"I became an orphan when I was just a baby. I was told that when I was just months old, both my parents died in an accident. Something about a bus falling off a cliff during a storm."
Inna saw Raghnall looking at her sadly and she knew what he was going to say so she interjected immediately.
"It didn't affect me much, don't worry. I never knew them so I never really had any attachments to them. I guess the only thing that I still feel for them would be the fact that it's such a waste that I wasn't able to know what they look like and how they were like. But, y'know, what's done is done."
Inna shrugged but even with her nonchalance in the incident, Raghnall still felt sadness and pity for her. Deep down, although he barely shows it, he really loved his family. And to imagine a life where he never would have known who they were was… horrifying for him. He'd probably feel like there's always a missing piece in his life forever. So, despite Inna trying to convince him otherwise, he still couldn't help but feel sad for her.
"Anyways, apparently because of the crash, their bodies were unrecognizable and the ID's they had on them were the only distinction that they were who they were. The authorities tried their best to search for more but because of the storm, it was far too difficult and dangerous. But miraculously, out of the numerous people that were on that bus, I was the only one that survived that crash.…"
Inna snorted humorlessly.
"A bus filled with adults and the only one that survived was a couple of months old baby. Funny, right?"
"Your parents must've shielded you from everything. They probably did everything they could to protect you, even if it means dy--"
"Stop. Just stop. As much as I would want to have that idealistic and optimistic view, that wasn't the case. I knew that wasn't the case. My current parents knew of them. I was an accident baby. A fucking accident. They didn't plan for 'me' to happen. But you know what they were planning to do? They were planning to give me away to some stranger. Why? Because I would interfere with their lives."
Inna inhaled sharply as she tried to remember the words she overheard when she was just three.
"They weren't married. Heck, they weren't together. It was just a one-time thing. My father had a wife, my mother had a job. Having 'me' in the middle obviously wouldn't make it pretty. So, having the chance of me disappearing through a 'natural' cause must've been such an appealing thing for them."
"Well, jokes on them, they ended up dying though. But they still got half of their wish come true, huh? I was placed in an orphanage after the accident but the people who my original parents promised me to was still able to adopt me from there. Such a great coincidence, right?"
Hearing the sudden bitterness in her tone, Raghnall furrowed his brows.
"From who did you hear those details from? And how can you say that was the case for sure?"
Inna crossed her arms before her as she narrowed her eyes at Raghnall.
Now, she's really regretting talking about her life.
"My current parents. The ones that got me from the orphanage. And I can say it's true because I overheard my current parents talk about it before."
"But I thought you felt that it was such a waste for you not to have met them and know what they looked like or how they were like?"
Hearing her words thrown back against her, Inna sighed as she dropped her arms.
"I know. And I hate myself for it. But as I've said, what's done is done. They're gone and I have to look at the present than focus on the past. Nothing's going to change even if I brood over that fact again and again. But I still can't help but get pissed, though."
Raghnall was about to express his confusion when Inna cut him off with a deep sigh.
"I don't expect you to understand what I feel so don't try to understand how it would feel like for me. Instead, can we like… not focus so much on this? It's making me want to just shut up and sleep."
Raghnall, after much hesitation, nodded his head slowly as he apologetically promised her that he'll no longer interfere.
Although not believing him fully, Inna thanked him with relief written in her gaze.
"Okay, so apparently my original parents had no other relatives, with both of them being the only child and their parents, which were my grandparents, were dead as well. My father had a wife but she expressed that she'd never accept me into their family. And besides, it would be weird if I were to go with her anyway since I was a baby born from an affair. Hence, they placed me in an orphanage."
"Well, to answer the questions in your mind that you are probably dying to ask… No, I don't have any memories about the orphanage and I'm only telling all of this from what I heard and told to me by my current parents."
Inna gave Raghnall a sharp look as Raghnall smiled sheepishly. She knew that he was dying to ask that since it was written all over his face.
"So, the parents that adopted me were actually from rich families. And that was also the reason as to why they decided to adopt me. Both my parents had an arranged marriage, neither possessing feelings for each other. At first, I thought that their avoidance and neutrality among each other was because they were just shy in expressing their feelings. But as I grew up, I began to realize that they absolutely had no feelings for each other. Turns out, they were both the only child in a family that runs several businesses and in order to keep both businesses running and prosper, they decided to fuse the two companies together through the arranged marriage. Thus, they were practically forced into marriage, without even knowing their differences and similarities."
"Well, actually they knew they already had one thing in common. Their love for work and for money. In fact, they didn't care for anything else.… And you might be wondering why they decided to adopt, right?"
Raghnall instinctively nodded.
"Well, their families actually had a contract. In order for my parents to inherit each of their own families' companies, they had to fulfill two conditions. One was to get married. The other was to have a child."