A CHOICE

My name is Park Hae Ri. I was born to a rich parents who owned a well-established company. I’ve always been cherished with a lot of money, surrounded by many luxurious items. Like a princess live in a castle, I can just pointed my finger to whatever things that I want, everything that I need never get too far away from my sight. I was the happiest little girl on earth.

I went to a prestigious private school in town along with my parents wish that I can be their heir to run the company in the future. Luckily, I inherited my dad’s brain, it reflects to my academic’s record, I often got a straight A’s for a semester. I also had my mom’s beauty which made me stand out as the most eligible bachelorette in school.

I should be thankful and live my life with no worries. But in fact, I wasn’t happy with all those perfection. What I go to school for? Who am I living for?. I finally realized that all the things I did is wasn’t for my good, it was for my parents.  I dared myself to tell my parents about my dreams. I was so enthusiastic when telling them that I really want to go to an art school for my bachelor degree. Not only that, I’m not that stupid to dumped their efforts which always support me since I was born, so I convince them that my design skills still can be use in a company. I didn’t have a heart to refuse them to be a heir. But what did i get? A shout and a hard slap. They were angry. I will always remember what they said to me, one painful word that will stuck forever in my mind til the day i die: USELESS!

After I graduated from high school, my life became even more miserable. My parents already sign me up to a business school in states. I was so in a big dillema between my parents dream and mine.  I didn’t go out for a week, locked myself inside my room. I can’t just ignored my big dream. I checked my bank account history, I browsed through internet of some of the art school and try to find out which one that can enroll me as a student. I decided to ran away with a piece of letter to my parents on a warm spring day.

I did go to the states. Not for a business school. I was alone with my dream to become a graphic designer. I struggled a lot to pay a tuitition and the living expenses as well. I had a part-time job as a tattoo artist in a slum suburban area. The condition of that place was 180degrees different from my past life as a rich family’s daughter. I saw a real life there. It was also the place where I meet him for the first time. Kwon Jiyong.

He was on a vacation and asked me to drew his very first tattoo on his back. For a keepsake, he said.

“Ahh... it feel so nice to meet another Koreans here...”, he laughed, his shoulder automatically shaking.

“Stay still!!!”, I carefully moved the electric tattoo maker on his back, “What’s your name again?”

“tt... This actually hurt!”, he reacted to the needle prick, “Ngghh... Jiyong... Kwon Jiyong”, he said it in a painful sigh, “Yours?”

“Haeri...”

After finished the tattoo, he randomly grabbed a marker that lay on a table, “Here, call me when you get back to Korea...”, he wrote his phone number in my left arm, “Call me, okay! See ya!”

THE TWO SURVIVOR

I finally came back to Korea. I was so happy, and of course after four years not seeing each other, I miss my mom and dad badly. After what I did, I got a huge guilty feeling for them, but I decided not to call for the time being. So, I have no place to stay. I became a total stranger in my own hometown. I couldn’t contact my old friends, I was afraid that because of my long-time dissapearance, they won’t remember me at all. I guess, for people that live in my past life, I was just a missing girl.

My memory brought me to a piece of paper which i’ve been keeping it in my wallet, Jiyong’s number. I called him to find me the cheapest place to live. Surprisingly, he offered me to stay with him temporarily. He picked me up at the airport. From his look, he changed quiet a lot. The innocent boy who got his first tattoo back then, was turned to be a skinny grown man with a messy hair, oversized rumpled jacket, ripped jeans, a guitar case strapped to his shoulder. I found out later that he became a street musician to live.

“I hope you don’t mind living here...”,he introduced the 4x4m room which located in a small apartment that far away from the downtown, I got to walk in a long and meander alley to reach there.

His room was like, a complete disaster. Clothes were lying everywhere, his stuffs sprawl around wasn’t on its place should be. Only one spot that caught me eyes,  his very clean working desk with a stack of music sheet and some pencils neatly arranged above it. Looking from what he’s been doing, I believed his a true musician.

“I thought you live with your parents...”, I arranged my stuffs in his messy room.

“I thought you live with your parents...”, he replied calmly.

“Mwo?”, I shocked to his words.

“Let’s not asking about this matter anymore, okay?”, he seemed to understand that we were on the same boat. He lied down on the floor and took a deep breath, “Someday, when my dream is coming true, I’ll tell them... I’ll show them that they’ve been wrong...”

I slowly approached him, sat beside him and whispered, “I’ll do the same...”

“Really?”, he get up and squatted in front of me,”Let’s make a promise!”, he showed his pinkie finger, “We will never ever give up on our dreams!”

I happily agreed and linked my pinkie into his, “Never!”

Living with Jiyong was like a new exciting page on my life story. He’s the most daring person I’ve ever met. His effort to make his dreams come true is unbelievable. On a day, he’ll go out and attending some casting events anywhere, if there are no casting, he’ll be going on a street performance in front of the subway station or sometimes as a part-time singer at a cafe. On night, his focus will be on his guitar and the music sheets, drowning into a musician world, composing a song. On the next morning, I had to wake him up because he always worked very late and only had a little time to sleep.

I was motivated by Jiyong. I also struggling to find a job. Until then, the only job I could found were only as a freelancer designer in a small company which produce a greeting or invitation card. Sometimes the order from the company can made me stayed up all night. If there are no orders at all, like a jobless people out there, I’m doomed.

There was a time when we both ran out of money. We didn’t have breakfast, at a noon we tried to catch up each other for lunch, bought one bento or a mealbox from a market and ate it together. Same goes for dinner, with a different menu:  instant ramyun.

We don’t have a TV in our room. We couldn’t expect for more entertaining stuff beside the oftenly-broken radio and Jiyong’s guitar. When we bored, Jiyong always sing me a funny song and forced me to sing it together. I loved to climb to a rooftop, having a warm sun bathing my skins, sitting below the clothesline with its dried laundry flying here and there by the wind, and listening to Jiyong’s voice singing.

“Don’t move!”, he my hair, clipped something that i couldn’t see.

I touched my hair and found a pink clothespin clipped on it, “Aishh, what is this?”

He chuckled, “Neon jeongmal yeppo...”, he smiled.

“How can this kind of hairpin made me----“

He cut my words. Suddenly he held my hands, approaching his face to mine. One fine day on the Sunday afternoon, when the sun was about to set, with a warm breeze our face, we kissed for the first time.

----xxx----

how was it? Kkk~ :p

THANKYOU FOR READING, GUYS ^^