I don´t know where to begin from... This isn´t only my story, my problem. Other people in the past led to this while people in the present are still affected... I-it´s pretty complicated and I´m not sure if I can connect everything so that a solid narration can come out.

But I´ll try. Because you trusted me with your pain. Now I´ll trust you with mine.

I guess I should start from how my parents met and got married. Well, after the Korean War, both their families were economically destroyed. Friends since ages ago, they joined forces and moved from the countryside to Seoul in search of better opportunities. Hardworking people, they managed to rapidly build their own businesses. My mother´s parents opened a patisserie, one  of the first ones to have trade connections with Europe.

The time came when mum finished school. They sent her to study finance in France, a feat remarkable considering the beliefs about women very much evident then. My father stayed here, studying literature at Seoul´s National University. It was truly amazing how two peasant kids with no more than one pair of shoes each had become the future hope of our country. Security and governmental control might have been strict during those years but bright minds could thrive under certain circumstances.

One could reach the conclusion that the two of them would have fallen in love, live happily with the blessings of their families and carry on the businesses. But there´s always something rotten among all the happiness.

Mum didn´t want to come back. From what I´ve put together after finding some old letters, she had fallen in love with a French soldier. He had promised her that they would move to America since he was to be promoted - America, the country of dreams... She had been swept off her feet, blinded by love. A partner of her father stopped her just before boarding the plane that would take her to Florida. They had vowed to meet at the sunlit state and marry before settling in a big city of the north, like Boston or Philadelphia.

She was forced to finish her studies in Paris and once she was done, she was immediately brought back. Her father announced she would be marrying his best friend´s son and my dad could only agree. He was too absorbed in his studying of modern literature to rise serious objections. Mum went back to the countryside to stay with her grandparents while preparations for the wedding were being made.

Her own mother couldn´t see she was depressed, in her mind only two facts obvious: a) her daughter was stubborn and adventurous and b) my dad was a good kid they knew since birth. It was the perfect plan.

Till that happened...

Actually, I would never have come across the information other way. By coincidence I did, one day when visiting my grandma - my mother´s mother - in the hospital. She was in her last days, her mind trying to balance between clarity and darkness. During one of the moments she was in the state between, she admitted the second big scandal of our family.

It is true that my father had been the model son: respectful towards his parents, always obeying them and doing his best to fulfill their wishes... Everything was perfect till the day his suppressed desires took over his collected façade. How disgusting and utterly out of the normal it must have been for that time to discover your son and on top of a student from the Music Department... A male student. What an absolute disgrace...

In just a few moments, the master plan became obligatory when it was just ideal before. His father almost killed him and I know he sent the other young man to the hospital. I can´t imagine the amount of money spent and threats made in order for the issue to stay private and forever hidden. Above everything, there was a reputation that had to be protected and both families had already boasted to their circles about the upcoming joining of blood - they couldn´t go back.

In order to eradicate all forms of twisted thoughts from my father´s mind, they sent him to some kind of reformatting military camp and the marriage was postponed for half a year. He didn´t manage to finish his studies and, after marrying, he never talked much again. He didn´t manage to become the lecturer he so much wanted to. He kept himself isolated in his study instead, lost among his favourite collections of literature... in his own disturbed mind, the disfigured reality that emerged from the pits of his depression.

I see how your eyes widened, your posture stiffened, your breath is held in your lungs. I guess now the grand mystery of why did I come here is beginning to unveil... Charming, isn´t it? And I haven´t even reached my childhood yet. Let me skip some years of drama, my birth, my first couple of years living and reach something real sad.

Heh... as if I´ve been telling you happy things so far...

So, um, when I was seven years old, I witnessed my mother being truly happy for the first time. It was an early September morning and we were having breakfast all together - me, my parents and my grandparents. It was rare to have everyone gathered around the same table without exchanging yells. I liked it.

I remember mum carefully taking two sips of strawberry juice before slowly glancing around at us, her hand the cold glass. I´m pregnant... she had said, a proud smile on her face. I remember it clearly, the silence and then the explosion of congratulations. I can still perfectly recall even the colour and pattern of the shirt my father had been wearing - my father who had just glanced at me with sad eyes over his oval glasses and then kept eating his rice, seemingly oblivious of everything that was happening.

You may be wondering how could the announcement of the upcoming addition of another member in our family be sad. For once, my mother was happy for having that kid, something she hadn´t felt when having me. It was sad because I knew she wouldn´t try to drown that kid as she had done to me. Yes, she did, when I was two... in the bathroom´s porcelain sink.

But what´s even sadder is the fact that her unborn child didn´t even get to see the light of this world.

It was September as I told you. Rains had started pouring more and more often and there was an event at my school. I had a big and important role in my class´ play. Mum had to drive me there when normally I was going with the school bus. You see, we´d start later than usual, we wouldn´t have lessons that day. Mum´s car was on the road... As well as a heavy truck.

The driver stepped on the brakes hard without a warning and the asphalt was slippery. Mum´s reaction was slow. We hit the rear of the high vehicle, some protruding steel rods cutting through the metal of our car as if it were butter. One of them stopped just inches away from my head but a second hit mother on the stomach.

After that, only fragments of what followed are in my memory: us hurrying to the hospital, my grandmother crying and pushing me out of her way, father not answering the phone at home...

The doctor said that if she'd s