Prologue
Choose My HeartJiwon
Love can kill. Or at least hurt. Or maybe makes your heels feel pain. Like at the moment, love makes me run on my 10cm stilettos. Let me tell you something! High heels are never designed for running more than half miles away from some weird random creepy guys from the alley. Nope. I’ll talk about love later, my life is more important at the moment. Like from wise words I've heard before: “Love is not everything. Oxygen is.” And yeah, oxygen is surely one of the important parts of your life.
Hissing in pain because of the sore feeling in my heels, I fasten my steps towards my apartment. Those two guys are still following me from few blocks ago when I look back. I know it was my fault to come home at this late, but I have no other choice though. Their steps sound closer than before. My apartment is 2 blocks left from here, so I decide to ignore them, close my eyes, and run off as fast as I can.
Few minutes have passed after I started running, still don't know what happen with those guys, and then suddenly my forehead feel pain like it is banged on something, “OUCH!!” I hear a girl hiss. I open my eyes and see Sena also rubbing her temple. Turns out, I accidentally bumped to my roommate-slash-best friend when I was running away. Sena has always been my best buddy since the first year of university and she is just like a sister –even sometimes a mother– to me now.
“JEE?! Oh my god I almost yelled and cursed on you if I didn’t know it was you.” Sena says half screaming when I'm still trying to manage my breath. “Why are you sweating like this? Where have you been?” now she asks me.
“I was… There… those creepy guys….” I try to explain but failed. My eyes wander and keep looking around as if I try to find out where am I right now.
"Whoa… Hang on there! Breathe Jee, breathe! Relax, we’re in front of our apartment now. Here, drink this!” She gives me a bottle from her plastic bag. I gulp down the mineral water and finally manage my breath, feeling relief that I finally succeed running away from those guys. “Let’s get in to the apartment first, and I’ll tell you the rest.” I request.
“Okay.” Sena helps me up as I still try to get myself back. We head to the elevator and go up to our unit. It was indeed a crazy experience and I can’t help but smile remembering what was happened a few moment ago. Silly me.
Sena frowns when she saw me smiling. “What’s wrong with you exactly?” She asks eventually as we enter into our unit. “You know, a moment ago you were scared like there was a ghost chasing after you, and just now you were smiling like an idiot. Really, Jee? Tell me what happened?”
“Okay okay. Actually I really got chased after, not by a ghost, but by two creepy random guys from that alley few blocks before our apartment.” I throw myself on the fluffy couch in the living room while massage my foot which look like a battlefield with blisters here and there. Sena gasps, “How come?” then she follows to sit beside me and turns the TV on. I don’t answer her right away, instead just glance at her who is glancing back at me because she doesn't get any reply from me.
“I was… taking a picture of them doing some graffiti in that alley, and one of them noticed me, then after a moment I realized they already stopped what they had been doing and started to follow me.”
“You…. What?!!” She knew what alley I just mentioned. That place is known as a dilapidated and dicey area, but I had no other choice other than passed through that way because I took a bus to go home after overtime at the office. Plus, they made something that so captivated my eyes.
“I just… I want to take a picture of their creation. It was something. The words they painted by that graffiti was so…” I glance at Sena who half-listen to me while half-focus on the remote control. There I see her eyes aren’t on me, so it's my chance to get out of this topic. If Sena knows what I did just back then, she definitely will curse and say I’m stupid. Or insane. Or stupid and insane. “…well, yeah, just like that. Anyway I’m going to bed first, my feet hurt so much. Good night Sena!” I say, trying to escape from the living room.
“JEE!” she suddenly shouts, surprise me who is tiptoeing to my room. “Where are you going? You’re not finish yet you know! Let me see the picture of that graffiti you talked about.” Eyeing me suspiciously, she reaches her hand out asking for my phone. I just freeze there, so she grabs the phone out from my grip. “I knew it must be weird!” She mumbles as she searches the picture in my phone gallery. See? She hasn't even seen it yet said it was weird.
