Capsule 18: Hamartia

All night I sat there with the body of my brother and did not sleep. I vowed that someday I would go back and kill the wild dogs in the cave. I would kill all of them. I thought of how I would do it, but mostly I thought of Ramo, my brother.

---- From The island of the blue dolphins book.

[Flashback]

“I myself made entirely of flaws…

…stitched together with good intentions.”

“You do not, Yonghwa”

“….”

“You are no flaw, my friend.”

[Present]

“Have you been waiting for so long?” Yonghwa told and touched the woman’s shoulder when he approached her table inside their favorite coffee café, late in the afternoon. “Sorry, I’ve just finished monthly paperwork.”

ImYoonA looked up. When she realized it was him, she spread her beautiful smile and stood up for welcoming. “It’s alright, I’ve just chilled around. I don’t have other schedule today anyway. And that….haven’t you dressed for office, Oppa.” She wondered, seeing the man in private cloth.

“Ani, today I worked in home office.” Yonghwa told while pulled the chair out to sit down. “Did you order anything yet?” He asked, seated in his chair opposite to YoonA.

“Neh, I ordered some snacks for you, some bakeries and here is your coffee, it’s already cold as you prefer.” She then offered a coffee cup toward his direction while she had a tea cup for herself. “Do you want anything else, Oppa?” She asked.

“Those will do.” He replied

So that YoonA signaled to the waitress. “Please bring the rest in order and may I have a menu again” She told the waitress.

When the waitress got her a menu, YoonA gave it to Yonghwa.

“I insist, oppa. You should pick what you want. This time you can’t just go with what I pick.” She gave out her insisting smile which always worked best for everyone around.

“I will just have to pick some then.” He smiled, couldn’t help but skimmed through the menu and finally he ordered some desserts.

When the waitress got the order and walked away. Yonghwa turned to YoonA again. “Are you mad at me or something?” He asked, didn’t quite have a clue.

“I’m not mad at you, oppa. Just when I think about it, oppa barely pick what you want.”

“Do I? I don’t think so.” Yonghwa argued.

YoonA though just smiled to dismiss the topic. She saw no need to correct him and since she was no good at discussion but always going with the flow.

“Look, I picked this gift for you from Phuket.” He pulled out the medium sized box from the bag he brought and put it down on the table before YoonA.

YoonA’s heart fluttered again no matter how many times he bought her something. She stared at the lovely box and looked up to his charming face.

“Let’s see if you still think I can’t pick what I want.” Yonghwa defied.

“Isn’t this you pick what I want though, oppa?” She pointed out. “And you always know I have this crazy obsession with scents. I could guess what I have here, perfume? Or maybe scented candle? Something with scent?”

She opened the box and found 9 scented candles in form of different flower shapes, each inside small cubicles; they all were lovely and delicate.

She looked up to Yonghwa and smile her ‘I know it’ smile.

Yonghwa raised his hands in defeat. “Alright, I’m defeated then.”

And they both laughed a kind of we-see-what-is-coming-but-do-not-think-about-it-just-now laugh.

After those years of knowing each other, sometimes they wondered how they came this far, and how to keep going like this. He grew habit of feeling-less-thinking-more, while she grew this habit of saying-less-listening-more whenever she was around him, they were compatible and put together this way but at some point they both knew something went wrong.

She had been admiring him since she was in junior high; he knew that, everyone knew that. People said they should be together as a couple but they were never once, never back then.

He treated her like a sister, those kind gestures like shuffled her hair always made her heart flew off earth. He was so good, so kind, so nice to everyone, but she knew he was especially nice to her. She was always his royal fan, a big admirer who fetched him water after basketball match, he thanked her with the best smile she could die and wouldn’t ask for more.

She was so young back then, 4 years younger – she didn’t know how to initiate in romantic relationship with a proper and premature Jung Yonghwa, so she kept what he offered. He walked her home with a group of his friends; she was an only girl among those boys and that enough for made her felt special, he never failed on making she fell more deep in love. She bought him gifts and he returned her gratitude. She thought if she kept it that way one day he would returned her feeling and they would be a couple. She was wrong then.

On his high school graduation day, he said he wished her the best in everything, especially on finding a prince charming that could kill for her. They separated that way – with her broken heart though she could never hate him.

She was famous in junior high, very very famous back in high school, and throughout the college years, even now still – she was the Korean national angel after all. She dated some famous guys but no other guys would give her the exact feeling Yonghwa did. She had missed him throughout those years.

And then one day, she saw him at some gala dinner and before that she heard he was back in town from studying abroad. She walked to him with her trembling steps and called out to him “Oppa”. When he turned to find her, when they eyes locked that was when she knew what she wanted.

She wanted him back in her life and no matter what they could be, no matter what – she accepted.

