Twisted Faith

Chapter 1

I hate Marco (my father). I hate my mom. I hate the step monster. I hate Korea. I hate everyone else and everything else.

That's it. The worst part of my life has officially started. I don't want to enroll here at Seoul National University. I don't want to be anywhere near Marco. But my mom insisted. She truly believes that with him around I could finally find a reason to mend the broken bond between us. I mean, how could I? He left us. He left us to be with another woman. All those times that I forced myself to believe he was spending all his time running the restaurant, it turned out he was rather smitten by a certain customer. And he chose her over my mom. He chose her over me. That is not something one can easily forgive and forget.

Fortunately for mom, she was able to move on and I think she has never been so happy with just me and her in the picture. When I was young I would often ask her how she does it and she would simply joke that husbands are replaceable. Unfortunately for me though, fathers are not, even if I want to.

So when Marco offered a room for me to stay in his house I packed my stuff and went straight to the university dormitory.

"Seriously, Lisa," he deliberately pulls his hands out of his pockets and rests them upon his hips to assert his parental authority which Lisa chose to ignore. "You don't need to stay here. There's plenty of room in the house."

"I'm good here, Marco."

Even with that parental authority constantly bugging me, I still refuse to call him 'dad' and I know that irritates him. To add more fuel to the fire, I absentmindedly scan through my playlist, putting on my headphones as a signal of disinterest towards the ongoing conversation.

"Stop acting like a child, will you?" Marco hisses at me, and I ignore him.

"Do you even like it here?" I saw him sneaking out a quick glance at my crazy Korean roommate, Seulgi, who shot him a glare while doing whatever she was doing.

I flash my best smile.

"Come on, Lisa."

His voice almost pleading, I like that, but still, I give him no further response. A few more minutes and my father finally shook his head, raising his hands in complete surrender.

"Okay," he says. "If this is what you really want then so be it. But I don't want you locking yourself here for the rest of the semester. Go out and participate."

I roll my eyes, "Sure."

When he walked out of the door thirteen years ago, I made sure he would lose his rights to have a say in whatever I do in my life, and that includes my decisions on how to live my college experience.

"I'm going to the quad there's an activity fair," Seulgi announces.

I took this opportunity to run away from Marco, brisk walking towards the door, trailing behind my roommate.

"Yeah, me too. I'm going to the fair with my new buddy Seulgi."

With that, I closed the door behind me leaving my father on his own. I ignored the fact that Seulgi threw a glare at me. I ignored the fact that my father called out my name probably to delay my departure. It was no big deal, but I like the idea of leaving him when he wants me to stay. I want him to feel even in the slightest manner the way I felt when I was practically begging him not to go years ago.

"Now what?" I mutter to myself. Of course, Seulgi will never let me tag along with her friends. I shrug at the idea of it. I find myself looking around for something interesting but to no avail, there's just nothing that's interesting in here. Until I find this thin blondie doing some kind of weird dancing on the ground. I let myself chuckle at the sight of it. More crazy people in SNU. Good.