”Let’s see... what do you want me to do then? To be a friend? Or... more than friend? Of course, I didn’t mind either choice you choose.”

            ”I...”

...

...

...

Beeeeeeeeep!!!

***

            Seunghyun stared at his phone in blank as the phone call ended suddenly. The screen of his phone was showing nothing other than the black color. He punched the homepage button as well as the power button, but that device still the same. In other word, his phone was dead. It was running out of battery.

            ”Oh, !”

            Seunghyun cursed as he pulled his own hair in frustration. Why? When he was waiting one of the ‘most important’ answers in his life, that ‘ridiculous’ thing should happened?

At the same time,

            Chaerin looked at her phone’s screen without a blink as the notification she got on it was telling her that the phone call has ended. At the same time with the blackout which happened in her rented house-wiring. Mr. Brawn, her next door’s neighbor screamed out in anger as he hadn’t saved his work over his computer.

            ”Madam Magna! Do something with this blackout or I won’t pay up for the next month’s bill, will you?!”

            Chaerin sighed in defeat as she heard the same scream she always heard whenever the blackout happened in their neighborhood. Of course, she sighed for her ‘disconnected’ phone call too. Why it got disconnected suddenly? She wanted to call back, but she didn’t do it. What kind of answer she will told him? She hasn’t thought about it yet. Should she be thankful that the phone call disconnected? She didn’t know.

            ”Urgh!!! What should I do now?!”

            Frustrated.

Chaerin rolled on her own bed, hugged her pillow tightly.

***

1 week later – weekend

            Seunghyun kept his sight on his phone screen as that device kept showing the notification that his call to his mother’s number still hasn’t connected yet. It was still early morning in Paris, and he has stayed awake since hours before. This recent days, he has insomnia which made him unable to have a good rest in the night. He should get his medicine, and his mother is his first choice. It has been a while since the last time he heard his mother’s voice.

            ”Hey, my son.”

            Seunghyun didn’t greet back when he heard his mother’s greeting.

            ”Hyun? Are you there?”

            ”Uhm... did I disturb you, Mom?”

            ”What are you saying? Of course not, Son.”

            Seunghyun can’t say a single word, his mouth was like got glued together. His mind got blank, can’t arrange letter by letter to form a word to his mother. His eyes which stared at the city scene below his hotel’s window got warmer, his tears already at the edge. He missed his mother, too much. It has been five years that he left his ‘old’ house, and decided to life for himself in his own apartment. In those five years, he just visited that ‘old’ house when the day marked as his mother’s birthday. Once in a year, happened since five years ago.

            ”I miss you too, my Son.”

            The first tears get out free after Seunghyun heard that words. He changed his sight to the morning sky, tried to prevent another tears came out from his eyes. Still no words got spoken. He bite his lower lips, prevented himself to let out a sob.

            ”I haven’t said anything to you yet, Mom.”

            ”You have, Son.” His mother replied. ”In your silence, you said it all clearly.”

            Is that what they called as mother’s instinct? That mothers had a strong spiritual relation with their child, no matter how long they got separated.

            ”Geurae?”

”Uhm... your father told me, you have business in Paris.”

Seunghyun nodded as his reply, as if his mother sat in front of him. ”Should I bring something on my way back to Seoul for you?” He asked, but got nothing other than his mother’s laughter. The same laughter which he always heard back then when he was younger, in his ‘complete’ family.

”You always brought back so many souvenirs whenever you gone for business trip. My cupboard already full of it, Hyun.”

Seunghyun smiled a bit as he heard that answer. Collecting unique souvenirs from other places is his mother’s hobby. Their old house has turned like a museum, all thanks to his mother’s rare collections.

”Next week, on your mom’s birthday, you will be back home, right?”

***

            Lee Rijin hold her phone a bit tighter than it should be. It was the first phone call from her son since almost three months. She was really missed her son. Every day, the first thing she did in every morning after she opened her eyes was looking at the photo frame which stayed on top of the small table next to her bed. The photo frame where she placed the ‘old’ photo of her family. She, her husband, and the two sons of hers. Even now, when her phone still placed next to her ear. Her sight glued on the photo of her youngest child, Lee Seunghyun. She’s still waiting for her son’s answer over her last question. The same question which got asked when her birthday came closer.

            ”Of course! For my beautiful mother, what I can’t do for you, Mom?”

            ”Promise?”

            ”Promise. Is there... something you want me to bring for your birthday present, Eomma?”

            Lee Rijin shook her head slowly, as if it got seen by her son. ”Aniyo. Just seeing you safe and sound, Son.”

