I can still hear the echo of Soojin’s voice as I awake to the sound of the knock coming from the other side of my door. I open my eyes and rub them and try to make myself used to the bright light coming from my window. I wonder what time it is. My head hurts and I touch my forhead to check if I have the fever. I think I have. Then I sit up for a moment and walk to the door to open it.

“Wake up you sleepyhead!” my sister punches me jokingly in my stomach.

“What a nice way to wish your brother good morning Hyejin” I kiss her.

“Good morning?” she rolls her eyes “do you know what time it is?”

“No”

“You better hurry and come downstairs, dad is already waiting for you and I’m going out now with my friends”

She turns around and starts to walk and then she stops again and says “Oh, right, good to see you again big brother” she smiles and I smile too and then she goes downstairs.

I go to the bathroom next to my room and close the door behind me. I look into the mirror for a moment and now I can see clearly that I really got thinner and that maybe I need a tan to make my pale face alive and my mouth is also extremly dry. My hair covers almost my both eyes and I think about to dye them into a brownish color. Then I lean against the sink and turn on the faucet to dabble cold water to my face, several of times.

I walk downstairs and can see my father and MinAh sitting on the sofa and as they discover me both of them look to my direction and smile. My father stands up and hugs me but I don’t have the power to hug him back so I just stand there and wait him to finish hic action. Then he steps back and pats me on my shoulders. MinAh stands up, I try to avoid her gaze, and she also hugs me. “Welcome” she says with her soft voice and gives me a kiss on my cheek. We all sit down to the sofe, me towards them. I still wonder what time it is and look down to my hands, they’re shaking. For a moment nobody says anything and I just want to stand up and go but I just keep sitting.

My father clears his throat and tries to smile “Well, my son, how’s life going?” he asks and takes a sip of his glass of whiskey.

How’s life going? I think about how my life is going and what I should concider me as life, as MY life...

“Good” I say with a weak voice and it takes me a lot of effort to raise my head up and look at him. My father looks healthy for his age but if one takes more time to look at him carefully, there are many wrinkles hidding in his face. He gives me again a forced smile and then I look at his lap where MinAh has placed her small hands and I give her a glimpse and she winks at me behind my fathers back and then I look back to my father who is probably thirty years older than her.

“What do you want for Christmas?” my father asks me and takes another swallow of his drink. MinAh keeps playing with her hair and I can feel her piercing glance on me and it makes me feel uncomfortable. I think about what I can want from my father for Christmas... maybe him to turn back the time but since my father isn’t god I say that I don’t want anything.

There is a Pause. MinAh stands up, brings a new glass. She leans down to my height and pours me whiskey in and I try to avoid her glance.

She sits back next to my father and crosses her legs and throws back her long, auburn hair. She has a short, black Gucci dress on.  

“I am sorry I couldn’t pick you up yesterday from the airport. Did you have a good trip home?”

I don’t know if he is really sorry but it’s not the first time I hear this phrase coming from his mouth and it doesn’t touches me at all. I don’t answer till I finish my drink.

“Young Mister, your father’s send me to pick you up” the chaffeur in black uniform comes to my direction to lead me in the car. I step back and cross my arms and don’t move from my spot at the enterance of the schoolbuilding. My eyes follow my classmates who run to their parents and hug them and then get in the car together. I remember how my father told me that he would come and pick me up. This time he even promised me and said that no matter what he will come. I refuse to get in the car and keep telling him that he should call my father. “He will come! I know he will!” But he didn’t come. He never did. Not once he picked me up. And I gave up hoping that he will do one day...

“Yes, Joon drove me home” I say.

He says that Joon is a good boy and that I should invite him some day for dinner and I say yes and then he asks me if I want to go to a restaurant with him tonight but I say I have other plans and he nods and drinks his whiskey.

“I see”

My clock on the nightstand shows 8.30pm as I walk back to my room once I eat something and took a shower.  I undress myself and realize that I was still wearing the same clothes from Youngmin’s party a night before. I walk down and can see Sunny from afar how she is still cleaning the living room and hum a song. I smile and leave.

I drive to the cinema, 15 minutes away from my house, where I suppose to meet Joon at 9pm. I wait there around 20 minutes in my car but he doesn’t show up. I turn on the engine and the music player and drive off to Inhos house. The gates are open and there are some cars around. Before I get out of my car I do me a line from the coke Joon gave me in an envelope. I walk out of my car and walk up to the door and ring the doorbell. I stand there waiting for almost five minutes till someone opens the door. Finally the door gets open and I see Namji, a friend of us, standing with a thigh black shirt that undeline her perfect formed s, red pants and brown boots smoking a joint. She takes a deep hit off it and then hugs me and tells me to come in. She asks me how I am doing and I tell well and she says that she is happy to hear that. I spot Daeho in the living room playing Playstation 3 with Taejun. They both turn to me and say that it’s a good thing that I’m back and I tell it’s only for Christams holidays and Daeho says “well, that’s bad” and sighs and concider himself again to his game.