Until now there never was a proper title for their relationship despite the facts that they went out together several times, attended gala dinners, went to parties after parties, and even when they kissed. Did that mean their unknown relationship was promoted up to next level? Who would know when he never shared what was in his mind or inside his heart.

“Oppa…” she broke the silence.

“Huh” He replied after got lost in thought.

“Er..about the journalists…what should I reply them?” She couldn’t help but need to ask him now. “It has been several days I avoided the press, but I don’t know how long I could push it off my plate.” She consulted.

Yonghwa sibbed his coffee calmly, his eyes observed her body languages from the first place. As someone who watched out her words as much as YoonA, Yonghwa learned to read her signs and that was very selfish of him – he made her inferior and she was kind of accepted it.

Late in afternoon, the time flew steadily…two people sat across each other, talked in cozy, low tone barely looked into each other’s eyes  – didn’t seem like they would discuss anything as serious as their relationship at all but more like some acquaintances met by chance. But how else should it go, if not like this?

“Just reply them whatever you want.” He answered finally making the girl hissed.

What?‼ Reply them whatever I want? Was the scream inside her head – he released her from her burden but this way was…..so cruel.

She shifted her gaze to look into her tea cup, this time despite one hand that was holding on the spoon, another was brought to hold the tea cup as if she wanted so much to hold on to something solid.

“Then can I ask you something, oppa?” She said, didn’t even look up to him.

She put off the spoon and used both hands to hold on to the tea cup firmly as it was there stayed still on the table. Now she wanted so much to ask him what bothered her lately…and she didn’t even want to wait anymore.

“That moment…after all these times why did suddenly you kiss me?”

All Yonghwa did was stared at his cold coffee in front.

“You told me to reply them whatever I want but what do you want, oppa?”

Yonghwa had no idea what he wanted.

Jung residence, Seoul, South Korea

That night he dreamed of his long lost dream, the one he thought it was gone for good a long time ago. But now seemed like it was back on haunting him again.

A nightmare..

In his dream, he was in junior high, barely understood what meant ‘elopement’ or ‘adulterer’, but these terms were used when people talked about his mother.

‘She ran away from her husband with her lover even abandoned her son. What a sin to commit such an elopement’

‘She would rot in hell with her adulterer.’

‘The son still looked up everywhere – searching for his mother.’

‘The husband even worse, they said he barely functions as a human, he was sad to death.’

‘ani, I heard another version of the story….’

People kept talking bad things about his mother and he wanted so much to defend her. The only facts he believed was that his mother went missing, and missing person could speak none, so people came up with rubbish story to entertain themselves and he hated that. He hated that to his gut!

So he might find his mother, brought her back home either dead or alive, but he wished she would just stay safe and sound. He prayed for it every single day.

‘Please, dear god, please bring my omma back’

Yonghwa dreamed of a boy on a bended knee, praying for his mother.

‘I only want my omma back, please god. I don’t ask for anything more in this life, just let me see her face again…chebal”

And then he dreamed of the day before his mother gone, she took him to the mall, bought him stuff he liked, they had tasty dinner together. But when they went home, his mother said she forgot something and hurried back to find it, leaving Yonghwa at the front gate of their house.

And she never came back, not in a day, a month, or several months later.

As best as a boy could do, Yonghwa kept searching everywhere for his mother trade and found none.

…in reality, even in his dream land.

On the passing years, it was getting more confused every time in his dreamscape, he dreamed of the day he went out with his mother in different places, among the crowds, in the exotic forest, on the car drive, on the plane, on the boat at the middle of ocean, even a fantasy world and just then they were parted, sometime because the nasty beast took his mother, sometimes the storm broke them apart, sometimes the darkness was looming in, and this time…

This time was the one that closest to the reality – his mother turned her back on him and walked away before getting on the car, just as simple as that.

The boy kept calling out to his mother for the fear that deep down inside he knew she would never come back; he screamed and screamed out from the top of his lungs.

The car was moving, took his mother away.

He ran after her, he ran fast – finally his legs seemed to give up on him and he fell off the ground.

‘Why did you leave me, omma!? Don’t you love me anymore.? Omma please come back! Please omma, I want you…Appa wants you. We want you‼’ he screamed.

His mother was gone and just when he looked back he saw his father…

…with a gun inside his hand.

Yonghwa screamed one last time for his father ‘No! appa, noooo‼’

Bang‼

And like that he woke up with sweat all over his face… the tears kept streaming down his face in darkness.

Yonghwa covered his face with both hands, and that the headache occurred but not as badly as heartache – his heart was now breeding.  He did cry silently letting go of his pride though it was not like anyone was there to see it anyway.

Why was this nightmare again?

