UPDATED: 230915

29 May 2014

9:04 pm

The door clicked open, my mom stepped in along with her husband and his daughter, and I greeted them with a smile that immediately disappeared. Mom waved at me and I waved back as I took the stairs immediately to my room.

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2 June 2014

5:10 am

Morning is my favorite time of the day. Everyone is asleep since it is summer. I always wake up and the house is all mine. I walk while listening to music, dance a little as I go through the halls, eat whatever I want and watch whatever I want.

No one would wake up and disturb my bubble.

Even if I walked around , no one would give me that look.

I manage to clean everything just in time before anyone wake up.

I make the kitchen as if no one came and did a little mess.

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9 June 2014

10:46 am

I am done with my run. I am still not home after leaving this morning. I usually come at lunchtime. It is my way to avoid any encounter with them. I succeed most of the time.

I spend my afternoon in the restaurant, working. Well, it is a café, actually. I sometimes cook, and sometimes serve, if it was short in hands. I sometimes wash the dishes and stuff.

My partner always say that I should get a raise due to that, but I really don't care. I would appreciate the chance that allow me to stay away from home.

Sadly, it doesn’t feel like home anymore.

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10 June 2014

1:10 pm

My mom hates my work.

She hates the fact that I do the things she doesn't like. She hates my stubbornness which refer to me not doing what she want.

She would love me if I did what she wants.

Always doing what she wants.

She hates a lot of things in me.

My hair, my nose piercing, my eyes, the way I walk, the way I dress up, the way I talk, the way I treat her, my opinion, my interests, my choices.

The list won't end.

I know I remind her of dad. I know I look much like him. I know that my mere existence, not to mention me always stressing on the same subject that I don't like her new husband, make her always feel inferior for doing something wrong.

Mom is someone whose aim is perfection. In anything and everything.

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1:59 pm

I had lunch with mom and her husband and his spoiled daughter.

Mom forced me, of course. She dragged me from my workplace. "it is not important," she said. "You can just quit the job, what do you think?" she suggested, but it wasn't a suggestion as it may seem. It is a command.

Quit the job.

But I won't.

What will I do with myself if I did? Play with Yeonhee hide and seek in our house? Yeah, that something my mom would really like. Acting normal and establishing a deep relationship with my new sister.

Oh, new sister. Geez.

Mom doesn't get it.

I don't like neither of them. Yeonhee and her father.

Mom cooked it all and you can see the proud look on her face. Her husband was no different as he kissed her palms. Yeonhee's smile couldn't get any wider and she even clapped and threw some silly jokes.

Mom laughed at them though.

They weren't funny at all. I wasn't shocked.

I didn't smile, because there was nothing to smile about.

Her husband kept thanking her and kissing her. And mom kept saying 'it was nothing, honey' in a voice that disgusted me. She's even blushing and I doubted if I could complete my plate without vomiting in it.

I know it wasn't nothing. Mom always loved lying.

Her habit was lying.

She could get a PhD in it.

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6:24 pm

I overheard the conversation between Yeonhee and her father. That stupid girl.

They were being all lovely and nice, like any father and daughter I see in TV.

I unintentionally did it. I didn't mean to eavesdrop. I just stopped to listen when I heard my name.

"Daddy, please, don't insist!" her voice is like a small rabbit, like it is coming from her nose. It disgust me.

"Honey, you must. Haneul is your sister now," even my name from his mouth sounds ugly and unfamiliar.

"But she doesn't like me at all. She doesn't even smile at me." She nearly cried and I wanted to spit on her face. What a kid. "Dad, she hates me, but I don't know why. I haven't done anything bad to her,"

Well, your existence in my house, that's what you did bad.

Her father shushed her and embraced her. Her face wet with tears. I didn’t know I was that big of a deal. "Oh, little love," I couldn't believe that she actually shed some tears on her father's chest.

"Despite everything, remember that I love her mom, and no matter how weird, or how rude she might look to you, that girl also needs some love."

WHAT?

I need some love? What a way to put that simply your daughter is an .  

She looked up at him as he smiled. A smile I want to smack. "That poor girl lost her father at a young age,"

Oh, to them, they think I need some pity, yeah? How impressive.

"I lost my mother too, but I am nothing like her."

Her father chuckled as he messed with her hair. "Your mom didn't die, Yeonhee. We just got divorced; there is a difference. You get to see her every now and then,"

"Well, it is the same to me,"

After a long pause, where I decided to go upstairs and lock myself in my room, Yeonhee spoke. "Do I have to do this, daddy?"

"Yes, princess,"

Pfft. Princess. She is a giant kid with a wet nose, where is that princess he is talking about, I wondered.

