I was rearranging my books and dusting them off when I heard a knock at my door. I didn't look up and placed my favorite series in the middle of the shelf that had belonged to my mother and called out to the person standing on the other side of the door.
I bent to pick up the next books off the floor when I then saw shoes in the corner of my eye coming closer. Looking up, I grinned as I spotted Raiden slowly approaching. He never wore going-out clothes in the house, changing them the moment he stepped over the threshold because he hated the feel of jeans on the couch, so I guessed he was about to, well, go out.
He seemed unsure as he rubbed his hands together and gave me a crooked smile that didn't reach his eyes. I knew what triggered his behavior because he was still embarrassed about what had happened.
A month had passed since then, but Rai still felt like it was all his fault. Not that I'm saying he was completely innocent, because everyone had to deal with the consequences of their actions, but he didn't do anything that was completely reprehensible or illegal.
"Hey, Reva." he greeted. "How are you?"
I chuckled. "I'm doing all right. How are you, Raiden?"
He tried to suppress his wince, the sound of his full name making him even more uncertain. I called him Raiden when I was mad or teasing. He covered it up and smiled even wider. "I'm glad you're doing well. I'm fine too, thank you."
I set the last of the books on my shelf and turned my complete attention to him. I felt bad that I found it so amusing to tease him in his efforts, but it was funny regardless.
He turned his gaze to my shelf. "It looks very good. I like the color arrangement."
"Is this your way of sucking up to me so I won't tell you no?"
"What? No." he elongated the words, making him even more suspicious than he already was.
I stared at him with one eyebrow raised, hand on my hip.
He sighed, relenting. "Okay, you got me." he came to stand beside me. "Tristan asked me to go out with him. To get milkshakes or something."
"No crazy high school party?" I asked.
"Of course not," he answered honestly.
It wasn't like I would have said no or thought Rai was lying to me, but I just wanted to know. After the incident at the Jeon's, limits were placed on his going out times. Not as punishment, but as a discipline.
He had to understand that he was not invited to every house he was let into. But he was a smart and good kid, so he hadn't needed the talk and had apologized on his own for any inconvenience already.
After all, he was a boy who was at the age where he wanted to explore everything and I couldn't blame him. Becoming an adult sometimes meant making mistakes, admitting them, and subsequently preventing them.
And even though I still saw the little boy who became an orphan at only four years old, I knew he was on a good path to becoming a well-spirited man who had great values. His journey was a shining one.
He had also started going to the gym a few months ago and it showed. He was now half a head taller than me and his shoulders had visibly broadened. I would never stop teasing him by tousling his hair, though.
"It's an okay from me," I nodded. "Have you asked dad yet?"
My father was a bit more traditional, though he wasn't exactly conservative. His father - mine and Rai's grandfather - was fully Japanese, which made our fathers half-Japanese. When I was young, we had been there a few times on vacation, but I couldn't speak the language.
When our grandfather was traveling overseas, he met our grandmother. A beautiful but fierce woman with striking blue eyes with whom he immediately fell in love. Sadly, his parents had been against their relationship and marriage because she was not Japanese.
Perhaps that was where the circle was broken because Grandfather had taken it to heart that his love was not accepted by the people who were supposed to support him the most. I didn't think he had ever regretted going against them in his life.
Now our grandparents lived happily in Osaka and visited us a few times a year to enjoy their retired life. I loved them both very much and I was sure that my father had been taught his values by his father.
I could not say the same about my maternal grandparents. Although I loved them both just as much, I saw them less often. But they embellished each of our memories together, even though they had moved to another city after my mother died.
Perhaps they had not been able to stand staying in a place that reminded them too much of their late daughter. My father's parents had also lost a son - my uncle - but everyone dealt with pain in different ways, so I couldn't blame them at all.
"I wanted to. But he looked so engrossed in his work that I didn't want to disturb him." he shrugged.
"Well then, have fun." as soon as the words left my lips, Rai smacked his hand against mine, but I stopped him before he could turn around. "Be back by midnight."
