Chapter Text
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Seokhoon-ah,
There's something I want to talk to you about. Can we meet?
I'll be waiting in the community room and won't leave until you come.
So I hope you can come
Seokhoon carefully read the message he just received from Rona. He thought deeply, guessing what she wanted to tell him. Previously, his heart skipped a beat when he saw a message notification from her.
"Seokhoon-ah?" His mother's question interrupted his thoughts, he looked at his mother. They are now in front of the police who were just interrogating someone they know.
"Hmm?"
"Can you try talking to Seokkyung again? Maybe she can be more open with you." He nodded, his mind now torn in two between his sister and the message his ex-girlfriend had just sent. But for now, it seems that his sister's problem should be his priority.
"Okay," He nodded before walking to find his sister, and let out a bit of annoyance when he didn't see his sister in the interrogation room. He ran while looking left and right looking for his sister. Soon he found the girl wearing a white blouse walking towards the exit. He ran towards her and immediately grabbed her hand when he got close to her.
"Let me go!"
"Where are you going? Will running away like a child solve everything?" He scolded his sister.
"I said I would take responsibility. I said I was going to jail for that. Why is everyone stopping me?" He rolled his eyes at his sister's reply.
"How do you know?" He saw their mother suddenly interrupt his conversation with his sister.
"How did you know to go to Busan port?"
"I heard oppa talking on the phone with you." He heard his sister answer the questions their mother gave her.
"Then you followed mom? Why did you go to Japan?" He asked annoyedly.
"I want to see it for myself, I want to see his downfall. Turns out the mental hospital was better than I thought. I will never see him again. Don't worry about me. I'm legally his daughter so they can't punish me for helping him escape."
He could only shake his head at what his sister was saying. What she did would only make him and their mother more worried.
"How could you go to such a dangerous place alone? Do you know how worried we were when you disappeared?"
"Why are you worrying about a bad and spoiled brat like me? You know I'll survive no matter what because I'm like dad?"
He could no longer bear to hear his sister whining in response to their mother's words. If only she knew how much their mother was worried about her because she had disappeared. Their mother had too much to think about and worry about, and his sister added her worries.
"Should you talk to mom like that?"
"Because this is what I am!" His sister screamed in his face. Tears were seen pooling in her eyes making him realize that his sister was overwhelmed with a great sense of guilt but was too proud to show it. He also realized that his sister still couldn't look at their mother.
"Have you eaten?" Their mother asked in a soft voice. Maybe their mother also realized what he realized about her.
"Let's go eat. You've lost weight." After saying that, their mother walked ahead of them. He watched his sister who was staring at their mother's back with tears streaming down her face. He sighed seeing the level of pride his sister had.
"You'd better do what mom asks this time. Let's eat first." He said slowly trying to convince his sister so that this time her pride could be removed first. The moment he said that, his sister turned her face away from him and wiped the tears that were falling down her face before she walked after their mother.
He saw them before he remembered the message from Rona earlier, should he follow his family or meet his ex-girlfriend?
And until about half an hour later, in his mother's car, he looked at his phone, still asking himself about Rona's request to meet. He opened the message and wanted to type if it should be postponed because he was with his mother and sister. However, he cancelled his intention and closed the message from Rona. A moment later he opened the message again and wanted to type asking Rona to wait for him another hour because he might leave his mother talking to his sister alone. But again he cancelled, with a sigh he closed the message again.
"Are you waiting for a call?" His mother who was driving beside him made him look at her.
"Ah no!" He laughed awkwardly.
"Then why have you been staring at your phone? Is it about your father?"
"Of course not! I was just looking at the message that was sent to me."
"Message? Is that important?"
"Not really…" He answered while looking at the road in front of him.
"From Rona?" He fell silent at his mother's question.
"If it's from Rona, I think you must-"
"She and I have broken up so this is a message that wasn't really important." He immediately cut off his mother's words.
"Seokhoon-ah …"
"Believe me, omma. This is not important, there are more important matters than this."
"Okay if that's what you think." The two of them then fell silent, especially since his sister from the police station didn't make any sound.
