“Say, ByulHee, your grandmother and I are taking HeeJun to the shopping mall, and we’d like you to come with us.” ByulHee instantly frowned at the idea and closed her book while sitting up straighter on her bed.

“Must I come?” She couldn’t help but to ask, thinking about the place called shopping mall. She wasn’t such a big fan of the place, and would like to avoid it as much as she can. She went there a couple of times with MinYoung and HeeJun before, and she had to say that it was absolutely tiring for her.

Walking around looking at shops, and then entered one after another and headed from floor to floor, she actually had her feet feeling sore afterwards. It amazed ByulHee that her mother and brother didn’t feel to the very least tired, compared to her who wasn’t at all used to that activity.

Anyway, back to reality, MinYoung firmly shook her head and not expecting no as an answer from ByulHee. She wasn’t asking whether the girl wanted to come, in fact, she was asking her to come with them.

“Come on now, ByulHee. I think it’s a good time too for you to have some quality time with your grandmother as well. Things are still rough between the two of you, isn’t it? Now’s the time to mend it and let you two get to know each other.” MinYoung explained, and it sounded more like an order than a persuasion.

“Besides, I can’t possibly leave you alone at home while the three of us are out. It’s sort of like a family activity, and you’re expected to join.” She added, and ByulHee realized that there was no arguing with this.

MinYoung would just keep talking until ByulHee agreed, and she didn’t want to be the reason they were late. Especially since, she didn’t know whether HeeJun and their grandmother were waiting for her.

Sighing softly, ByulHee set her feet on the ground and stood up, causing MinYoung to smile in satisfaction, knowing that she’d agreed. “We’ll be leaving in 10 minutes, all right?” MinYoung informed, and after receiving a nod from ByulHee, she left the room so that ByulHee can change her clothes.

She really didn’t expect to go back to the shopping complex again, and almost came up with the idea of telling MinYoung that she could hang out at JongIn’s house if her mother was so worried of her being alone at home.

She herself had preferred the idea, but decided against it, as she didn’t want to trouble JongIn. For all she knew, he was also having his own quality time with his family and she didn’t want to interrupt.

Well, and so, here she was, following the three of her family members from behind as they kept walking along the shops in their own sweet time. Coming from the village, she didn’t really get the idea of walking along those shops on every floor, and stopped whenever something caught their eyes, entered the shop and bought them. 

She’d noticed that sometimes her family would simply go to the shopping mall without a plan of what to buy exactly, and to her, personally, she’d thought that it was a waste of time. But her grandmother told her then that it was something like a therapy for when they were stressed with work or company matters, even so ByulHee still couldn’t get it inside her head.

She kept a safe distance while trailing after her mother, brother, and grandmother. It seemed to have happened that HeeJun wanted to hold both his grandmother and MinYoung’s hands, who both without a second to waste, complied with his wishes.

Feeling a little awkward walking together with them, ByulHee quietly followed them from behind, while watching HeeJun chatting away with MinYoung and Director Kim. The other two seemed to have forgotten about ByulHee once they reached there, and ByulHee hoped that they still remembered she was there, with them.

HeeJun had both of their attentions that ByulHee herself didn’t know how to interfere. The boy kept talking nonstop while MinYoung and Director Kim listened to him, and ByulHee could only sigh. That was why she didn’t want to come in the first place. She felt so incompatible there amongst the city people even though she was with her own family.

After what felt like such a long time, finally, the three of them entered what appeared to be a clothing shop, and ByulHee followed suit. Instantly, HeeJun grabbed Director Kim and MinYoung’s hands to probably his favorite section in the store, and ByulHee decided not to follow them this time.

She couldn’t lose them, as they were all in the same store.

Seeing how preoccupied her mother and grandmother were with HeeJun, ByulHee decided to look around herself, as there was no point standing while watching HeeJun picking out his clothes.

ByulHee went to the male department, and began to browse some collared shirts that would be nice for her daddy. She checked out the price and she smiled happily after seeing that each shirt wasn’t that expensive, and they had a discount too.

The last time she visited Chen, she didn’t have the chance to bring him a gift, so now she was going to prepare one so that the next time she went back, she had something to give him. Besides, Chen’s birthday was just around the corner so she wanted to be prepared with the gift, as she was afraid that she wouldn’t have time to look for it later.

