Family Dinner

In normal cases we would eat dinner together like today. It's just a little bit special because I finally woke up and got better. As usual my father and oldest brother were the last to arrive.

The food served were mostly my favorites.

After exchanging some greetings and pleasantries, I finally opened up the plan I made earlier.

"Dad, I want to send some of my designs to Aunt Saehan."

"Seriously?!?!" my third older brother was the first one to react with his usual excessive emotions. Ever since we're young, he would always make it to the point to contradict me and he would not stop until I would feel extremely annoyed. "How can you be so sure that your designs will end up on Aunt Saehan's table and not inside the trash bin?" he continued when I ignored his remarks.

I looked at him showing my usual impatient reaction then I moved my eyes back to my Dad and to my Mom.

My Dad stopped eating and looked at me solemnly. My oldest brother just briefly glanced at me and slightly shook his head. My second brother's reaction was just the same as my mom. Both of them opened and closed their mouths as if trying to say something.

Aunt Saehan wasn't exactly close to us. She's the wife of my father's cousin. I only met her once when my uncle died and my family went to his wake. After she became widow she distanced herself from her husband's family as much as possible.

She's also known as being a living witch as for the reason why, I only have assumptions. She's not friendly to begin with and she looked very strict and scary. For a 7 year old girl to met a woman who didn't smile and possessed sharp and intimidating eyes, those were only the conclusions I could come up with.

In my past life, I got rejected right away after I gave her my designs and got upset. I could still remember how my second brother pacified my little heart to calm me down. We never had contact after that.

Instead of improving myself after the harsh criticism, I gave up designing all at once and tried to enroll in a short program about advertising. I didn't complete it though. I lost my interest again. And the cycle just continued until my brother fell ill and eventually left me.

"Why not submit your design to any company within the city? Father will help you," my dad softly said. My mom nodded in agreement.

For some reason I wanted to get the approval of my Aunt Saehan. She's an expert in the field I wanted to belong to. Even though the main office of her company wasn't located in our city, I would be willing to live far from my family to work under her.

I think she would help me develop the strength I needed to persevere in this journey called life. She's the first challenge I wanted to successfully conquer.

When I lost my family, I was so weak and needed to heavily depend on someone. In the end I abused him.

I didn't want that to happen again. I might or might not lost my family now but I still needed to strengthen myself.

I was too pampered living with my family. I didn't even have decent friends. My so-called friends at my university were just sticking to me because of my family. They pleased me but when my family fell, they also disappeared one by one.

I shook my head. "I want to be trained under her."

"Do you know how hard it is to even contact your Aunt? She doesn't even answer any of our calls after your Uncle died," my mom said as she finally put down her chopsticks. She looked at me with eyes full of worry before she continued, "Besides it won't be easy to make her agree to do what you want, and.. and... are you really going to leave mommy?"

Her last sentence was almost like a whisper. It was as if I would really abandon her.

"You can think about it again, Xin xin. You still have three months before graduation. How about we talk what do you want as a gift for your graduation?" My Dad was obviously trying to change the topic when he saw my Mom's face as if she lost her strength all at once.

I realized I need to coax my Mom first before planning further ahead.

"Anything will do, Dad." I simply answered.

"How about we go to the Villa outside the City. You mentioned that you like to visit it again now that the renovation is almost complete." He said smiling. "I can rearrange your oldest brother's schedule so we can free a few days." My dad continued.

The mere mentioned of going to the villa together made me shook involuntarily and lost the color of my face.

"No, we can just have dinner together just like always. But each one of you should give me a present," I hurriedly answered. This is actually my plan to avoid going somewhere together. I subconsciously looked at my second brother as I remembered that only the two of us survived.

My second brother knitted his brows when he saw me looking at him solemnly. I remembered in my past life that I was unconscious for a few weeks and he held the funeral alone. I couldn't imagine how painful it was for him. When I woke up, it took few more days before he told me everything. He was holding me tightly as he keep on telling me not to worry since I still have him.

This time, I absolutely didn't want it to happen again. Maybe I would never go to that Villa again and would eventually ask my parents to sell it.

After dinner, I followed my mom to the living room. I needed to convince her to let me live in Fein City.