It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.

-Rose Kennedy

Unknown sub-division of Paradise; the doors

Min gaped and her eyes grew wider at Bom’s words. “I’m stuck here? Wherever ‘here’ is,” she muttered the last part inaudibly.

Bom cleared her fleshless throat. “You’re in Paradise, child. You know that place you were told by your umma or appa about where the spirits go?”

Min nodded slightly, ignoring Bom's 'child' endearment again. She did remember Solji's attempts in trying to scare her with bed time stories about the dead resurrecting to come after her and eat her brains. 

“This is it. This is the place where the so-called Dead are deployed to serve eternity in Paradise," disclosed Bom with a breathless sigh. Min sat down quietly on the floor, still dazed and confused, waiting nonchalantly for time to dissipate.

"How did you become like this? So dead, so cut off from life? I-I still don't understand," Min whispered almost hoarsely. 

Sunggyu gently rubbed Bom's back and their eyes seemed to fade into the distance. Min's words hit her with that one reminder that she had been dead for such a long time that the whole realm of Paradise had equalised to her previous life on Earth.

Bom began her story, "You see, it was the beginning of the end for me ever since I became like this; the heiress of the Grim Reaper; Death and whatever you view me as. Unlike normal human beings like you, Min, I, Park Bom, was already dead."  

Flashback

In the morgue, the mortician's daughter of the Park family stood there at the door greeting the next family suited for their funeral and burial services. She was dressed in black linen from the head down, with white lace tracing into a headband around her forehead, a black corset contraption and a fishnet funeral veil that hung over her head.

This was the family business; dealing with death. And being the heiress of the old Grim Reaper, Bom was eternally and internally passive about life. Her father had remarried recently; it was his fourth or fifth time since she was eight. The step-mothers were not a problem, she easily dealt with them with her shrewd expression whenever she was around them and she spent late nights at Chaerin's house with her younger sister Minji.

Not even the many distant relatives of whom ever was the catalyst for bringing the families together at any funeral was the problem; she shrugged off their constant flirtations without a blink of an eye.  

Those distant relatives or the parents who were sullenly forced to organised their child's funeral often referred to the mortician's daughter as The Beautiful Disaster.

Cafe Egg, Samcheong-dong, Seoul

The mortician's daughter was sitting in a randomly chosen booth in the cafe down in Samcheong-dong one night when she discovered the owner's son was one of the sole workers there, but occasionally he was accompanied by two other people; a man and woman who went by the names of Yang Yoseob and Lee Hayi.

Yet it was only Sunggyu that worked until eleven pm every night and every night she was there munching on the corn provided by him, and the cups of Americano that scattered on top of her table. 

This night, as corny as she thought it sounded, was different. She was going to break down into tears any moment now, a tear was going to well up from her left eye and cascade down her left cheek but brush over her right cheek as if she had timed it; as if she timed her sadness.

Suddenly Sunggyu knelt over to Bom's booth and gazed up into her eyes with his eyebrows knitted worriedly; he surveyed her troubled face and offered her a white large folded napkin from his apron pocket.

"Please don't cry, Bom" were his first actual words to her besides the usual 'what would you like' and 'thank you, come back again soon'. 

Bom tilted her head down and took the napkin to pat her eyes roughly. "My dad died." Her lower lip wavered for the next few words she would say would expose her ancient truth. Sunggyu waited for her, watching her cheeks blow up and then exhale again.

"My dad died... but Sunggyu-ssi, that's a fallacy, he can't die. He's already dead." She glimpsed at Sunggyu's change in expression and she bawled her eyes out even more.    

"WAEEEEE YOU STUPID FATHER, WHY DO YOU LEAVE ME WITH THE BUSINESS OF DEATH? O UNHOLY FATHER, WHY DOTH HATE THEE. ARGGHHH. I'LL ING KILL YOU- EVEN THOUGH YOU ARE ACTUALLY DEATH AND I DON'T EXACTLY KNOW WHERE THE HELL YOU ARE YOU INSIGNIFICANT PRICK," shouted Bom wiith quick speed.

Then she abruptly stood up on the table, shook her fist vehemently as she condemned the skies above her, and Sunggyu's jaw dropped when he squinted up at her. And he swore at that moment Bom's eyes were shooting flaming darts and steam was rushing out of her ears.

And somewhere far between heaven and hell, Bom's father was grinning madly and probably laughing at his daughter's uncharacteristic distress.

End Flashback

“And then I ended up marrying this guy after he was appointed by my father,” she lazily patted Sunggyu’s head and he pouted before he walked away to catch up on some sleep. “As for the Death business, you know how family is. The plus side is that I don’t have to talk with those infidels anymore. Anyway, onto your unnie, Lee Solji right? Sunggyu's told me about her."

Bom finally persuaded for Min to sit closer to her shadow and they were soon joined by a young blonde female who looked fleshlier than her and even Min, who was gradually turning paler as time passed.

Bom nudged Chaerin with her bony elbow and she cringed a bit.

“Chaerin-ah, we're talking about the girl who if you asked to borrow a pencil from, she'd blush and if you almost did as much as hug her, she’d have a heart attack,” Bom said somewhat lively and nudged Chaerin with her bony elbow. 

“Huh? Are we talking about the same person here?" Chaerin answered, rubbing the part of her hip where Bom's bony elbow nudged.

“Well that was what she was like in middle school, according to Sunggyu.”

“No way! Sunggyu was in the same grade as Solji? Hehe.”

“Same middle school, but Solji’s two years older than Gyu,” Bom corrected.  

“Holy , imagine what he was like during high school! He was probably a deadbeat, haha,” Chaerin snickered at the thought of Sunggyu getting detentions because he slept during all his classes.

“That could explain why he keeps complaining about his back problems, he must’ve got them from lying down too much.” Bom tapped her chin then maneuvered downward from her throne-like arm chair and started hovering around Min in contemplation.

Min remained quiet and tongue tied while sitting on the floor. Bom stopped her hovering; she swung her cape over her head and thumbed her gaunt fingers. “I can hear Myungsoo's vehicle in the distance,” her face swiveled around to meet Min's faint eyes. “She’s here.” Min collapsed into darkness.