"Seokkyung-ah, what do you want to eat?" Their mother asked his sister in the rearview mirror, but his sister stubbornly ignored the question.
He just rolled his eyes when he saw his sister was still ignoring their mother. His sister need to give up and forget her pride before she regretted it. He knew what she was doing was the opposite of what she wanted.
Seokhoon didn't realize that what he was thinking was not attacking his sister, but himself.
The sight outside his window couldn't take his mind off the person who had texted him. A person who becomes someone who always accompanied him before he decided to break up with her in front of his home. The words he gave to his mother that Rona wasn't important to him anymore was a lie. The lie he kept repeating, hoping it to become the truth. But no matter how strong his mind was to make her as a girl who isn't someone important to him, his attempts always failed. Rona to this day, is still in his heart and mind. Almost all the time he was always thinking about her, questioning what he had done to them. Especially when reality struck him that it was Cheon Seojin, not his father who killed her mother.
That night in front of Logan's villa, he heard her crying. A cry filled with regret. He even shed some tears because he knew the truth was very painful to her. However, instead of lending her a chest to cry on or giving a hug to ease her suffering, he just looked at her from a distance. He returned as he had been before, only staring at her from a distance without doing anything.
The truth that was revealed about who was behind Ms Oh's murder was revealed and it turned out that his father was not the one who killed the mother of the girl he loved. The guilt of what he thought his father had done to her mother caused him to take the decision to break up with her. When it turned out that it wasn't his father who killed her mother, it should be an excuse for him to come back to her. However, he still felt unworthy. Even though it wasn't his father who killed her mother, his father was still the reason her mother was killed. That's why he remained in his decision to part with her. Time would probably make him ask her back, and apologize for leaving her. And he waited for that time to come.
"Please give me some time. I think I can be more confident in front of you when all this is over."
He thought back to his request to Rona in the lobby of Hera Palace three years ago after he was punished by his mother and former teacher. He thought he had the confidence to stand in front of her but he was wrong. Until now he is still not confident, especially with the burden he is carrying as Joo Dantae's son. He stared out the window, silently speaking to someone who was waiting for him in the community room of Hera Palace.
'Wait for me a little longer, Rona-ya. Wait until it's completely over, it's almost there. Then soon I will definitely stand in front of you and take your hand back.'
And he waited for the time when everything had really ended, hoping that it would make him free from all the burdens that were stifling his chest. The time when his father and Ms Cheon were no longer there or got punished so they couldn't harm people he loved again. Yes, he would wait after it was all over to ask her back and he would do anything for her to take him back. For now, they had better stay at this point until that time comes and he will never leave her again.
***
She had not removed the phone from her sight. She kept checking the message she sent to him. The message has been read but he hasn't replied yet. She had been waiting for almost two hours but her ex-boyfriend still did not reply nor did he come to see her. A sigh came out from her mouth, it seemed that this was their way, separated for good. However, for some reason, Rona still couldn't leave the community room. She didn't know why she still wanted to wait for him. Even she decided that she will give a time limit until the day passes. If he still wouldn't come, like Cinderella who changed after 12 o'clock at night, then she'll change too. Tomorrow, she'll be reborn and put all the past behind her. But then could she do that? Leaving everything behind her? She leaned back and stared blankly at the wall in front of her.
If indeed Seokhoon won't come to see her, she still needed to tell him the reason why she wanted to meet him. So later he could understand that the chance to be together again is no longer there. She searched for something inside her bag before tearing the paper from her notebook. With a black ink pen with a yellow duck decoration that she found from her bag, she started to write on the paper. All her wishes, all what she wanted to say to the boy she loved, she put it in the paper. And when she finished, she folded the paper and wrote his name before she put it in her bag.
She looked at her phone again, still no reply from her ex-boyfriend. A bitter smile spread across her sad face. The clock on her phone screen indicated that she was wasting her time on something desperate like this. It's always like this. She stupidly gave him the time and accepted his wants from her. The time she always gave him, the time to wait for him. She always gave him the time he asked, she accepted his want for her to wait for him. But this time her mind told her enough is enough, she hoped that this would be the last time she would give him the time he asked from her.
