The heated rays of sunshine suddenly landed on my face, brutally waking me up and making me scramble to find some kind of cover.

“Oh no you don’t.” My dad uttered as he walked away from the now open curtains, coming towards my bed to soon rip the sheets from over me.

“Don’t hide from me, Minsung, we’re going to be late for school. I need to get to work too.” His mild lecture went through one ear and out the other as my fingers scratched every last bit of sleep from my eyes.

“Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine,” I grumbled. He was my only ride to school, after all. Quite an embarrassing ride at that; a third year college student being driven to school by her dad was a situation begging to be made fun of.

“That’s my girl.” He half smiled half laughed and brought his fist to my already messy hair, giving me a nougie.

“GAHH!! DAD!!! Why do you have to do that!?!?” I yelled as I threw a pillow at the back of his head when he ran off. He was old, but he was limber enough to dodge it as he walked back to the living room down the hallway. I sat up in my bed and pouted, imagining all the evil things I could do to his dinner tonight since I was the only one that cooked for him.

Should I put too much pepper? What about make it really salty? Or maybe not salty enough…

The minutes passed by and it took me about 15 more of them to realize that I hadn’t even begun to get ready yet. I literally jumped out of bed and ran to get dressed, having no time to shower, silently cursing at myself and my inability to wake from a daydream. I soon picked out the clothes I would wear that day: a grey, super baggy off-shoulder top with the word STOIC printed in black block lettering on the front and a pair of jet black skinny jeans. The weather was supposed to be nice today, somewhere between 70˚ and 75˚so I wouldn’t die from heat. I walked over to the mirror with bare feet and pondered which shoes I should wear. Looking through my shoe rack, I found a pair of three inch tall wedges, black with a ruffled closed-toe front. Slipping them on, I then stared at the auburn red birds nest on my head.

Now what the hell am I supposed to do with you?

I rolled my eyes at the relentless being and grabbed a comb to attempt to tame it. Medium length hair wasn’t as high maintenance as long hair was, but when you didn’t wash it for 24 hours it would grow eyes and begin to growl at you.

Let’s just say I ended that dilemma with a simple teased ponytail. I walked over to my dresser and grabbed my eyeliner, placing it around my deep golden brown eyes. With one final look in the mirror I grabbed my school bag, slung it around my shoulder, and closed the door behind me.

“Ready!” I yelled as I walked down the long, white hallway, and heard a ‘finally!’ erupt from my dad’s aged lips.

He laughed his old, kind-hearted laugh and held the door to the car open for me. I looked up at him questioningly, as this wasn’t normal, and knew it was a trick as his hand came up to ruffle my hair again.

“GAH!! STOP IT DAD!! We’re going to be late!” I barked back at him and tried to fix my hair for the second time that morning.

“Oh so now you want to go to school! Aha!” He pointed his finger in the air as if he had just had an epiphany, and started the car.

“God dad, just please drive.” I rolled my eyes and tried to hide my smile as I wanted to act annoyed. My dad was funny sometimes, but most of the time he was just over-the-top annoying. He smiled at his successful mission to get me annoyed and began driving. It wasn’t that I couldn’t drive, in fact I’ve had my license for 5 years now. It’s just that it was more convenient for him to drop me off and then head straight to work. It saved time and gas, and he enjoyed the assurance that I got to school safely as the crime rate seemed to be rising steadily in this town.

Since the ride there took around 30 minutes, I just decided to close my eyes and think a little. For some reason, the first thing that popped into my head was what I was going to make my dad for dinner. Most families have the mother cook for their family, but in my case, that wasn’t possible. My ‘mother’ abandoned my father and I when I was just a newborn, leaving me fully in his care. When I started to get older, I got tired of having TV dinner’s and wrinkled clothes, so I myself began to take over the ‘mother’ role of the household. I began to learn how to cook, even though I could barely reach the stove, and learn how to correctly wash clothes so that they came out looking almost better than when I bought them.

My dad was Korean with the name Song Jae-hwa, hence my Korean name Song Minsung, and my ‘mother’ was Caucasian. Every feature of mine I had gotten from my father. Some good, some not so good. I had his eyes, nose, and lips. But I also got his crooked teeth, broad shoulders, and bigger feet than most girls. I was 23 years old, aging each summer, and my dad was well over 50, wrinkles proof of his many years of life. We lived here in America, but I could see that my dad missed his home more than anyone could imagine.

So, there’s something I’ve been doing for him. This whole time, I’ve been saving up all of the cash I got for a home in Korea. At the end of fall semester, I’m going to surprise him and take him home- to his real home.

“Minsungsung~” I felt someone shake my shoulders, and slowly opened my eyes. It wasn’t until I looked around that I realized we had arrived, and my dad was gently shaking me awake.

“Oh…” I mumbled, waking from my daydream. I got out and waved him goodbye. “Love you!” I yelled over the noise of the car.

“Love you more!” I read his lips as he waved back and soon drove off.

With that, I walked onto campus and began the day the same as every other.

∞

It was now the last few days of fall semester, and I was ready to surprise my dad. I got home from school that day (as I got a ride home from my best girl friend everyday) and waited for him on the chair in the living room. I had an envelope in my hand with two plane tickets inside, and a note saying ‘pack your bags!’. I was so excited to give it to him each minute felt like an hour. It was 5 PM, so I just decide d to make myself dinner and eat while I watched the evening news. It was normal for my dad to be late, so I wasn’t worried. I would just have to be patient.

I hopped to the stove and unpackaged my favorite flavor of ramen. I was a vegetarian, so I usually ate either garlic or onion noodles. Not that I minded. When I got the pot and filled it with water, a quick and sharp gust of wind tumbled through the house. I screamed, completely dropping the pot with all it’s water on the floor. I timidly walked over to the hallway and searched for the problem. A 10 minute inspection around the house gave me chills as I found absolutely none of the doors or windows were open. With a slightly creeped out feeling, I walked over to the mess and cleaned it up. I made another pot of water, and soon finished cooking it and sat back down, careful not to spill the food on the envelope.

I finished my noodles and my dad still hadn’t shown up.

Hours passed and it was now 10 PM. It was getting hard for me to stay up, as I usually went to bed early, but felt this was worth it to stay up a few more hours.

I wonder what he’ll think of it. I hope he likes it, he doesn’t particularly like traveling by plane. I hope he finds love too. Poor dad… going so long without finding another woman to love and take care of him. Speaking of love, I wonder if I’ll find someone over there? The schools there are so strict… I’ll have to die my hair back to my natural color and even wear a unif-

*KNOCK KNOCK*

A pounding sound erupted from outside, scaring the daylight out of me and waking me from yet another daydream. It sounded like someone was at the door, so I got up and looked through the peep hole to see who it was. Before I could focus my eyesight, another pounding came from the other side, so I just decided to open it.

Two men stood on the other side of the door. Their uniforms told me they were some form of a police officer, and they were both tall, towering over my 5’5 frame.

“Miss Song?” The tallest one asked, brawny voice disrupting the quiet of the house.

I nodded my head.

The one who spoke looked to the other as if asking for confirmation for something. The other nodded his head.

“May we come inside?” The shorter of the two asked politely, but still with a heavy amount of authority.

I nodded and let them inside, a sick sensation churning in my stomach.

Why would two cops visit my house in the middle of the night?

“Ma’am, you may want to sit down.”

I didn’t do as they said and simply asked them, “What’s going on?”

They both hesitated.

“Miss Song, we regret to inform you Jae-Hwa Song was in a car accident.”

He paused.

“And it was fatal.”