My name is Byun Baekhyun.

I am alone, sitting on a swing at the park, pushing my feet against the ground to and fro as I remember my parents’ unending quarrel earlier. Ever since my brother ran away from home to elope with her girlfriend, my father never stops blaming my mother. He feels like it was her fault that my brother decided to run away. She is a nagger, and even I can’t stand the way she has raised us. She always wants everything to be the way she wants it to be. Sometimes, I feel like dying from suffocation. But I can’t do anything about it, I just can’t. My whole life—I have depended on my mother. Without her, where would I be?

My father is a coward. When he failed to reach his dream of becoming a doctor, he felt like his world already ended. After marrying my mother, he decided to kill himself. And it hurts me how everytime, I witness him dying. He lost his pride and he lost his ability to think for himself. He becomes a drunkard, he gambles, and if not for my mother, he wouldn’t be able to live up until his 50s.

I don’t want to be miserable like my father. I thought that depending on my mother is the best prevention to avoid the mud of embarrassment and disappointment like where my father is swimming in. I do my best to obey my mother’s rules. I let her manipulate me, and even though I disagree with most of her decisions for me, there is something, one thing, someone, that I agree upon.

That is Ji Hyeran.