Chapter 9: Gone Too Soon

Ms. Zhang was sweeping the corridor when YeonAe came home, and the tight look on YeonAe’s face definitely didn’t go overlooked by Ms. Zhang. However, she decided not to point out the obvious and asked cheerily, “How’s school today, love?”

“Fine.” Came a cold respond from YeonAe, which Ms. Zhang had very much expected. She was curious to know what was going on inside her mind, but she didn’t want to press YeonAe if she didn’t want to tell her anything.

She followed the girl inside and put the broom away as she asked again, “What do you want for lunch, YeonAe? I can make anything you want.” Ms. Zhang tried to sound as sunny as possible, hoping that it would get to YeonAe too. She missed the girl’s smile so much, and hadn’t seen it for a long time. It pained Ms. Zhang to see YeonAe so low-spirited.

Without even looking at her mother, YeonAe answered, “No thank you. I’m not hungry.” She reached for a cold water bottle from the refrigerator before making her way to her room. Ms. Zhang sighed as she rubbed her tired face with her hands. They cannot keep this up.

“Is anything the matter, love?” She asked as concern coated her words. A vast sadness weighed Ms. Zhang’s chest as she kept her eyes on YeonAe who stayed in the same spot, anchored by the profound. “Is there anything bothering you? You do know that you can always tell me.” She added, since no answer was forthcoming from YeonAe. “Anything went wrong at school? Did you have a fight with TaeHyung?”

Finally, at the last question, YeonAe turned around, facing her. Ms. Zhang knew straight away that she had hit the nail on the head from the look in her eyes, even though she had no idea why the two would be fighting. She sighed again and tipped her head to the side, “Did you?”

YeonAe averted her eyes from her mother and slowly shook her head, “No. We’re not fighting. Where did you get that idea?” YeonAe said, trying to sound casual. Still, she knew that Ms. Zhang wouldn’t buy it. Perchance it was just too palpable from the look on her face.

Ms. Zhang crossed her arms and fixed YeonAe with her eyes, making the girl edgy for being stared at like that. “I’ve known you for as long as I can remember, YeonAe. I can read you like an open book. I know when something is troubling you. Now, tell me, why are you fighting with TaeHyung? I saw him walking alone to school just now and you followed only a few minutes after he left. Cleary, he came to walk to school together.”

“But I don’t want to walk with him! I don’t want to walk with anybody or be around anybody! I just want to be alone!” Her sudden outburst shocked Ms. Zhang, but the older lady kept her cool. Before she could say anything else, though, YeonAe continued, “I am not a small child! I don’t need anyone to shadow me to walk to school. I don’t need anyone to follow me anywhere! I’m capable of looking after myself but being around TaeHyung makes me feel suffocated. Why does he need to be around me anyhow? I never asked to be friends with him. We don’t even know each other and yet he acts as if we’ve been friends for a long time.”

Ms. Zhang held her hands up in a placating gesture, “Listen, YeonAe. We are just concerned about you right now, okay. For the time being, I don’t think it is wise for you to be anywhere unaccompanied, making an allowance for that you almost got into an accident. I think it’s a good thing that TaeHyung is willing to go together with you to school, and accompany you home. He’ll make a nice friend, I’m sure.”

Ms. Zhang didn’t know which part of her sentences sounded wrong, but YeonAe seemed to be more pissed off afterwards. Her cheeks flushed to the color of red scarlet as she said, “What, everyone thinks I’m cracked now that I have to be followed just so I wouldn’t get into an accident again? Well, I didn’t mean to be hit by the car myself. I just had a lot on my mind that day but that doesn’t mean I need anyone to babysit me, especially by him! Just because he was a friend of YiXing’s doesn’t mean he is a friend of mine.”

“Honey, just calm down.” Ms. Zhang chanced a step towards her; tears were teeming in her eyes seeing her beloved daughter like that. She was about to reach out to YeonAe when the girl dumped her school bag and walked out of the house again, ignoring Ms. Zhang who was calling out to her.

Worried for her well-being, Ms. Zhang followed her, just in case she wanted to do anything silly but stopped when she saw YeonAe taking the stairs to the rooftop. To some people, it might be a warning of a possible suicide, but Ms. Zhang trusted her enough not to do it.

Back in the days when YeonAe and YiXing were younger, the rooftop was their place to calm down each time something happened and Ms. Zhang hoped that it would be the case this time too. She only stood at the end of the stairs as YeonAe kept running upstairs, and a heavy sigh escaped her lips. Just what she wouldn’t give to have her old daughter back.

It pained her so much to see that YeonAe was hurting that way and as much as she would do anything to help her, Ms. Zhang knew that in the end YeonAe was the one who could help herself.

She slowly walked back to her unit, putting all her trust in YeonAe to not do anything stupid. She chose not to go up the rooftop because she didn’t want YeonAe to think that she didn’t trust her, and that would somehow make things worse than they already were.

Each step she took was heavy, and by the time she reached the front door, a box was in her sight, right in front of the closed door. Ms. Zhang frowned as she approached the box carefully, wondering when on earth did the box end up there in the first place. While she was sweeping the floor earlier, she was certain that the box wasn’t there.

However, she wasn’t sure about when she was talking to YeonAe and when she went after the girl. Ms. Zhang looked around, just in case she might catch a glimpse on anyone who might put it there but found no one in her vicinity.

She hesitated on whether or not to pick the box up but her curiosity got the best of her, as well as a tad bit of fear. She opted to just throw it away, but that wouldn’t guarantee her that the box would stop coming. Besides, she wasn’t sure herself whether she wanted to know who sent the boxes to her house.

In the end, she carried the box, which was the same size as the previous one into her room, for she didn’t want YeonAe to happen to see it if she returned. She was a little bit scared to open the box, like last time, but if she didn’t open it, she wouldn’t know what was inside. And she might learn a thing or two about who the sender might be.

Ms. Zhang carefully lifted the lid of the box, bracing herself for anything that might jump right out of it, but instead all she could see was a bunch of pictures, with a folded paper at the side. She picked up the pictures first, and all of them were the pictures of a beautiful young woman whom she didn’t recognize.

She went through it one by one, nonetheless, and in the photos, the young woman was smiling very happily, making her look more glowing. Ms. Zhang frowned as she tried to recall who this young woman was. It definitely wasn’t her, and after what seemed like a long time, she finally remembered.

Ms. Zhang gasped aloud as the realization hit her, and the photos went flying to the ground. “No. It