Caiti Jeon looked around the wide walkway of the mall she was currently in. It was filled with dozens of little shops and dozens more customers. Everywhere she looked, Christmas decorations were hanging, making the place look festive. Or they tried to.

 So this is what South Korea looks like. I hate it already. 

Her mother had dragged her along on her stupid shopping trip, and then using the excuse that, since shopping wasn't something she enjoyed doing she should just wait and stay here, Sasha Jeon had dumped her on a nearby bench and left. 

Sasha had taken one look at the hundreds of stores and let out an excited squeal. At least, she thought she had. She wasn't 100% sure, though. After all, she hadn't actually heard the squeal. She couldn't. It was kind of hard to when you had no hearing ability.

That's right. Caiti Jeon was deaf.

Around a corner, Sasha watched as her daughter sat on the bench and looked around, lost. 

I did this for you. I can't watch you slowly die inside. Not anymore.

~~~~~~~~

 Born with only partial hearing due to an in-utero virus, the hearing Caiti did have slowly went away, little by little.

Sasha and her husband hadn't cared that their baby was partially-deaf. The only thing that had mattered was that she was otherwise healthy. That they finally had a child, after years of infertility.

They went to specialists everywhere and they gave them the same answer. Caiti's complete loss of hearing was only a matter of time. No surgery could save it. There was no miracle cure.

Sixteen years to the day she was born, Sasha saw the words the doctors had told them come true.

It was the morning of her birthday, and she entered Caiti's room, carrying a cake and singing.

Caiti didn't stir and Sasha frowned. She reached and shook her awake. Her eyes opened and she blinked at her. 

"Mom? What's wro-?" She started to say, but stopped abruptly and reached to her ear.

Sasha tried to hold back the tears that entered her eyes, but it was useless.

"Mom?" She wept harder at the fear her daughter's voice now held.

"Baby, it's okay," she said, trying to soothe her, but Caiti's face held confusion as she shook her head back and forth. Sasha pointed to , silently telling her to read her lips.

Caiti shook her head. "No." She batted away Sasha's hands as she tried to hug her. "No. No!" Her voice rose in volume with each word, but she of course couldn't hear it do so.

"No." This time the word was whispered. Tears filled Caiti's eyes and slowly slid down her cheeks.

"Why?"

Sasha squeezed her eyes shut at the raw pain present in the quiet voice. "I don't know, baby." She reached out and smoothed Caiti's hair. "I don't know."

For a year, she watched as she retreated further and further. From her friends. Her family. Her. Caiti closing her out was the most painful.

Caiti had gone from being a very bright teenager with a ready, beaming smile for anyone she encountered, to a somber, sullen girl with a permanent frown. She refused to see anyone and wouldn't leave home, forcing Sasha to pull her from school and buy books so she could homeschool.

Things improved a little after that. That is, if you could call staying at home and doing school or locking herself in her room for hours on end, an improvement.

Caiti proved to excel at completing school at home. Better even than when she'd studied at the private school she had gotten a scholarship to attend. Sasha let that give her a bit of hope for the future. At least she wouldn't fall behind in her studies.

After the year, Sasha had had enough and tried to brainstorm. She found coming up with good solid ideas was like trying to do the impossible and bring back Caiti's hearing.

After nothing was forthcoming, the answer suddenly seemed to fall out of the sky and hit her over the head.

Sasha's husband, and Caiti's father, had been Korean-American and it had always been his wish to take Caiti to Korea when she was older to see family he still had there and to show her some of her heritage.

Sadly, Aden Jeon had not lived to fulfil that wish. He had passed away due to severe injuries caused from a car accident when Caiti was only twelve.

Caiti and Aden had been inseparable and his death had hit her hard, so hard that Sasha had feared her ever getting over the grief. She had stopped speaking the Korean that Aden and she would speak together. When they would go out anywhere, it had seemed like they had their own secret language that no one else could understand.

So, was this the answer? Sasha wondered. She had learned Korean as well. What was stopping her from taking her daughter to Korea? Caiti desperately needed a change. She needed this. Most of all though, she felt that this was what Aden would've wanted her to do.

So, Sasha went to work and arranged everything as quickly as possible. She didn't breathe a word of her plans until the only remaining thing to do, was to pack.

She brought up the subject as they had dinner one evening. It was mid-November and the plane tickets she had purchased were for a flight in two weeks.

"Caiti." She said her name aloud even though she knew her precious daughter was unable to hear it any longer. She used her hands to sign her name. All of them had learned ASL when Caiti was just a child. Aden and Sasha had known that eventually they would need it. The movement of her hands grabbed Caiti's attention and she raised her head.

"Yes?" She signed back. Her face wore a pinched look.

"I have a surprise." Sasha waited for a sliver of interest or excitement, but none appeared. The only sign that she'd even understood her words were her slightly raised brows.

Throwing aside the explanations she had spent hours upon hours planning, Sasha instead grabbed some brochures of popular South Korean sights and placed them in front of Caiti.

As soon as Caiti raised her eyes back to Sasha's face, she signed, "We're going there."

"What!!"

There was the reaction Sasha had hoped for. Caiti rarely ever spoke anymore. She relied almost completely on signing.

"It was always your dad's wish to take you there. Since he-"

"Yeah! Dad's wish! Not yours!" Tears were now falling unheeded down her cheeks.

"But since he isn't here to take you, I will instead," she finally was able to continue.

"I don't want to!" Caiti brushed at the tears and then swiped the brochures off the table. "Stop trying to fix things. Leave me alone!"

Caiti hadn't spoken this much in months and her voice was reminding her of that fact. It cracked as she yelled and screamed.

"I'm not trying to fix anything," she said. "I'm helping you by doing what your father would have wanted."

Caiti smacked away the hand her mother laid against her cheek and glared at her angrily. She opened to speak, but Sasha beat her to it.

"Everything is already done. We leave in two weeks. I've already sorted most of our belongings.  Those I don't feel we need will be sold and the items that don't sell will go to charity. The house is a rental-"

Caiti's mouth dropped open."Wait," she interrupted. "Sold? What do you mean, sold? How long are we staying?"

"Permanently." Sasha turned her back to show Caiti the finality of her words and walked from the room.

"I'm doing this for you. Everything is for you. You'll see that eventually."

 An ear-piercing scream chased her from the room, almost as if Caiti had heard her words.

Aden, our daughter will be all right. I'll make sure of it, she vowed.

~~~~~~~~

 So I am apparently incapable of writing a oneshot, so this will probably have two more chapters.

Please comment and let me know what you think :)