I do the dishes in silence, ignoring the kitchen staff whispering about me. I notice the faint scar on my finger and I smile at the thought of the band aid that used to be wrapped around it. I still have the band aid, I kept it somewhere in my room. Is that disgusting? Keeping a used band aid? It probably is, but I don’t care.  I like looking at it sometimes. It reminds me of Eunsang, and how she’s helped me in my healing process.

I haven’t seen her in a while, and I don’t really want to see her. Not yet, anyway. I think she has mastered the art of avoiding me and fortunately, I don’t mind. I’m contented with how things are now. I feel better. I feel like I can finally breathe again. I glance at my watch and find out that my shift is over. I take off the apron and leave the kitchen as quietly as I came.

My father told me not slack off on my dishwashing duties even when he’s away and I don’t. I hop on my motorbike and I take my time as I drive through the streets of Seoul and make my way to my mother’s café. I’ve been doing this for weeks now. But it doesn’t feel like a routine, like it’s something that I have to do. For the first time in a long time, I’ve been doing this every day for weeks because it’s something that I want to do.

I wake up early because I want to work on my duties early. I work properly because I want to cause no problems while my father’s away. I leave the hotel as scheduled because I want to see my mom. And every day, just before noon, I show up at her café. Every day, she waits for me. And as soon as I come in, her arms are already open and although her arms don’t quite envelope me completely, I still feel her warmth. Every day, I call out, “mom”, and every day, she answers, “yes?”

It’s the best feeling in the world. Hearing my mom’s voice again. Hearing her laugh as she listens to my stories while we eat lunch we prepared together. I’m not ready to talk about how lonely I’ve been the past the years and the awful things I’ve done, so I only tell her good stories. I talk about Myungsoo and how stupidly cute he is. She always asks me to do the “de-het” thing and because I love her, I do it even though it’s embarrassing. I talk about Bona and Chanyoung and their disgustingly adorable relationship. Sometimes, I talk about Eunsang, but only very briefly. I can tell she’s genuinely curious but I’m glad she doesn’t ask me to tell her more about Eunsang. And other times, I talk about Kim Tan, and how he ranked 100^th during the midterms (she was not pleased with my rank, but I quickly tell her that I managed to place 27^th for our final exams). By the second week, I was starting to run out of good stories to tell her and if she has noticed it, well… she’s doing a good job at hiding it.

When I arrive, my mother’s already at our usual spot and smiling at me. Expecting me. Waiting for me.

“Mom,” I say with a relieved sigh, as I wrap my arms around her.

“I still can’t get over how big and tall you are now,” she murmurs as she pulls away and smiles up at me. “Are you hungry? I know it’s become a tradition to prepare lunch together but I wanted to cook something… proper, you know? For you. I haven’t done that in a long time, so…”

“Thank you, mom. I’ll eat well.” I give her a big smile before I start to dig in. It tastes so good, I want to cry. My mom… she’s not the best cook around but the fact that she cooked this meal for me makes me think I’ll never be able to taste anything as good as her cooking. I tell her to eat, too, and she does and she starts talking about one of the part-timers who always comes in late because she has like two other part-time jobs but always works so diligently so my mom doesn’t have the heart to fire her. It makes me think of my faint scar again.

And when I look at it, I’m reminded of her again.

I loved her. I still do. But maybe… from the very start, I didn’t know how to show her how I felt about her. Maybe that was meant to happen. Perhaps she came into my life to show me that I can love, that I can still feel. And, as I eat with my mom, I realize that I can still be happy, overwhelmingly so.

Maybe someday, I’ll finally be able to completely let her go. And then, when that day comes, I’ll meet someone and I can love again, and by then, I’ll be able to express my feelings better, the right way. I’ll be nice to her and make her feel special, because I’m sure… whoever she is, she’s special. I won’t trip her just so I could hold her hand. I won’t threaten her to answer my calls. And I won’t purposely spill some mango drink just to get her attention.

I’m moving on. I’m healing.

And even though it’s still quite a long way to go, I’m getting there.

And I can get there.

I will.