Prologue

My name is Park Chunghee, which means fair and obedient. This name was given by my mother who died when I was five years old due to an accident.

A week after my mother's death, my father left. And until now, I had never seen my father again or heard his name.

I once tried to find out where my father was by asking people who knew him but in vain. With the vague information I had, it had conformed nothing. 

I didn't know why my father left me when I needed him beside me.

A woman? 

Or, he felt depressed about losing his wife?

I wasn't certainly sure.

In this situation, I was raised by my grandmother who was living in Sokcho—a city located in the northeast of South Korea. She was the one who played three roles at once, were as a grandmother, mother, and father. For seventeen years my grandmother gave me love; gave me much advice and educated me. She was the only family I had.

While I was in Sokcho, I had a playmate named Kim Daehyun. We were so close even though Daehyun was two years older than me. Yet our friendship didn't last long because Daehyun and his family moved to another city that I didn't know where. I was quite sad at that time because Daehyun was the only friend I got along with so well.

After I turned nineteen years old, I asked for leave to continue my study at the Technical University in Seoul, and with a heavy heart, I had to leave my grandmother alone.

However, I always visited her in winter as I wasn't that busy at that time.

I studied the Technique of Graphic Design in Seoul, which kept me busy all day; besides that, I also had a part-time job as a freelancer. So, it was the reason why I rarely visited my grandmother that year.

In the early fall of September 2002, in my third year at university when I turned twenty-one years old, I got the news that my only family in my life had been gone, and made me feel so frustrated so that I wanted to end my life.

But recalling the advice my grandmother used to gave me—that, "Someone shouldn't give up in living this life easily."

Back then, I thought that it was just an old woman's chatter. But ten years after her death, I realized, that the chatter could make me stand and live a good life until I found someone who became my new family.

Lee Donghwa, the name of a man who was both a lover and the only one I currently considered as my family. He was thirty-two years old, same age as me.

We had been in a relationship for ten years. Donghwa confessed his feeling when we were in the fourth year at university. I didn't get along with him until Donghwa surprised me by saying he liked me.

We took the same study. However, we rarely met as we were often in different classes. Donghwa saw me in the cafe for the first time, but I had never noticed him until he confessed his feeling to me.

At first, I didn't care about him as I didn't want to let him know about who I was. Yet as if he recognized it or it was me that had been smitten by him, Donghwa could make me fall in love with him.

After graduating, and been suspended in some companies, we decided to work in a different company. Why? I asked for it as there were many problems that we went through.

Now, Donghwa became the president of a well-known company, and I was a senior staff member in a different company. Because of our busy schedules, we decided to live in the same place.

There were many things that we went through. We had felt the bitterness of life in the world of work and enjoyed the results as we were now.

But, unfortunately, those sweet things didn't apply to our relationship.

I had known Donghwa for about ten years, and I knew how he acted. I was certain that the current Donghwa wasn't Donghwa I knew when we were at our lowest point. Yet either because of work or other causes, I didn't mind as I loved him to death.

However, I knew clearly that there would be a time when I would have to leave. And when it happened, everything would turn into difficult way for us. 

Donghwa, will you always be with me—forever?

I forgot if the word "forever" had been written in my notes of life.