Eyes Full Of Stars || Park Sunghoon

49 ¦ What if?

It is the first time in over two months that I have returned to the house where I grew up and where my father almost beat me to death.

Now that I am officially engaged to Sunghoon and will be living with him, I want to get some of my things from home.

"You seem tense," Sunghoon notes with a glance in my direction as he stops his black Bentley at a red light. He releases his fingers from the steering wheel and reaches for my hand, which is resting on my lap.

"We can turn around if you're uncomfortable," he suggests to me. Gently, he strokes the back of my hand with his thumb. But I shake my head resolutely.

"I can't run away from my problems forever. Besides, he's not around to hurt me anymore," I murmur, returning his gaze. His golden brown eyes bore deep into my green ones before he takes his hand off mine and reaches for my face instead.

"Okay," he says, leaning over to breathe a kiss on my lips. Sunghoon then wraps his fingers around the steering wheel again and fixes his eyes back on the traffic light, which is about to turn green.

The car starts moving again and after another ten-minute drive we reach my parents' house, where Teresa and my mother moved back in a few days ago.

Everything looks the same and yet it feels different to be here. Foreign. After all the years I've spent here, these walls still no longer feel like my home. 

Sunghoon parks the car just outside the front door and turns off the engine. He then unbuckles his seat belt and opens the door to get out. He stops immediately, however, when he notices that I'm not moving and instead looking out the passenger window at the house. 

"Are you okay, Lola?", Sunghoon asks worried. The sound of his voice brings me back down to earth and has a calming effect on me at the same time. I swallow the lump that has formed in my throat. 

In response, I nod. "It's all good," I assure him, ignoring the slight tugging in my stomach that I've been feeling more and more regularly for the past few days. "Let's get out of here." 

Together with Sunghoon, I get out of the car and as we are walking towards the front door, it already opens and my mother greets both me and Sunghoon with a warm hug. "We've already started packing up the rest of your clothes," Teresa informs me, coming up behind my mother in the hallway. 

Both women look carefree and free, which makes me more than happy. It feels good to see my mother with a smile on her face. That has happened far too infrequently in recent months, but also years. 

"Thank you," I say and wrap my arms around Teresa, who returns my hug with a smile. Even though I know full well that my father is in jail, I can't shake the idea that he'll come storming out of his office at any moment. "We should get started," I suggest, a little too motivated, breaking away from Teresa's and my embrace to look at Sunghoon. 

Although I'm happy to see my mother and Teresa again, I don't want to spend a second longer than necessary in this house. Together with Sunghoon, I go upstairs to my room where, apart from my empty closet, everything still looks exactly as I left it. 

While Sunghoon is already working on one of the packed boxes to close it, I stand rooted to the spot in the doorway and stare at the place in my room where I laid on the floor after my father had beaten me so cruelly that I almost suffocated.