Looking for a shirt for Chen was easy, as ByulHee often remembered her daddy wearing long sleeved with stripes shirts or sometimes just a plain, empty one when he was at home and a collared and formal looking one when he was at the library.

But most of the time, Chen was always with a simple t-shirt and a jacket.

Having looked over the options she had, ByulHee finally settled on a brown colored t-shirt, coincidentally with three small stars at the front, and she knew that he would look nice in it as Chen had a fair skin tone.

Looking at the price, ByulHee was satisfied that it wasn’t that costly, and she’d saved her own pocket money before this too. However, she decided to look for MinYoung first before she purchased the shirt, just wanting to let her know that she was going to buy something for Chen.

ByulHee began scanning the area but frowned when she couldn’t find the sight of either MinYoung or her grandmother. Recalling back where she last saw them, ByulHee walked towards the section they were at earlier, assuming that they were still there but much to her surprise, no one was there except for the worker who was looking at her with a perplexed expression.

“Can I help you miss?” the worker asked, with not the slightest bit of happiness on her face. ByulHee had a feeling that the woman didn’t actually like to see her there, for whatever reason.

ByulHee looked around again and asked the worker, once she was sure that MinYoung was nowhere around. “Do you know where my mother is?” Panic started to build inside her and her heart was pounding fast. She had to find MinYoung or the other two a.s.a.p. or she would be in deep, deep trouble.

Sighing with a bored look on her face, the worker asked again, “And who is your mother? I can’t possible know everyone’s mothers now, can I?”

Ignoring the worker’s tone of voice, ByulHee looked around again before immediately giving up on asking the worker. She was right; she couldn’t possibly know everyone’s mothers so there was no point in telling her MinYoung’s name.

Leaving the worker speechless, ByulHee exited the shop and cast an eye over the hallway, hoping to catch a glimpse of either MinYoung, Director Kim, or HeeJun. She was hoping that neither of them had gotten too far away but much to her dismay, there was no sign of them at all, and the crowd was making things worse.

Being the tiny little squirt she was, it was difficult for her to look for her mother in such crowd, and without knowing what to do, she just kept walking to where her feet would take her, calling out MinYoung’s name at the same time.

She’d no phones to call her mother, nor did she know MinYoung’s number.

ByulHee cursed herself upon the realization, and regretted not asking MinYoung or MinSeok their phone numbers before. She didn’t know that it would be important eventually, as she didn’t need to remember anyone’s phone numbers back at her village. And it wasn’t as if she had a phone to use anyways.

And she didn’t expect to be left behind in a gigantic shopping mall as such. Being a girl coming from the village, it never crossed her mind to go the receptionist whatsoever if she happened to get lost.

She pondered the idea of checking each shops, asking the workers at the same time whether they’d come across her family but with a shopping mall that big, she doubted that it was possible. Somehow, she had a hunch that they were already heading home.

With a deep sigh, ByulHee walked out of the shopping mall, and decided to find her own way back home. She was aware that she didn’t know the way, but she kept telling herself to try. But if it took them half an hour to get the shopping precinct by car, how long would it take ByulHee to get home on her own?

And to make things worse, she didn’t even know the way.

Meanwhile, a few miles away from the shopping center, HeeJun was busy chattering away with his grandmother and MinYoung mostly about useless things, but the two seemed to listen to it nonetheless. He kept on rambling about how rare he had to see MinSeok nowadays, and he missed hanging out with his dad again.

“Appa is like, super busy latterly and he doesn’t have time for us anymore. He goes to work early in the morning before I’m even awake and comes back when we’re all in bed. He’s not even there during breakfast and lunch any longer. Does he not want to see me?” HeeJun complained, as he settled himself in between his grandmother and his mother.

This was not the first time that he’d issued such grumble, but now since his mother was there too, he wanted to make it more openly. Maybe by letting his mother know this would make the current situation change and probably she could talk to his father about spending too much time in the office.

“You know that it isn’t like that, love.” MinYoung explained, but the scowl still hadn’t left HeeJun’s face. “You know that he’s busy lately because there are ju