Water Heart | P.Sh

E.8

The living room was dead quiet. The two siblings sitting across from each other in a pin drop silence. Jiyeon was still clad in her woollen coat, her gloves neatly folded in her lap as she sipped from the last bit of her tea. The funeral had taken place on the 2nd of December, Sunoo had simply wanted it over and done with and he had gotten his wish fulfilled as he wanted.

"You should've been there," Jiyeon remarked eventually, getting nothing from her brother, who sat across from her - staring down at the table top in front of him. His face seemed paler than usually, but then again mom and dad did say he had had a cold lately, "it was a nice funeral. Jungwon and I brought mistletoe on your behalf as well... Sunoo asked where you were."

"I couldn't go," Sunghoon casually excused and Jiyeon nodded slowly as she pursed her lips and squinted her eyes slightly at Sunghoon, "mom and dad would've found out."

"For someone who claims to have loved her as much as you do, it surely don't seem like it," Jiyeon remarked.

"Love," Sunghoon corrected, "I still love her," he reminded with a dismayed glare.

"If it was me looking down at you like she is... had it been Jungwon and I, I would've haunted him until he jumps out from a cliff," Jiyeon sternly spoke, "avoiding a funeral because you're scared of your parents finding out. What are you? Five?"

"She's not looking down at me," Sunghoon shook his head and scratched the side of my nose, "I want to stay in the belief she's out sailing like a pirate, like her dreams these past couple weeks. Perhaps I'll join her eventually... I'd hope so."

"Perhaps," Jiyeon hummed quietly and looked down at her gloves, slipping her hands into them and smoothing out her skirt before getting up from her chair, "come to tea soon. Please. You look worringly pale and we'll have good food ready for you."

"I'll think about it," Sunghoon murmured quietly with a small nod.

"Visit her grave one day soon, alright?" Jiyeon questioned and ran a hand over her brother's hair - taking on the job of the older sibling for once, "It's a nice view from there. You can see the sea and the ships."

Once Jiyeon got home Jungwon was nervously awaiting to see how she was. Had it been an alright visit at her brother or had it been worse than expected. However, when he had gotten a half-hearted smile in return he had quickly rushed out to ask the maid to get a warm soup up and boiling.

The remainder of December 2, 1830, it was quiet in the Yang household. Jiyeon would sit majority of the evening staring into the fireplace, deep in thought. Only a few times did she actually speak to Jungwon, who made sure to place himself in the same room as her, just in case she needed anything. The last thing she got to mention before going to bed was her suspicion of her brother having caught Pneumonia as well, and not just a small cold like her parents claimed.

Little did anyone in the town know; the very next morning there would be called for Jiyeon through the city, only half an hour after a doctor had been called to her childhood home. No one had any idea what was going on inside the pristine house. 

The living room quiet as ever as both parents and their youngest child waiting impatiently for the doctor's verdict. Perhaps it wouldn't be too easy to determine the death reason on an already cold body.

"So?" the mom of the deceased immediately turned to the doctor as he exited the bedroom he had been in.

"Well... I have a feeling," the doctor sighed and glanced at Jiyeon, both of them were well aware of the activites of Sunghoon for majority of November, "I suspect Pneumonia... but if the young miss would follow me," the doctor excused and gestured for Jiyeon to follow.

"Pneumonia didn't even kill her that fast," Jiyeon whispered and followed the doctor out into the front hall.

"Well," the doctor sighed, "it takes them at different paces. It's not a professionally correct reason, but I do have a feeling something else played into your brother's death."

"What?" Jiyeon murmured in confusion and pulled down the doctor's coat and helped him get it on.

"A few stories tells of death from Broken Heart. Might not necessarily be it, but I have a feeling your brother did not fight back against his sickness once she finally was gone," the doctor excused, "but to your parents, let it be just Pneumonia."

"Thank you," Jiyeon nodded quietly and watched the doctor leave before walking slowly down to the living room once again and entering.

Her parents already onto the talk of how in the world Sunghoon had gotten Pneumonia. They only had that down in the slums and that surely wasn't a place their family got sighted. However, at one point it went quiet and her dad had realized a suspicious pattern.

"He's been seeing the baker girl, hasn't he?" her dad questioned and looked over at Jiyeon, "do you know anything about it?"

"If he had, could you blame him?" Jiyeon questioned and folded her hands in front of herself, clutching her gloves tightly.

"She was a baker," her mom reminded sternly, "he shouldn't go among their sorts."

"He loved her," Jiyeon sternly spoke.

"She was a lower class," her dad reasoned.

"He was in love with him, and class does not determine such things. You know that very well," Jiyeon insisted and pressed her lips tightly together.

"Of couse it's her fault he's dead," her mom shook her head in disbelief, barely even looking like she was in sorrow over the loss of her son. She and her husband was more concerned about the family name than anything else.

"Her fault?" Jiyeon questioned in bewilderment, "this is your fault! Soomin would've never had gotten sick if you let her and Sunghoon marry last year, like they wanted to. If Soomin never was sick neither would've Sunghoon have been. I don't have a brother anymore, because of you!"

That was the last time the Park parents saw any of their children. Jiyeon never informed them of her brother's funeral once she had it planned. Barely anyone was invited, but she made sure he got the grave right beside Soomin's, ensuring they would stay together even in death. Let them dream about pirates and the sea alongside one another.

As time went on, she dreamed they had their happy ever after on the sea as well. At leats happy in some sense, the happiest she could make it with the last bit of sanity she had left in her as time passed on.