The sun is striking madly as the clouds hide themselves in the vast blue skies. It is a common phenomenon for noon hours like this but people are far from irks to mutter their complaints under their breaths about it every single day. No matter either they live to survive with or without air-conditioner to cool them down.

Hyojung immerses her whole head into a basin filled with room temperature water for a solid twenty seconds and insists to stay a bit longer but fails, when a hard smack lands on her back. “Yah, yah! Do you want to die?” Gasping for breaths like a fish at the edge of drowning in air, Hyojung turns her head to see her mother with her common blunt look, staring down at her. Her mother or most villagers called ‘Park’, yes, it is their surname and yes, surprisingly the tiny village they have been living for up to twenty years consists of only one family with the surname of ‘Park’ and the family is no other but them.

“Being dead sounds okay with me,” Hyojung nonchalantly says as she stands up to straighten her aching back from being bend a bit too much. Her mother remains silent on the small hut, tying and grouping the corns they have collected today. The nineteen year old girl becomes aware of her mother’s silence and mentally slapping herself for it.  Some jokes are off the limited, and Hyojung should know better. She actually knows better, but humans slip and they make mistakes.

“Mother, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.” Hyojung leans closer towards her mother and picks three sticks of corns, a lace and ought to do what she shall do at first place. “I’m not disappointed with my life, mother. I swear. I was just joking. Mother…” The corns on Hyojung’s laps remain untied. “Mother….sorry.”

Park eventually looks up. “Don’t ever say something like that again, understand?” Hyojung smiles upon hearing her mother speak and nods vigorously. “Yes, mother.”

It is her daily routine after graduated high school—to give full maintenance towards their family’s small failing corn field, collecting harvested corns when the time is right and sell them off at the nearest market in the village. These works usually are her mother’s first priority other than sewing clothes for money but now it hers. Hyojung is glad even to take over the job although it sounds tiresome (it is tiresome after all) but she sees her mother suffered enough and decides to put a halt for it.

And on her marked calendar, today is the day for her to bring their harvested corns to the market and needless to say, the sum for the total corns ready to be sold is less than seventeen. Hyojung doesn’t complain, never complain and once the corns are properly tied and placed in the wooden trolley she built when she was fifteen, she is all set to make a move.

“Hyojung-ah, remember, you have to come home when the sun sets even if those corns aren’t completely sold,” her mother reminds at the front door of their old house to which she impulsively replies ‘yes’. Hyojung takes a deep breath and exhales, before her grasps on the wooden handles tauten and the trolley begins to move.

However, she halts on reflex immediately once a black European car slickly appears from the junction near their house in high speed and stops once it in close proximity with Hyojung and her wooden trolley. She waits for it to honk or something as she is blocking the road currently but it doesn’t.

Park who was sitting at the front door looks at her daughter who is looking at her with a blank expression. Both of them hear the engine drops silent within seconds and a charming looking lady, not older or any younger than Hyojung’s mother demarks from the backseat. An expensive looking sunglasses stays elegantly on the bridge of her nose and the lipsticks on her lips is blindly red. Even though she isn’t young but she still looks gorgeous and a bit snobbish, Hyojung says in her head.

The latter wonders what does she’s probably searching in this isolated village.

Park on the other side stands abruptly as familiarity dawns upon her. “Madam Kim?”

∆

The first time ever Hyojung’s schedule is interrupted with something way uncommon for her. She tends to continue her suspended job of taking the corns to where they shall be but her mother (after she had a few words with Madam Kim) stops her from doing so and urges her to follow them back into the house.

For the time being, she is awkwardly sitting beside her mother on their old cushions with lukewarm teas on the table, facing the lady who she assumes, Madam Kim. “Park, how long does it been? Five years?” Madam Kim speaks with a hint of an unknown accent for Hyojung, probably the accent rich people always use and she notices the discomfort in Madam Kim’s eyes when she shifts in her seat. This wealthy lady ahead her is most likely never sits on the floor with only cushion under her gluts. She must have only sofas and expensive chairs in her mansion, perhaps. And a toilet bowl made from gold.

“Six years, madam,” Park politely replies. “And if you don’t mind, may I know why you want to meet me and my daughter?” she continues.

