Hayoung’s point of view

“I don’t know how you did it.” Mr. Soh said in disbelief as we stared at Yong, who was peacefully playing with the other children, a bright gleaming smile on his face. “I knew it wasn’t a coincidence that you came. I’m sure of it.” Catching a glimpse of Mr. Soh, I bit my lip wondering if what he said could have been true. “Perhaps… I was meant to come back.” I said softly.

“Alright children,” Mr. Soh clapped his hands together, grabbing everyone’s attention. “ It is now time for little boys and girls to go to bed.” Exclaims of protest were hushed by the neighboring teachers. Once the play room was empty and only left with me and Mr. Soh, he turned towards me. “As for you, young lady!” He smiled. “ I have something I want to show you.” Pointing at myself, I tilted my head. “ Me?” Nodding, he lead me out of the orphanage and into a separate building by the forest. “What’s this?” I asked, carefully stepping up the platform. “ Why don’t you go find out yourself?” He said happily.

Sliding back sliding door, I pushed through the thick curtains, shocked at what I found. “ This is!” Turning to him, I couldn’t find the words to speak. In the center of the bright yellow room was a white piano, the same white piano we had to sell two years ago in order to pay for the taxes on the orphanage. It has been so long since I last saw this grand white piano, being here in front of it felt almost as if I had stepped into a dream. “But how?” I managed to say. “After all the debts were paid on the orphanage, we had a substantial amount of money left…with it, we bought it back. It never quite satisfied me the way we had to sell the piano, especially since this was yours. I knew how sad you were to have to let go of it. “ Unable to say anything, I just walked towards the piano and gently touched the surface.

“Now that you’re here, there is someone that can properly play it.” He joked. “Well? What are you waiting for?” He said encouragingly. Sitting down on the bench, I gently lifted the cover, revealing the shiny and sparkling black and white board. Breathless, I each vertical white key, mesmerized. With a finger, I pressed the center key and a beautiful note echoed throughout the room, traveling out of the open sliding door. Closing my eyes, the notes began to form in my mind. With a deep breath, I began to play the song that reflected my thoughts and emotions.

“I let it fall… my heart. And as it fell, you rose to claim it. It was dark…and I was over, until you kissed my lips and you saved it. My hands, they’re strong but my knees were far too weak, to stand in your arms without falling to your feet….”

Then as the words engulfed my heart, tears began to fall.

“ When laying with you…I could stay there, close my eyes. Feel you here, forever… you and me together, nothing is better. But there’s a side that you never knew, all the things I had said, those last words were never true, never true…. “

One by one, the tears cooled my burning cheeks as the music in the air drifted around me.

“ Fate has played it’s games, and it always wins, always wins.”

“But I set fire to the rain, felt it pour as it touched my face. Let it burn while I cried, cause I heard it screaming out your name, your name. Sometime I wake up by the door, now that you’ve gone, must be waiting for you…even now when it’s already over. I can’t help myself from looking for you. “

“I set fire to the rain… and threw myself into the flames, where I felt something die. Cause I knew that that would be the last time…the last time I would hear your name…”

As the lyrics became silent and the music rang in my ears, my chest began to settle to a painful slow thump. “ Hayoung?” Mr. Soh’s surprised and worried voice caught me by surprise, remember I wasn’t alone. “ Oh! Look at me crying!” I tried to chuckle, pretending I was alright. “I was just overwhelmed to be playing the piano again that tears started falling.” Surprisingly, he smiled. “I see. Well, I’m glad you’re happy. Now…it has gotten pretty late. Why don’t you head on to bed?” Agreeing, I swallowed the lump in my throat and left Mr. Soh, not sure if I could continue pretending to fine any longer. Smiling and trying to look as if I was alright all day, it was mentally and physically exhausting on me and my heart.

Safely hidden in my room, I leaned against the door, the lump in my throat rising painfully until I couldn’t hold back the tears anymore. Sobbing quietly in the dark, I didn’t know how long I was huddled against the wall like that, until I felt myself drifting into a tired and dreamless sleep on the cold wooden floor.

