1 Chapter One

5 August, 2011

Dear Keiko,

I don't know if I can resist writing on you! It's been five years already since I've flipped you open! But this time, I promise that I will continue to write on you until your pages get filled and I have to bury you under my table. Well, I hope you have no problem with me sharing my life over and over again. But yeah, I know you are a bit angry with me, and we can fix that problem as time passes!

I have always been the kind of girl who can never say no. It was the same case with me five years ago and it's still the same, even when now I am sixteen. There has been this huge change in my life that you might not expect. I shifted back to Korea. Yes, I did buy you in Japan, but things have changed since then, and now I am ending up here in Daegu. Do you remember my parents? Those anonymous species carrying me around and not even trying to know me. Well, you know them, they never tried to understand me. And now, you can guess. They have completely abandoned me. This does make sense only when you are in my place. My parents are not like the usual ignorant ones, they surpass that level. At first, they left me in Japan and did their business tours, and now, they have flown away to Russia and handed me to the Kims. I couldn't say no to this beautiful family as long as my parents are concerned. Suddenly, after a dozen years, they meet and decide that I'll be living with this new family. Things are quite well here if you have already guessed. I didn't make any disturbance in their lives. But my parents have played their worst game with me. I can never imagine abandoning my child with my best friends, even if it was for a day. And Mom and Dad just... it just hurts sometimes to realize that they weren't even mine so that I could be owned by them.

On the way to this place, I was afraid Mom would cry. She didn't. So I did. And nobody saw that. Except for TaeHyung, Mr., and Mrs. Kim's son. I'll get to him later.

While Dad was driving, he said just one thing, "Behave yourself." Like that's something he should say when he himself is abandoning his daughter. Mom said nothing and I felt a sudden plunge in my heart. She wanted to get rid of me. I knew it well and I wasn't going to say anything more.

The whole drive ended in silence and I camouflaged myself in the seats.

Arriving at the Kims' place, I noticed two things. (a) They had a HUMONGOUS garden and (b) The house was two-storied. We had to walk for like seventy meters to reach the front gate of their house. The house is generic with the wood and porch, hanging pots of the money plant, and a nice smell of jojoba oil. I couldn't help but get lost with the beauty of the simplest house I had ever seen. It was a low-light feeling with which I stood silently until the couple greeted us inside. Mr. Kim and my Mom had been childhood best friends and Mrs. Kim used to be their senior. When I heard their story, I felt like I hadn't known my Mom much at all. My Dad never hesitated to join in and they all had a mini celebration.

I was seated on the sofa, looking at them and feeling mysterious things. My suitcases were still in the car and I highly doubted that this was the place I was going to stay in.

Mrs. Kim is a healthy woman of forty-eight, older than my parents who are forty-five. That is how she is more mature than any other of them. She asked my Mom how old I was and she literally dodged the question to ask something else. Mrs. Kim looked at me from the side of her eye and smiled a bit, so I returned it back.

Mr. Kim is a quiet person, who sounded exactly the opposite of it in the stories that my parents narrated. He was a lively person before, hitting on older girls and by the time he found Mrs. Kim, he had changed drastically. This was the part that made me laugh a bit. I was happy that my parents were talking. Didn't have to mean if they were talking to me or not, but they were talking to themselves too, and that was rarely seen in my life.

Mrs. Kim showed me the kitchen and the room downstairs [the couple's room] and asked her son to show the room upstairs. My room, basically. He was polite enough to take me upstairs, and smile at me. So I smiled back.

There is a short hallway and opposite to the stairs is a balcony facing east and the front of the house. The room he said was mine was left to the balcony and actually, a guest room, which I guess, explains itself pretty well. Beside the stairs, on the right side was his room. And he quietly told me to not enter it. I looked at him and saw that he was scratching his head. There's something private going on there, but as long as it doesn't bother me, it's ok. It just might be unclean. Ugh, why do I like to overthink this much?!

He said his name is TaeHyung and he is fed up with living in the house. I get it, he has not lived my life. He wears thick black glasses which kind of hides his face a little, but I might also say that he looks like a flower vase. I might be thinking about inanimated things, but I found every bit of life in him.

When I first saw TaeHyung, I believed that he would be younger than me. But of course, I was wrong. He's seventeen.

He took me to the porch saying he'll help me with my suitcase. I smiled and stayed quiet for some time, making him wait. He slowly waved his hands in front of my face and noticed tears. The first thing he said after that was, "Looking at the past would kill us. Looking at the future will destroy us. Looking at the present will keep us alive. Do you want to live?" and all I did was nod my head. He was right. I was getting a family after all, apart from the broken glass (my parents). I was quite happy to come here and after TaeHyung helped me with the cases up to my room, he ate an apple and gave one to me. We stood on the porch and listened to our parents celebrating.

Love,

Yoon SiHoon

P.S. The room I am given has the best view of the front of the house, and it also has a desk, bed, and cupboard. I am too tired to arrange my things now, but hopefully tomorrow, things will be settled well. The bathroom is opposite to my room, and I still don't know if it's for the use of both of us or not.

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