Or maybe that’s the funeral anniversary was close in…

How many times he wished he could distort the reality into any forms of his nightmare – the one that hurt less, maybe the one when the beast kidnapped his mother and killed his father and that he was after that beast, seeking revenge.

It would hurt him a thousand times less.

But how can anyone distort the reality?

He bettered forget it, lived forever in his oblivion, it would not as hurt as this….this human feeling was too much for him to bear.

He once wished he never learned how to love again. Love was such the cruelest thing humans said and planted deep beneath each other’s skin, but all of sudden easily pulled it off and left a person’s heart opened.

And it took so much time to heal the wounds though they were never gone.

Yonghwa’s heart was numb day after day; the only thing that kept him going was to prove he was a success despite his father’s failure.

[Flashback]

“What is it you are afraid so much other people might see that you so determined to live in full on privacy.”

“…”

“Tell me, Yonghwa.”

“I myself made entirely of flaws…stitched together with good intentions.”

“You do not, Yonghwa”

“….”

“You are no flaw, my friend.”

“If you know about me more…”

[Present]

Yonghwa left the house early in the morning since he barely slept after his nightmare. Joohyun went downstairs just to find out she would again had breakfast alone.

“Did samchon tell ahjumma anything before he went out?” the girl asked.

“Nothing, agashi. Hwejangnim just called for his chuffer to get ready” The head maid replied.

“I see.” Joohyun said softly before sat down.

And it went on like this for 3 or 4 days….

Joohyun barely talked to Yonghwa, it was as if the man was up on something or he suddenly tried to work himself to death since he immersed himself in paperwork day after day, and he seemed to need more privacy. She felt there was this big wall between Yonghwa and everyone else.

She looked around the empty air, in this house so big she felt so weird. It was getting eerie as if these days the only thing left of people were all their ghosts – they were floating around, she almost hear them cry.

Madamnim was getting more silent and gloomier. While all those maids kept their heads down, no one laughed on silly jokes anymore. As if everyone was dead, it made Joohyun retreated back to her place. She made herself a company like books, or TV, or internet.

There was this book she currently read, it’s called ‘the fault in our stars’ – the story of a girl coping with her lung cancer, unwillingly joined the support group for cancer patients. There she met and fell in love with this guy who was the survivor of the bone cancer left with one and haft leg. They were the stars-crossed lovers, and that was how it hurt the most.

Joohyun thought it was better to feel hurt this way because other people’s pain made her rooted on her ground wanting so much to heal all the pains and that was how she knew she was still alive. That was how she knew how valuable and precious of thing people sometimes took it for granted; such as a little time on earth, our healthy lungs, or even an uncured disease.

And sometimes when it was getting lonelier; she needed to read out loud;        

“…Everyone in this tale has a rock solid hamartia;

Hers, that she is so sick; yours, that you are so well.

Were you better or she sicker, then the star would not be terribly crossed, but it is the nature of the stars to cross, and never was Shakespeare more wrong than when he had Cassisus. “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves.” …”

She found this part of book held so much meaning.

Joohyun learned that the term “star crossed” means “fated” or “destined” for people’s stars to cross and their lives to intersect.

The sentenced she read aloud illustrated the contradiction between the idea of star crossed lovers, or, people completely at the whim of a greater power (such as fate), and faults being not in our stars, “but in ourselves.”

That person argued that Shakespeare was wrong and declares that the injustices of life were not merely human faults but the product of an indifferent universe.

The great irony was that his emphasis was the magnitude of the girl’s illness against the boy’s health, but rather than express anger or sorrow, the person acknowledged that “it is the nature of stars to cross,” and it was as inevitable as oblivion.

Joohyun closed the book just then, it was so much to digest.

“I can feel your pain.” lying on the bed, staring to the ceiling, she told her invisible friend.

Sometimes when everything was getting so overwhelmed, she made up her imagination friend just to share her thought.

But she got no answer and that was when she had enough. Joohyun got up to her feet and found an excuse to invade someone’s privacy.

Late in the evening, she knocked on Yonghwa’s office door. She knew he was back already, so she opened the door and found the man at his desk as she pictured it.

“Are you busy again, samchon?” She asked.

Yonghwa looked up to the girl; he suddenly realized how silent this room was before her arrival. “Ani, I just…check out some paperwork.” He said and looked back to his work.

Joohyun held the book in her hand close to her chest. “This friend of mine said something I barely understand.” She told him.

“Your friend?” he was surprised and looked her way again.

“This friend of mine named Shakespeare said ‘the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, it’s in ourselves.”

“You make friends with Shakespeare?” He amused.

“Ani, I know him from this friend named Peter Van Houten.” Joohyun corrected while kept her straight face.

“Kuedae?” Yonghwa uttered.

“In facts, I met Peter Van Houten because this friend of mine named Augustus Waters looked up for him. Peter lives in Amsterdam.”

