Mushroom Chocolate

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"Daddy, daddy!" the little girl broke into a fit of giggles. "Faster, daddy! Faster!"

"Hold tight, princess!" he instructed as he held tightly onto the knees of the girl sitting on his shoulders and sprinted around the garden.

"Yeobo, be careful!" the woman yelled at them from where she was pushing a little boy on the swings.

The panoramic shot seemed to be taken from afar, perhaps from a camera sitting on a tripod or something. The quality of the video wasn't too impressive, but you could still make out the people and the colors in it. It was clearly a sunny summer afternoon.

The woman kept pushing the little boy who kept chanting 'higher, higher' with a wide grin spread across his features. At some point, the little girl had been put back down on the ground and she was running in the tall grass chasing a yellow butterfly.

"Daddy, look!" she squealed excitedly while pointing at the beautiful bug.

"That's so pretty. Come here" he ushered, crouching down and spreading his arms open for a hug.

The little girl with the dark hair in a ponytail and the pink floral dress ran to her father giggling ecstatically, and she laughed out loud when the man enveloped her in a tight embrace.

"I love you, daddy!" she declared as she kissed the tip of his nose and let out a tiny gummy smile.

"I love you too, Roseanne" he said, his back to the camera and the only thing visible was his side profile as he returned the gesture. "You're daddy's little princess. Never forget that"

Roseanne scoffed bitterly and she clicked the TV off with a scowl. Taking a sip of her whiskey, she glanced down at the time on her phone and sighed defeated when she realized just how late it was already.

Saturday July 6th, 2019 (10:12pm)

How long had she been watching those old videos for?

Hugging herself with the fleece throw-blanket over her shoulders, she got up and slid the glass-doors to the veranda open, stepping onto it and plopping herself down on the porch swing. It was very windy outside and the temperatures had gone significantly low, but she didn't seem to mind despite de fact that she had forgotten about the difference in seasons in Auckland and hadn't packed any warm clothes. All she needed was to escape her own thoughts.

She felt the roughness of the opaline paper in her hands peeking from the envelope and had the urge to crumble it and dispose of it like garbage and pretend it never existed but decided against it. It was now or never – she had written that letter with a purpose and there was no way in hell she'd back down now, no matter how hard her mind was telling her to run away like she had been doing her entire life up until that point.

Gazing into the chilly night, Roseanne found comfort at the glimpse of an old swing and her mother's yellow gardenias in the backyard. A flock of childhood memories flashed in her head, flooding her brain with nostalgia and invading her heart with heavy feelings she couldn't control. She was home but it didn't feel like home. It felt empty, and dark and numb.

With a more confident grip, she pulled out the elegantly handwritten letter from the envelope and proceeded to read it for the nth time:

Seoul, 2019

To my father,

I know you are probably wondering why I wasted so much time writing down something I could've easily told you in person, but easily isn't really the case. And we both know this is not my type of confrontation, so I will be as brief and concise as possible.

I'm not your little princess anymore. I'm an adult and I've made my decision.

I will always be painfully aware of how much shame I've brought to this family, like you once said, and how much you are already disappointed in me. For years I have tried to make amends and fix what I ruined in the past, and I've worked hard to earn your respect, but it just never happened. It's like no matter what I do, I will always be the rebellious, bratty, spoiled and problematic teenager that left your house – and with that, your honor – all those years ago.

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