Sena frowns and shakes her head in disbelief when she finally finds the picture she's been searching for. “Tsk, oh my god Jee... I really don’t get what was in your mind. You let yourself in danger just to get this picture?! Geez. You’re crazy, girl.” I roll my eyes to her but she just pass through me going straight to her room and leaves me there. Then I take my phone from the couch where Sena left it and take a look again at the picture on the screen. It shows the graffiti I was talking about; it is more like dubs style in red and black color dominant, unique, and there written: “Love is a myth”.
***
Love is a myth, that’s what I believe. Love only comes to a few lucky people in this world. As least as the number of those lucky people could be, thus for me love becomes a myth. But for Sena, it’s vice versa. “Love is everywhere” might be the right phrase to describe her thought about love. If you want love, just take it. It’s everywhere, no need to pay. She can fall for a guy she just met for 15 minutes, then going crazy for another guy in the next 15 minutes. Maybe she has talent to fall in love in increments of 15 minutes.
And how about me? I need more than 15 minutes to fall in love. No! Make it 15 years! I’m sure even though I’ve never felt it before. I’ve never fallen in love, been so in love, blind love, or another kind of love. I’ve even never felt one-sided love. Like I said, love is just a myth and I’m not one of those lucky people to be able to feel it.
Sena thinks I am the cliché example of family product where the parents never knew about love, then become masochists who are willing to hurt their selves thinking that love only exists in imagination. Maybe Sena’s right. Dad and mom aren’t married because of love. They are just two mature people who need each other and decided to get married.
Dad was left by his first wife who run-away and eloped with another man, dad’s colleague. After that, dad had to raise his only four years old son by himself. Then there was my mom who had been a widow since her husband passed away when her only son was three years old. Mom needed a figure of man to be a father for her son. Dad was a scholar researcher and mom was a staff in Korean Embassy in States. They met in New York, on an event for Korean. Mom’s friends introduced her to dad and they kept contact since then. Few months after that, they decided to get married. A year after, I was born. Since I was little, I used to conclude it’s not love that a family need to be able to keep on going. It’s maturity and responsibility instead. It is, if you’re lucky though.
“You’re lucky, dear.” I was awake from my thoughts. Mom put a full plate of her home-made fettuccini bolognaise in front of me. “If you didn’t come faster, your oppas must have finished these all. Thank goodness I secretly left spare for you.” Mom giggles. I look at Kyungsoo oppa, my mom’s son, and he just smirks at me.
“Early birds get the worms, Jee.” He mischievously flicks my head as he walks out of the kitchen.
I roll my eyes. “Sorry oppa, but I don’t eat worms. Yucks.” I say half shouting to him.
His laugh echoes to the kitchen. I shrug it off and turn my attention back to mom. Her slender body is still there in a matter of fact that her age has passed a half century. She’s still got her thick hair even though varnished with grey a tad here and there.
“Where is dad going mom? I heard he asked the maid to clean his suitcase.”
“As usual,” she answers while handing me a glass of water, “He’s going to have a reunion with his friends.”
“Where?”
“Daejon.”
“For how long?”
“A week. Maybe more.” She plainly answers.
“More than a week?” I wince. Dad’s age is absolutely not young again, but he will go by himself. “Alone?”
“With his friends, I told you.”
“You don’t accompany him?” I take a seat at the dining table.
She turns her head, looking at me in confused. “Why would I? Your dad can go by himself, Jee.”
Ugh. I forgot they never keep each other company. “How will he go there, mom?” I ask again, changing the subject.
“Train.”
“Train? All by himself?”
She furrows her eyebrows, turning back to me. “He always prefers to go alone, Jee. Perhaps you don’t know?”
“A-ah that’s right.” I surrender.
I open my mouth again to say something but then hold the urged to do so. I decide to just finish my fettuccini. But after three or four mouthfuls of it, I can’t stand it anymore. “Mom, won’t you miss dad if he leaves for a week? You both can just go together, though.”
“He’ll come back, Jee.” She says not answering my question. “Do you want more parmesan cheese, dear? I’ll get it for you.”
I shake my head, “No, thanks mom this is enough already.” A couple of minutes has passed in silence, then I hear mom exhales. I look up from my plates.
