Doppelgänger✔️

Recollections

Seven Years ago...

"Duri...I really think you and Hana should reconsider.."

Kim Bora follows close behind her son as he shrugged his jacket over his shoulders. The two were standing before the hyeon gwan as they faced each other. Her eyes shine with concern as she watched him toe at his boots before slipping them on.

"Eomma...We've been over this." He sighs.

Kim Duri shakes his head at his mother's usual antics. She never wanted him to leave when he came to visit, naturally as any mother would be towards their only child.

But this visit felt different to her.

Bora stammers as she watched him crouch down to lace up his shoes, rummaging through her mind for any reason to extend this moment. An idea strikes her as he stands.

"Seoul isn't safe you know..."

"Less safe than Daegu? " He snorts with the rhetorical question but his mother's expression sinks.

"You know what I mean. You should call the university and tell them you decline. There are other jobs son.." She tries to reason but trails off when an exasperated sigh passes between her son's lips. Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Duri tilts his head and regards his mother with as much patience that he could manage.

"I've already accepted. Hana and the kids are already moved into the house. The semester is about to begin. It's done." He responds, blinking slowly. Bora pouts at the response, officially stumped and out of ideas. She lets out a defeated sigh that makes her son's shoulders sag.

In an attempt to placate her, Duri places both hands on his mother's small shoulders and bends his knees to bring his eyes level with hers.

" Stop worrying. Please."

His tone was warm and firm, but there was an edge of pain in it that broke Bora's heart.

Her expression sinks when she gazed into Duri's eyes, something in her telling her something was wrong.

"How can I stop worrying when I know what is out there? With you all so far away, I can't protect you as well from so far. The children..." she shakes her head and Duri drops his hands.

"Jia and Taehyung will be fine. They listen to you every year and follow the steps. I make sure of it."

"It's not Taehyung and Jia that I'm most worried about son!" Bora raises her voice, catching Duri off guard by her desperate tone.

Suddenly his heart is filled with sympathy for his mother.

For his entire life, he'd been within arms reach. Even after he got married, he was never too far to be able to visit his hermit of a mother.
When Duri's father died 8 years ago, Bora became a recluse.

She never left her home and had everything she needed delivered, a lot of which by the hands of Duri himself.

She had a wonderful relationship with his children despite his wife not being comfortable with her "superstitions" and Duri was grateful for everything she'd done in helping raise them.

His childhood wasn't like most others, having her for a mother. The strange happenings surrounding them both. The many nights he'd heard his mother screaming from night terrors and the sleepwalking. The many visitors in their home. The "rituals" and rules. It became suffocating. So graduating and leaving for college was his main goal.