"I will." he smiled and I smiled back. But when he reached the door, something else seemed to stop him. "Reva?" he called out my name and I hummed. His eyes looked worried. "Is everything okay with Uncle Riku?"
I furrowed my eyebrows because it seemed a natural reaction at the moment, but I recovered. "Yeah. Why?"
He raised a shoulder, then dropped it. "I don't know. I feel like there's something different about him. He seems so stressed out and troubled." he explained as his eyes darted around my room.
I pressed my lips together because I knew exactly what he meant. For the past few weeks, my father had something on his mind that he couldn't seem to share with anyone. I didn't know what it was, but there was a shift in mood and atmosphere whenever we sat at the dinner table.
And other than then, I didn't see him often. When I visited him in his office, he gave me mumbled answers, so I left after a short stay. The bags under his eyes had become visibly darker. And I reckoned that now he didn't reduce himself to just one glass of drink.
"It has nothing to do with what happened, does it?" asked Rai, pulling me out of my thoughts. "He's not still mad at me or anything?"
I walked over to him so he could read the sincerity of my words in my eyes. "Of course he's not, he never was," I reassured him. "I guess work is a little stressful right now. I'll be sure to check on him."
He nodded. "Okay. Thank you," he said before walking down the hall.
I let out a sigh that was trapped in my throat. Now that Rai had mentioned it out loud, I had bugs crawling in the pit of my stomach that made me feel uneasy. So I decided to approach my father about it. Not to confront, but to understand.
I made my way to his office, which was down the hall. As I walked past Sophia, she asked me with her hands if everything was okay and I told her yes. She didn't seem convinced after whatever expression was on my face, but she didn't point it out, just smiled.
Bringing my knuckles against the wood, I rapped twice on the door before walking in. My father was sitting behind his desk, his hand holding a glass. When he looked up, I was caught off guard by a view that reminded the viewer of a mug shot, no offense.
His shirt was not as smoothly ironed as it had been this morning and his eyes were bloodshot and his hair disheveled. He looked ten years older than he was and a twinge of pain occurred in my chest as to why I hadn't checked on him earlier today.
I did my best to ignore it, though, just because I didn't want to be blunt in his face about how bad he actually looked. "Hey," I said, stepping closer. "Haven't seen you all day. Wanted to know how you were doing."
He smiled, though I could clearly tell it was a forced one. We were both probably trying to be as normal as possible. "Good, I was just caught up in work." he laughed as I sat down with one leg up on the desk. "How are you?"
"Rearranged my books," I shrugged casually. "Rai asked me if he could go out with friends and I told him yes."
Dad set the glass in his hand on the table as he let a laugh fall from his lips as well. I could smell the alcohol all over him. "He won't stop asking even though I told him he didn't have to, huh?"
My eyebrows lifted in amusement and I rested a hand on his shoulder. "That's what he gets for what he did," I joked.
He slumped back in his chair as he grinned and his eyes fell closed. It wasn't hard to see that he hadn't been sleeping properly for the last few weeks and I was afraid it would turn into chronic insomnia. Maybe I was exaggerating, but when it came to loved ones, anyone would worry.
We waited in silence, though we weren't waiting for anything in particular. Maybe we both liked that it was so quiet and maybe dad wanted a moment from the turmoil in his head. He didn't often allow himself a break, but I appreciated it when he did.
Just before I thought he had fallen asleep in that short time we weren't talking, because his breaths had slowed, he opened his eyes and fixed his gaze on me. The gray seemed very dark and heavy today.
"I need to tell you something," he said after a few moments that felt like hours to me. I didn't know what it was that he wanted to tell me, but I could tell that it was something important just from the serious tension that had fallen between us.
"What is it?" I asked though I didn't know if I wanted to hear the answer.
He straightened up in his chair, his gaze now falling on the glass in front of him, around the edge of which he skimmed his finger. It seemed easier to lower his focus to it instead of looking into my eyes because he kept swallowing before he spoke.
"I'm only telling you because I want to be the one you know it from in case words get around."