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Youngmin’s point of view

Waking up, I realized I was alone in the car and looked through the window. In the distance, Sung Mi was sitting by herself on the edge of the river. Slowly I unraveled my aching body and got out of the car, stretching my cramped legs. “ You’re up?” Sung Mi said when I sat beside her. “ Can’t really say it was a peaceful night.” I said, my voice stiff and slightly dry. “ Minho and Kwangmin remembered seeing a small farm market on the way here, so they went get breakfast.” Nodding, I wondered why Sung Mi was here all by herself. Reading my thoughts, she faced me. “I was thinking…about when I first met Hayoung.” Her eyes were melancholy and slightly dejected. “I was in third grade. My brother and I moved to Ha-Dong when we were little. My father began running a soba restaurant but a year later, he discovered he has polio. Since then my mother had to take over and she was so busy that she was never home.

My brother would prepare our meals, trying to take care of me while our sick father and my working mother couldn’t. Even though I knew my parents didn’t mean to forget us, I still had resentment growing in me. My brother would get into fights trying to protect me when I used to get bullied for having a crippled father. It got so bad that I stopped going to school…but one day, a girl came to my small and shabby house, looking for me. It was Hayoung. I only knew her because the other girls in my class would talk about how she was an orphan and that she lived in the orphanage at the school. I never spoke to her before, but there she was at my front door.

She tried to convince me to come back to school and I told her to stay out of my business, that an orphan wouldn’t understand what it was like to have parents that were as poor and as pathetic as mine.” She stopped suddenly, taking in a breath as if trying to tame the pain of her past. “Do you know what she said?” I waited, wondering what young Hayoung would have done. “She said… that I was right. That she would never know what it was like or what it felt like to be me. Can you believe it? There she was, sobbing for me when it was her that had no parents, when it was her that was an orphan, and yet….she still felt sympathetic and sorry for others.” As if I was just told a story of a fairytale of a princess, I felt mesmerized. “The reason why I’m telling you this is because... I know what kind of person she is. Even though you may be angry and resentful towards her for leaving you, try to understand her…the same way she understood others even if they hurt her.”

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Hayoung’s point of view

Morning was hectic and fast pace as I helped make breakfast for the kids and clean the school with the teachers. Glad to take any busy work, it was the distraction I needed to stop thinking and feeling. “ Whew!” Mrs. Chung said tiredly, while wiping a window dry. “I’m getting too old for this! She complained of back aches as I giggled. “Please take a break. There is only a little bit more to do, so I will finish them.” Smiling happily, she thanked me as she headed inside. Commenting on how fragile the elderly were, I continued to wipe the windows when Youngchul came out of the back door of the school. “ Hayoung, I’m going to the market now. Do you want to come?”

Finishing the last glass panel, I agree. “Sure, I haven’t been to the market in forever.”

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Kwangmin’s point of view

It felt as if we were driving for forever. I didn’t know how Sung-Mi or Minho could tell which way to go with all the trees and roads looking the same. The vastness of the countryside continued on for miles, as if wide open grassy hands open to the sky above. Suddenly, the quiet dirt road took a turn and we were on a bumpy rocky gravel pathway. Trees now clustering, made a somewhat route for us to squeeze through, barely touching the branches of the thick aging trees.

“ We’re here…” Minho said softly, recognizing the bright red gate at the bottom of a hill which supported a large white building. “ Is that it?” Youngmin said, eying the orphanage. “ Yup. This is it.” Sung Mi said joyfully. Excitement and nervousness fluttered my heart. Hayoung was just beyond the hill….

