All Your Lies | Yoon Jeonghan

CH 40: Her Home

[ Our Own Kind Of World. Part 1]

Despite the years, the distance and everything in between, Raki still somehow found her way to her grandparents home.

She has always loved it there, she looked forward to every vacations along with her parents and her older brother, to come back when they haven't for so long, and perhaps it was the reason why she couldn't just forget it no matter what, the memories, the people she was with and the endearment for them she gave, all blending in to the place where she would always love to find herself in.

Even when she didn't have the courage to, back when she wasn't brave enough to reach out to her grandparents, the remaining connection she has with her dead parents, she found herself looking outside their house.

Raki had wandered to so many places on all the years when she was lost, on everything and finding direction seemed to be the last thing that she intended, she was just lost and she didn't want to do anything about it but get lost some more. She was afraid that if she was beginning to be alright, it also meant that she was forgetting that her parents weren't there anymore. And she didn't ever want to forget them, she wanted them to live on with her in so many ways as long as she was able to, and that had kept her going, no matter how it broke her instead.

Japan had been the place she frequent the most, went to its corners that she had never stepped on before, rode trains, walked around towns, saw new people, and even fell in love with one, and at the end of the day, went back to where it was familiar. .

To the faint smell of paint on the wooden gate and the old doorbell that rang the same way it always did when she pressed it, a known sound despite all the passed times.

Her heart began to pound as she stood there outside, gripping on the handle of her suitcase on one hand, and the other on the strap of her backpack, awaiting for the faces that she has been earnestly looking forward to see.

Metal clicked from the inside, slightly swaying the gate, and when it swung to the side, Raki's grandfather was there, looking a lot older than she remembered him looking, a lot like an old person than the grandpa who used to carry her on his shoulder when she was young, who ran around with her and rode bicycles with her.

Raki tensely bowed, out of respect and as her first form of greeting, and she should be saying something then, yet she couldn't bring herself to. Her chest was clenching, silently suffocating with her eyes stinging from the restraint.

Her grandfather watched her with his weary eyes, clear to her that he didn't know who she was. "Is there something you need?", He asked, his voice kind in the same way, yet sounding different at the same time, as if worn out from all the years of using it.

"It's me, Grandpa.", Her smile was sad. "Raki. .", Not a single time did she ever thought of the idea of introducing herself to one of his grandparents for the sole reason of them not being able to recognize her anymore.

"Raki?", It was his grandfather's eyes that first held the warmest of light. "Is that really you?", He smiled, possibly as sad as her's was.

It was right at that moment when she felt regret the most. Perhaps she would have handled the situation the same way over and over again, but there would always be room for regret. And she regretted all the years that she had thrown away for her grandparents to not recognize her anymore.

Like in a trance, she nodded, vehemently, a tear leaking out from her eye, rolling down her cheek. "Yes, Grandpa. .", Calling her grandfather could have became unfamiliar, yet there she was, saying it every chance she get.