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11 June 2014

9:10 am

I might say, I could clearly see how hard Yeonhee is trying to approach me, but all her attempts are useless.

They are too obvious and too old-fashioned.

I mean, why even try when I basically gave them the picture that I don't want anything to deal with this?

The new family thing.

I still wonder why bother yourself in approaching someone whose face says 'stay away, please'.

She is too silly. Airheaded. Uninteresting. Plastic.

Oh. I have a whole dictionary to describe that girl. And that dictionary is limitless.

Her smiling-at-me-for-no-reason increased significantly and every time it happens, I hold myself back not to curse at her. I hold myself not to shout 'don't do that, please'.

I should create a patience organization and put my story for inspiration. People would learn a lot from me. They would do studies and research on how in hell I stayed patient all this time.

It is impressive, even for me.

It wasn't enough that she stayed at home when mom and her husband went out and it was strange already, she came to my workplace. Although I'm totally unaware of how she knew where I do work at.

She knocks on my room door from time to time to ask me about somethings in the house. Like where can I find this, or I lost my phone, did you see it somewhere, and so on.

She always had that smile.  

I know she knows. She's been living in this house for two months now, how can't she know where the knives are, or how we open the heater of the bathroom?

She is making it all up which is pathetic to me.

She once asked me, out of the blue, if I could take her to my workplace. She said she would love to see how people here work. She was smiling, and I wasn't. And that didn't even discourage her. 

Her problem was that she doesn't see what wrong she does. She is silly and idiot, but she doesn’t realize it.

Her stupidity and ignorance have no limit.

She's educated, yeah, of course, in one of the most expensive schools in Korea.

A school that is well-known for providing the students with the optimal knowledge and education and also the finest school life ever.

But that school failed to educate her how to be a person.

Schools rarely don't do that.

Life does.

Her school claims to teach or raise its student to be an open-minded, educated, intelligent individual. But all I can see through Yeonhee is a narrow-minded person, if not absent.

I am harsh, but I only say what I see and what I think about. I speak my mind, which usually would make people attack me for it.

Today, as the days before it, I successfully avoided opening up a conversation with Yeonhee. She wants me to talk but I won't give her what she wish for.

She does it for the sake of putting a check on 'fix my relationship with my sister'.

She does it for her own good, not mine. She doesn't do it because she actually wants to approach me.

For that, I gave her what she deserves.

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2:50 pm

I was listening to some music in my friend's iPod. Sungmin. He once forgot it with me, and today, I'm supposed to give it back. I decided to use it until he arrives.

I will praise his choice of music, if he came.

I was washing the dishes, so I make sure it is out of reach. Water won't come near it, so I put it in the back pocket of my jeans.

It is the break for the workers, so I had the kitchen all by myself.

I love it like this.

I held the sponge and put it near my mouth as I pretend to nail that high-note, and then I got back to cleaning.

Once I got back, both earphones were forcefully taken off. I turned and it was my mom. Her face was red from anger and her outfit mismatched with the environment.

Make-up, hair, and a very nice bag, which only belongs to a high-class woman. She loves to look like someone she is not.

An expert when it comes to that.

Everything was on point, which contradicted with the mess of the kitchen.

She looked too clean to be here. The place was too gloomy for her. Too dirty.

I was like filth next to her.

She barked once our eyes met. "What the hell did you do to Yeonhee?"

She was too loud that I can picture the other workers turning heads toward the kitchen and questioning who the hell is there. "Can you be any louder?"

She inhaled the entire oxygen in the room and looked at me pitifully. A look I know very well. A look I loathe. "You don't talk to your mother like that,"

"Yeah, if you acted like one, I will,"

Bang.

She slapped me in the face. It hurt, but I am so used to it.

I used to cry at first, but now, it became ineffective. However, that didn't stop her from constantly doing it.

"She cried because of you," She shook her head, and she said as to justify why she slapped me. As if to convince herself that she is doing what is right.

"I cried because of a lot of people, and you didn't go slapping them,"

She closed her eyes as to hold another storm of anger. Least she knows that even if she unleashed it, it won't do any change. Not will it scare me or make me more obedient.

"That girl is soft-hearted, Haneul," she waved her hand as she pointed at me. "She is not like you at all."

I know she is not like me. She would be so lucky to be like me.

"She can get hurt so easily, and she takes things to heart." Her face softened as she spoke about the idiot.

"Everyone is like that,"

She chuckled and looked at the ceiling in disbelief. "You know what, Haneul? You are a person who will never ever admit that you are wrong. At all."

I want to say something back. I wanted to say look who is talking. I wanted to say anything, but somehow, part of me was relieved that she exited the kitchen.

I simply got back to cleaning like nothing happened.