I look to the room where Namji went in and see a young boy sitting on the ground, leaning against the bed and smoking a joint. He is wearing a tanktop and boxers and he is barfeet. He takes some hits of her joint and laughs up and speaks something with Namji and then she walks to the door and closes it behind her.

Then I look over to the other room half open and can see Inho nervously speaking on the phone. Daeho starts to tell us a story about that one gay at a club who tried to seduce him.

He shakes his head in disbelief and laughs “The looked so gay man, seriously”

“Because he IS gay” Taejun says

“WHO?” Inho puts his head out while he at the same time tries to speak with the person on the phone.

“I told him ´I’m not gay mofo´ and he told me ´I don’t mothers but only their sons´”

“WHO IS GAY?” Inho asks again.

Taejun throws a pillow to him but it only touches his feet. “Your father is!”

 “Yeah probably, I heard he slept with YOUR father!” he laughs up.

“Shut up you ” he throws another pillow and this time it hits his head.

“Jackpot!”

I sit on the sofa behind and light on a cigarette and watch the weirdos and have to laugh.

After a while Inho comes out and the other two give up with the game and turn on some program on the TV. Inho tells that his dealer is a and that he is looking for a new one, maybe one from far away, from Busan or something and then his phone rings again and he looks at me and sighs and I shrug and he walks back to his room again.

Daeho asks me if I want to do one or two line of coke and I tell him that I don’t need it right now.

“Come on dude. It’s really dope. You won’t regret it”

“I don’t feel like doing it right now”

Taejun takes out a handmirror and Daeho makes two lines on it. He looks at me and points to it “Can you say no to this?”

I nod and smile.

“You’re crazy”

The two do the coke and I watch them and then I look over to the door where Namjin and the other guy are in the room.

“They probably having their highlight right now” Taejun says and leans against the sofa after doing the coke and laughs up.

Then my phone rings and it’s Joon at the other end and he tells me that I should come over to the Mc Donalds next to the cinema and he is sorry that he is late. I stand up to leave and Daeho tells me that there is a new Indie Band playing tomorrow at the “Lights Club” and that I should come too. I nod and leave and drive over to Mc Donalds.

Joon is sitting there on a table alone and drinks a cola. “Hi” he says as I sit next to him “I couldn’t make it on time”

“It’s okay” I say “Where were you?”

He drinks little bit of his cola and puts it back again “some business man, you know”

I wonder if something is wrong since he looks very pale and tired. “Are you alright?”

He doesn’t answer and I ask again if he feels well.

“Huh... oh, yeah man, I’m doing good” he tries to smile and I don’t know why but I believe him.

He tells me that he spoke with Ren and that he is okay with dealing with me and then Joon also give me his number so I can contact him. I tell him about the gig at the Lights Club and he thinks it’s a good idea but other than that we don’t speak much and he tells me that he will go home since he is very tired.

Idrive the car and have still the headache. I drive without thinking and end up at Soojin’s place. The gates are closed and there aren’t any cars outside. From where I am, I can see up to her room. A light burns inside. Then she shows up next to the window. She is at phone and on the other hand she holds a cup. I wonder if it’s Siwan she’s talking to. I look at her for a while and she doesn’t seem happy about the call. Then she throws the phone away, runs her hand pissed over her dark hair and emptys her coffee out on her white shirt.

I seize my phone on the front seat next to the cigarettes and CDs. I type a number... delete it again, turn on the engine and drive away...

The gates open and I drive in and realize that the black Ferarri of my father is also behind me driving in. Minah gets out of the car alone and closes the door.  For a moment our eyes meet and a strange feeling captures me. I look away and walk on.

“Hey, wait!” she hurries next to me “Don’t you want to walk with your fathers wife?”

I give out a laugh and shake my head and ignore her and open the door.

She walks in behind me.  I throw my jacket away on the sofa and make my way up to my room.

“Jukan!” Minah calls after me. I turn myself annoyed to her “What is?”

“Let’s talk” she says and walks right next to me. I can smell her perfume mixed with the smell of alcohol and smoke. She touches my elbow but I stop her. “Jukan, please...”

“There is really nothing to talk” I start to walk up but she stops me again.

“I always thought about you, the whole time” she looks me in the eyes. Her eyes, so false and irritating.

I laugh and shake my head “And me, everytime at the thought of you, I felt like throw up!”

ps: how is this chapter? did you liked it? (: I hope you did. more to come soon.