Hotel Blue Moon || Hotel Del Luna ✔

04

Turning on the switch as I entered the apartment, I set the bottles of soju that I could afford on the couch.

Even if Mr. Lee and even Young Min chipped in for the funeral, I was still flat broke, and in debt. I work more hours at my jobs nowadays, leaving my academics behind. My education can always come afterward. I'd rather do that than get kicked out of the apartment.

As much as Anna and her parents tried contacting me, I rejected their attempts at reaching out. Mostly out of pride and stubbornness. I've cut Anna completely out of my life and I don't plan on fixing that bridge any time soon.

Maybe someday when the hurt isn't too fresh, I could patch things up with her, but I know that I will never be truly friends with her again. I just can't.

I take one swig of alcohol and sigh loudly. I don't care that my head is going to be pounding tomorrow. I don't care about the sympathetic and disappointed looks I would get.

Reaching over, I grab a picture frame from the desk that I have in the living room.

This is where Sun Won and I do our homework. I let her do hers after she gets home while I do mine after she goes to bed. I prefer here because our rooms are too stuffy and there's hardly room for the bed to fit, much less a proper workplace.

I look at the picture frame in my hand. I drink again.

It was a family picture. I remember this day very vaguely now.

I can't remember who took this picture or who wanted to have our picture taken, but I do remember this being the first day we ever lived in this apartment. My mother and father were on the very couch I'm sitting on, with a very much younger version of me in between them. Eomma was holding baby Sun Won in her arms, while I was leaning on appa's arm, my feet up on the couch in an Indian seat. I had a kind of smile I hadn't seen grace my face in a very long time. A content and relaxed smile.

I remember that we used to live in a bigger apartment. But when eomma suddenly realized she was pregnant, we had to move to a smaller place because with an addition of a mouth to feed, we couldn't afford our first home anymore. I didn't care though. I was happy that I had a sibling. I spent many years as an only child and it got kind of lonely. But when Sun Won came, I was never bored at home.

Now this place doesn't feel like home anymore.

Sun Won was closer to eomma when she was younger, while I was more attached to appa. Which makes our situation that much harder to deal with. Because I felt the abandonment of our father two years ago, while Sun Won probably died not remembering much of our mother.

I take another drink. And another. And another.

I take many swigs of alcohol before my grief turned to anger again. Anger at my father for leaving us, anger at my mother for not being there for us, and anger at Song Anna for letting my sister die.