IT'S OKAY

CHAPTER 29

Ji Sung was sitting on his bed, while I was by the study desk in front of his bed

"I saw my dad" was the first thing I said

"What? How? Where?" Ji Sung asked

"In my house, when I got back from school. He was sitting on the counter beside my mom"

Just thinking about it was sad

"How could she let him into the house? How could she even stand his face? What if we aren't dismissed from school early? Would she have kept seeing him a secret? Till when? Is it even the first time she let him into our house? How did she meet him? Was she going to tell me, at all?" I asked all this question eve though I knew I wasn't going to get answer unless I actually asked my mom

I looked up at Ji Sung

"Are you hiding anything else from me?" I asked him

"All of a sudden?"

He was definitely not expecting that question

"I need to know before I tell you what I'm about to tell you"

"So, you didn't tell me everything either" he said

"This is one a different, less threatening scale" I said

He pretended to be angry for a minute

"No" he answered

"I can vaguely remember segment of the early four years of my life, when we were once a happy family. My dad was a well known psychiatric, while my mom was a nurse, the best. As if a spell was casted upon them, my mom lost her job while my dad was framed for killing one of his client"

"I was going to the age of four when that happened. My parents went through a lot, but we were still happy. We went on picnics, amusement parks, dates, we were a family. But it all changed. Maybe it was due to the stress of not able to get another job on time, but my dad started changing few months before I turned five. He started getting frustrated, angry, sometimes he even preferred not to be with either of us, but he didn't lay a   hand of us. That changed when I turned five, he began to beat my mom, sometimes for things she didn't even do"

I paused

"You don't have to..." Ji Sung started

"Talk if I don't want to?" I completed for him

"Going back to that moment breaks all the walls I've put to protect myself, but I want to continue. I have to, to be free"

"Then continue" he encouraged

I smiled at him then continued

"He was violent. He hit my mom so much that she use to pass her, but she protected him. There were even times she has to be rushed to the hospital, but she made a lie. 'Your dad isn't this type of man. He's just stressed. Let's give him so time', she used to tell me time and time again even when she had to undergo surgery because of what he has done. We also moved a lot, the doctors could only turn their eyes away for a period of time. I didn't agree with what she used to tell me, but she was the one getting hit, not me, and I couldn't even protest even if I wanted to. What could a little girl do, after all?"

"I wasn't lost on him though, he started to add me to the equation when I was six. Sometimes he hit my mom or I solo, but sometimes it was duet. But she still wanted to protect him. I hated my dad for what he was doing, but I was also beginning to hate my mom for letting him do this to us. Then she finally divorced him" I laughed, "And trust me, that wasn't easy. Threatening wasn't cut out for the job, so she used the police station. She took us to the front of the police station, then she called him. She handed him divorce papers, and a pledge to sign. It stated that if he showed himself in front of us or lays him hands on one of us again, he'll be reported and sent to jail. I thought everything was over, bit it wasn't, it was at of she was going to go against the pledge herself. And now she has finally gone against it, smiling and dining with him"

"But do you know what annoys me most?" I asked

"I hate him. I wish he would leave or lives forever. Geudae... But I still miss him. I don't really remember those moments before I turned five, just the feelings, but I still want to go back to that time" but I finally admitted

That was one of the reason I was so angry, with my mom and myself

"Because he's your father. It's not that way" he said calmly

"But I don't want to feel that way!" It exclaimed, "I don't want this longing of having my family back. I don't want this feeling. I just want to cut him off from everything that has to do with me. I just want to..." I trusted off, not knowing what to say

He came and crouched down on one knee, in front of me

"Choi Soo Joon, nae mal-eul deul-eo" listen to me he started

"If you're going to say something that'll support him or something, just don't" I said

"You don't hate your dad" he said

"He's not my dad" I said

He held my shoulders

"You don't hate your dad" he repeated

"Didn't you hear a single thing of what I said? How can I not hate him after everything he had done?"

"Because you don't. And that's exactly why you're angry"

I leaned back and crossed my arms, making his hands fall off me. I wasn't okay with what he was saying

"You should hate him. You keep telling yourself that. You keep telling yourself that you should despise him, that's he's nothing to you. But you don't, and you still crave for your dad's love. That's why you're angry. At your dad, your mom, and even yourself" he said

"I didn't know you could read minds" I said

He stood up

"I can't. I just know you"

"You talk as if we've known each other for years"

He gave me a look

"Go home" he said

"What?" I asked

"Go home and talk to your parents. And before you start, open your mind,  accept what you really feel"

I glared him

"I seriously don't like you" I told him

"It's not going to be easy, Alex. I know that, but there's no other way you'll be happy. And, I really, really, really want you to be. So just do it" he rise me up from the chair

"If not for anything at all, do it for me" he said, using my words back at me

I gasped

"You"

He smiled, and hugged me

"If it gets too much, you know what to do, right?" he said

I nodded

He broke away, and I headed to the door

"But, what are you going to do? About your parents" I asked him

"Well, I guess we have our own share of talking to do" he said, tucking his hands into his pocket

I nodded

"Thank you, Sung. A lot"

He smiled back

"Thank you" he said

Then I left