Currently working on schoool play right now...please bear with me.

She decides to close the shop today, feeling the need for a well-deserved break. Since their business partnership had started, customers have been filling up the place by the minute and there is barely any time to spare for herself and the boy until closing time. She hasn’t had so many customers for months until their partnership, and it overwhelms her how busy it is to have so many customers barking for so many things all at the same time. Even with the boy around, things are so hard to manage, especially during lunch and dinner rush hours. To top it all off, the barber upstairs doesn’t even have the courtesy to help her or at least thank her for the favors she does for him. She knows that it isn’t likely to happen, but a simple “thanks” any other gesture of appreciation would have sufficed and lifted a load from her shoulder. Besides – washing away blood from his white shirts isn’t a very easy task. She chops up bodies for him and bakes them into pies; she cooks for him; she does his laundry for him; she cleans his room and parlor; he’s practically staying under her roof for free! Is a simple “thank you” really too much to ask?

The boy is out today; he is somewhere in the neighborhood playing with a few friends. The poor dear’s worked so hard as well. She feels that he deserves to have a break too. She feels fortunate that the barber decided as well to close his shop; the last thing she wants to do on her day-off is to cut up cadavers in the bake-house as she does practically every single night. He may not be very appreciative of her work, and he may never find it in his heart to love her as much as she loves him, but at least she’s grateful that he knows when to cooperate.

Lifting her eyes away from the book she is reading, she takes a picture frame from her bedside. It is a portrait of a girl in a pink and white dress. She has curly black hair that playfully cascades down to her shoulders, accessorized with a pink headband accented with a single rhinestone. Along with her is her mother, clad in a simple white long-sleeved shirt and a black knee-length skirt, whose arm is draped around her small body holding her closely as they sit next to each other. She cannot help the tears that the portrait brings to her eyes. After all, the only other one besides herself in that portrait is her beloved daughter, Rineul, whom she misses greatly. Sure, it’s great to have the boy around; he is the best son a mother can ever ask for. But she cannot help but miss her daughter sometimes. She is the only other one that ever cared for her after all when Kim Junsu was dragged away into exile fifteen years ago.

“Mrs. Han,” a familiar voice interrupts her thoughts when a knock on the door is heard.

She sighs in aggravation as she walks to answer it. “What is it that you want now,” she mutters to herself as she dries her tears. “Anything you need, Mr. S?” she asks, hoping he doesn’t notice that she has been crying. Then again, he isn’t the type to care about anything of the sort so why worry?

“We’ve run low on the gin again,” he informs her, holding up a bottle to prove his point.

“Well, I’ll get some on my way back. When Inhwan comes back, tell him I went somewhere for a few shakes.”

“You’re not going to the market?”

“Of course I am, love. I just have another affair I need to attend to,” she replies with a smile.

The man’s eyes travel to the content of her hand, which she unknowingly is still holding. She notices it and chuckles. “This is me dear Rineul, if you still remember her,” she tells him, showing him the portrait. “It’s the last picture ever taken of her before she left.”

The man looks at her questioningly and she explains, “she died only a few weeks after you left. Pneumonia. Sikyung followed three years after. Poor dear didn’t even get a chance for a decent funeral. I had to beg Sikyung, practically. I mean, with Father and Mother gone, he’s the only other one that can afford to do it. Never really treated the girl right, he did. Resented ‘er since the day she was born. He’s always wanted a son is why, but never really came about. And when she died, you know what he told me?” She pauses and searches his face for an answer then continues, “’e told me ta stop me mopin’ around. ‘Told me we can just make another one – another one that isn’t a bloody girl. Can you believe ‘im, Mr. S? The nerve of that bastard!”

She realizes that tears have begun to well up in her eyes once again and she wipes them away, ashamed that she has just cried in front of the barber.

“Well, if you’ll excuse me love, I must get going. I still ‘ave to stop by the flower shop, you know, to get those daisies and forget-me-nots, Rineul’s favorite flowers. An’ don’t worry. I’ll be back with the gin like I promised. You two aren’t the only ones who have a liking for it, you know. Customers need it too.”

She walks towards her closet to grab a coat and her purse. She then heads back towards the man and walks past him. Just when she is about to head out the door through the pie shop, she hears his voice stop her.

“I’m coming with you,” he tells her, causing her head to turn to his direction.

“Well then, best be gettin’ a coat for yourself. Bloody cold out, ya know.”

The man nods and a few minutes later, they catch a ride to take them to the cemetery. For the whole twenty minutes that it took to take them there, the woman stays quiet which is strange for the man since she is the type never to shut – every time she is around him, she has always been chattering about, running about the most trivial things. He knows that she only does it to fill the discomfort she feels whenever she is surrounded by silence, but somehow he wishes that she for her to begin to talk again; he isn’t so used to the baker being so quiet. Though he does enjoy it when she is silent, this particular moment is one that isn’t so comfortable. It is almost depressing – as though she is suffering. Not that he wouldn’t enjoy seeing her suffer for he has pictured killing the baker countless times for being so annoying, but for some odd reason he does not like seeing her this way. It is almost as if he empathizes with her, for in fact, he is experiencing the same thing – just in a different way. The silence between them is finally broken when they arrive at a small tombstone bearing the inscription:

RIP
Here lies
Han Rineul,
Born September 14, 1916
Died December 5, 1923

The man observes the woman as she talks jovially to the tombstone as though the child is physically present. Her stories are all pleasant – none of them seemed to include any sign of any other emotion than happiness. He wonders how she can stay so positive and happy, even with her daughter deceased and the fact that her husband completely disregarded it.  A bloody wonder indeed, this woman is, he tells himself.

“Mrs. Han,” he says once they are walking out of the cemetery, “I don’t understand.”

“Don’t understand what, dear?”

“How can you stay so cheerful, knowing your own daughter’s death had been disregarded by her own father? How is it that you can sit there, acting so happy when inside you know you’re being crushed by the thought that you’re never to see her again?”

“Well, when you put it that way it makes me sound like a horrible mother, aye?” she jokes, only causing him to become more confused.

“Rineul has always been a cheerful child,” she tells him. “You remember, don’t ya Mr. S? Even when you was workin’ she always fancied walkin’ up the stairs and playing with little Minjung and Hyorin if not you.”

“Of course,” he says, recalling the child’s blithe nature. He has always loved Rineul. He remembered, as Junsu, that one day Minjung would grow up to be like the girl.

“I didn’t know she’d passed away,” he tells the woman. “I thought maybe she’d just moved out, perhaps gotten married.”

“I’m sure she would’ve loved that, Mr. S. But what’s past is past, aye? There ain’t no use on dwellin’ on it. It’s not like thinkin’ of it would bring it back. The memories, maybe, but not the actual person.”

“Of course.”

She smiles. “Well then, best be goin’. It’s going to be a long way home if we don’t catch a cab in time. You know how difficult it is to get one, don’t you? Especially in an area like this where there aren’t much people so there aren’t many vehicles.”

Indeed misery loves company. They are both prisoners of loneliness. The only difference is that she is able to tolerate it, able to mask it with a cheerful front. And for a moment, he wishes he can do the same, but no—he must get to the Judge and the Bailiff first. Once he gets his revenge, once he obtains salvation – only then will he be able to permit anything else that comes his way. Until then, the work waits. And Seo Junho shall wait patiently. Seo Junho shall wait however long it takes. Seo Junho shall wait for his revenge.

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