It was barely 9pm when Bora left the Arts Center and the streets of Seoul were eerily empty. Hands on the steering wheel, she was in a trance of sorts as her teacher's words kept replaying over and over in her head. She was staring blankly ahead and the purring of the engine almost lulled her to sleep.

A sigh of relief escaped her lips when she pulled up in her street. She parked her car a few houses down her own and unstrapped her heels as soon as she set foot on the ground. These were killer heels. Literally. She groaned in relief when her feet made contact with the cool smooth concrete.

Heels in one hand and her clutch in the other, she mechanically ascended the uphill slope of her street to her house. Immersed in her thoughts, she walked in the direction of her backyard to get to her painting studio using a pathway located between the left side of her house and the neighboring house's garage.

She retreated in her steps when her brain processed what she had just bypassed: a car she had never seen before was parked next to her father's. A white foreign sports car. The car was registered in Busan and she couldn't help but stare at the gleaming vehicle with wide eyes. She caressed its body with gentleness like it was a fragile thing that could shatter with a slight touch of the fingertips.

A hand on the car's hood, she looked back up to her house. There was no light inside, nothing betraying if there was anyone in, though she suspected there was. An uneasy feeling grew in the pit of her stomach and although the night wasn't chilly, she wrapped her hands around her body as a chill crawled down her nape. She inspected the street but not a single soul roamed around and she was suddenly thankful for the abundance of city lights. Something just didn't sit right with this whole situation.

 She carefully treaded towards the pathway and her heartbeat picked up when she heard voices coming from the living room window located on the side wall of the house. She instantly came to a standstill. They never had guests over. No family. No friends.

Out of the two glass panes, the one furthest from her was wide open. Bora wasn't one to eavesdrop, but in that moment something in her pushed her to crouch down under the window and urged her not to make a sound.

Slowly crawling under the windowsill she made out two sets of voices. The first one she identified as her father's. The second one she didn't recognize. It was raspy and its owner was a guy who sounded rather young.

She was moving at a snail's pace and briefly wondered what anyone passing by would've thought of a grown woman crawling around on all fours in slow motions. She must look ridiculous.

Her car keys faintly brushed a metallic pipe and she winced, pressing her eyes shut at the sound. She thought she'd flatline right on that pathway. After a few seconds, the two men were still talking and didn't seem to have heard the commotion. She let out a sigh of relief and covered her heart with a clammy palm. After more wiggling, she was now under the window and lifted herself up to peek inside the room.

The lights were off, another hint that something was off. The men were having a heated conversation. Or rather her father looked furious while the guy just leaned against a piece of furniture, his back facing her. He had his arms crossed over his chest and was sporting a black cap and black tank top.

She noticed his right arm was tatted up. From her vantage point, she got a glimpse of dark ink spreading from shoulder to the tip of his fingers. The thickness of the curtains didn't allow her to make out the pattern.

"... problem remains." The tatted-up guy was saying calmly. "She will turn 21 tomorrow, meaning she technically will have access to all the files and records. It's a liability Father can't afford."

I'm turning 21 tomorrow, Bora thought, and a lump formed in as it became obvious then that she was the subject of their argument.

"She never questioned the circumstances of her mother's death." Her father replied darkly, and she felt her heartbeat falter.

Her mother? What circumstances? Her mother had lost her mind. She was on a treatment for schizophrenia. Her attention spiked up and she put her hair behind her ears in an effort not to miss a piece of information.

"If she ever discovers what you're hiding from her –" The guy paused, leaving the other man's imagination run wild.

Bora's own imagination wreaked havoc at the thought that her oblivious father had purposely hidden something from her for years. Worse still, something about her own mother.

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