Remnants of the Heart | Kim Taehyung

20: raison

ACT 2 — SCENE 11
SHE REASONS. 

          THIS IS the second time Seojung wakes up in the living room with no recollection of when she had fallen asleep. She's sitting on the floor of her living room with her cheek pressed against the coffee table when she comes to her senses. Other than the sound of the TV, there's no sign of life in the apartment, at least not until she hears a loud thump followed by a swear. Her first instinct is to panic because she would've never thought that she'd be getting robbed (or possibly killed) in the first year of living alone. The girl is ready to reach for the phone and dial the cops, but the figure that emerges from the kitchen makes her breathe a sigh of relief instead of causing a heart attack.

"How did you get in here?" Seojung questions her friend. As far as she knows, Arai hadn't been here when she got home from her classes and she hadn't been here when Seojung started some last minute studying––that she should've done nights ago instead of cramming last minute––before she passed out.

"I let myself in. You should really start reminding yourself to lock your door. I've locked it for you don't worry." Arai makes herself feel at home by plopping down on the couch, propping her feet up on the coffee table and on top of Seojung's papers. "So, how's everything going?"

Seojung answers that with an exasperated sigh. The past few days had been a whirlwind of trying to keep up with college and trying to stay on track with the search. Knows that she should slow down and focus on more important things like her education, but there's an itch inside her gut that keeps her from setting her priorities straight. What makes everything so hard is that a simple Google search is not going to tell her who her mother is. There are millions of Choi Jiwon's out there, and probably even thousands in the area, she would be lucky if she could narrow it down to just a hundred. Seojung didn't even remember that her real birth certificate told her that she was born in Seoul until she had the chance to take a good look at it again. Only recently that she noticed the hospital name listed on the document, one that's only a two-hour drive out of sheer luck but she hadn't bothered to ring the place up, doubting that the people would disclose any kind of personal information to a desperate girl.

But perhaps everything made more sense now. Her parents never talked about how things were like after she was born or what kind of food her mother craved when the woman still had her in the womb. It's because they hadn't been there to experience any of that, and it makes her feel more sad than disappointed. Had even called her mother a few days ago just to ask her about it and only got a made up story about how she was born in the hospital in their neighborhood instead. She had always believed that she was a Busan girl through and through. Another thing to add to her list of things she didn't know about herself.

It's possible that her parents adopted her in Seoul instead of Busan, but it's also possible that her mother came to Busan before she let them adopt her instead. Everything is suddenly a lot more confusing than it already was. Right now, the only hope she has is that hospital, holds on to the possibility that they still keep records over seventeen years of age.

"Jeongguk said I need to take it easy."

That had been a few days ago at lunch, the only time they're bound to see each other during the day. He had asked her how everything was going, so Seojung told him that it's what has been giving her headaches lately. Instead of saying everything will turn out okay and giving her the support she always expected from him, he said that she was devoting too much of her time for it when she could be focusing on college among other things. It completely threw her off. She had always known Jeongguk to always have her back, so hearing him say that and sounding so blunt about it was... new. Had her thinking that Jimin had completely brainwashed him into taking his side of things.