“Not that I have a heart to let him go alone, Jee,” she says suddenly. “But you know your dad when he’s already into his hobby –just him and his own world. Besides, he’ll be there with his friends so if something happens they will take care of him.”
I just plaster a bitter smile at mom. She knows dad’s safety is not what I meant, it’s the solitude of him. Also mom’s. They are more comfortable unaccompanied by their spouse. “Mom, if you and dad prefer to go alone, why don’t you just get divorce? Aren’t you tired holding on your feelings?” I just go bluntly asking her against my agony.
“Yah! Park Jiwon!” she scolds me. “Watch your words, young lady. Kids these days though, take a divorce so easily.” There’s silence for a second. “Just because your dad and I prefer to go alone doesn’t mean we have to divorce!”
“Mom, I’m just saying if you guys are not in love so what’s the point of staying to keep on together?” I continue my reckless attempt.
She glares at me. “I ask you then what is love, Jee? In a household, the most important is to respect, appreciate, and cherish each other as others in need. When love, is just made by people as an excuse to separate.” I immediately turn my head towards the living room, wish my first brother didn’t hear what mom said. He might be rage at us. Chanyeol oppa divorced with his ex-wife, after 4 years of marriage. He went through that stage at such a young age, I can say. Not love each other anymore is the reason they divorced. Fortunately they haven’t had any children yet.
“Enough Jee. Don’t you get tired to always ask me about it?!”
Yeah. I’ve been bringing up this kind of topic on her so many times since I’m so curious. Mom is never angry if I ask, she just has not enough patience to explain.
“So far as you being our daughter, have you ever felt unloved, perhaps, Jee?” she asks me suddenly.
I’m chocked. Her question strikes through my throat.
“Of course no, mom. I feel loved enough.” That’s true. Mom and dad has their own way to show their love for their children.
“See?” she gives her pleased responds. “So now what’s the problem with me and your dad?”
I open my mouth just to close it again without saying anything. Mom looks satisfied as I lose in our argumentation. Love, mom. Sena said, there must be love between two lovers. Those sentences keep swarming inside my head. Well, dad and mom are not lovers, they are just a couple of husband and wife.
Sounds of people having conversation is getting closer into the dining room. It’s lunch time. Kyungsoo Oppa and his eight-months-pregnant wife, Heera unnie, come in. Chanyeol oppa follows behind, talking with dad who is holding his beloved camera. Without any words said, this becomes our routine for once or twice a month to come visiting mom and dad as we don’t live together with them anymore. We usually appoint on the date we’re available to visit together, and none of us are willing to admit the reason we come together because we just don’t want to be stuck alone choosing between to accompany mom or dad. And this Saturday becomes our second visit in this month.
“Jee,” Heera unnie approaches me. “When are you going to Jeju?”
Oh right! Jeju. Ugh, I forgot. “Monday, unnie.”
“What occasion, Jee?” Chanyeol oppa asks me.
“There’s a conference about English lecturing, oppa.”
“You’re going to be the speaker or participant?” dad asks. The difference of status is important for him.
“I’ll be one of the speakers, dad.” I see him nods satisfied.
“How long you’ll be there?” now mom asks me.
“Just a week, mom.”
“You’re not extending?” Kyungsoo oppa joins this never-ending interview.
“No, oppa. The conference is just four days. I only extend on the arrival and departure date.”
“Why not stay for two weeks?” he continues in a tone that made me suspicious. “Perhaps Kai will catch up with you.” Mom glances at me. So does dad. Chanyeol oppa is obviously waiting for my answer. And Heera unnie, who is sitting beside me while munching a dumpling, even also turns her head to me.
Oh right, Kai. I forgot. I get up from my chair immediately.
“Hey, Jee! Where are you going? Kyungsoo just asked you about Kai, why are you running away?” Heera unnie asks preventing me to go.
“Sorry unnie, I want to take my phone. I forgot to tell Kai I’ll be going to Jeju on Monday.”
Silence. I hear nothing but sigh when I come out of the dining room. It must be Chanyeol oppa.
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