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Returning to Seoul had been soul sucking. Geon-woo’s hand never left hers while memories both wanted and unwanted seemed cripple her. She hated being back and the further they trekked through Seoul, the worst she began feeling.
The air felt constricting unlike the fresh and freeing air of the countryside. Everything was dark, gloomy and sad. She had once loved the city now; it held a lifetime of nightmares and regrets and quite frankly the neon lights were hurting her eyes.ย
When they pulled up to the apartment complex, Nari’s nerves were shaking in her body and she could barely conceal the tremors that rattled through her bones and trembled at her hands. Geon-woo did not say a word as she led them down the musty corridor, his hand adjusting around hers to settle her queasiness.
Nari sucked in a harsh breath as they stopped at one of the doors. Geon-woo watched carefully at her blank stare at the greying door, her apprehension clashing on display as she fought with herself on whether to open the door or leave and never look back.
” It will be okay” he told her while his hands crept up her shoulder as he pressed a kiss to her temple. “I’ll wait out here if you need me”
Nari had never felt more grateful. She was ready to burst into tears, agonising over his judgement but he knew her too well. He understood, despite what she thought, so he took a step back and allowed her to swing the door open and disappear into the darkness. Geon-woo waited anxiously outside, his heart wrenching at the pain she was in.
Nari entered the threshold, the house cold and uninviting as usual as she kicked off her shoes and made her way to the living room.
Her father was exactly where she imagined him to be. A wrinkled, dusty blanket was draped over his shoulders, straining across his back while he stood hunched before the dulled ghost like hearth with an empty glass on the shelf and their family picture beside it. He did not stir when she entered, not even when she called out to him. He simply, as he usually did, ignored her.
“Father” Nari called, and her socked cladded feet cooled at the wooden floorboards. It was so dark, light barely streaming through the gaps of their raggered curtain, and it seemed since they had been gone for months, the electricity and water had been cut.
“Father” Nari called once more, her voice trailing. ” What were you thinking coming back here” she accused, her emotions flaring as her feet carried her towards him. “Do you not understand how serious this is. How insane your decision was. Why would you lie to them. Because you knew I’d never agree for you to leave the orphanage. Do you not understand how bad the situation we’re in is. I did this for you. For us. And you decided to throw it away by coming here. “
Her words escaped her, pent up and freefall but her father remained motionless. Her anger was palpable.
“Does it not bother you. To hear what people say about you- about us. ” she said lowly, pained and hurt. ” I get you’re used to it. Or maybe it’s because you’ve been so isolated that you simply don’t hear what they murmur but we do. Your son does. Have you ever considered the fact that your son cares more than anything, more than any of us. Have you forgotten that he is still a child. Do you not care that he is a boy, your boy, and that he spends more time at other families, looking to other fathers because his own cannot even give him the time of day. Who won’t even look at him or talk to him or love him. Does it not pain you to see what happened to our family, to your children. ”
She hated the way her voice trembled.
“You weren’t there for any of us when we needed you. Don’t you realise you’re not the only one still grieving. I lost her too. I lost her and I needed you. He needs you. But you can’t even so much as blink in my direction. Do I disgust you so much, that you’d rob your daughter of her only parent she has left. ”
“I know you resent me, I know you wish me dead and that she was here in my place, I do too. But she’s gone and I’m here and Nam-gi still needs his father. And I want mine back too”
Her tears were hot and rapidly sliding down her face.
“Say something” Nari urged desperately. ” How can you stand there and not say anything”
Byun In-su turned for the first time since losing his wife to glance at his daughter. the air in her lungs burned as he looked at her. But when she met his eyes, her heart shattered even more so when she realised that although he was looking at her, he wasn’t seeing her.ย
His lips parted and one word, one name, fell from his mouth. In that moment, Nari knew she had probably lost her father forever.ย
“Areum”
Nari’s heart splintered.ย
“What?”
He muttered her dead name again. It was the first time she had heard his voice and this was how she was hearing it, with her long-gone mother’s name on his cold ones.
” She’s dead” Nari found herself saying, her tone distant and face despaired.
“Areum”
“She’s dead. ” Nari repeated as her father continued uttering her name, louder and more forceful as if he said it again and again she would return to comfort him. That she would save him from his damnation and torment. But Jung Areum would not come to save Byun In-su. Not while he failed to save her and ultimately his family. He had failed her and he had failed his daughter,
” Stop it!” Nari yelled and she couldn’t take it anymore. All her grief, all her pain, all the cruel torture her father had ever subjected to her came pouring in waves. And Nari could not stop the floodgates from opening, “Did you not hear a word I just said, she’s dead. She’s gone. She’s never coming back. Jung Areum is dead. your wife, my mother, is never ever coming back. ”
Nari didn’t see it coming, not so much as her tears pooled at her feet as the glass on the mantel careened and shattered upon impact.
A shrill cry left her lips and her knees hit the ground. Her vision blurred with shards embedding into her skin when she dropped to the floor.
Her father’s chants of her dead mother’s name became so deafening against the ringing in her ears. Nari’s eyes blinked, dazed, her world spinning as voices blurred in her ears while she shakily raised her hand to touch at her forehead. Nari winced and slowly tried gaining back her focus to drowsily stare at the blood on her fingers.
“Nari!”
Nari gulped, biting down on her nausea as she weakly lifted her head to where his figure blurred before refocusing.
Geon-woo dropped to his knees before her, his fingers hesitantly reaching to cradle her head as crimson droplets seeped down the side of her face and plopped onto the floor.
” Nari” he called, rather panicked as he turned her head to face him. Her eyes were roaming his face, looking at him then through him as if he was not there at all. He brushed her blood sodden hair away from her face, his hands so delicately placed against her before he leaned her body against him. Blood and tears mixed against his shirt but he did not care. His anger was blinding as her sobs filled the air, drowned by the screeches of her father.
