WARNING please read:
Chapter 1 contains depictions of suicide and death
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Busan, Year 200X
Hee-Sungs POV
When i was young i remember my mom always in the kitchen crying her eyes out. She never did it in front of me but i always knew she was struggling. My mom was like a light to me she was my hero. Being a single parent is not easy on any one. In a single parent household, there is a lot to handle, not least school runs, homework, cooking, cleaning, washing, bath times, and putting the kids to sleep, in addition to keeping down a job..
I don't have a father i never even met him. Mom said he died before i was born and that he was a good man that cared about others. He saved a lot of people I was told but at the expense of his life. Whether he knew them or not, but that's all i know. I wanted to know more. About him. But i knew my mom would get sad talking about the past and at times I even felt like she was trying to hide it, so i kept quiet. I did everything in my power to make her happy even with her tired smile it was enough for me as a young child but i guess even for me, her son, it wasn't good enough.
One day after coming home from school i rushed in the house to tell her the perfect score of 100 i got on my test. I was never the studious type however, getting good grades was one of the few methods I could come up with being 8 years old to make mom happy. Thinking about it now I think she tried to smile just to make me happy. I walked in through the door, smiling from ear to ear as always top of the class, clean records... teachers pet.
When i walked into the kitchen i saw that she had took her life. I was 8 years old at the time. Empty bottles of soju decorated the floor and a bottle of near empty anti-depressant pills or what was left, lay spilt on. the soban (floor table). Photos of my dad and me id never seen, at an age i dont remember sat beside her. The photos, were worn out. The edges were creased and yellowing with age not time, from what seemed to be from being held what mustve been a thousand times over.
I dropped my test results, her head resting on her arm, face pale. I shook her, she wasn't responding. Panicked, I ran outside with tears streaming down my face. Screaming, crying, begging for someone to help. My neighbour and his wife frantically rushed out of their house in their blue and pink matching gowns and slippers and asked me what happened. My throat was dry and hoarse from all the screaming. Through it i had managed to say,
"My mom... shes gonna die" he let go of me and ran into the house. He shouted to his wife to phone the ambulance. In that moment i felt despair, deep down I knew it was too late, she was blue. It felt like sparks were going off inside my brain. A sharp pain shot through my head I felt somehow hot and cold at the same time and then suddenly, there was darkness.
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Later that day at the hospital, Hee-Sungs POV:
"Its stress and shock, he had such a bad breakdown we had to sedate him" the doctor and nurse discussed.
I felt myself coming to, I could hear speaking in my peripheral, it felt lucid, was it real?
"Poor boy lost his mother at such a young age...*sigh what a cruel world we live in."
I blinked the blurriness and tiredness away. on the other side of the room stood the doctor and nurse, talking. I groaned, an indication to tell them that I was awake.
"Shhh!!" gestured the doctor to the other nurse, probably noticing I was now awake
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I woke up in the hospital a bed that suddenly felt hard and cold, unfamiliar. They said i fainted from stress and shock. For a moment i was confused and then it hit me memories of what happened just hours before hit me like a ton of bricks. Shaking i asked the nurse
"my mom... where is she" trying to calm me down, i could see the sadness on her face, she replied
"I'm so so sorry, by the time we got here, it was already too late".
I was shocked and scared all i could do was say "no, no, no... YOUR LYING!!!" I knew it wasn't a lie. From the moment I saw her I knew she was gone. I just didn't want to believe it.
"I WANT TO SEE HER" I exclaimed threw tears, my small body already a wreck from all the crying.
Timidly, the nurse said "I don't think that would be a goo-"
I immediately cut her off "SHE'S MY MOM... I SAID I WANT TO SEE HER" I held onto my chest, it was hard to breathe.
".... ok Hee-Sung ah, follow me"
I just blindly followed her I stopped crying, suddenly devoid of all emotion except the inescapable sadness leaving my heart broken and hollowed. We approached a room, cold if not even colder than the one I woke up in.
I saw my mom with a white sheet covered over her body. I lifted the sheet to see my mom laying peacefully, she was cold, she never liked the cold. She loved the heat. the warmth of summer and warm colours brought by flowers of spring. The first thing i thought of was, not even realizing I had spoke aloud, i said,
"this is the first time I'm seeing my mom sleep so soundly.", I let out a small sad smile upon that realisation. Sleeping.... Though I knew she was never gonna wake up again. I dropped to my knees, i couldn't even cry the nurse approached went on her knees at the same level as mine and hugged me. Her warm embrace reminded me of mom and i just cried and screamed and shouted out
"was i bad?, did she not love me?, how could she leave me alone?"
The nurse told me, " Hee-Sung your not a bad child she may have had her reasons, you'll meet again one day but one thing is undeniable and unchangeable. I know for a fact, your mom loved you very much".
Tears began to fall upon impact of her words. I was alone now. After crying till the point there was no tears left for me to cry. Due to exhaustion I fell asleep.
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At her funeral i held her photo in my small arms never uttering a word. The whispers from distant relatives pierced my heart like knives.
There were whispers of pity,
"Oh god did you hear she killed herself and left that poor boy alone"
whispers that judged her,
"She was a single mother and had no money so thats probably why she killed herself "
And there were people who looked like they didn't even care. i wanted to shout at them, to scream out telling them to shut up and that they didn't know her so had no right to judge her... but i couldn't i just stood there, silent, wishing for this all to be a dream. I wanted see my mom again in the kitchen making me my favourite food laughing together and her telling me she loved me. Though i knew i would never see her again. Now, thinking back on it were those smiles real? No, even if they weren't i knew my mom smiled for me i wont and will never blame her.
All of a sudden a lady came up to me and placed her hand on my shoulder. She was someone I've never seen or heard of from my mother before. Dressed in a white silk t-shirt with a blazer over it and wearing a black skirt that went down to her knees.
She said
"hello Hee-Sung I'm your moms good friend, my name is Cha Hae-Soo, would you like to live with me?".
At that moment i quickly weighed the pros and cons. Pro, i go with her and shell tell me more about my mom and dad. She said she was moms good friend. Though i don't trust her yet. Con, i go to an orphanage because i don't want to live with a bunch of relatives that don't respect mom. They only want the money they'd get for being my guardian.
"Ok. Ill live with you." I answered
For reasons not even I myself negative the time, looking into her eyes she had no evil intent.
With a gentle smile on her face she reached out her hand to me and i nervously clasped it. I was scared, scared of not knowing the future.