            There was only a silence after she said that words. Deep down in her heart, Rijin was really wanted to hear his son’s voice instead of that silence which slowly killing her inside. Her son has changed, and she knew it more than anyone else. Her son whom used to be cheerful, loved to get attention from others. That son of hers already turned into silence type since he should accepted the fact about being the sole son of their family. No more warm smile which always came from his brown eyes. Even she still saw it whenever the latter visited her, but she knew that her son had forced himself to do it.

            ”Eomma...”

            Rijin couldn’t hold her tears once she heard her son called her with those nickname. ”Hmm... what is it, Adeul?”

            ”There is something that I want to confess to you.”

            Rijin erased the stain of her tears and sat straight. That kind of sentence, it was the first time she heard from her son, Lee Seunghyun. Even when he was younger and made a scene be it in his school or his personal issue, Lee Seunghyun never said something alike a confession.

            ”I think... that maybe I will disappointed Dad, the way Ji-hyung disappointed him.”

             Rijin didn’t know what kind of words to reply to her son’s confession just now. That confession got spoken out with honest tone, it was what she has heard. The fact that her husband already ‘burdened’ their son with Shinki Group business things, she has predicted that maybe... at certain point, that Seunghyun maybe felt tired. He must be, as being the next ‘head’ of Shinki Group wasn’t Seunghyun’s dream since in the first place. But, that confession was really out of her imagination ever. The last part of Seunghyun’s confession was like opened her old wound which hasn’t fully recovered yet.

            ”How many times I think about it... I... I can’t...”

***

Seunghyun’s mind can’t found the best words to continue it. He knew, that days before those phone call, he already put words after words to form a logical reason to be talked to his mother. But those words already vanished from his head.

            ”Hyun, nae adeul...”

            His eyes really did trick to himself. In front of him, his mother looked at him with her warm stare. She reached for him, caressed his head with a small smile on her lips.

            ”Why... you have such a thought? Mind... if you told me the reason behind it?”

            The moment he blinked, the image of his mother in front of him already gone. Only the empty chair across him left unseated. That time, he used it to rearrange his ‘supposed’ reason. His mind kept playing events which has burdened his mind as well as his heart.

            ”Hyun...”

            Seunghyun heard his mother’s call, but he kept his silence. He could hear how worried his mother sounded. With a deep sigh, he decided that it was better if he kept that thing for himself – for a matter of time.

            ”Mian, Eomma. Just forget... what I’ve said before. I... I just felt a bit tired about all the business things here that make me said something nonsense like that.”

            ”Hyun?”

            It seemed that his mother still can’t accepted his excuse, which made him thought double times faster than it should be. He should change the topic of their talk. ”Eomma... it has passed lunch time there, isn’t it? How’s the weather there?”

            It sounded so forceful, the way he brought another thing into their conversation. At the beginning, he wanted to hear his mother’s voice, exchanged one story to another, but he has messed it – a bit.

            ”It was nice to have lunch outside, Son. The sun’s so bright, the sky is clear blue with the white cotton cloud decorated it. Today, Jenny brought your favorite strawberry cake to accompany my tea time.”

            ”She had lunch with you?” Seunghyun asked back. Unlike his father whom favored that girl, his mother never mentioned that girl be in their ‘normal’ talk, or in their phone call. It was the first time, so it was surprised him.

            ”Hmm... she kept asking for your return. She is really... has fallen for you, Son.”

            Seunghyun didn’t like it, at all.

            ”How about you, Son?”

            ”About what?”

***

            ”About your days there?” Rijin asked back as the reply of her son’s question just now.

Actually, without she asked it, she has already known about her son’s daily activities thanked to her son’s faithful secretary – Kang Daesung. Every day, that young man sent his ‘report’ about Seunghyun’s activities – in detail. It included the ‘unscheduled’ things which happened weeks ago. It has attracted her attention. She wanted to hear it directly from her son.

”Boring... and tiring as usual. Nothing is interesting.”

Rijin has predicted that her son will answered her question with that kind of ‘plain’ answer. She has known how her son hid so many secrets behind her. Lee Seunghyun, since ten years ago... he has become one of so many people whom difficult to be read by her. And he got better as days go by.

”Even in that beautiful city?”

”What kind of thing that you expect from me, Eomma? That I have a romantic dinner across Eiffel Tower? Or... dating a beautiful French girl?”

Rijin knew that her son tried to light up the mood between their talk. If things happened simpler than it has happened, maybe she wished for that ‘things’ mentioned by her son to be happened. But, being the wife of the number one person in Shinki Group, she has known how business things ru