Lessons From Romance

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Speeding through the streets Namjoo ended up at her apartment in almost five minutes. She was angry at her mother for never sharing with her her father. She was angry with her mother for taking her from her father, leaving him, abandoning him, and letting him die alone. It wasn't fair. Namjoo would have given anything to see her father once, just once; even a glance from afar would have filled her heart up with satisfaction. But the chance...she'd never been given.

When she thought of how sad her father might have been, not being able to see her grow up; Namjoo felt saddest. He probably didn't even know how she looked like, he'd missed her graduation and he'd missed watching her grow up. Where she'd grown up and whether she was with fortune or not didn't matter, all she cared about was growing up with someone she loved. She would have been happier with her father than in that house where she'd felt like an outcast for so many years.

Namjoo suddenly thought that if her father were alive she'd cry to him, she'd tell him about all her pains. He'd hug her and tell her everything would be alright and that was all she needed; someone to hear her out.

Racing into her apartment Namjoo searched through her closet for any kind of duffel bag, but when she couldn't find one she grabbed her old high school backpack. Immediately stuffing it with any kind of clothes she grabbed anything without much thought. All she thought about was how she wanted to leave this city at this moment.

Namjoo knew she was being impulsive; that she wasn't really thinking or in her right mind, but she couldn't stand being in her apartment so alone. For a few days, couldn't she have the right to escape for a few days?

As she got up to go she stopped in the middle of the doorway. Yet she couldn't leave her responsibilities just like that.

A few seconds later, Bo Young picked up, "Bo Young, I'm going to be gone for a few days. Turn in my leave for me; I'll make it up when I return. Thanks."

"Wait, where are you going? And for how long? Namjoo, Namjoo!" But Namjoo had already hung up.

Namjoo took another step forward and clutched onto the phone in the middle of her hand. In the end, she didn't want any contact with anyone after all. Tossing the phone onto her bed she walked out of the door and started toward the road. The sky was starting to darken, but life around her was as lively as ever.

After hailing a cab Namjoo directed the driver to the bus station, bought a ticket, and was headed for the countryside. She slept for half the night before awakening to the dim eerie blue of dawn. The sun was yet to come up and she was yet to arrive at her destination, where she'd born. Along the drive Namjoo stared at the picture of the thin man sitting beside her in old shorts and a dirty tank top. She didn't think she could have been any older than five or six years old.

Namjoo was overwhelmed with regret, her heart filling up with another hole.

The grandma in front of her handed her a roll as they neared the village. Within another hour and a half Namjoo finally left the bus, its engine roaring into the distance as it left her. Before her was a long dirt road leading to shabby homes, some of them yellow; some of them white but all with some type of red rooftop.

Lifting the piece of paper up Namjoo stared at the address and lost, walked up to a woman walking out of her home in rain boots. She was carrying a basket of some kind of seeds in her hand, Namjoo saw as she neared her.

"Excuse me, do you know where this house is?"

"Ah! Up there," the woman pointed her hand back, "it's closer to the bottom of the mountain, way over there. Just keep going straight and you'll reach."

Namjoo nodded and stared down the long winding road that seemed to never end. The sun was slowly rising and she was starting to sweat the further she got. There were dogs barking at her from the yards of the village houses and children running around would stop to stare at her before resuming their games. Namjoo saw a few adults, but most of them old grandmas and grandpas in flowery pants or solid colored pants. Few would glance her way, but none of them stopped to question her.