106 It was a rainy day(2/2)
When she suspiciously turns back, the fingers and death glare was suddenly gone, replaced with a puppy dog grin. Either way, she flicks him on the forehead before going to back ignoring the kid.
"Don't get cheeky."
"Mengy?"
"...."
"I was wrong. Come anyways? Please."
"I didn't say I wouldn't." she finally scoffed to his pleas, physically moving his head to turn back on his school work.
She observed this strange space around them. Too quiet, yet just right in the day time, all before the bar opened at night. This space she's been more than working in the last couple of years. The people, strangers turned regulars into her life.
It felt surreal.
"Are you going to visit your brother before you go?" remarked Jung-Soo, laptop already pulled out. The man either not bothered or deeming it safe to take a seat at the table Meng and JJ occupied.
"Hmm....yeah. He's out the hospital right now....feeling better. After my last final, I'll go. It works out."
"Yeah, stop by our house later. There are pears and some stuff that will be nice house gifts to take back." he smiled, gentler yet no less refreshing than his younger brother.
The pen Meng was marking with stopped, as did her breath. One beat, two, she swallowed dryly, refusing to feel touched by something so simple. Lingering guilt followed though she nodded with thanks and a smile she knew didn't look too plastered on.
Make it natural.
From where he was counting the inventory, the boss's booming voice sounded out.
"Your mom has been remarried for a few months now. How's it going?"
"Seriously?" came a disembodied voice from behind the sliding kitchen door, followed by some giggles.
"Shut up!" snapped back the probably most disrespected employer in town. But that was part of the reason Meng had even stayed for so long. For sort of kind and hapless man, even if he was a loser.
"Better. My uncle's nice....it's getting better. Thanks for asking."
"You still keep in good contact? Good, bring nice shit back. Don't give your mom room to complain about. "
"...Yeah. Thanks bossman."
Deep breathes. Meng takes deep breathes because it doesn't bother her. After all these years it shouldn't still bother her. Not just her parents' divorce, but the lasting effects it had. She's an adult now, it doesn't bother her anymore.
No one mentions her father, maybe it doesn't come up, maybe they all knew too much. Meng tries not to let it bother her how much she's probably pitied. Always has been. She swallows down her pride like acid reflux coming back up, again and again.
JJ silently leaned in again, resting his weight on her side and knocking her thoughts sideways. In recent years, his height shot up, towering over her where he once used to rest comfortably. His body heat still penetrating, even through the A.C.
"Is she happy?" the teen asked, soft against where he leaned.
"I ....would think so. Happier." Meng doesn't shake, and if she does, it's stabilized by the other weight half holding her without her permission. Something she's hardly noticed at this point.
"Hmmm. Okay then. To a happy marriage."
Meng bites her lip but one glance is all it takes. One turn and glance at those black moon eyes, lazy in the light, looking up at her with such honesty that she chokes on everything she's just swallowed. It comes out before she could even think about it.
"I still don't even know what that means."
"Hmm?" the teen hummed lazily, his arm tightening around her waist.
"No, nothing. Here, you did a good job but rewrite your conclusion, I can tell you just got lazy and repeated yourself."
"Meng...are you-"
Another voice shouts out from the other room, interrupting with the start, "My ex wife is crazy and I love her. We were happy together and we're very happy separated."
"Jones, that's because you're both gay." Jung-Hyuk signed from behind a section of the bar.
"Great marriage, worked out super well. Ended even better, her new wife is just adorable" responded back the security guard.
From the sliding door two women, one old, one young, popped out their heads ready to join the conversation despite their boss' squawking.
"My moms weren't married of the time I was growing up but I don't think it mattered much. Things didn't really change at home after it was legalized." said a dark skin Asian girl, a few years older than Meng, snacking on fresh chips.
"That's so sweet Hailey, I divorced my husband after he slept with my sister. Of course, she told me he wasn't even any good, aye that patán. I could have told her that after 20 years. We still raised up three good kids, sent them to college. Marriage wise, eh, not so bad. We had a good run." similarly munched the older woman, a bit of an accent to her.
"Do I pay you all to eat and chat?!"
"Booo. Don't be a bore."
"Vete a freír bu?uelos you holgazán."
"Aww come on boss, don't be like that. You know what you need? To get boned, look so my ex's wife knows a girl who maybe doesn't think she likes women anymore so-"
Red faced, Jung-Hyuk uselessly blew up at his employees. Not that they listened. John was still trying to set the man up.
