Present Day, 2012

Church

Seoul, South Korea

          An old man stood before her. He, in his full collar shirt and cassock took her hands in his. Despite his age, his grip was tight and familiar. The way he had looked into her eyes told her so many things that she couldn’t decipher. She had forgotten the way she came into this very church to find the answers she had been asking her entire life. But she still listened.

“Kim Taeyeon. Born March 9, 1989 in Jeonju, whose parents had died in a fatal car accident. Your past is a part of my story, has been a part of my life since then. In the last nine years I have not passed a single day without thinking of you. I will explain everything in due course, but let me first ask you my question: Do you believe in love?”

She looked at him, puzzled with everything he muttered. The man was not a stranger, she believed. Do I believe in love? What a question. Yet, she could not answer.

“You will understand what I mean once I tell you the story I have borne in my heart for you these five years. This story has taken me so many tries in the way I had wanted it to be told. I require only a bit of your patience. The hour is late, and you are surely weary from your long journey. After everything, the reason you have come to see me, I am sure you want to know. Who is Leeteuk?”

How tenderly her gentle brows furrowed at his name. She bowed ever so slightly, and prepared her heart for what he utters next.

The old man was a pastor. The Father of Leeteuk since the day he was born. He had known every pain and every secret the dear boy kept. Father Shim, as he introduced had everything that she had since yearned for.