. He just finished putting together some sandwiches. When he realized he would miss the train if he didn’t hurry, he threw on his suit jacket and exited the kitchen. The man nearly ran into his daughter as she came down the stairs. He admired her appearance, she looked more like her mother each and every day. And the green dress she wore complemented the girl very well. It had been his wife’s favorite color, something he would never forget.

After a quick chat with the girl he was off to the train station, his destination, of course, being the office in the city.

He remembered that day so well. As if it had just been yesterday.

Now the man had grown older, weaker. He had aged considerably.

Mr. Kim laid in the hospital bed, he had been sick for quite a while. He felt that the illness wouldn’t ever go away. He knew. As he lay there in that bed, he knew. It wouldn’t be long he told himself. He knew.

The nurse entered the room so she could do her daily check up. She walked over to the man on the bed to find him sleeping. She noticed that he was clutching something close to his chest, it looked to be a necklace. A nice pretty gold chain with a key pendant. She smiled, wondering if it was a gift from someone, or perhaps to someone.

The nurse gently shook the man so she could ask him some questions, but the man didn’t stir. She shook him a bit harder and called out his name, but he still lay unresponsive. She pulled her stethoscope up to her ears and checked for the man’s heartbeat. There was none. The nurse called in a doctor so they could make sure that the man was really gone. The doctor recorded the time currently on the clock as the man’s time of death. And that was that.

Mr. Kim had known. He knew he would die right there in that hospital bed. He knew.

And with the necklace clutched to his chest, the very same necklace that he was never able to give to his sweet baby girl, he died.

He knew.