"What everyone is trying to say, is that no one really knows what it means. It can be happy, sad, or whatever you make of it. Personally, I think it's just light domestic abuse. " calmly stated the middle brother, not even looking up from his laptop.
When he does, it's with warm eyes and a sly knowing smile towards the awkward pair at the table. The expression was so familiar that Meng breathes a sigh at relief, the strange tension in her gone. Possible the result of the comforting warmth still on her side and all the jolly banter all around her.
"From your mom?" joked back Meng, offering a small thankful smile.
"Yeah, sure. Our eomma, " chuckled Jung-Soo, pushing back up his glasses. Even though soft smile he offered looked more like a judgemental smirk. Can't be helped, that's just how his aura was. At least he was good eye candy Meng sighed to herself.
"Do you know what I think?" pushed Jung-Joon, sliding a pile of books between his brother and the girl in his arm.
"Consensual domestic abuse."
"I don't trust what you think."
Jung-Soo and Meng answered at the same time, their words overlapping. JJ pouted, play acting as if he was actually wounded.
"Aww, don't be like that. Really? I think most people get it wrong. Being together, just staying by someone's side...isn't that a nice dream? If you could just stay by that person's side, even if the past already happened and the future is happening before we can catch our breath. I think it would a miracle if I could live through it all with anyone. So, can it be with someone I picked? Someone that makes you want to think 'Ah, can it be you? Can I have it be you?' ....Is that too simple?"
"..."
"..."
Somewhere, wolf whistles sounded out. It sounded like John and Hailey before a hot-headed man yelled at them to all get back to work setting up for the night. Somehow though, he left his little brothers alone. That family immunity maybe, not as if he could ever win against them.
"Not bad." relented Meng, offering a head pat on the much taller youth. "Keep that up and you'll turn out better than bossman for sure."
It was simple yeah, far to simple for reality. But if it was this kid, with eyes and dreams higher than the sky, she hopes he gets it. She hopes he gets the world.
"Hmmm, you know what else I think?" titled Jung-Joon, expression entirely too blank and serious.
"...What?" she didn't trust it, but somehow she was already wrapped up in his arms?
"I think married couples pull off shit like this."
He goes for her ear, a long loud smack, with the barest hint of teeth scratching along the lobe. He really wished he could hold on longer, reluctant to part as blood rushed up for that alluring red blush. But he wanted to live another day, maybe past graduation? So....
"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! You! Get the hell back you fucking little shit!!!"
"Scuse me, sorry Paula, excuse me~"
"Fuck! I'll bury you in the parking lot, asphalt be damned! Sorry Paula. Get fucking back here so I can Gfkdaljalf#!@"
As they clamored over the bar and through the back kitchen and corridors, another regular to their bad comedy, Jung-Soo still didn't look away from his laptop.
"Domestic abuse." he sighed, right again.
A bad comedy plays in my head like an old video tape, the image squeaky as it rewinds.
Even if it was real, even if I pressed and kept my finger the rewind button, it wasn't going to work. Nothing would rewind. I can't rewind myself back to that time. To any of it.
"Chip? Are you still sulking?"
The man that picks me up in obscenely handsome, even if he is a read head. Sleeker and wealthier than any guy I've ever worked with, and my old company handled some insanely loaded people. I always got the priciest designer gifts from them, even if I had to sit through some awful meal times. I should thank my lucky stars I get to use him, this father, as both a walking atm as well as some golden eye candy. Even if I do have the suckiest identity in this world.
"...."
"There there now, papa was wrong. Here now you can see all the shining teeth in this case here. Don't try to touch as not all of them are safe for bare skin."
"Hmmf."
"That's my girl. Now can you tell me how much this specimen here would go for in the current market in an unprocessed state?"
I let father distract me, coax me even. The various little treasures in the cabinet of curiosities a lesson as much as it is fun. The abstract idea of money, how much such things could earn me, as well as the sparkling gems and magical beast cores, soothed my greedy little nerves.
That's right, money makes the world go round. Even my own. Yet I finding myself still frowning.
"How much am I worth?"
"...What was that Chippy?
"How much was one Rosalia worth? My engagement. How much?"
For a moment, it's just a staring match. Golden eyes pester mine as piano fingers brush my admittedly red-tinged bangs back. They're longer than any man I've ever known, though it may just look that way due to my current size. They're longer and oddly paler than even Jung-Joon's.
It's really been three years huh?
At this point, that brat is the same age I was when I died. He's finally caught up huh?
"Oh Rosalia."
The man I currently am forced to call father wipes at the moistness under my eyes. Ah don't touch me so carelessly, it stings. What if I get an eye infection? Who knows what you've been touching lately.
