Winter, 2008

"Uee-ah... Where's my coat?"

Dongwon looked through the door of his room to the kitchen. There he saw his daughter, Uee, sat there while sipping on her milk.

"On the chair in the dining room."

"Uee-ah... Have you already pack your stuff and put it in the carrier truck?"

"Eo."

"Uee-ah... Where did you put my glasses? Can't find it anywhere..."

"Above your head."

"Oh, okay... You've already made breakfast right?"

"Hmm..."

"Sent our clothes to the laundry?"

"Hmm..."

"Told Mrs. Park that she can take our plants once we moved?"

"Hmm..."

"Uee-ah..."

"Eo?"

"Don't you have any answer besides eo and hmm?"

Dongwon was already beside Uee when she looked up to him.

"Nope." She answered. Dongwon scoffed and sipped on the coffee that Uee made for him. He saw Uee was sitting on the chair in front of kitchen counter, hand were holding a carton of milk and her eyes staring at the newspaper.

“Could you put on my tie?” Asked Dongwon. Uee didn't move her eyes from the newspaper and just grabbed his tie. She shifted her eyes to the tie and smartly tied it with ease.

Dongwon chuckled then patted Uee's head.

“Uri Uee... You're a grown up now. I can't believe you're already 18.”

Uee just stretched her lips before shifting her eyes again to the newspaper. She turned around and continued to drink her milk.

“Have you already said goodbye to your friends?”

“Nope. No need to.”

“What about that Bonggu guy who used to give you milk everyday? Or that girl who always followed you until home? They are your friends right?”

“They're the ones who think like that. I don't like making friends.”

Dong won just chuckled thinking about his daughter's attitude.

“Cham... You are one hell of a kid. I never expect to have such a cold-hearted daughter like you.”

“Go to work. You're gonna be late.”

“What's the point sweetheart? I'm going to resign anyway.”

“Do you… think… this is a good idea? Moving?” She asked trying to keep the calmness in her.

“Why? Do you have something in mind?” He asked, moved closer to Uee’s face.

“No… I think it’s the other way around. You seem like keeping something from me.” She said, challenging his eyes. He chuckled and ruffled her hair.

“Trying to read minds, don’t you?”

“You know what… Whatever.” She took her milk carton along with her father’s cup to the sink.

“I'm going to work now.”

“Eo.”

Dongwon went to the front door and once again looked at Uee for a whole minute. She just gave her back while washing Dongwon’s cup.

Dongwon let out a small sigh and finally said,

“I'm going.”

He went out and closed the door. Never he knew that the girl inside said in a whisper,

“Be safe.”

Uee and Dongwon arrived in a rather small gate right in the middle of what you could call a deserted land. It was surrounded by trees and no footpath that led to it. Only a coordinate and some clues to reach this house. He checked again to his tracking device and it showed him the right direction. He glanced at his daughter but she was busy rubbing her bow with cotton cloth in one hand and fiddling with rocks in the other hand. Her ear were stuffed by headphone and she clearly didn’t care about her surroundings. He sighed and walked out of the door. He opened the gate and closed it again before he drove his car again, further coming inside. Just about a couple of kilometers from the gate though, he could see a much bigger gate stood there with high walls seemed surrounding the area inside. He was about to open the car door when suddenly the iron gate opened itself. From his car seat, he could see the house stood there. Correction, it looked like a castle.

The house was more like an England castle in mid-century. The European touch was so thickly sensed by them, from the choice of building materials, furniture, and styling. The building itself was a big three-stories building, maybe about 2000m2, and the unbelievable thing is, it has a forest-view at the back of the house. Seriously, it really is a forest with many wild animals could be seen if you went deep through it. Dongwon swore he could hear growling from the direction of the forest.

He parked the car carelessly and stepped out with Uee. He could see the way she gaped at the house, clearly didn’t expect that to be this big compared to their 8x8 small apartment.

“Are you sure we get to live here?” Asked Uee unbelievably.

“According to the letter, yeah…” He said, hand grasping tightly to his working case.

“And this owner… Did he said that you could bring a companion?”

“Of course, you’re my daughter anyway.”

She took her bow and continued walking to the front door. It was from very high quality teak wood with dark brown color. She nudged the door and it opened without making any sound. Dongwon followed and stepped beside her. They took a few steps forward and they landed to the spacious living room. The light in the room quite dim, so he couldn’t make out how the interior looked like.

“Hahaha.. wow, I can’t believe we’re gonna be living here.”

His laugh suddenly stopped when a shadow crept up from the second floor. It moved fast and it suddenly jumped towards the couch just beside them before stretching further to Dongwon. It wanted to attack him.

But Uee was fast and with great speed she shifted her body in front of Dongwon and lifted up her bow, readily to aim the shadow with a rock in her right hand.

“Step back.” Uee said with her cold voice.

The figure stopped just a few centimeters from Uee and just by now, Dongwon could finally see him.

“Hoyaa!!” He said cheerfully.

The figure bent beside Uee and hopped to Dongwon.

“Ajusshi... I miss you...” Said him with child-like tone.

Uee was left confused but she still didn't drop her bow.

“Hoya, why is it so dim in here? Where are to light switch?”

“Ah, I forget. It is already night. Wait a moment.”

Hoya then moved with agile towards his far left. And a few seconds later, the lights turned bright. He could see the boy clearly now. Which was not a boy anymore.

Hoya was a boy whom Dongwon knew and met a few times along with his father. He was 2 years younger than Uee, that made him still 16 years old. He thought Hoya was cute and perhaps because of his childish attitude that he couldn’t seem to be mad at the boy. He looked at Uee who still wore her confused expression.

“Ahh... Uee, i haven't introduced him to you. This is Hoya, he is Prof. Seungwoo's adopted child. I've told you that we're gonna live in his house from now on, right?”

“I think you missed the part where we had to live with other people.”

Dongwon smiled. He purposely didn’t tell Uee about that because he knew that Uee wouldn’t agree in the first place. She was never really good at interacting with other people. She always avoided them. She even didn’t want to get too close to Dongwon.

He approached Uee with Hoya wrapped around his hand.

“Hoya, this is my daughter, Uee.”

Hoya looked at her with his small eyes. He scanned her from top to bottom. And then he smiled widely.

“Nuna, I’m Hoya. I heard a lot about you from Dongwon ajusshi.”

She just stared at Hoya’s stretched hand to her for a few seconds, until she finally replied his shake.

“Uee.” She said shortly before releasing his hand and looked around the house again.

Hoya pouted and looked sadly at Dongwon.

“She’ll adjust. Don’t worry.”

“She hates me.”

“No. She just doesn’t talk well with people.” Dongwon said.

“By the way, are we the first to arrive?”

Hoya nods enthusiastically and pulls Dongwon's hand to follow him to the couch to sit.

“Great.”

Dongwon looked around again and couldn’t help but amazed. Even though he knew Hoya and his father, he never even once came to his house. Professor Seungwoo always preferred talking in a restaurant or the office. People would never know that the famous archeologist would have this kind of house in the middle of the forest. He himself was one of the few famous archeologists in the world. He was the one who found the artifact of King Jumong that was being displayed in a museum in central of Seoul, and was revealing never before seen stories of the King that changes the whole perceptive of the Korean Nation. He also had been working on finding artifacts all over the world, including Egypt, Arabian, Ethiopia and Indonesia. Most of his works were all been stored in one museum, dedicated solely just for his f