I'm Park Jihyun. At a young age, I was traumatized by the death of my mother. My parents meant everything to me. We had next to nothing. My father had multiple jobs at places like the grocery stores, fast food restaurants, and retail stores in order to support the family of him, my mother and me. My mother was a stay-at-home mom. She couldn't find work even if she wanted to because of her cancer, which had her in bed for more than half of her life. 

But I always looked at the bright side of things. My father promised me every single night in my bedroom where he kissed me goodnight, that things were going to get better. "One day, Jihyun-ah. One day things will be okay. We will live happy together as a family." 

Boy was he wrong. 

My mother died shortly after, when I was 16. I was a high schooler at Seoul Prepatory School. I happened to be the one student there who lived in such terrible conditions. But I studied hard. We had no money to afford any post secondary education, so I had promised my father that I would work hard and get a scholarship for Seoul University, and from there, become one of the best doctors South Korea had ever seen. However, things quickly changed after my mother passed. With 50 years of being ill, a part of me was thankful that she had to no longer suffer through her pain. She was in pain, I knew it. I could tell from the way her eyes winced whenever I hugged her, I could tell from the way she forced food down. I could tell from the way she would collapse ever so often while making trips to the bathroom. I usually had to bathe her, for she had no strength to do it on her own. She was holding onto the thin thread of life with everything she had for my father and I, and I knew how hard it was on her. Her body was failing, and yet she put a smile on her face. Her compassion kept her alive. Or alive for as long as it could before the illness overwhelmed her. 

My father soon became an alcoholic, living on gambling he did on the streets. He got fired from all of his jobs eventually because of his addiction. We recieved some money, but we lost even more. He would abuse me occasionally when he came home at two in the morning drunk and smelling of illegal substances. He would say nasty remarks to me about how it was my fault that his life was like this. It was me who needed feeding, it was me who needed to go to school. "I would be better without you! You never work. All you do is study in that stupid room of yours. How are we supposed to make a living?! Go beg on the streets, you lousy girl!" He would scream at me. And soon, I had enough. 

How many times would I have to get blamed? How many times would I have to get hit? How many times would I have to be reminded of how things were when mother was alive? How many times did I have to cry myself to sleep? 

When I thought I hit the bottom of rock bottom, I met them. 

The group of people who changed my life.

The group of people that saved me from...everything. 

My protectors.