Despite my protests, he carries me down to a flat glass case. A yellowed detailed map pressed carefully flat, making the stains and tears all the more visible. The most details centering around one particular landscape, Ventrella territory and it's surroundings, growing blurrier and vaguer at the edges. There was even a burnt mark at more than one corner but that didn't diminish the sheer amount of notes and arrows in empty spaces of the hand drawn map.
It looks like grampa's handwriting.
"How much do you think that is worth?"
I wrinkle my nose at the filthy thing.
"The paper or the actual land? If that's grampa's then that thing can go for millions at collector's auction."
Father smiles, still petting my hair annoyingly as if I were a pet cat. My answer in range of his expectations. Really now, I wonder what I can say that would actually surprise this man. Other than the truth that is my birth, my existence.
"It was once considered worthless. This territory. The highest amount of magic spots, beasts galore, a forest of death expanding across leaving the open plains barren. Even if you could reach it by sea, there little good to be found. The people waiting to die."
I'm not liking this comparison after my very impulsive question. I really should have known better than to ask this man. He is after all, the one who sold me.
Just like him.
Even though they're different, so vastly different....why is it...that I compare them? This man isn't my real father. He's classy, handsome, and securely wealthy. He has a wife who loves him, who he loves back, a happy marriage whatever the hell that means. He sold me, he legitimately sold me in this world that accepts arrange marriages. What father does that?
"What kind of scum would do that?!" shrieks a voice, a scratchy playback in mind.
A useless sort of man, too kind for his own good and really not boss material at all. This strong slightly chubby man, possibly handsome if he shut his mouth, over a whole decade older than me. Than who I was, once.
"You! Don't go along with it so easily you stupid little girl! If your parents told you to go jump on a knife would you do that?! Aigoo! Ai this is not how I saw my day going! Ah run faster, don't waste my efforts!"
I remember. It was raining that day and I lost a slipper. I was so out of breath I felt like I was drowning. Do you know how hard it is the coordinate running like that?
"Don't fuck with me you weird old man!" I was angry.
"The hell!? I'm still a handsome young man! Oppa, it's Jung-Hyuk oppa. You should be thanking me and calling me oppa! What the hell was that man back there then?! Your grandfather?! You were going to fuck with that instead?! Ah teens these days."
"Shut the hell up!"
"You shut up!"
"Aaaaahhhh!!!!"
"Ai, do you know you cry so ugly!? Your father is such a stupid man, trying to sell off such an ugly girl! And the idiot offering money? For an ugly brat like you?! No eyes at all!"
"Shut! *hic* the fuuuck up!"
"Yah, if you have the breathe to cry so much run faster! Keep up with me! It's okay. It's okay to just run. You're a very ugly girl so it's okay to just run, you don't have to do that for trash that sells his own brat. I don't know your situation but you don't want it right? That's why you're still running with me. So it's okay, it's going to be okay. Bear with it and just run, just a little more."
It was raining, it was a mess. It was one of the worse days in my young life.
That's how I met Park Jung-Hyuk.
That's how I came to owe him a debt that money couldn't ever pay back. That's how I was forced crashed into a silly man's life, into that family. That day I ran away from my own father, the kind loving father who above all sense, sold me. I ran through a storm and came across the strange warmth of a foreign bakery. Even from the cold outside, it smelled of baking bread and sweet honey.
That strange man, dripping water like a soaked dog, stepped right through that yellow-lit threshold, yelling in a language I didn't understand.
I was frozen, numbed by running far past my limit while pelted with that awful rain. I stayed frozen, stuck and unsure what to do. On what I had done.
The door clatters noisily as it opens all the way. Golden artificial light temporarily blinding me.
A little boy stood there, all alone, just as frozen. I'm sure I must have looked like a mad witch to him, I'm sure I must have frightened him badly. The rain poured on.
Stiffly, a small hand reached out and waved to me.
"Rosalia."
Golden light turns to golden eyes. The dark silhouette of that little boy gone, but a shadow, concentrated down to my father's pupils and the squeaky playback of my own mind. It sounds like the static storm of that day.
I think this heartbreak is my own. I think I've been holding it in for a long time, longer than I've been alive.
There's a warmth I can't ever get used to pressed against my forehead, those golden glimmering eyes far too close.
"The price of this peace, this land, all the wonders and potential that I see every day I've been blessed to stand here, is worth exactly that. Priceless"
Kisses at my eyes, tickle wet with shed and still dripping tears. I don't want it. This kindness I've never received, not even once. Not in any lifetime. I don't want any of it. I want to go back.
