She had never felt so empty in her heart before today. There was no way to decipher that the emptiness was the lack of any feeling or the maelstrom of hopelessness. There was so much to wail for; so much was lost in a matter of minutes. Yet she felt devoid of any emotion.

As her head turned to peer outside the rain-splattered window, she observed the street was gaining activity again. The dark clouds were still looming bravely but the downpour had been halted. At least for now.

Chugging down the wine that was left down in the glass, she finally stood up, sparing the seat in front of her an ultimate glance. With a plate of steak –that went cold long ago— and an untouched glass of crimson liquid on the table, it was just as empty.

Shifting a white beaded clutch-purse from one hand to another, she stood by the curb for a minute, taking break from the earlier flight downwards the spiral of life. She was never a person to think things through for very long with every level checked in the flowchart of her activities. But she felt a different person now. She might have been a different person for a very long time and only realizing it now.

How ignorant of her, how stupid she must have been. But the self-pity could wait. Right now, right this moment she needed an escape from all the grief, or the lack of it.

“Where should I go from here?”

There was only one place off the top of her mind that was near enough to not need any set of wheels for commute.

--- ---

As soon as she took a seat on one of the swings, she grimaced at the wetness beneath her, belatedly reminding herself that it had just rained cats and dogs. The swings, in fact the whole playground was drenched. After a while she became used to the wetness –and possible traces of mud—staining her peach colored knee-length dress, as well as the faint screeching coming from the rusty chains of the swing as her feet left the ground.

This very playground was the start of her life in a big city as Seoul. It was the start of the future that was a nostalgic past now. There were bad times and then there were times she wouldn’t trade-off for anything; it was undeniable.

She was a country girl through and through but the lack of life in her hometown had her running amok away from her home to stumble on the cold hard ground in the middle of vein-chilling December.

In just a white tee under a green woolen sweater and worn-down jeans, she thought she would be ice-blocked to death but her luck had got to be shining somewhere.

“…Gwenchanayo, agassi?” a voice floated in the air leaving warmth for the shivering bundle underneath one of the slides in the playground. Her luggage sitting beside her. “Agassi… are you listening?...oh ! Ma Gi Yeon dongsaeng--“

That was the first time Ma Gi Yeon felt like someone up above was actually watching over her. She could hardly open her eyes long enough to take a satisfying look but she could tell who that person was.

Kim Kyu Jong. A relative. Not the close ones that you get to meet every once in a while but the kind that you merely greet at family gathering once a year or at some family weddings. Even the fact that he could still recognize her when, she was sure, she could hardly recognize herself in the mirror was phenomenal.

“Ma Gi Yeon! Gi Yeon ah, can you listen to me?”

He was shaking her lightly and after a minute she could gather strength to nod. Watching the progress, he tried to take her arm beckoning to retreat from under the slide carefully.

“What in the world are you doing here? Are you all right? No first tell me why are you—“

“K-Kyu Jong O-oppa…”

The girl cut him short, heavily breathing out the name and ending up coughing.

“Oh… Mianhae!” KyuJong suddenly felt guilty for bombarding the girl with queries when she could hardly stand. “Firstly let’s get you to some place warm, all right?”