This chapter is dedicated to EXO. And to Kris (although I still think of him as part of EXO).

Stay strong guys.

When her father finally reaches the kitchen almost fourty minutes later, Yoo Mi has had time to look around her family home. She'd wandered from room to room, surprised by what she found. 

Her father had kept the place the same. 

Her room was neat and orderly. Obviously used now more for storage, if the boxes in the corner of the room were anything to go by, the room still looked much the same as the day she'd left. 

The living room still held photos of the family when she'd been younger, during happier times as a child. When Yoo Mi had two loving parents and a life that seemed almost perfect. The kitchen was still painted the same color her mother had painted it from her newlywed days, with the same wind chimes her mother had hung above the sink, still in their place. 

It was as though Yoo Mi had gone back in time to see the life she'd left behind. A life of great happiness but that had spiralled into great tragedy the next day.

And somehow, that was even worse.

So, she chose to sit. To sit and to not have to think about it.

When her father reaches the apartment, his eyes land on her instantly. He stood by the entrance for a moment, removing his shoes and such, before padding across the floor and towards her, his eyebrows rising upon seeing that Yoo Mi had made tea, a cup for him waiting for him.

"So, what did you want to talk about?" he finally asked upon sitting down.

Yoo Mi sighed deeply, her eyes moving from their spot on the table to meet her father's gaze, "I... I left three years ago because I couldn't stand it here. Because I blamed you for what happened to mom."

Her father's eyes narrowed, "I loved your mother-"

"I know you did," Yoo Mi said, cutting him off, "But I was mad at you! You saw how mom was getting and you knew she wanted to go back but you didn't want to!"

"Because we were better off here!" he argued.

"No, we weren't! Mom was miserable!" Yoo Mi exclaimed, "She cried all the time. She kept going to Seoul up until she died and you didn't do anything but ignore it! And I was the one who had to come home and see her body hanging from the ceiling!" Yoo Mi cried out, feeling tears reach the surface.

Her father stared back at her, stunned, as Yoo Mi broke down, her head down as she cried silently in her palms.

After a moment, he finally spoke, sounding far older then time had made him, "She was so happy the summer she came down here. So full of life and love and so beautiful. And then she chose me of all the men trying to have her..." he grew silent, "She said she was happy here. I thought she was."

Yoo Mi settled down, listening to her father before raising her face to finally look at him. She took in his slumped shoulder, the grey in his hair, the wrinkles in his skin. And Yoo Mi realized, that as much as she'd been hurting, her father had been hurting just as much, if not more. He'd had to carry the weight of guilt of not having taken his family out of Dangjin earlier, of not have taken his family to Seoul. Of his daughter blaming him for his wife's death.

Shaking her head, she spoke, "She's dead and nothing's going to bring her back..." Yoo Mi bit her lip, "But I'm so screwed up from that."

"What?" her father questioned, looking at her, "What are you talking about? You've been gone for three years, going only God knows where, and doing God knows what."

She shook her head again, "But I'm so ed up. I can't handle being in one place for very long," she locked eyes with him, "I run away as soon as I see I'm doing the same thing and I move on. But now... I've met someone. And he's everything I want and need. And I ran from him because you and mom messed me up. Mom always told me to leave, to never get too close because I'd end up as miserable as her. You always told me to stay. That I had all the time in the world to see the world. But I don't want to hurt him," Yoo Mi said through renewed tears and a lump in .

"I don't want to leave him. I love him, and I don't want to keep pulling a disappearing act on him. I want some closure from you and mom, but I don't even know how to go about that," Yoo Mi looked away once she was done, rubbing her eyes as she looked down at the wooden floor.

For a long stretch of time, father and daughter sat there at a table that was held a family of three, but now held a table of two people so broken by the events of another person, their lives had been so drastically changed.

And somehow, that's what hurt Yoo Mi even more. That her once loving relationship with her father was so far gone, she was sure she'd never get it back. That her mother had left them to fend for themselves, so miserable she was with this world that she'd almost destroyed the lives of her family.

"I want to go back to him. I don't want to be here. I'm not coming back here," Yoo Mi whispered, more to herself then to her fahter, "I just want to be okay."

The sound of a chair scraping went unheard of by Yoo Mi before she felt two arms wrap around her gently, pressing her into the chest of her father as his fingers combed through her hair the way he had done to her as a child. She felt her eyes release years of unshed tears as she clung to him, feeling tears hit the top of her head.

All they could was feel. Feel the pain of a broken family, of a lost mother and wife, or a future destroyed, and of a love between father and daughter that dissipated.

When she quieted down enough to think clearly, her father finally spoke, "You're going to be okay," he whispered, pulling back to stare down at his daughter, "You're going to be okay because this doesn't control your life. Because you're not just your mother's daughter, but mine too and we'll be okay. Not now, but with time," he said, brushing her hair back.

"One day, we'll be fine. But you can still love. Because your mother wouldn't want you to be like this. Because she would have wanted to see you happy and in love. And I know you will be now."

He let her go as sighed deeply, rubbing his eyes before smiling down at his daughter. Patting her head, he moved to the door, surprising Yoo Mi.

"Where are you going?"

Turning back, her father smiled at her once more, "To run the shop. It makes my days go by happily to be around the people I see all the time. To see my same-old customers," he said before disappearing down the stairs.

Yoo Mi sat in silence for a while, contemplating what her father had said. Deciding that, for all the wrong she felt he'd done, he was right.

She was going to be okay. She just had to start with going back to where she was happiest. 

With that, she stood from her place and made her way to the side entrance, looking around the apartment once more. Yoo Mi was almost certain she would never live a day in the apartment or run her family store, but she was also certain she wouldn't leave her father alone again.

Opening the door to see sunlight creeping down across the horizon, she made her way down the steps, telling herself that she'd be fine.

Because she would be.