My Beautiful Reality

Chapter 01

        "Woo-Mi, do you want more kimchi?" My mother asked distantly. Even though I was taught to not speak with food in my mouth, I was quick to respond with half-chewed ramen blocking out my words. She looked at me raising her eyebrows questioning my response. Me, being defiant, nodded without so much as a swallow. My mom readied herself for an argument, though it wasn't me she was disappointed with she announced. No. She aimed at my father and snapped. 

"This is your fault, while I tried to teach her manners, all you did was do the opposite!"

My father sat up straight leaning into the table. "How?!"

       "You would sit on that couch and beg for more food with food already in your mouth!" She pointed directly to the couch that was coincidentally being illuminated by the power-consuming TV. I was simply sitting back trying to be as quiet as possible, I was too tired to be yelled at and try to defend myself. Besides I wasn't ill-mannered, I was just comfortable at home; it's not like I would ever eat this way in public. 

      When I turned back into the argument, it seemed to steer away from me and more towards my father's laziness. I've heard it quite a lot. And my father always insists that his job as an entrepreneur qualifies him as a hard-working citizen of Seoul. But the one thing that shuts him down is when my mother uses his habitual eating of white rice and bulgogi while sitting down at his "office" at work, as a defence.

      Now that they were quarrelling about each others' flaws, I was almost invisible when I slipped under the table disappearing from their view. From there I crawled on all fours to my unnie, Seol-Mi's room. Keeping my head tucked in my shoulders I stretched my arm at her door handle. I gave it a wriggle, then sighed in frustration realizing she locked it. While she usually does lock it, I was hoping she hadn't because my parents were picking on me all day and l was sure they couldn't wait to take a hit at me again; so I figured it would be at dinner. 

        My parents make choices every day. And one of them is to toughen me up. I suppose I slightly understand because comparing myself to my sister at my age, I most definitely am accomplished. But now that I 24 it seems they are tougher on me because I'm not a doctor and instead am wasting my life on "google documents". So at this point, I don't am to please my parents, but instead, prove them wrong.

      I shook the handle slightly, but eventually got desperate and shook it vigorously. Her footsteps travelled toward me quickly. She swung the door open obviously tense by my presence. She scanned the area until I tapped her ankle. She looked down with her lips puffed and cheeks flustered like an angry manhwa character. I smiled brightly hoping to make her feel empathetic towards me. Instead, she circled back into her room without saying a word. She let the door open purposefully, as she would rather indirectly invite someone in than put her tough face away.

"Are you done with the sketch?"

      "Yes." She responded nearly emotionless. My feet began to descend towards her waiting for her to finish her unfinished sentence. When she began to disregard me and fall back into her phone. I leaned in and coughed. "What?" She answered to my attention-seeking gesture.

"Where is the drawing?!" I smacked the mattress to emphasize my excitement.

      She groaned. It was absurd! I paid her to do this and she couldn't even deliver it. She weakly pointed to the corner. I furrowed my eyebrows. "What is this?" I thought to myself. Is she kidding?

      I tilted my head. She could barely keep her eyes open. "Wait, no! It's in the drawer." She changed her response hastily. My mind started stirring until I was able to find the cause.

        "Unnie, are you drunk?" She looked up trying desperately to keep her head on her shoulders. "What?! No!" The way she stressed each vowel was priceless. It verified that she was drunker than my own mother. "You're so drunk," I announced as I waltzed over to the desk. Her desk was the most disorganized in her room. The pencil cup was empty and the pencils centred on the desk. It was annoying that she couldn't even line them up next to each other. "Unnie, how are you even able to work on anything in this mess?" I gathered all the pencils up and began putting them in a cup. I scooping up loose shaving that was scattered across the wooden desk. I would've put them in my pocket and thrown them out later, but I took a second to actually think about it and instead tossed them into the wastebasket in the right corner of her room.