"Did something happen?"
He took a deep breath. "It's about the Jeons." when he mentioned the name, it awakened something in me that was definitely not joy. "Jaesung wasn't thrilled about his daughter Dalrae hanging out with Rai, and his family is very conservative and traditional."
"You said you guys worked it out?" I wondered.
"Not exactly. He, um, he suggested marrying the two of them off so there wouldn't be any rumors. You know how it is when people talk. He wanted them to get engaged first—"
"What are you saying?"
I interrupted him in his sentence and the reason I let him talk for that long in the first place was that I needed to process the information first. I jumped to my feet and started pacing up and down the room.
I was livid, so much so that my heart was beating twice as fast as it had been a few minutes ago. I couldn't understand how anyone could use those words in a sentence, and I understood even less how anyone could even suggest such a thing.
"He must be out of his mind! Just because his daughter kissed a boy, she should marry him right away? Where the hell are we living?" I couldn't even see properly, so I didn't notice that my father was now standing in front of me.
"Can you come down for a second?" he tried to reassure me, his hands on my shoulders stopping me from pacing. "He suggested it because he thinks it would benefit both of our families if we bonded through marriage. I only told you because I wanted you to know."
"What benefits, please? All he thinks about is his business and pride." I pinched the bridge of my nose and a headache began to throb against my temple. I looked up at him. "They're just kids."
"I know, Reva." he pressed his lips shut. "I told him no anyway, so it's all good."
"That was the only right answer." I nodded.
"I got it all under control. Everything is going to be fine." He looked away now and the things he said felt like he was trying to convince himself rather than me. I doubted that everything was going the way he wanted but for some reason, I couldn't open my mouth to say it.
His face fell and so did his hands. The spot felt cold, but the shivers that ran down my spine came from a different place. I couldn't put my finger on it, but the way my father then lowered his eyes and walked back to his seat didn't sit right with me.
I felt like there was more he was supposed to tell me, but he didn't and his last words weren't persuasive at all. However, his dismissive demeanor and the way he turned his chair around to face out the window made it clear that the conversation was over.
I appreciated that he had finally opened up about it after so long, and I knew he wasn't lying about what had happened in the office at the Jeons because he had no reason to. So I took the uneasy feeling that still wouldn't go away and left his room.
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"December twenty-twenty-one. January twenty-twenty-two." I mumbled under my breath, making sure I didn't mess up any of the papers. Documenting and organizing legal and important papers required more concentration with which I had definitely not woken up today.
I was standing at my father's desk and the wooden surface was now covered in white. I had everything stacked, stamped, and organized as my father wanted. By month, year, and client. It was a favor that didn't cost me much time but saved precious hours for him.
Taking the next stack, after filing the papers in a new ring binder, I started over with the same steps. Dad was at his office down in the city, which was a forty-minute drive.
My legs were starting to hurt, so I dropped into his big leather chair, letting my eyes run over the black ink on the paper. It was dark outside, but the table lamp gave me enough light and I scribbled notes on a sticky note.
This continued until two hours later I had four ring binders full and still had more than twice that left. I was happy to be able to help my father because there was no way he was going to take care of cases in the morning and do all this in the evening.
I skimmed the words and before I put them aside, I noticed papers that had been discarded under the whole pile. I didn't understand what they were about at first, because they were different from anything I had read before, but when I realized what they were, my hand stopped in midair.
I almost didn't hear the door to the office open and close. "You're working." my father's voice rang out. I looked up as he was about to put his briefcase down on the sofa against the opposite wall.
"Yeah," I said, throwing my focus back to the paper in front of me. "What's this?" I asked, which caused his eyebrows to wrinkle.
He walked over to me and when he realized what I was holding, he took it away. "Nothing important." He laughed and shoved it all under another pile I had already sorted. "It was about a small case."
I pulled the papers back out the way he had shoved them there. He tried to take them back, but I didn't allow it. "Did you take money from Lewis Pérez?" I asked, no judgment in my voice.
