Every Little Reason | BTS

32 | Strike A Familiar Note

I watched the blurry streets fly by through the window as I found myself sitting at the back of Chang Wook's black Benz, making our way to meet my real father. Jungkook sat quietly in the passenger seat, the elder lady sitting beside me, and the other boys trailed behind us with a red SUV.

"Let me look at you..." The elder lady whispered wistfully as she cupped my cheeks with her hands, her brown eyes observed my face for a long moment, and it watered again as she continued, "My daughter is so beautiful..."

Eomma...

I blinked in surprise when I heard the specific sweet voice at the back of my mind. But I did not question it because I knew it was Jinhee's voice. She was crying inside, too. I stared at the tearful lady before me as she enveloped me into her motherly warmth.

Even though I was still confused with this whole situation, for an unknown reason, I felt comfortable with her. She felt like... home. And as I looked at her, my mind began to wonder if everything she said was true. Was she really my birth mother?

"Mom, please stop crying..." Chang Wook spoke from the front seat with a frown, his black eyes swirled with concern through the rear-view mirror. "I can't focus on driving when you look so sad like this. It makes me want to stop the car and hug you..."

"I-I'm sorry, son. I'm just so happy to see Jinhee..." She wiped her tears almost immediately, a shy smile spread across her lips. "It feels like a miracle to see her after 21 years..."

"W-what? 21 years?" I looked at the lady, eyes widened with shock as I couldn't believe I'd been separated from my birth mother ever since I was born. What happened?

I had so many questions running through my mind, but as I looked at my birth mother—the great longing shimmered in her beautiful eyes and the way she held me so dearly—all the doubts and fears that crawled in my head had gone out of the window.

"After I gave birth to you, your father asked me to leave this country, in hope to protect me from the killer who's been chasing after us for years..." the lady said with a quivering voice, "I didn't want to leave you behind, but your father begged me to and he promised me that he'd protect you at all cost... So with a heavy heart, I held you for the last time and left this country."

I was momentarily taken aback by the foreign information, a heavy feeling plunged in my stomach. And all of sudden, a flashback of the night when Jasper and Ray debated about my memories flashed into my mind's feed.

"You told me how you found Mia for the first time. You said she looked like she was physically hurt by someone. If someone was chasing after her four years ago, then we've all the right reasons not to let anyone from her past know about her existence, or someone might hurt her again!"

So it was true. There was really a malicious killer out there who was hunting down for my life four years ago.

"After I heard what happened to you four years ago, I couldn't believe it. I quickly took the earliest flight to return here, and when there's no confirmation about your death, I didn't know what to do. I become a crying mess. I can't stop blaming myself for all the misery you had to go through. As a mother, I failed to protect my own daughter... Jinhee, I'm so sorry... I'm sorry for bringing danger to this family, it's all my fault..."

Eomma... Don't cry...

The same sweet voice echoed inside me, but I couldn't say anything to the lady who began to weep with tears of grief. I was afraid to call her as my mother, because I was thinking about my other mother that I had lived with for as long as I could remember. At that moment, I just tried to listen and wrap my head around the new details of my past life.