The Broken Girl At Table 9

15 - Lines between Past and Present

Family.

Such a simple word for a deep and complex bond.

For a young child, family is everything. The world literally revolves around you and your parents, for an Im, family is a business venture.

My mother was a world-renowned actress and married to a chaebol like my father. From what the servants had told me, my parents were happy in their first few years, even more so when they had my sister, Yoona. Though, everything changed after that.

As a chaebol, my father wanted a son — a proper heir — for his company just like how he was to his father.

Instead, he got me—a spare daughter.

Mother had a difficult pregnancy with me and it turns out she's no longer capable of having another child after my birth. The cracks started there.

It began with small things at first. When my sister was old enough to learn and understand things, our father gave her the best tutors. Yoona started learning business when she was thirteen, no matter how much our mother insisted for my sister to have a normal childhood, father would decline saying he needed his heir to be exceptional since he can't have a son.

Im Yoona was great, but not exceptional enough for our father. My sister has our mother's looks, she was too kind to be able to withstand the ruthlessness of running a business, too shy to stand in front of people and take command, and simply too naive to see the world covered in gray. Father grew desperate.

We began to take notice of his gradual absence from family dinners. Then the separate sleeping quarters of my parents, my mother's silent cries in the night where she thought I was sleeping soundly beside her, and the constant yelling between my parents when they thought my sister and I can't hear them. Yoona was old enough at the age of fifteen to understand the cause of their fights and began to blame herself.

Too young to understand anything, the only thing I felt at that time was the loss of my sister's laughter and the gradual fights were too much for me to bear.

At the young age of nine, I always see my older sister crying while she stares at the papers her private tutors gave her, I was there in every single lesson since I was a quiet and unproblematic child, the servants deemed it fitting to just have me in the same room as my older sister so that they could keep an eye on us both at the same time.

Sometimes I could hear my father yelling at her, throwing papers everywhere that are marked red. Every night, Yoona would cry and talk to me, taking the comfort that I couldn't understand much of what she was saying, but I do understand, my young mind could comprehend how she was hurting just by having her work on the things father and her private tutors gave her.

My naive mind could only do one thing.

One day, when Yoona had accompanied my mother on a rare outing, I snuck inside the study where my sister and her private tutors kept their works. With small and nimble hands, I grabbed the papers I knew my sister was crying about, simple business mathematics that I heard my sister and her tutor talking about some time ago and I began to work on it, thinking I could somehow help her so that she'll stop crying and father wouldn't be so angry anymore.

What I didn't expect was for Rain, the ever-loyal butler to barged in the room with Yoona's private tutor in tow, relaxing when he saw me but then panicked when he saw what I was doing, thinking that I'd ruined my sister's work and how we'll surely be the recipient of my father's ire.

Turns out, none of that happened at all.

One look on the paper I was working on had the private tutor gaping at me in stunned silence. Feeling put out by the silence, I would have run out if not for the teacher grabbing another piece of paper and giving it to me, saying he wanted me to work on it. I remember seeing Rain's confused expression before waiting it out with the teacher as they stared at me. Still thinking of helping my sister however I can, I took the paper and silently did what I was asked to do.