The pale silence of the night was shattered by the blinding wailing of several sirens as they crawled to a stop beside a once-busy, now-stalled intersection. With urgency the paramedics loaded a devastatingly injured boy onto the emergency vehicle and blasted their way away, the family following close behind with heavy hearts.

“He’s a healthy boy,” the doctors reassured the extremely panicky father and stepmother a couple hours later as he emerged from the operating room. “He’ll be fine in a few days.”

The couple heaved a sigh of relief and sank onto the chairs, their burden lightened.

“Umma,” a young girl of fourteen years tugged on the woman’s sleeve. “Will oppa be okay?”

The woman got to her feet and crouched down to the girl’s level, smiling gently. “Don’t worry, Taeyeon. The doctor said that he will be back to normal soon.”

As soon as the comforted Taeyeon drifted off to sleep, the couple’s discussion turned toward much darker things.

“Tomorrow… is when you’re sending Seohyun away to her father, right?” The man asked, sorrow lining his face. “Must you do that?”

The woman’s face instantly filled with wrath. “That girl will be the end of your son.”

“Seohyun is also your daughter!” The man raised his voice an octave higher. “She’s Taeyeon's sister!”

“That girl is no daughter of mine,” she hissed.

“I don’t understand how you can lavish so much love onto Taeyeon while you loath so much hatred for Seohyun!”

“Your son has fallen in love with Seohyun, his own stepsister! That boy has a bright future and I won’t allow it to be hindered by this… piece of trash!”

“If my son loves her, I’m fine with it! Love is love, no matter who it is!” The man’s eyes flashed with fury. And yet he couldn’t change his wife’s mind.

As much as she didn’t want to admit it, the woman knew that the real reason behind her extreme distain for her first daughter was directly related to who Seohyun's father was- a man who had melted the hearts of women around him, a man who melted her heart at a young and tender age, a man who destroyed her relationship with her parents. And Seohyun was the product of the darkest times in her life. That girl was a reminder to her of her own failures, of her own mistakes, of the painful past.

Little did this woman know that her precious daughter, Taeyeon, had woken up and heard every single word but kept silent, her tiny heart throbbing with pain. She loved her sister with every part of her being and the thought of being separated had a dagger through her. She desperately sought for sleep to come and consume her, taking away the pain that she felt. When she woke up, her sister was already gone.