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CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN ( Eternal Punishment )
THE HOLLOW ECHO of the apartment code awakens the Cha household from its tense slumber. It is nearly 10 PM when Cha Jaehwa slips off her shoes at the door and softly shuts the door behind her, the ringing in her ears subsiding to plain silence when she slips off her headphones.
Her mother stands by the kitchen, her presence like that of a sentry awaiting the return of someone who will never return whole. Shestares at her sternly, arms crossed over her chest. Her eyes are sunken, bruised with exhaustion, hours of sleep lost worrying over a forlorn daughter who no longer seems to traipse around, afraid to disturb what was already there.
"Why didn't you answer any of my calls?" Boram speaks into the silence, her gaze following Jaehwa as she makes her way to the bedroom. She sounds frayed, a step beneath distraught and rational.
The sensibility in her voice has been burnt and frayed, and all that remains is exhaustion. Mother facing her daughter, daughter facing the wall of uncertainty that looms between them.
Jaehwa shrugs, keeping her gaze everywhere but on the woman before her. The dim lights make it difficult to focus. "I was visiting Suho."
The woman frowns. "Again?"
The silence mounts to something uncomfortable as Boram's eyes linger on Jaehwa. She has the sneaking suspicion the woman is trying to pick apart her expression by the minuscule amount of detail that flourishes on her worn face.
Jaehwa's eyes snap to meet her mother's, her brows furrowing and her eyes narrowing. "Yes. Again."
Taken aback by the rudeness of her tone, Boram's face twists in surprise, but her voice remains painfully crafted. Sometimes Jaehwa wonders whether her mother uses the same placid, calming tone on her that she uses for her patients. The thought makes her feel ill.
"Jaehwa, this isn't healthy. You can't go there every day." The woman murmurs carefully, searching the teen's face for a sign of anything — Whether it's remorse, guilt, or what seems to be the most profound these days, anger.
A pause. Then, buzzing silence. It seems impossible trying to describe the feeling to her parents, the agonizing hole in the middle of her chest, so instead she just paints over it with indifference and manipulative words.
Swallowing thickly, Jaehwa turns away from her mother. "He needs company. I can't leave him alone."
Her mother sighs, what's left of her resolve crumbling at the hands of her daughter. "Did you at least eat something? You've been gone all day."
"Yeah, I stopped by a street vendor on my way home." Jaehwa lies. She doesn't have much of an appetite these days.
Before her mother can make another qualm about her late-night return or her nutrient-lacking body, Jaehwa turns toward her room. "I'm going to bed. Night."
