Prologue.

”Appa? Do you believe in ghosts?” The little girl to his right asked him. Last night she had heard a strange noise from her wardrobe, and since her dad was so clever, she thought that if he believed in ghosts, it must have been one! Another small girl, walking to his left, nodded in some kind of agreement with what her older sister had said. The two girls looked expectantly at their father as they waited for his answer, and the young man laughed and smiled at his daughters.

“I most certainly do,” the young father answered, looking at the star filled sky of Jeju. His girls looked at each other, astounded; they clearly did not expect their logical father to believe in ghosts. As he noticed the shocked faces of his daughters he couldn’t help but laugh once again. The two of them pouted, jutting their lower lips out because they were being serious and their father had just laughed at them. The young man shook his head, his smile still lingering on his lips as he pointed at the night sky.

“No. Not in the human kinds of ghosts – not at all.”

“But look up there, that’s a sky full of ghosts. Every star is as big and bright as our own sun - some even bigger and brighter. Imagine how far you would have to move the star, to make it appear as small as we see them. The light travels very fast - faster than anything. But not infinitely fast, it still takes time for the star’s light to reach us.” The two girls looked confused at their father; they didn’t quite follow what he meant.

“For the nearest stars, it will take years. For others, it takes centuries. Some stars are so far away that it takes eons and eons for their lights to reach earth. By the time their light gets here, the stars may already be dead."

“Those stars that we see, we see only their ghost. We can see their light, but the stars themselves vanished a long time ago.” His daughters looked at him in awe and nodded. From that moment on, they, too, believed in ghosts.

***

Even though tears were rolling down the faces of the small group of people, the only thing to be heard were the raindrops, which rained down on the umbrellas with a subdued pitter-patter, and were welcomed by the puddles upon the grass. These people, just a few days ago, lost a friend to the unknown entity called death. Naturally, they would be sad, but two certain girls were having it much worse than the rest of this small group of people. Both clad in formal black attire, the youngest one of two – the one with the eyes like a deer – was trying very hard to fight back her tears, but it was useless, for the tears kept on streaming down those pretty cheeks of hers. The elder sister stared blankly ahead with a cold, unreadable expression on her face, and thoughts were running rampant through the young girl’s mind at that very moment. Eventually, her mind went back to the scene, the very reason why they were gathered there, beneath the grey clouds and pouring rain, gazing at a lifeless grave.

***

The beeps, out of time just a second ago, were interrupted by a loud, clear beep. The screen, filled mere seconds ago with jittering lines, now showed just a single purple horizontal line. At that moment, three people stopped breathing - one of them would never breathe again. The other two in that room were two young pretty girls who were both trying to cope with what just had happened.

“APPA!!” a scream echoed through the whitewashed room as the older of the two broke out of her temporary trance. She broke down; her knees were too weak to keep her standing. She violently shook her father who was lying lifelessly in the bed, unwilling to accept the fact that her father was no more, especially because her sister and her didn’t have any other family but him.

“Stop, Yuri! He isn’t going to wake up again.” The doe-eyed sister didn’t want to look at the scene before her – seeing her lifeless father and her usually strong older sister now breaking down, were not an enjoyable sight. What the doe-eyed just had said roused Yuri to the edge. How could her sister be so calm when the very man who had saved her from being an orphan had just died?  At that moment, something snapped inside Yuri. She rose from the floor and walked to her little sister, shoving her roughly against the wall, the little doe-eyed girl lost her balance and landed on the floor.

“How can you not care when the man who saved your life just passed away?!” Yuri screamed furiously at her little sister, who had grabbed Yuri’s collar before she even noticed it. 

“Unni, never accuse me of not caring about our appa,” Yoona hissed, eyes narrowed as she glared straight into her older sister’s red puffy eyes. “But we both knew it would happen eventually, Yul; he had lung cancer for god’s sake,” Yoona said wearily, unwilling to argue with her sister further, before she let go of Yuri’s collar and went to the door.

“I’m going to call for a doctor,” the younger of the two said finally, leaving the elder on the floor, crying bitterly.

***

As the funeral ceremony itself had ended; the heavy rain had also come to an end. Everyone went to condole to both Yoona and Yuri, offering condolences and well-wishes and sympathies and polite, if insincere, “I’m sorry”s. The two young ladies were not entirely in the mood to deal with all the people, but they bowed politely and thanked them nonetheless. As the last bow, thank-you and hug were given, an elegant, middle-aged lady approached the two sisters. She put a hand onto the tanned girl’s shoulder and smiled gently.

“Shall we go, kids?” she asked, looking at both of them in turn. Yuri just nodded without looking at the pretty woman.

“Yes, Mrs. Jung,” the younger of the two answered and gave a charming heart-melting smile, but of course, it was just a façade and Mrs. Jung knew that. So to lessen up the tense atmosphere, even just a little bit, she ruffled Yoona’s hair and patted her back.

“Just call me auntie. Now shall we get going?”

“Yes, auntie,” both Yuri and Yoona answered, before they followed the lady to a yellow Toyota. In reality, she wasn’t their real aunt – she wasn’t related to either of them biologically in any way. Mrs. Jung had been their father’s best friend throughout his life, and since the two girls had absolutely no family beside each other and their father - who was now dead - the only one that ‘signed up’ for the custody of these two girls was Mrs. Jung.

