The Ocean's Memory

2) Home, be it bad or good

(a/n: i recommend listening to 'I'm Just a Man' by Jorge Rivera-Herrans creator of EPIC: The Musical. you're welcome)

I'm just a man who's trying to go home
Even after all the years away from what I’ve known

I'm just a man who's fighting for his life
Deep down I would trade the world to see my son and wife

For what felt like hours, Hyejin sat there, silent, right before his own. For what felt like hours that pampered them, made them feel like all the time in the world was kept in store for them for that very moment, Hyejin had her legs folded beneath her, head ducked against her chest in fear that if she was to raise it, he would not truly be there.

The first to break the silence was neither of them.

When it stretched further than their sanities allowed it, Iseul made it her job to step in. Her little footsteps left the spot where she had been standing, still, just as much as they were, and she walked towards her mother in a hesitance that Hyejin did not know her child could once possibly have towards her.

Hyejin turned to look at her daughter, the being that was all the reminder she needed for years of what amazing life she once had, and even when the small girl's feet looked  like they were taking her towards her mother, Iseul's eyes, in fact, were filled with the wounded man sitting before them, and it felt like they were devouring him with wonder and questions and longing.

It was an easy to choice for him, then. His arm that was leaning against the table extended before him along with the one that was wrapped around his torso. His sweating forehead and bloodied face did not stop him from trying to go for a smile, and he leaned in against his wound when trying to sit straight was impossible.

"Come, Iseul," he tried to let out in the softest  voice possible, fighting to have the hoarseness in his voice choose an escape in face of the gentleness he was willing to wear, "don't worry."

The tears were already spilling. The years were already spilling past the child's eyes, small fingers on small hands racing small feet to wear she knew the rest of her life was sitting, waiting, and a small heart was beating loudly beneath a small chest, promising that just like an adult, just like theh should, they have been waiting all the same.

Iseul's arms found their way around his neck, going all the way inside his arms, no longer stopping her sobs from making a scene, from removing all the silence in the space around them and making it their playground.

"It's okay," he winced, and his arms hid Iseul inside them very easily; his eyes were still on his wife, trying to ease the pain that made her face by merely looking at her, but the scene going before her made her silent tears flow stronger, and more painfully than all else, he did not know what to do, "it's okay, I promise."

"Appa," Iseul's arms tightened further, and even with all the pressure that had on his wound, he could not tell her about, he could not stop her. His own embrace became even stronger, and he reveled in his daughter's scent as if she was made of the ocean herself, as if the ocean knew exactly what it was made of only when Iseul came into existence, "I missed you, so, so, so much."

"I'm so sorry," he whispered, the apology meant to reach both his wife and daughter alike, "I'm so sorry. I know. I'm sorry."

At that moment, Hyejin felt the pressure on her chest escalate, and it was her only driver to try and get up, leaning on her hands and feet alike to push herself off the ground and find her sanity to speak. All through it, he was looking at her, his eyes never seeming to have enough of what was a whole truth, a whole existence that he yearned to see for years.