Maybe

Chapter 19

After giving a one-on-one statement to a police officer, Jackson stopped paying attention to everything that's happening around him.

He was currently sitting at the station's lobby when his father was being brought from the questioning room to his prison cell.

"Mr. Yoo Jae Suk, you didn't have the right to go kill people who have done wrong in this society," the police officer escorting him said. "Even if they've done wrong, doesn't mean you can just go and take them out from this world."

That caught Jackson's attention. "He what?"

"May I just talk to my son alone?" Jae Suk asked the officer who politely stood at a private distance.

"Jackson-ah," his father asked. "Are you okay?"

He looked at his father's face and for the first time he looked very fatherly and worried. He wanted to say he was okay but he clearly wasn't. Youngji had always told him he wasn't good at hiding his feelings.

Jackson didn't know what to say so he just looked down at his hands as if the callouses were just designs. He felt Jae Suk sit beside him and sighed. "I'm sorry I brought you into this."

Jackson was too tired to be enraged by his father's understatement. Too tired to even say anything.

"When your mom decided to stop doing what we do, I left her. I left you. I thought what I did was the right thing, was noble. Jackie and I went through a lot of hardships from bad people. And putting them down just seems to be the only way to stop them from treating people the way they did Jackie and I. It broke my heart when Jackie said we had to stop killing because you were coming. I tried, Jackson-ah. I tried. But I can't. And I've always regretted that."

"Why?" Was all Jackson could ask. Why bring me in? But his father seemed to get what his question was.

"I thought if you could just see what I do, you'd think I was somehow a good father, worthy of you and your mom. I was hoping you'd see what I do like how I see it," his father paused and stared at Jackson's face. "You look so so much like Jackie I can't let my men touch your face."

Jackson stared at Yoo Jae Suk as he stood up and let the officer take him to his cell. After everything he went through, Jackson felt relieved of how light he felt after his father's words. Even after what his father did to him, he felt good at how he started to forgive his father. He felt good that he was still the good person he knew who was capable of forgiving.