The Girl with the CD'S [ ryuryeong - short story ]

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 "Chaeryeong, darling, you must get up. It's late.

A female voice was heard entering the room in the dark. Then she opened the curtains and a little the windows. The girl scrambled on her whiny bed, covering herself with the blankets above her head.

-Chaeryeong, please.

The girl ignored her. Her mother sighed, walked up to her, and deposited her soft kiss on her head above the blankets.

It was the mid-nineties. The streets of England were covered by vast fog that autumn.

Judy was in the kitchen preparing breakfast for her daughter. Chaeryeong was a special girl. She had been diagnosed since childhood with an unspecified pervasive developmental disorder. It is a kind of disease that affects being able to socialize correctly with people. Either hindering verbal development with others or lacking the ability to easily interact with people. Everything in her head was fine. I didn't have any kind of cognitive problem. She was not a genius or a stupid one. Her brain was that of a normal girl. The person closest to her, her mother, was the one with whom they exchanged the most words. Any kind of human contact other than her made her nervous. She had suffered a panic attack at school when she was little, the teachers and her classmates were very scared and had no idea how to contain her, it was not until her mother came to the establishment when she finally managed to calm her down. From that day on, her parents decided that she would study at home with a trusted person, without exposing herself to so many people around her that they could suffocate her. No specialist had been able to tell her precisely if Chaeryeong would cease to be so at some point in her life. But she didn't lose hope.

He heard the footsteps of the girl coming downstairs and turned around hiding something behind her back. The seventeen-year-old entered the kitchen slowly wearing her striped pajamas, her reddish hair in an uproar and rubbing one of her eyes with her fist.

-Hello heart. How did you sleep? " She asked in a sweet tone as she served things at the table.

The girl just shrugged, not being rude, and took a seat.

-Eat before it cools down.

It was Thursday. Chaeryeong had private lessons in the living room of her house from Monday to Thursday with a very nice woman named Chaeyoung. She had been Chaeryeong's instructor for years, she was used to her behavior and she could trust her instructor. On Fridays she had an appointment with her psychologist. She didn't spend as much time with that woman as she did with Chaeyoung. They had not formed an affectionate bond between them, so their conversation was shorter. Saturdays were her days off. Her mother demanded absolutely nothing from her on Saturdays. She could sleep until the time she wanted and invest her time as she pleased. Sundays were Chaeryeong's least favorite days. Her family gathered at her grandparents' house for lunch together. Her uncles and cousins were there and she had to endure that human contact for a couple of endless hours.

On Thursdays she had math classes. She hated mathematics. She wasn't bad at them, they just weren't to her liking and Judy knew it perfectly. So she was always looking for a way to make up for it, either with her favorite food or some kind of present.

"Chaeryeong," she called softly, making the alluded to stop eating and notice her, "I have something for you," but the girl, like most of the time, had an expressionless look.

The woman pulled her arms out from behind her back and showed her that in her hands she was holding a music CD that Chaeryeong wanted. She held it out to her and she took it by watching her carefully, admiring every detail, as with every gift her mother gave her.

-It's the one you wanted, right? – She nodded while still seeing the object – Is there nothing you want to tell me?

Chaeryeong stopped looking at the CD to see it in the eyes and after a few seconds finally said she said a simple 'thank you' with a very tiny smile.