Serendipity ( Kim Taehyung)

Chapter 12

"No, you can't do that!", Jiwoo screams as she hugs her mother protectively, tears streaming down her face. "Father, please, you are drunk!"

"Shut up", he cussed at his own daughter, one hand holding the almost empty drink and the other holding a piece of paper. "Do you really think this letter would make everything better? Our family is already broken. You want a divorce?"

He laughs amusedly as he tosses the bottle away, and proceeds to tearing the paper in his hands. He has been drinking the entire night on which leads to him creating a scene. It was peaceful during dinner, the three of them enjoying their food at their very own outdoor dining area. The night air feels nice, not too cold  for a nice bowl of hot stew. Jiwoo's mother cooked for them with the intention that the delicious food would lessen the bitterness of the news she was about to deliver.

But it turned out that Jiwoo's father has found the divorce letter before she could even say anything about it. He got furious, started yelling at his own wife and starts blaming her for breaking the family apart. Jiwoo thought it would be just a quarrel, but her father has been secretly drinking in his office thus at this point, he is too drunk to even act rational.

So when her father suddenly gets aggressive and starts kicking the chairs, she called Haru right away. She needed help. She needed someone to be with her.

"Ji Yeon-ah", he mumbles with a sarcastic laugh. "You can't just throw me away—ditch me like a trash", he walks towards them, eyes blazing with despicable anger. "I am the leader of this family. You need me. Our daughter needs me—you can't live without me"

"I don't think I can do this any longer", Jiwoo's mother sounded afraid, stuttering as she hugs her daughter tight in her grasp. "You have been so harsh to us—"

"SHUT UP!", he yells at them again.

Jiwoo and her mother shudder in fear as they watch him walking closer and closer to them, fists tight looking as if he is about to hit them again. Just a moment ago he had slapped her mother till she stumbles onto the grass, blood pooling at the corner of her soft swollen lips. And when Jiwoo was about to help her, he had caught her wrists wanting to stopping her but she managed to free herself.

Jiwoo sits there, her cold hands shaking in fear as she holds her mother as if she is the only anchor for her to live through this frightening moment. When his father deeply groaned under his breathe, she feels her mother flinching in her arms, making her hug her even tighter.

"Stop it", a familiar voice made them turn to the opened gate of their house. "You need to stop"

"Haru!", Jiwoo calls her name weakly.

Haru gulps, half in fear and half in anger as she looks at the two helpless persons sitting on the wet grass, tears on their faces. Despite her fear of getting hit by Jiwoo's father, the urge to protect them overthrown that feeling thus she braved herself to approach them. Standing in between the two girls and the drunken man, Haru could only manage a sad smile to the mother before turning to the man.

"You need to stop this. You can't hit your family and get away with it again"

"You little spoiled brat", he scoffs at her. "I have never liked your guts. All you do is influence my daughter to be bad and now you want to act all heroic? Don't get on my nerve—"

"I am calling the police, for real this tim—"

"SHUT THE HELL UP"

His loud yelling made her flinch at her spot, trembling lips threatening to speak again but she couldn't. Her entire body shook at his rough voice, instilling more fear at the bigger person among them. Jiwoo's father has a very big and broad figure and he has never really been the polite one in the family. Never once had he ever spoken nicely to her, assuming she is the bad influence on his wife and daughter.