Hourglass

Chapter 4 Ryujin's Perspective

Seoul University for the Prestigious & the Top (SUPT)
Courtyard
8:10 am
13 hours before the incident

Ryujin sighs as she looks back at the conversation on her phone. Yeji won't be able to meet up this morning, and insisted that she should go to her class first. The thing is, she doesn't have an early morning class. Her first class was at 10:00 am. She only wakes up early because she wants Yeji to be the first person she sees every morning. Disregarding the fact that Yeji broke their routine, Ryujin slowly walks back to her house.

Ryujin lives alone. Not officially, but it basically feels like that. Technically, her parents and brother still consider it their family home, but they themselves are always too busy to come back. After all, they still have their own flats wherever they are. Her father is always on a business trip overseas, her mother basically lives at the hospital, and her brother has many clients needing his services.

She reaches the massive, black menacing gates. Walking over to the security pad, she types in a number followed by a fingerprint password. She walks up the stone path after hearing the gates shut securely. Flowers and bushes decorate the front yard. Although Ryujin's mom is never home, she insists to hire a daily gardener to keep the house looking "fresh." Walking up to the tall and dark mahogany double doors, Ryujin reaches for another security pad. This time, it requests for her entire handprint. Kudos for her father's technology company for making all the excessive security. Her father was indeed paranoid. Once successful, she's finally able to go inside her "dungeon".

She drops her backpack on the floor with a loud "thump" as she leans her back against the doors.

"Home sweet home," Ryujin says bitterly.

All the rooms were extremely clean and untouched. She never hung out in any of the rooms beside her bedroom and kitchen anyways. Releasing another sigh, Ryujin leaves her bag by the doorway and trudges up the grand marble staircase. She walks up to the second door on the left and opens her room. Ryujin walks up to her king sized bed and plops on the soft mattress. She felt that the bed is way too big for one person, but dismisses the thought quickly.

'No time to think about irrelevant stuff like that,' Ryujin thinks.

After all, Ryujin has always been alone. She'll never forget the time when she was a little girl, probably no older than 6. The time her entire family was home. The time when they all hung out and played together. The time when she actually had a family. The time when she was happy.

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As she got older, they slowly left, one by one. First was her mother. She was already a busy person, being a neurosurgeon and everything. She always came home late at night or sometimes spent a few days in the hospital. On the rare times she did come home, Ryujin's mon would always be super tired, always telling her little daughter "sorry Ryujin-ah. Mommy's tired. I'll play with you next time, ok?" And then Ryujin sees her mom walk into the parents room, shut the door quietly, and leave Ryujin in complete silence. After that, her mother got into a research project regarding the creation of a brain by scratch, and had to travel around the world, researching.

Next, was her father. A spitting image of each other, Ryujin's father actually loved playing with her. Whenever her mom was never home, she hung out with her dad when he's out of his office for a quick break. It would only last for 15 minutes before he had to get back to work, but it was the highlights of Ryujin's day and her crave for attention was satisfied. Her all-time favorite moments were when she's in bed, when her father would lightly tap on her door in a pattern only they knew, and come inside with a book in hand. It became a routine for father and daughter to read a bedtime story before sleeping. As nights go by, Ryujin waited for those particular knocks, and each night they come later and later. Her father always apologized for coming a bit too late for children to still be up, saying that there was more work than usual. And there was more work. It piled and piled, until their little routine became nothing. Their daily hangouts during her father's breaks slowly vanished, until she never saw her dad anymore. She'll remember the day he finally came out of his office. She remembers running up to his legs with her arms wide open, and hugging him. He picked up his daughter and Ryujin remembers how tired his face looked. She remembers him saying something about drops and rates and something about deals. He would then look at his daughter and chuckle, saying "Oh Ryujin-ah. I'm talking gibberish to you aren't I? Well, your dad is going to have to go on a trip for a while ok? Don't worry I will come back and play with you before you know it. I promise to spend an entire day with you and more!" She'll remember seeing his whisker smile, much like her own and seeing his suitcase slightly behind him. She'll remember watching him go out the mahogany double doors, with her yelling "Bye papa! Come back safe!" And him giving a sad smile back as he never came back through those damn mahogany doors.