She leaned her body against the back of the chair and stared at the door of the room upstairs before she finally sighed. It seemed she had to do something to distract herself from her miserable thoughts. She opened her bag to put her phone in and took out her music notes before standing up and walking to the mirror not far from where she was seated. She would spend time waiting for him by practising her vocal. She had indeed won the resident audition at Cheong A Art Center but she realized that it was no guarantee for her to be special if she wanted to take part in the next audition or competition. Moreover, the college entrance exam is coming soon. She wanted to prepare from now.
Not long after she sang a few notes, she heard the sound of the door opening. The sound of someone calling someone name made her look up, and Ms Cheon was seen smiling at her as she called out her daughter's name. Before she could stop in bewilderment, the woman came down the stairs talking to her as if she was her daughter. The name Ha Eunbyeol kept coming out of the woman's mouth when she saw her. Her hand was held and pulled by the woman as if she really saw the figure of her daughter in her. She tried to correct her by saying that she wasn't Ha Eunbyeol but that only made the woman angry and kept forcing her to follow her. With her strength, she was trying to break away but the woman was still stronger when she successfully pulled her up the stairs of the room.
The door to the room opened again, this time the man she had kicked out of her apartment door a few days ago appeared with an angry face. The man tried to help her by saying that she wasn't her daughter. But it actually made the woman who killed her mother ignite her anger. She really didn't know what was going on, she only knew that she was now standing between her biological father's fight with his ex-wife.
"Rona-ya, run." She could only follow the man's orders and avoid the fight by running towards the door of the room. But the woman who now looked like a madwoman prevented it by trying to grab her hand again.
"Stop it, Cheon Seojin!" Even so, her father did not stop protecting her.
"Are you all right, Rona-ya?" After successfully pushing the woman away, her father held her and with a worried look on his face asked her. She nodded in response.
The woman named Cheon Seojin was completely raging, screaming in anger while still referring to her as her daughter. The woman even took a standing lamp and swung it at her and her father, hitting the back of her father's head. The man who continued to protect her even though she always said hurtful words to him was kneeling while holding his head. Blood was seen pouring out of the back of his head.
"Ahjussi?"
"Run!" In a weak voice, her father told her to run. She wanted to follow her father's orders, but seeing his body fall, she held him. Panic gripped her mind.
"Come with me, Eunbyeol-ah!" It's not surprising that the woman was not worried about her ex-husband's condition at all. All she thought about was to take her. The woman still tried to take her by pulling her hand that was on her father's body.
"Appa!" Her panic made her accidentally call him dad.
"Rona-ya?" She saw her father ask before his eyes closed, blood was already visible on his shirt.
"Appa? What do you mean?" Suddenly the madwoman stopped pulling her hand and asked her, confused. But she ignored her and still tried to wake her father up.
"I said what do you mean by calling him appa?" She felt her arm forcefully being pulled and her body turned to face the woman. Her arm was still in her grip.
"I don't need to explain it to you!" She tried to free her arm from her grip. Laughter erupted from the woman's mouth. Gone was the madness she displayed by constantly calling her Ha Eunbyeol. Her evil eyes stared at her.
"So you're a child of …. Oh Yoonhee … even after you die you still could make me angry."
Hearing the woman mention her mother made her even more intensely try to release her hand from her grip. With her free hand, she grabbed the railing as a support to pull her hand from the evil woman's grip.
"Let me go, ahjumma!"
"Oooh … It made me won't let you go."
Instead of successfully breaking free from the woman's grip, the woman was even more excited to pull her hand. However, with her effort to hold onto the railing, she wasn't simply easily withdrawn. Her efforts were successful and finally, her hand was released but it caused her body to be pulled back. She tried to hold onto something so she wouldn't fall, but she failed and her body fell backwards. She realized that her father was trying to help her by catching her body causing them both to roll down the stairs. Her father stopped a couple of steps above, in contrast to her who was still rolling down the stairs very fast until finally, she felt her head hit something hard. Slowly her consciousness began to fade before darkness enveloped her vision.
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