Three Promises || Lee Know

8 | Iseul's Story

"Okay." My mother replied. "No one will know, and our family will stay happy and safe."

"I love you, Juwon-ah, you don't know how much I love you." My father said, kissing her forehead. "I just need to dispose off the dead body now. You'll help me, right?"

"Yes, I will." My mother replied, tears flowing from her eyes.

It didn't take me long to understand what the situation was.

I was 14, and I wasn't dumb. I completely knew what their words meant.

My father had just killed someone.

I was shaking so much from shock, but still managed to listen on a few details about what they were going to do next.

It was horrible. He was talking about it so lightly, making me feel sick to my bones.

I quickly ran towards my room and locked the door, trying to process whatever I just heard. I didn't know what to do and I was panicking.

I knew it was wrong. I knew what my father did was wrong. And I knew that he had to face the consequences. The people who killed someone always got caught in the end, didn't they? Or atleast thats what happens in the movies.

I don't know what got into me, so I just ran towards my aunt's house, not even bothering to tell my parents where I was going.

I was stupid. So stupid that I ended up telling her everything. I knew I shouldn't have. I knew mother and father would scold me later. But still I did it anyway.

And that was a mistake. Because my aunt...she called the police.

She told me she wouldn't tell anyone. She said she'll talk to my parents so that they don't make any mistakes. She left me there saying that.

But when she came back after some time, my father had already been arrested. I never wanted that, I loved my father.

"He deserved it," She told me when I screamed and shouted at her.

And she was right, I knew it. But I couldn't bring myself to accept it.

I soon brought myself to accept that fact though. Even if it took me a whole year. I soon realised what a crime he had done. He had killed someone just for some money.

And he had the audacity to say that he had done it for his family, that he wanted them to be happy. But in the end, we were anything but happy.

Instead, I was the daughter of a criminal, and my reputation was ruined.

The moment this news got out at school, I was bullied and treated horribly. Students even went as far as to write a letter to the principal to throw me out of the school. According to them, being a criminal's daughter made me a criminal too. I was at fault too, since I was that man's daughter. They wanted to punish me for a crime he committed.

I forced myself to think that it was his fault indeed. The love I had for my father was hidden away in the deepest corners of my heart, beneath all the hate that had grown for him inside me.

But it still existed, to my dismay. No matter how hard I tried, I always wondered if it was my fault that my life turned out to be this way.

The people didn't have an ounce of sympathy for us. I was unwanted and all alone.

I guess something similar happened to mom as well because she had to switch jobs too. Those two years of my life were the most miserable I'd even been.