Sweetest Thing

Love Like No Other

Sitting in the train seat with Irene's head leaning on her shoulder, Wendy stared at the seat in front of her almost blankly. She didn't expect to hear what Irene just said a few minutes ago.

The latter blinked multiple times and checked on Irene if she's already asleep. She sighed after discovering that she is asleep and continued with her thoughts.

What Irene really told Wendy in the park is her deepest secret. No one, nor her relatives, even knew that deep secret. Irene revealed it to her while crying messily until all her energy got drained.

"To be honest...I wanted to say this to you since the very beginning." sighed Irene while tears stream down her eyes endlessly. "Because I know that you understand me, I know that you're the right person for me. But..."

Irene paused while wiping her own tears with Wendy's handkerchief. Irene felt this irritating feeling for acting like this in front of Wendy and clutched her fist tightly and closed her eyes.

"Sshh, that's fine. Take your time," Wendy gently intoned while snaking her hands to Irene's tightly clutched fists. Hearing her words, Irene obediently calm down and looked down. "But I haven't got the courage to tell this to you.

"So, in summary, my parents discriminated and abused me since I was a young child. They even told me to act like a cheerful kid when someone's around and threatened me that they'll let me live in an orphanage."

Irene sniffed on the handkerchief while Wendy gasped softly with eyes looking a little furious.

"They act like nothing happened when a visitor is in our house and pretended to be proud of me. I hate them. I genuinely hated them for not loving and appreciating me. Eomma kept screaming at me even at my smallest mistakes, meanwhile Appa will either lock me in my room for a day or punch me if I disobeyed Eomma or if I failed my tests.

"They kept saying rude names to me like 'crazy', 'lazy', 'sensitive', 'stupid', every insulting word in the Korean language. Everyone adored my parents for having such a 'good' attitude.

"In my school days, the bullies heard my mom yelling at me behind the school in building for having low marks.  Not to mention that the language my mom is speaking is German. The bullies spread the news to everyone in school and almost everyone hated me. Some students didn't hate me but they refuse to be friends with me. During those days, I have no friends and I cried almost everyday."

Irene finally stopped crying and looked up at the sky, which is now colored in a mixture of orange and pink with the sun currently touching the horizon. People started to leave the park while both of them remained seated in the bench.

"Life was really difficult for me in the past. So I kept promising to myself that I'll be having a job in the future. I'll be having a job where I'll separate with my parents forever and where I'll never have any enemies."

"So you don't have any enemies now?"

Irene turned her head to Wendy and gave her a small smile. "I do, a little, when I haven't met you. I was still suffering the same problem before but now that I met you, you just saved my whole life." Irene chuckled a little. "You gave me the love that I need, and I felt very grateful about it.

"Now, I don't know if I could handle you leaving Switzerland. You'll be leaving in a month now."

That's the time where Wendy realized that she is in a foreign country, not Korea. She also felt the same sadness inside her but didn't show it to her girlfriend. She wanted to be strong for Irene, she wanted to fight for her, protect her. Smiling brightly at Irene, Wendy pulled her arm and gave her a warm and tight embrace.