[Flashback]

“I miss them. It’s terrible.”

“You miss them?”

“I want to meet them, you know?”

“Yes, yes…you do.”

“I want to meet them in a while…”

“…”

“Just to say I’m fine”

“Are you?”

[Present]

“…Don’t you hear me calling!? Stop right there!” The sharp voice from the old lady on the wheelchair reached out and seemed to have a grip on the girl’s legs. She couldn’t move even she wanted to.

Unavoidably, SeoJoohyun turned around to the madam of this household. She had tried her best for weeks to avoid the lady as Yonghwa told her to, but now seemed like the time came.

 You won’t scold me, right, samchon? I don’t mean to disobey you. She thought to herself.

She looked to the old lady with polite acknowledgement. Her eyes were so round, yet she had this adorable look even she didn’t try to.

“What is your name, young miss? You think you will live under the same roof with me but don’t have to know me till either me or you die, huh?” The old lady said, her tone was full of self-importance.

It had been one month since she moved in, but she never introduced herself properly to the old lady – it was what she felt sorry now.

“Tsk.. but I already heard you are insane, so I don’t expect you to understand this courtesy.”

“My name is SeoJoohyun. I’m sorry for my manners, but you can teach me the thing I don’t know, madam.” Joohyun said politely.

At this point, the old lady was surprised but she kept it in check. “Who told you to call me like that?” She asked but her tone didn’t snatch the girl’s skin as much as before. She felt pleased that the girl called her by the right word.

 At least, some mental case knew her place. The old lady thought.

It was the lower place to call the lady by “madam”, just like those maids.

“I did the same as anyone else. I guess if 20 people here call and it works, the 21^st should just follow suit.” She explained.

This girl is smart - is what the old lady saw

The girl was no arrogant or no moderate, or maybe she didn’t even know the difference between those two words, but she kept adapting by following the packs – by weighing which choice most people would go with. Perhaps she might think, people here stood in line because they all followed one another or people run because someone started running and everything was so contagious. Like when people cried because they saw other cried, something like that.

But it wasn’t all right. Following the pack wasn’t at all good.

“Can I? Or should I try call madam-nim by something else?” The girl asked sincerely.

“Just call me that. I’ve heard some of your story, but I didn’t quite care. It doesn’t matter to me at all.”

And now the old lady rubbed it on Joohyun’s face how small and unimportant the girl was to her. Joohyun might be something moved around, barely inside the lady’s attention but whenever something crossed the old lady, that was when the girl’s existence would be mind…

..and the name would be recognized.

 “Neh..I never think I’m so much important. I’m just a grain of sand after all.”

“You and that sweet tongue of you, is there anything else you could do besides feeding on us and walking around over this place, huh?”

“I’ve been doing just little, madam. But if you want me to do more or less, I sure will definitely do.”

Fair point, well made, your little cuckoo

The old lady felt satisfied inwardly.

“What’s about knitting? Can you?”

“I cannot now. I mean I’ve never learned but if I have a chance I will try my best, madam.”

“Well...then follow me this way.” And then the old lady turned her wheelchair back to her direction.

All that afternoon Joohyun spent time learning how to excel in knitting at the old lady private area. The girl tried her best as she told but it could be so hard for the beginner, that made the old lady hit her lightly every now and then or even pinched her a bit too hard sometimes.

“I told you to insert it this way. Why can’t you remember, huh?”

“I’m sorry, madam. I won’t forget again.”

And then “There! You go again!”

…….

“Again, where is your mind went?”

……

“Look! I told you how many times!”

…..

“Ahhh you really got to my last nerve!”

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“Why madam-nim has to be so strict.” The girl looked up to the older and tried her gut to ask. After spending so much time together, Joohyun learned that it was just the lady’s way to keep nagging on people, but really had no intend to execute anyone. And then the old lady seemed to have enough on nagging by now or she just exhausted.

“And what would you do? Will you pull a psycho trick on me?”

“I already have it in me once, madam, but better to have it gone for good though we don’t know for sure if it’s still there.”

“tsk…how quibble this little psycho! I don’t enjoy listening to any quibbler. Now keep your mouth shut and get your work done.”