Madam Kim takes off her sunglasses and places it gently on the table. Hyojung can clearly see those pretty dark brown orbs beneath and thinking that the price of the sunglasses can probably feed her whole family a dinner at the Chinese restaurant at the outskirt of the city. “Well, I don’t like to say something indirectly because it wastes time. So, let me get this straight.” The lady clears , rather elegantly. Hyojung doesn’t know if she did it on purpose or she is actually elegant by nature. “You had been working as a maid at my house for quite a long time until you quit five-six years ago. So, you probably know that I have two sons. Jonghyun and Jongin?” Park nods as the memories flood her mind.

“Five months ago, Jongin, my second son involved in a car wreck and he was in a critical condition.” Hyojung’s mother gasps. “He’s fine now but, his right limbs had been severely fractured and he can’t walk without the help of the crutches and he practically can’t do anything because his right arm is broken too. I think you’re well aware that he isn’t left-handed, right?”

“I think you know too that ever since he’s twenty-one he moved out of the house to live by his own. And for the past five months, I had been hiring several nurses for him because a thick-headed son he is, he won’t move in back to my house. But, you know too how stubborn he is and his attitude made every single nurse quit their job after a day been hired. So I hired an old man, to make him feel comfortable but he was too old to carry Jongin around and in general taking care of him and Jongin obviously doesn’t want any young men to become his nanny.” Madam Kim tells with every syllable she said sounds a bit meaner even when the words aren’t supposed to be mean at all.

Park fidgets in her seat. “But, Madam Kim, even Jongin is used to having me around when he was younger, I don’t think I can afford to take care of him. Me, myself isn’t that healthy. My bones are fragile. I’m old too,“ she stutters. Hyojung on her side is speechless and only manages to stare at the lady in front of her. Is she insane? How can she probably ask my mother to take care of her sick adolescent son?    

“I know. And I don’t ask you to take care of him either.” Madam Kim looks a bit annoyed as she answers. “I’m about to ask your healthy young daughter to do so.” Her statement gets Hyojung as well as her mother taken aback. Hyojung has no idea about the lifestyles of those urban people like Madam Kim but, living with a man, a stranger who she has nothing connected to, is utterly wrong. Hyojung isn’t very religious or someone who takes cultures way too seriously but she has pride and dignity. opens to say something in refusal but the rich woman speaks first.

“I pay you a tolerable sum of money and I will pay for your siblings’ school needs and buy foods for your family monthly,” Madam Kim says and it is now towards Hyojung rather than her mother unlike beforehand. The way she speaks is more like hissing, every words are like venom for Hyojung. “And I know, narrow minded countryside girl like you wouldn’t agree to live under one roof with a stranger. So, I’ve plan to get both of you married until he heals and then he will, of course, divorce you afterwards. You don’t have to take care of his other necessity if you know what I mean, just his health and the household chores.”

Hyojung is still in her shock state and she can’t confirms anything or afford to say a word towards all of these sudden nonsenses. She looks at her mother for some help but only receiving back a dejected looking eyes and a pat on her back. The way her mother acts is clearly saying it is not in her power to decide and most likely to agree on whatever decision Hyojung will take.

“Can you please give me sometime to-“ it seems like a decade long, Hyojung finds the courage to at least say something but ends up being cut down halfway. “No. I want answer today, right now. Tch, do you think I want to come to this place again?”

It offends her when Madam Kim pointed out what she’s been keeping in her mind. Nonetheless, Hyojung isn’t selfish and she would be willingly to trade anything even if it’s her life for her family. The offer comes like a whip of luck and a bomb of disaster for her at the same time. If she accepts it, her family will be in a better condition like what she has always hoping for and she can also enhancing the chances of her to go to college with the salary she will be receiving. All she needs to do is taking care of a sick person, and most importantly be able protecting her ity as well even when she is married to a stranger. Her brain is functioning wildly, and when this particular question pops out of her mind, she knows a decision has been made.

Healing wouldn’t take that much time wouldn’t it?

“What do you say?” Beads of sweats form on Madam’s Kim forehead. Hyojung doesn’t know if it because of the heat and the lack of air conditioner in her small house or something else. She feels a sudden nausea and something acidic lurches in her stomach.

She holds her mother’s hand tightly. “I accept.”