“Alright, so Amsterdam?”

“But I know Augustus because this friend of mine name Hazel met him at the support group for cancer patients.”

“Cancer patients, now?”

“People said Augustus and Hazel are star-crossed lovers. What does it mean to be star-crossed lovers, samchon?” She blinked her eyes innocently.

Yonghwa could only stare at the girl’s face, he absolutely had no idea what she was up to, and he didn’t know the answer to her question.

“Ahhh, you don’t know. Its okay, samchon, I already looked up from the internet. This Shakespeare friend used the term to describe in Romeo and Juliet whose relationship is doomed to fail. And this Van Houten friend borrowed the words to describe Augustus’s and Hazel’s relationship”

Yonghwa was a bit taken aback; he realized then it had been awhile he left the girl on her own and that how it led to this…these friends of friends’ stories.

“Does that mean Hazel will die soon? Because she is so sick. Did I tell you she has carcinoma? It’s a technical term for lung cancer, samchon.”

“Why don’t you find out yourself throughout that book?” He said nonchalantly, he now became aware that she was talking about that book in her hands.

“Ahhh, that’s why Peter said ‘everyone in this tale has a rock solid hamartia’.” She only spoke what on her mind, seemed like she came to Yonghwa just to have her words heard.

Yonghwa only stared at her. It was fine; he didn’t feel like discussing anyway.

“Hamatia means the fatal flaws, somchon. I looked it up from Wikipedia; it derives from the Greek "to miss the mark" or "to err".  It is most often associated with Greek tragedy. So I learned most writers love to write the tragic stories.”

“You seem enjoy tragic story, do you?” He asked unconcernly.

 “That’s because it make me so human, samchon.” She blinked and stared back at him. “A tragedy is a representation of an action that is whole and complete and of a certain magnitude. A whole is what has a beginning and middle and end. That means it comes to an end nonetheless and I don’t think it a waste, at least I learn from it.”

Succumbed to her rising feeling, Joohyun stared at her feet.

“It’s not like we have a choice to choose for a tragedy to occur and it’s not like we cannot help ourselves at all. Yes, sometimes we win and sometimes we succumb to it…but…but at least, I get through it all and I realized that the fault is both in our stars and in ourselves, because the way I view it – people has their flaws and hamartia and in this certain universe, this is my life, this is all I get no matter how else I want it to be – I will be thankful for this life.”

He didn’t know what she was talking about.

“Shouldn’t you be thankful for your life, too, samchon?”

Should he? Now?

You speak like you understand the deal but you barely know my story, Joohyun.

“I hate it every time you tried your trick on me.” He said the words sternly.

It made her knees buckled. Why do I come here?  “What is my trick, samchon?”

“You act like a naïve person but then you always sophisticate people around. What do you know, young miss? You are too self-absorbed; you only make people feel lack and fooled.”

Joohyun was hurt there; she tried to swallow her own medicine. “How comes I’m too self-absorbed when you are the one who keep you wall up and your door shut. I come all the way here to find you; I thought at least I can understand your sorrow.”

“My sorrow?”

“I heard the day after tomorrow is your father’s funeral anniversary.”

“What else you heard?”

Joohyun kept her gaze fixed on the floor.”I heard he has a fatal flaw.”

A fatal flaw, you say?

You know just a little…

Hamartia – the fatal flaw,

..The character flaw or error of tragic hero that leads to his downfalls.

‘I do not remember much of this time, except that many suns rose and set. I thought about what I was going to do now that I was alone. I did not leave the village. Not until I had eaten all of the abalones did I leave and then only to gather more.

Yet I do remember the day that I decided I would never live in the village again.’

---- From The island of the blue dolphins book [chapter 9]

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[A/N] Kuennnn!!! \^0^/ Finally i can pull myself to finish this chapter!

Thanks for your comments, readers. it fired me up!!!

Please look forward to next chapter and leave some comments joseyohhh.

ohhh and about the book, have i told you 'the fualt in our stars by John Green' is one of my favorite? it inflenced me on writhing this a lot.

May you check it out but brace yourself for its pain to come TT__TT I cried so hard. HAHA

Anyone watch scarlet heart of ryeo? 

At first i meant to watch it for my Woohee but i couldn't help watch it at the beginning and.....i'm in love with Baek-ah! Because he is kind of look like Jungshin, isn't he?

Anyway I like the 8th prince's charm but I sail my ship on the 4th prince with Haesoo because my heart can't take it when the 4th prince feel hurt, he was such a broken soul, someone must love him!! And I will.

enough spazz. haha

now you know i have this thing for broken people. They call someone like me a healer according to MBTI [psychological test]

So, i gauruntee all those pains of Yonghwa will be healed in Joohyun's hands, but how?

Just find out yourself....

your truly