I Was First | Joshua Hong

Chapter 33

As soon as the sun started to set, when their conversation seemed like it was enough and when Lily got tired of playing, they went back into their own homes. It seemed impossible for her to think that she will put up a smile really soon at the start of the day, but once she walked passed the mirror, she saw how the impossible happened.

She got to thank him earlier, but she still doesn't feel like it was enough now that he's the one who cheered her up again. Even though he might think that she'll just think about it as a random stroll, even though he didn't say anything about making her feel better, she knew that his purpose was to do so, because despite them going out and wandering everywhere for a few times, in times like this, it's just kind of different in a way.

Yet on the contrary, he's making it kind of hard for her, unintentionally that is. If a person like him goes to the extent of doing something for someone, it's truly impossible not to catch feelings. She just feel kind of uneasy when her feelings goes in a rollercoaster ride, again.

"How can someone like him be so oblivious.. he doesn't know that someone will get the wrong idea from his gestures..", she whispered to herself, and she unknowingly chuckled which she instantly regretted. She felt like a mad woman laughing and taking it back in split seconds.

'Maybe I'm really just the only one misinterpreting people's kindness into something.', she inwardly said, before hopping off her bed. And just as soon as she twisted the knob of her room's door, she heard the doorbell ringing.

It was already night but their parents haven't gone home yet, and there's no way that the person ringing the doorbell from outside is one of them since it's their house, they have keys or they can just get inside whenever they want.

When she finished ascending the stairs, she saw Lily at the couch in the living already asleep and she reckoned that her younger sister  just played way too much for her to fall asleep so easily.

"Who is it?", She asked as she held the doorknob. Her parents taught them to know the person outside before opening the door, and she has been doing that for seventeen years, but to be frank, it's not really always, sometimes she forgets to ask and she just instantly opens the door without knowing who it was, but on the bright, it didn't cause her any trouble, well, not yet.

"Is this the house of Hiah?", said the voice of a lady, it was familiar, too familiar for her to not remember. Her chest tightened as the face of the person who owned that voice went inside her mind.

She was contemplating if she should open the door and face that lady or just leave her there and wait until she gets tired. She was too anxious to see the past all over again, she's already tired, but that lady went there.

Taking a deep breath, she slowly opened the door, and she wasn't wrong, it was really the lady who grabbed her collar and shouted right infront of her face. The sight of her made her tremble and nauseous.

"I'm sorry if I came here this late at night, but I went here to say something.", The mother of that girl who committed suicide started. She didn't bother saying anything or asking why and just looked at her. "I want to apologize for what happened in the past."

After all that blaming her for her daughter's death, after all that glare she gave her, she came here to apologize?

"My emotion got way too ahead of me and I just wanted to vent on someone."

Hiah's fist slowly clenched. It was just so unfair that she had to see how that girl died, and this lady vented on her because she just wanted to.

"She has been telling me that life hasn't been going easy on her, but I didn't listen to her like how I should've done and even told her that she was being dramatic.", The lady's voice trembled as soon as tears started falling from her eyes. "I didn't know she was suicidal, I should've listened to her at the very first time she opened up about her troubles. I was so careless and selfish as a mother... and before I knew it, I heard that my daughter was already dead."