When Geon-woo tore his eyes from Nari, he got a look at Byun In-su for the first time. The man was hysterical, screaming as he threw mantel pieces to the floor. Geon-woo winced as it crashed to the ground. The blanket slipped from his shoulders and now laid undisturbed at his feet.
There was no denying that Byun In-su was their father. The similarities were uncanny, from the slant of their nose and brown of their eyes. But when he glanced at the the spot above the hearth, where a beautiful family photo now laid cracked with a ripple straight through the middle- there was no denying who Nari resembled more.
They were carbon copies of each other. Mother and daughter. It made him realise why her father could never look her in the eyes. Every time he saw Nari his dead wife stared him in the face. But it didn’t matter, not when Nari was curled into herself, her head buried in his chest as he cradled her from his spot on the floor.
The walls were thin, thin enough he had heard her hurt words from where he stood outside. But he couldn’t obey her words any longer when he heard the shattering of glass and his heart lurched for the worst. He’d have to replace her door eventually from where he kicked it down.
“Sir, sir stop”
Geon-woo had aided them to their feet, he kept his arms around her as he turned to the man who paused at the unfamiliar voice.
“That’s enough” he said, his voice betraying his underlying anger. This man had exiled his family. He had scorned his daughter and caused her so much pain. He had blamed her unjustly, hated her unfairly. He had broken her cruelly.
Nari slipped from his arms and disappeared into the bathroom, her head bowed and legs shaky as she wiped her blood red fingers against her jeans.
Geon-woo only addressed her father when she was out of sight.
“You are so lucky I was raised better than this. Otherwise I might have done something I’d most likely not finish” he said, his tone low and careful but his eyes hateful. ” I don’t understand how she still loves you. You ruined her. Her own father. I guess it’s a trend right. Some fathers aren’t meant to be. But your daughter does not deserve someone like you. Not when you’re like this, not when she still holds hope you have somewhere in that heart for you to love her. She came all this way for you. She tried to protect me from you. She still cares for you. And she’s so much better than me because I can’t find it in me to see anything redeemable about you for what you did to her and Nam-gi. You left them alone when they needed you. Their father. Someone who is supposed to protect them, love them and cherish them and instead you hated her. How could anyone hate her. She’s everything. She’s so much better than all of us. I don’t know you and I don’t think I ever want to until you realise that you may have just lost one of the mostย beautiful people you could imagine. Your daughter doesn’t deserve you. Not someone as sorry of an excuse as you. She’s lost everyone and yet… and yet she still cares. She did everything to save you and her brother. She did everything for her family, how could you not see that. “
” I wish I could hurt you the way you hurt her, but she wouldn’t want that. I guess that’s what makes you two so different. She actually cares. When this is over, we’ll get you the help you need but I won’t let you hurt her anymore. Not when I’m here and not while I love her. You’ve done quite enough.”
He had left after that, left her father in the living room, hopefully recounting the words he said before he tried to find the bathroom she had disappeared into. It wasn’t very hard, the apartment was small. He hesitated and then knocked once. He let himself in at her small voice.ย
Nari was sat on the edge of the bathtub, her scraped up legs outstretched with her hands in her lap, shoulders hunched, and eyes trained on her reddened knees where glass shards glittered under the single lightbulb that hung precariously over their heads.
“This is exactly why I never wanted you to come here” her voice was a mere whisper above their breathing. Her words almost coming out ashamed as her hair covered her tear-stained cheeks like a veil. ” I never wanted you to see this”
” He’s an awful man” Geon-woo said as he rounded in front of her, his finger brushing her hair out of her face. She was warm to the touch. ” I don’t blame you.”
“That’s the problem” Nari said her voice shaking. ” He’s not an awful man. He’s just- I don’t know. Still in mourning I guess”
“It doesn’t excuse hurting you Nari. What he did to you and Nam-gi. That’s cowardly. He hurt you. He has to live with that for the rest of his life” Geon-woo told her, shaking his head. He now understood why Nari did not want him with her, the memories in this pace, the life she lived. But irrespective, it didn’t come close to how he felt for her.
“Hey” he caught her attention, tilting her chin up to meet his warm eyes. ” You’re very brave for putting up with all this. And I promise you when this is over, he’ll be taken somewhere where he can heal and I’ll help you heal too. I love you; this doesn’t change anything. I won’t let him hurt you anymore. Not as I live and breathe”
Her eyes watered. taking him in. Here he was, in her ugly bathroom, in her ugly apartment, witnessed her ugly father and staring at her as if she was anything but. All her fears she had about him, her worries that he’d mock her deep down or judge her or worse look at her with pity seemed stupid now. He was none of those things. He did none. Nari was on the verge of once again pushing everything she loved away from her because she was scared. But, Geon-woo stayed, unwavering and undeterred because he loved her.
Nari looked at him in a newfound light. She looked at him, hoping it would convey a fraction of the love she had for him.ย She watched as he pressed a kiss to her temple and then scrummaged through the singular cupboard to retrieve the med kit.ย
For the next hour he bandaged her up wordlessly. He meticulously removed the glass from her knees before wrapping a white bandage around them with tender care. He washed her hands before dabbing at her face. He wrapped her wounds andย placed a kiss in its spot with hopes of speeding up the healing. He then kissed her, so deeply and so assuringly that he wished to absorb her pain. He kissed her like she was air, desperate and needy.
And he told her he loved her because he did. Dutifully so.ย
He loved her.ย Over and over. He loved her.
NO STOP THEY’RE SO CUTE. THEY LOVE EACH OTHER SM๐ญ๐ญ๐ญ๐
Also who keeps subjecting Nari to all this pain omw, just let her be happy๐
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