I don't even know what I want.
"Rosalia. Tesoro mio."
I cry like I did that day, drowned and out of breath. Ugly and silent. The kisses at my face breaking me to cry even more. The damn I keep patching up failing me in the violent storm that never ended.
This man doesn't understand. He could never. He's not from my world and he's not my father. He broke his own daughter's heart and now he's somehow still breaking mine.
I know. I've known. I've known for so long and it still hurts so bad I can't catch my breathe.
The kind and loving father that I always known, had trusted, sold me out so easily. For his job, his promotion, money to save our breaking family. To save a stressed and fickle mom from breaking us further, to save Heng Fei and all the costs that came at keeping him alive. To save his honor as the man of the house, he sold me.
Some connection, some superior has said I caught his eye. Had for a while. Said he never had a daughter, let alone one as cute as me. Said he would love it if I ever came over to play.
On that rainy day, my ba' broke. On that day he sold me to a man older than himself because money makes the world go round.
Rosalia would understand.
But that girl is dead. Dead, dead, and gone. She wasn't even born this time around. It's just me. It's just me, the girl that ran and can't stop fucking looking back.
"Rosalia." the lingering kisses, this softness doesn't end and I can't take it.
My cries don't make any sense, all nonsense and not enough breath. Gibberish only I can make out.
Why?
Why did you sell me?
How much am I worth to you?
How much?
"Priceless. My little treasure is priceless."
I want to scream into that well-groomed face that nuzzles mine so brazenly. As if he actually cares. I want to deafen those redding ears. I want to ask everything the original ghost of this body didn't get the chance to, was too scared to.
"*hic* L-liar!" I sob, choking on myself.
I want to ask.
I want to finally ask if it was worth it. I want to watch as he crumbles, breaks, because he lost everything and more, even his pride. I want to scream and lie how much I hate him, for what he did to me. For what he let almost happen. I wanted him, us, back to the way were.
But I can't.
I don't exist in that world anymore. I can't confront my dad anymore. I should have while I had the chance, all those years. I shouldn't have just silently held it in, lying to myself that I moved on. I should have listened to everyone who told me otherwise, to Jung-Joon.
I can't see a single soul, not anymore.
Liars, it's not okay. It's not okay and it never will be.
"Chip. Tresoro. Little rising ball of dough. Rosalia. What's wrong today? It's not the hunt that upsets you. What makes my Rosa cry so awfully? Hmmm?"
"Liar."
"Hmmm, what have I done today? To make my little girl so tearful."
This man is awful, a true player. He nuzzles me with the experience of a man that has certainly made girls cry before. Cry and coaxed into the palm of his hand.
"You're awful-*hic* and I'll hate y-you *hic* forever." Yet I grip into his hold tighter.
"Ah, I see. Then I suppose I'll be contracted to make it up to you forever. No?"
Tight, his hug is so tight but somehow I feel as if I'm still lost and floating.
The tears still see no end. I suppose I really am the twin of the crybaby Lilyanne. Gripping and refusing to let go. It's like I'm no longer in control of this body.
Sometimes I'm not. Some of these things I feel aren't mine, though they mix and intermingle.
To the little unloved ghost I know is still lingering, merely sleeping, I know. I know what it's like when your parents, your father, is not a good person. I know it's a hard pill to swallow. I know what it's like to still love them, even if you don't know what that word means.
I know, and I'm sorry. I'm just as bad. I'm just as bad as you.
Soft lips, a married taken man's kiss lingers at my forehead. At too hot face and ears. When he rocks my like a child I hit him for patronizing me.
"I'm not marrying him!" I really don't know what I'm saying.
"Oh? That? Your engagement? Well, I didn't really expect you to."
"Liar! I better be worth a lot! More than anything you own! I'm not cheap."
"Inconceivable. Did someone indicate you were? My daughter? Give papa a hint and I'll have them punished and sold off for a pretty penny to soothe your awful little red head."
"You're awful."
"I suppose my dear, that we are."
Currently, this body is not mine. For it only clings on, as foul as my mouth operates. My arms keep holding on as I bury myself into father's hold. As if I could crawl into his chest and beating heart, begging not to be forgotten.
I just don't know who is begging.
Rosalia or me? I don't know who I'm begging either.
Just don't forget me.
You can sell me off, you already have. You can leave or watch me leave, both. Just don't forget me.
"...Don't forget me."
"....."
I think father holds me the rest of the day, silent as he was. I don't remember, for I fell asleep. His steady heartbeat was louder than the static rain outside.
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