“But…to listen is when you hear better, if you won’t listen how can you hear?”

“You little cuckoo! How dare of you to teach me! If I need any lecture, I rather rest inside coffin to have the priest’s word, not yours!”

And then Seojoohyun would keep her words in check.

Some said, you can’t teach an old dog new trick.

Especially when you’re a young dog and that old hound could bloody snatch you to death with its sharp fangs anytime.

Better to steer clear of its fangs!

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“Here are samchon and madam-nim, but you two eat separately and barely see each other. I don’t understand.” The girl said to Yonghwa on the dinner table that evening.

As always, they eat at this wing of mansion apart from the old lady’s possessed wing.

Yonghwa turned to the girl. “Madam-nim? You mean my Imo? Why?”

“She seemed so lonely.”

“But…my imo wants it this way.” Yonghwa replied but somehow he was half-way sure about what he said.

“We sometimes want to be alone, but no one wants to be lonely and neglected, samchon.”

Yonghwa looked at the girl who kept staring at her plate. He had the feeling she had more say. “So what do you suggest me to do?” He asked as a pass for her to discuss the deal.

The girl looked up to him again. “I wouldn’t know about that.” She expressed her ultimate sincere.

Yonghwa considered it. “Well… then I will find time to eat with my imo, is this solved?"

He said that just to please her even he didn’t know exactly how.

Because the girl seemed so much bother with this matter and if he didn’t fix it he had the feeling she would withdraw back to her misery.

He remembered last time she cried, it made him feel bad.

He wouldn’t let it happen again.

“Can you remember Won-a-nee, samchon?” The girl suddenly asked.

Yonghwa’s head spun. Anyway he tried to think about it.

After a while he got it right.

”Won-a-nee, the sea otter?”

“Yes, Won-a-nee, the sea otter.”

He could grin a little bit on his success, but what came next he absolutely had no idea.

“Won-a nee always disappeared into the sea, and after some period she would return to the island. It was glad to see her back every single time. And when I didn’t see her I really had no idea how she would be. Was she in danger? Did she get killed by Aleut hunters already? I kept wondering. And then when I saw her with her babies it made me very very happy.”

Yonghwa thought he would never understand the girl, not when she was being like this AGAIN.

“Besides Won-a-nee and her babies, there was this Rontu. Rontu was the dog those Aleut hunters left behind. Then Rontu became my friend and he even led a pack of wild dogs. He was so cool and very special to me. That summer, he was with me most of time.”

Seriously? Why this story? Why now?

“And there were plenty of birds on my island, and this couple of birds, they laid two eggs inside the nest near my house. After two eggs hatched, I took them and put them in a small cage that I made of reeds. So later in the spring, when all the birds, except the crows, left the island and hew off to the north – I had these two for friends, samchon” She looked Yonghwa in the eyes and smiled as to remark the end.

Yonghwa didn’t get the whole messages but somehow he caught some feel inside those eyes.

It was sadness; her smile couldn’t conceal it this time.

She feels sad with that make-believed story?

The story of a lonely girl with her animal friends in the lost islands of the blue dolphin…

And then Yongwa came to realization the story could only come from the book she gave him.

But he never spared that book a glance.

My bad..

“Em…and what’s next.” He asked, tried his best to be a good listener despite his failure as a reader since he couldn’t manage to read that children book.

And he couldn’t read her.

“I left them behind, samchon.” The girl uttered softly.

“You left them?” Yonghwa raised his brows in amusement.

The girl nodded. “I left them all.”

“And so…?”

“Just… I left them.”

“You just left them?”

“Yes, just that.”

“Just that?”

“Yes..”

“Is it really just that? Nothing’s more?”

“Yes, just that.”

“Really?”

“Yes, samchon, just that”

“Don’t you miss them?”

“I don’t know. Let it be just that.”

Alright….

Just that so.

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My dear readers, did you got the message?

Let it be just that, will be fine.

hahahaha

I didn't know how comes this chapter, but I like it most when I originally wrote it in my language.

Hope you enjoy and please comment something.

Please....please....please.