A Light in the Dark (Kim Jongin)

Chapter Four

  Kim Jae-Suk ran his fingers over the smooth wood of his wife's old dressing table. The white paint was slightly chipped in places to show the dark wood underneath. He remembered having wanted to repaint it for her but she'd refused, the mahogany artifact being a old family heirloom of her mother's. With a sigh, he turned and leaned back on the table, letting his eyes travel around the room slowly. The smell of her jasmine perfume still hung in the lonely air and his heart felt weighted with remorse and sorrow.

  His eyes found the framed pictures on the shelves opposite him and felt his lips pulling up in a small wistful smile, remembering the sound of her laugh. It has been years, but he could hear it perfectly. Kim Jae-Suk let out another heavy sigh before pushing himself off the table and making his way towards the half closed door.

  Before he got there, the door was pushed open and Jongin stepped in with a quizzical look on his face. When the boy's gaze landed on his father standing in the middle of the room, his eyes narrowed.

  "What are you doing here, father?" he did not try to hide the hint of accusation in his voice. Jae-Suk could not blame him. He wasn't supposed to be here anyway. The unspoken rule in the household was that no one but Jongin could mess around in late Mrs. Kim's room. And of the people who were tolerated into the room, Kim Jae-Suk was the least welcome. 

  He supposed it was his fault. He had driven his son away and he did not know how to fix it. But he tried. God knows he tried. But every time he reached out, Jongin would back away. He had never been good with emotions. The only emotion he could successfully show, unfortunately, was anger. That is why So Hee had been so perfect for him. She had had enough emotion and passion for both of them, her naturally calm and compassionate temperament balancing his often reckless, bad tempered one. 

  He looked across the room at his son, who was standing by the door with his hand clenching the doorknob. He had his mother's eyes; dark and expressive. "I was just leaving," he told the boy.

  "I see," Jongin said and there was a drawn out silence as father and son regarded each other carefully, as if waiting to see who would pounce first. Recently, every conversation between them had always ended in an argument. Even now, Jae-Suk could feel his son curling into a ball, ready to thrust out his spikes if he so much as uttered a word. 

  Too many misunderstandings, too many miscommunications.

   He tried to remember the day, the exact moment, when it had all gone wrong between them. It had all started with So-Hee getting sick. Jongin, with all the tenderness and love and worry of his young heart, had stayed by her side day and night, refusing to put anyone's needs before hers. 

  Kim Jae-Suk could only wish that he could say he had done the same. Or he wished he could say that the only reason he had not been by her side was because he had been at the company, trying to keep it afloat or trying to get enough money for the increasing medical bills. Or he wished he could say that all the times he had not been at her side was because he was out searching for the best doctors out there to save his wife. 

  But the truth was far less flattering and much more shameful in its simplicity. He had been scared. 

  Just the thought of what a spineless coward he had been sent a wave of self-loathing through his body. Yes, he had been afraid. He had been afraid to step into the hospital room and smell the medicine and disinfectant. To see the tubes, the machines, the tired sunken eyes. He had been afraid to connect his vibrant, passionate, adventurous wife with the pale, emaciated woman lying in bed snaked over with tubes, to accept that they were the same- his wife, his So Hee. And he had been afraid to be reminded that there was nothing more he could do, to be reminded that it was too late.