“She keeps running away! She blocked my number and she won’t even answer any calls even when I use a different phone. I’m getting tired of chasing her down! Let’s just leave her be for now. We’re just wasting our time!” Mrs. Kim explained

“Wasting our time? You’re the one who isn’t using your time wisely. She should already be married and pregnant. She doesn’t even have to take care of the kid, you can do that” Sori’s father yelled. He was tall with little hair and a scary complexion as one would expect from a crazy business man. 

“Are you saying it’s my fault? We don’t have to rush to this extent, she’s still 23! I’ll take care of the company if anything happens, and when Sori grows up, she’ll knock out of this rebel phase and take over the company. What else is she going to do? She can’t even hear anymore.” Mrs. Kim defended.

“If it’s not your fault, then who’s is it? You’re the one who raised her. I don’t trust women to inherit this company anyways. Get her to marry a capable man and make sure her child is a boy” Mr. Kim ordered.

 Mrs. Kim was furious but she couldn’t say anything back. She was accustomed to this life. Her husband never paid attention to her and always only cared for himself. He only married her because her family was wealthy. He went on to use her money to start his own business and stopped showing her any love after that. Although she knew he was cold, she couldn’t help but feel attached to him. But as time went by, that attachment grew to fear. She thought several times about leaving him, but she couldn’t bring herself to. Her family hated her for marrying him against their wishes. She was in denial about her wrong decisions and wanted to go on living a lie. Although Sori was lonely, Mrs. Kim was lonelier.

Suddenly, Mrs. Kim’s phone began to ring.

“Hello?” she said while she walked outside of her husband’s office.

“Hello, this is Doctor Park, I’m calling about your daughter Sori, can you please come in, I have something to inform you about.”

Mrs. Kim headed to the hospital; she wondered what the doctor had to say to her. She didn’t bother telling Sori, “it’s best if I hear what he says first, she probably wouldn’t come, anyways” she thought.

“Hello Mrs. Kim, why didn’t you bring your daughter with you?” Doctor Park greeted.

“Let’s cut to the chase, what is it that you have to tell me?” Mrs. Kim questioned.

“Well, I have some good news for you. The results of your daughters tests have come in and it seems like there is a possibility of her regaining her hearing again with the help of a hearing aid, if she gets another operation.” The Doctor explained.

“With a hearing aid? She had to wear that thing?” Mrs. Kim said frustrated.

“Mrs. Kim, this is very good news. I will aware Sori of this news and then we can come to a decision” The doctor decided, picking up his phone.

“Wait! I’ll tell her. Don’t tell her anything yet. She’s under a lot of stress…so I’ll tell her.” Mrs. Kim said, getting up. “Goodbye.” She bowed, and headed out the hospital.

“If she hears again… won’t that cause more troubles for me? It may be easier to get her married while she’s deaf, after she gets married, then she can get the operation” Mrs. Kim thought.

Sori laid in her bed, laptop on her lap surfing the net. She was beginning to feel extremely bored of her routine lifestyle. She had read 100 books in the past month and had probably eaten over 50 bowls of cereal and instant ramen as well. She didn’t know what to do with her life and thinking about it made her feel even more depressed so she usually just surfed the net to take her mind off of things. She would watch useless things and just let time fly by but lately she’s been feeling incredibly annoyed with herself.

“I have to stop, but how? I don’t want to face the world yet…I don’t want to deal with anything. I just want it all to go away” She said to herself.

She decided to do something that she hadn’t done in a long time. Write music. Although she wouldn’t be able to physically hear it, she could create it mentally. She hesitated several times on whether she should write music or not since she was scared; She was afraid of missing her hearing even more than she already did, but she decided that she had to push her self.

She got some empty sheet music, picked up a pencil and slowly built the courage to write some notes down. Surprisingly, Sori began to feel better about herself. She heard the notes ring in her head as she wrote them down. If even for a moment, the deep void that surfaced once she lost her hearing disappeared. 

2 hours later, Sori put down her pencil and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath “everything's going to be alright” she repeated this in her head 30 times. She decided to do this every day, in a way, it was her own method of mental therapy.

“Kim Sori! How could you block my number? Do you have no guilt? Whether you like it or not, I’m your mother, so treat me well” Mrs. Kim spat while walking into Sori’s apartment.

“How did you get in?” Sori asked. She wasn’t surprised though, her mom always found a way around things. No matter what lock Sori got, her mother always found someone who could break into it.

“That’s not important, what’s important is how you’re treating Haejin. He still shows interest in you, even after you’ve lost your hearing, and still you treat him this way?! Sori-ah, come to your senses and just marry him! I know what’s best for you.”

“really mom? You know what’s best for me? how can I trust someone as naïve as you. look at how your marriage ended up! Do you really expect me to marry some guy who only cares about money!” Sori yelled.

“Haejin seems to genuinely like you though! He’s handsome and capable to take over your fathers company, what more do you want?” Mrs. Kim raged.

“firstly, he’s not genuine at all. You know what he did when he came over to see me? he dangled a diamond studded golden bracelet in front of me! You have to admit mom, he’s pretty stupid. You’d think he would know that method doesn’t work with me. He tried to buy your daughters interest” Sori explained.

“He-he did that?” Sori's mother looked frustrated. “what an idiot, has he learned nothing from what I’ve told him” she thought.

“don’t you think it’s weird that he would get me such an expensive gift when he knows I don’t even like him. he’s just using me mom, like you’re using him” Sori said.

Mrs. Kim grabbed her bag and left without another word.

“Ya, Lee Haejin, I tell you to do something genuinely nice for Sori, something that will make her feel touched, and you come up with that?! Are you that senseless!?” Mrs. Kim yelled over the phone. “You’ve known Sori for 5 years now and you still haven’t figured out which methods to use?”

“Mrs. Kim I thought you would be thankful that I would get your daughter such a gif-“

“Thankful!? Ha, don’t make me laugh Haejin. We don’t need your money. You think I chose you because you have money? I chose you because of your status, because of your image. But it seems like you aren’t capable at all. If you were, you and Sori would be engaged already, or at least she would have liked you.\!” Mrs. Kim raged.

“Look Mrs. Kim, I’ll find a way to get Sori to marry me just give me some tim-"

“Haejin, times up. Since you couldn’t accomplish anything, I’ll have to find someone else to do the job for me,” Mrs. Kim told and hung up the phone.