The sound of glass breaking woke In Ha from her reverie. Almost instinctively, she reached for her phone, finger hovering over the call option, ready to bring in entire police force should such a need arise.
She slipped into her furry slippers and hurried over to her father's study; the anticipation of what she was going to find already causing spams of pain to throb through her skull. Reaching the door, In Ha hesitated. She could hear her mother cursing loudly, throwing around, what she assumed to be her father's books.
She slowly opened the door, and almost immediately ducked to avoid the incoming projectiles her mother was shooting with an eerie precision for somebody so drunk this early in the afternoon. The headache had by now, carved its place, and In ha knew she wasn't going to be able to go through the rest of the day without a painkiller or two.
"What happened this time?" she sighed, stepping around the broken glass gingerly and picking up the family photo from the ruins of the frame.
Her mother, who had been pacing around and swaying in a drunken stupor, turned mechanically to face her. "What could possibly be different from the last?" she slurred, blinking at the lights overhead.
In Ha's forehead turned into a frown. "Why do you do this? Why do you call him? You always expect something more; something different. This is insanity, mum."
Her mother stumbled forward, grabbing the front of In Ha's robe and shaking her. "You don't understand," she said slowly, and In Ha could smell the alcohol that had taken a permanent spot in her life. "No, you won't understand. You don't know. Your father, he loves me. Yes, he does," she murmured to herself, nodding at her words.
Frustration coursed through In Ha's veins. The carbon copy answer of the carbon copy question she asked each day was increasingly heightening her anger. She pushed away her mother's hands from her front and burst out, "There is therapy for delusion, mum. If I was saddled with a wife who didn't know money from warmth, I'd go to another woman too."
Disbelief struck her mother's face. Somehow, underneath the hazy cloud that had occupied her brain, In Ha's words cut deep, and large tears began to form. The sight of them irritated In Ha even more, and she turned on her heel, kicking away the ceramic remains of a broken vase on her way out.
Reaching her room, she crashed onto her bed, burying her head under her pillows; trying to ease the hammering in her head. She closed her eyes, breathing in the new perfume the household help; Sun Hee, who was her lifeline to a stable mental health; had bought recently. As expected, it smelt like something that cost a fortune should, but it wasn't calming her down.
In Ha sat up, and decided to spend the rest of the day away from the house; away from the incessant noise and culmination of wealthy abomination.
—
Walking down the winding streets of Seoul always calmed her down. The roads lined with cherry blossom trees made the wind blowing through her hair enchanting. She passed by a group of children playing with water guns, and she bent down in front of them; trying to persuade them to let her play too.
They ran away. A rich woman is always intimidating, even more so, if she sounds as cold as she looks. And In Ha was the embodiment of stony-faced women. She'd been despised by school-mates and teachers alike, and the corners of any room were always occupied by her.
Her life was a photocopy machine of encounters and incidents and habits. The boredom and the thought of an endless, unsatisfactory life ahead of her sprouted a sense of trepidation and fear. The vision In Ha had in her mind; that she wasn't going to amount to much; created waves of despair coursing through her veins.
That is why, she prowled the streets in the evenings, and the bridges at night, and the rooftops in the mornings. She could see everybody, but she was invisible. It was liberating.
So when her feet lead her to a large restaurant, with a large blue sign in flowery English script that read — Awake — , she let herself believe it was fate.
—
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