Hwarang: Past Memories

Chapter 5: Tears

The funeral preparations were all set and we would be laying my father to rest shortly.

It was such a surreal experience? 

Where was my grief? Was my anger and hurt at him so great that it would not let me even feel his loss?

I knew my brother too was upset at Father, but he still seemed to feel the sting of his death. 

Why was I untouched by this?

His gravesite had been picked by Yeo-wool and Auntie would be helping us with the food preparations for any guests coming to pay their respects to my father.

I would be walking with them to the burial ceremony and then afterward back home. Jin-a would be by my side as well which gave me such a strange feeling to be bringing my daughter to her grandfather's funeral. A grandfather that never met her, nor wanted her. 

Once upon a time ago, I had imagined that I would have been married... have a family... pictured my father smiling at his grandchildren even, but that would never happen now. 

And as I tried on my white and black hanbok, adjusting it, I still couldn't manage tears.  

-

The priest was reciting prayers as we all stood in silence around the hole in the ground where my father would lay to rest for good. 

Quite a few people in the Capital had come to pay their respects to him and I could hear some weeping in his honor. 

While it's customary for women to weep at a funeral, I still hadn't. I'm sure I looked cold and cruel to some, but they had no idea what I was feeling and processing at that moment. 

Yeo-wool held onto my free hand the entire time. 

"Yu-ri, I don't expect anything from you tomorrow alright? Just... thank you for being here." Yeo-wool had told me. 

As I squeezed onto his hand, I still felt his support and lent him my own. He was my family and would always be my family, that hadn't changed. 

-

I had felt his gaze on me during the ceremony but refused to make eye contact. I had quite frankly had enough of Kim Soo-ho these last few days.  

There was a lot to still process from this week and feeling his dark eyes on me did nothing good, instead, it only intensified my conflicted feelings. 

Everything felt too close at the moment and too much all at once. The feeling of panic began to rise within me and I knew I had to get out and now. 

"Auntie, can you watch Jin-a for a moment?" I asked her quickly, handing my daughter carefully off. 

She gave me a strange look but nodded and I was off. 

I walked with purpose until I was away from my home... then I ran. 

The woods behind my home were mere blurs of green and brown. 

I didn't know where I was going, but I could not be around them right now. 

My breathing was becoming labored and I knew I had to stop. 

Leaning on my knees bent over, I paused by a small river. The noise of the water being carried felt soothing to my messy mind right now. 

It looked so peaceful, the water. It just flowed and flowed. 

My father once took us to a river to play while he fished. It was a very different time back then. My mother was still alive and we were a full family.