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Hayoung’s point of view

Even though it was nothing like the city department stores, there was always something exciting and restless of the marketplace. Perhaps it was because it was the only one place where crowds and flocks of people existed in this vast and open countryside. Men and women, elderly and middle aged, shopped and sold the most unique and interesting things from dried flowers for herbal medicines to livestock which were either to be for dinner or become part of someone’s farm. Walking through the narrow and chaotic streets, small aged vendors sold snacks that were only a few cents apiece. Munching on dried apples and nuts, Youngchul and I laughed, remembering the first time we had come to the market and Sung- Mi felt so bad for the chicken that she bought it just to keep it from becoming someone’s main dish.

“Fresh Mackerels only three dollars apiece!” A man wearing a rubber fishing apron and gloves shouted. Recognizing the man, he soon saw me and exclaimed.” Is that Hayoung!” He laughed, a brilliant crooked smile planted on his face. Mr.Lee, the local fisherman had been a friend of Mr. Soh since forever. He was regular at the orphanage, helping out whenever he could. “ And just where have you been young lady?” He said, crossing his arms. “ Disappearing like that, gave me and the wife quite a scare!” Chuckling, I apologized. ‘’I was in Seoul for a while.” I said, not mentioning why. “ Eh? Seoul is it?” He said in the staple Ha-Dong accent. “How was it? Betcha’ that the folk aren’t as kind or caring as they are here!” Nodding, I agreed. “ Of course! There is no place like Ha-Dong.”

“Ho, ho! Well said Hayoung.” An elderly woman handed him a five as he gave her the wrapped fish and the change. “I would like one too.” I said, fishing for my wallet. Shaking his head, he refused to let me pay. “Just take it, think of it as a welcome back gift.” Handing Youngchul the cold newspaper wrapped fish, I tried to pay him one more time when he clicked his tongue. Unable to convince him otherwise, I thanked him and told him to come with his wife to dinner tonight. “ I’ll see what the Mrs’s says... Now you be good to Hayoung, Youngchul-ah.” He said half sternly, and half-jokingly.

Once we left the fish stall, Youngchul asked if the hospitality in Seoul was as bad as Mr. Lee said. Taking a moment, I thought of Joori, the twins and the rest of the members. “That’s not true. I met some amazingly kind people while I was there.”

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Youngmin’s point of view

I stared at the faded pictures hanging on the wall of the living room as Sung Mi and a bald elderly man named Mr. Soh talked quietly. “ I see…. so that was how it was.” Mr. Soh said softly, as if he just figured out a puzzle. I was wondering what made her come here so unexpectedly. “ Hearing this, my eyes perked up.

“ Hayoung’s here then?” I confirmed. “ Yes, she came yesterday night. I thought it was stranger for her to arrive so suddenly. Her eyes seemed as if they were crying for a long time too…” He said, his voice a distant whisper. “ Is she with the children?” Minho asked, looking past the sliding door towards the playground where the children were. Shaking his head, Mr. Soh explained that she wasn’t here at the moment. “ She’s with your brother at the market getting ingredients for today’s dinner.”

Biting my lip, a regret burrowed in my chest realizing that we had just missed her. “ But don’t worry. They left fairly long ago, so I’m sure they’ll be back soon.” Kwangmin sent me an encouraging nod. “ At least we know she’s alright.” He said, his eyes flickering with relief.

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Hayoung’s point of view

“So heavy!” Youngchul exclaimed as we entered the gate, and up the steps towards the orphanage. “ It was fun though.” I said happily. “I’m glad you’re smiling now. You seemed down earlier.”Youngchul said. As usual, sharp as always.

“Oh welcome back!” Mrs. Chung said, seeing us reach the top step. Taking some of the groceries from my hands, we walked to the orphanage, following the white stones on the ground. Entering, I announced our arrival, heading towards the kitchen when my feet froze. Standing in the hallway, his dark blonde hair shining and his warm brown eyes sparkling deeply as I was caught under his beautiful trap, unable to move.

“Hayoung.” His desirable and silky voice echoed in my mind as if I was lost in the middle of a crystal cave. “ Youngmin…” I said, not quite sure if this was a fantastic dream or a cruel reality.