It wasn’t because Mrs. Jung didn’t know about her best friend’s lung cancer; on the contrary, she was one of the first to realise. As soon as the bad news had settled in, she had - albeit reluctantly - made a promise that when he died, she would take full custody of his daughters. At first she didn’t agree, not because she didn’t want to take care of them, far from it, but she didn’t want to agree because she knew that, if she did, it would mean that she would have to let go of her friend. Eventually though, she agreed, and promised to look after them.

Both Yoona and Yuri were in their own worlds as the yellow Toyota pulled into the driveway of the Jung’s household. Mrs. Jung stopped the engine and stepped out of the car. She tapped the window, signaling to the girls that they arrived at their new home for the two from now on. The two girls nodded wordlessly and grabbed their backpacks, which were stuffed with clothes. Mrs. Jung, who was waiting at the front door of the house looked at the two young girls walking towards her wearing sad expressions. Mrs. Jung really wanted to make the girls smile, but right now she knew that the only thing she could do, was to give them a place to feel safe.

“We’re back!” Yoona and Yuri’s new aunt called as they stepped inside the house. “Come down and say hello.” No sooner had the words stopped echoing around the hallways than the sounds of footsteps was heard from the spiral staircase. The sounds became louder and louder before they finally stopped, two gorgeous girls appearing at the end of the staircase. The taller of the two girls seemed a little older than Yuri and Yoona, while the smaller of them seemed a bit younger.

Yoona was very taken aback by the two girls. She knew that Mrs. Jung had two daughters, but she didn’t know that they looked like that. They are very pretty, Yoona thought. Yuri on the other hand was not nearly as surprised; she had seen the two Jung siblings before, though it was a long time ago, so of course the face and body of the oldest Jung sister surprised Yuri a bit.

“As I told you, we’ll be having Yoona and Yuri living with us from now,” Mrs. Jung explained to her daughters. “Jessica, you probably remember Yuri, but I don’t think you do Soojung?” Jessica nodded and bowed to Yuri, an action which of course was returned. Soojung shook her head to confirm that what her mother said was true before dropping into a 90-degree bow, which the other three girls mirrored.

“Well then, could the two of you show Yoona and Yuri their room? Then I’ll prepare dinner for us. And when did Appa say he’d be home?” Mrs. Jung asked, already on her way to the kitchen. The older of the Jung daughters nodded and motioned for Yoona and Yuri to follow her to the staircase.

“He said he’d be home tomorrow at 6pm or something,” Jessica called, already on her way upstairs, to her mother who was in the kitchen. In answer, an “Okay!” was heard from the kitchen. Jessica was upstairs before she realized that only her little sister had followed her. She sighed and sent Soojung down to get them, and the younger obediently padded down the stairs to fetch the two other girls. Both Kwon siblings were stuck in their own worlds and hardly even noticed Soojung circling them, trying to get their attention. As it was, the youngest Jung had to literally shake them out of it, which of course startled them.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you,” the youngest of the girl apologized when she saw how startled Yoona and Yuri were.

“No, please don’t apologize. It was our fault anyways; we’re just a bit tired, sorry,” Yoona laughed a bit and ruffled Soojung’s hair, flashing the youngest her most charming smile. The doe-eyed girl’s smile made the younger girl look away in embarrassment, her face heating up. Soojung’s red face didn’t go unnoticed by Yoona and she couldn’t help but smile at the younger girl.

“Shall we go? I think your sister is waiting,” the doe-eyed sister said, looking at the youngest Jung. “Come on Yul!” Yoona smacked the back of her older sister’s head before grabbing Soojung’s hand and dragging her along, causing the younger girl’s face to turn a burning red. The three of them climbed up the spiral staircase to where Jessica stood, waiting outside the room that was now to be occupied by the Kwon siblings with a slightly disgruntled expression on her pretty features.

“Sorry, we’re just a bit tired…” Yuri apologized, bowing to the older girl.

“It’s alright. I fully understand – please don’t misunderstand me; my mom always says I look way too angry all the time,” Jessica explained, not wanting there to be any misunderstandings from then on. “Anyway, this is your room; I hope you don’t mind sharing, we don’t really have that many rooms in our house – sorry,” the elder Jung sister continued, an apologetic note in her voice.

“Don’t say sorry. We’re so grateful for everything, really,” Yoona said hurriedly, waving Jessica’s apology away; and it was the truth. They really were grateful; if Mrs. Jung hadn’t agreed to take them in, they would have ended up homeless, on the streets, and then who knows what would have happened to them then. Jessica could feel that there was more hidden in Yoona’s words, but she chose not to ask further about it and just nodded in response.

“I think we’ll have to change,” Yoona said quietly after both siblings had placed their backpacks gently on the neatly folded bedspreads. The older Jung nodded, only now noticing how the two girls were dressed.

“Sure, we’ll call when dinner’s ready,” Jessica said with slightly pink cheeks; she quickly hurried out of their room, closing the door, as the two girls were already undressing.

As soon as the door closed, the doe-eyed girl her older sister with a glare that would have been terrifying if there weren’t the traces of unshed tears in her eyelashes. “Nothing, really?” Yoona huffed, ing her shirt and throwing it onto her new bed. “Not even a ‘Thank you’ or at least ‘Good evening’?” the younger of the two continued, earning a glare from her older sister.

“Oh, I am so sorry I’m not overjoyed with everything after my dad’s funeral!” Yuri screamed, releasing all of her pent-up anger and frustration at her sister; her arms flailed around her head as she yelled, as if she