Panic rose in his gaze and he wasn't best at disguising this. "Yes, but it's nothing. I have it all under control."
"Dad, it's over six million dollars!" I exclaimed. It wasn't the world, but it was still a lot of money that he had used for I had no idea what. Not that he needed to ask me, but I couldn't find a plausible answer as to why he had buried it.
I scrabbled for more documents that I would probably find while he stood next to me. I didn't know why, but he was quiet as if he found it reassuring that I had uncovered what he had been trying so desperately to hide.
And shortly after, I found what I was looking for. Numbers with at least six figures weighed heavily on every piece of paper I picked up. We were always rich, but even for me, the numbers lined up only to snake around my neck like a rope.
My eyes were wide as I found taken out loans from five different banks. When I lifted my head, despair was written in capital letters in my father's pupils, hammering away at me.
I felt bad for him because I saw exactly how messed up this was making him. But I couldn't stop thinking that it was a good thing I found out now, because who knew how it all would have ended.
Had he fallen into the clutches of gambling? Or had he gotten involved with someone you wouldn't even want to pass on the street?
My gaze softened. "Why didn't you tell me?" I asked when I understood it was none of the above. My father was just a man who had tried to keep his family on track on his own.
He slumped down in his chair and sighed so heavily, I knew I would still feel it in my chest for the next few days. "Things aren't the same after losing three of my most important cases, Reva," he started. "People started reaching out to other lawyers because they questioned my ability to win."
"You're a good lawyer." I countered, reminding him that everything he'd managed to do so far, he'd done it alone.
He let out a humorless laugh before his gaze hardened. "I'm not so sure about that anymore." he swung out of the chair, waltzing to the window and linking his hands behind his back. "I needed financial assistance until I realized I couldn't get out of the hole I dug myself."
I listened to him, but my mind was already racing at a hundred miles, desperately thinking about how I could help him. If only he'd told me about his burden sooner, the numbers wouldn't have grown so high that even Everest couldn't peek over it.
Applying for a job probably wouldn't help, because with a literature degree there was only so much I would contribute. Sometimes I thought about what it would have been like if I had gone to law school. What if my father hadn't given me the freedom to pursue what I liked?
"I don't know if Lewis Pérez mentioned the money I borrowed from him, but Jaesung's initial thought was to arrange a marriage for Rai and Dalrae so that he and I could start business. And not to let rumors start, of course."
"That's so low of him." I scoffed, though I wasn't surprised. "He's taking complete advantage of the situation for his own good."
Dad shrugged. "You're right. I can't force Rai to marry anyone, and Jaesung relented when he realized they are too young and it would be years before they could get married, if ever. But..."
I raised my eyebrow. When our eyes met, he shook his head and began to continue sorting through the papers on the table.
"But what?" I pressed.
"But I'm going to fix everything. You don't have to worry." He smiled, squeezing my hand that was now placed on his shoulder. I stopped him in his tracks and it broke me that he had suffered through everything on his own these past few weeks. Or months.
I knew just from the way he looked at me that it wasn't all Mr. Jeon and my father had talked about. And honestly, everything was starting to fall into its right place.
"But now he wants me to marry his son instead?" I finished his sentence. And despite my attempt to phrase it as a statement, it came out like a question.
"I said no right away, Reva. I got us into this, and I'm going to get us out," he said, this time with such determination that brought a proud smile to my lips. For the first time in days, I saw him as his usual self. "I've got everything under control. I just need a little time."
I loved my father and was grateful for all the sacrifices he had made for me and Rai. He had never complained about being tired, though every parent had the right. They were humans too.
And I wasn't a martyr because they all went to heaven, yet I didn't truly belong in hell either. But I knew I would be damned if I didn't try and help him out of his struggles.
The words left my mouth before I could attach significance to them, my brain still processing but it was my heart that ached for my family that spoke.
"Call and tell him I am accepting the marriage."
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A/N: this took so long to write because I didn't know if financial instability is a cliché reason to accept marriage but I guess it is and we all have to live with this story🙃