Chapter Text
Dinner was cold, just like the weather outside her parents’ house.
It was winter, and the falling snow made the air feel like a dense veil — she could almost feel it just by looking through the window.
The conversation at the table, like the weather, had cooled quickly. It was to be expected when a daughter returned home without explanation after nearly a decade away.
“So, Mira…” her brother said, stirring his salad and completely ignoring her dissociative state of self-protection. “How’s work?”
Great, she thought. Right on her open wound. The one topic she had been avoiding since leaving Seoul.
“It’s fine. And yours?” she asked back — not because it was polite, but because people usually liked talking about themselves, and Mira hoped that would steer the conversation away from her more sensitive subjects.
“Oh, everything’s great! I even got a Christmas bonus from the company for good performance.”
Yes, and that absolutely didn’t happen because you’re the boss’s son, she replied silently. She was avoiding sarcasm like a New Year’s resolution she hadn’t made yet.
She considered it practice for when she eventually would. Or a coping mechanism to make her parents see her as tolerable during the holiday — all because she had nowhere else to go. Mira would never admit that.
“That’s good for you,” she said, trying to sound pleasant. Maybe flattery was a safe route. Play it safe, Mira. You need a place to sleep for the next few weeks, and a hotel isn’t an option.
“How are the girls?” her mother asked. Fork skewering a piece of Christmas poultry, knife in the other hand; both forearms resting on the table, posture rigid.
Strange. For many reasons. Her mother usually avoided bringing up Rumi and Zoey, as if she saw the girls as the main reason Mira had left — which wasn’t entirely wrong. Still, the decision to pursue a career outside her parents’ corporation had been entirely hers. Something she had never regretted. Until, maybe, now.
“They’re fine. Rumi traveled to Jeju with her Aunt Celine for the holiday. Zoey’s spending it with the American side of the family this year,” she replied, concise. She didn’t want to talk about the girls either; it only reminded her that she was practically alone during the holidays.
And she hated feeling alone.
For months she had been facing an echo inside herself, and the loneliness only made everything worse. She hadn’t told the girls yet. Both were dealing with complicated family situations, and Mira didn’t want to burden them with her seasonal depression — or whatever it was that was happening inside her head. So she went back to her parents’ house.
At first, she thought they wouldn’t take her in. That they’d send her back to wherever she had run off to. But they let her in, and it was… as if she had never left.
She settled into her old bedroom and went down to the dining room. That was when the night truly began. They hadn’t asked her why she had come back yet, and the tension was palpable — the stiffness. As if they wanted to ask, but at the same time were afraid of the answer and of how Mira would react to being questioned. On the day she left, she made a point of making clear what she wanted for her life, that she was doing the right thing for herself. The argument had resulted in months without contact, and now that she was back, they didn’t want to risk ruining everything again.
The rice on her plate lost its flavor; the drink went flat. That was when she decided to stand up.
“I have a headache from the trip. I think I’m going to lie down for a bit.”
No one objected. Their faces showed a hint of… sadness, maybe? Mira only remembered the expressions of disappointment; the other emotions had been erased from her memory, resurfacing only in dreams where she woke up with her ears cold from her own tears.
She needed to pull herself together. The nearly four hours of travel hadn’t helped her come up with a specific excuse for being there.
Did she need an excuse? They were her family, supposedly. And there was still a week left until Christmas Eve, for God’s sake.
She tried to convince herself of that as she climbed the stairs without shedding a tear. Her emotions were tangled. Was it anger? Resentment? Guilt? Sadness? Maybe all of it mixed together. She wished someone would open her head and put her thoughts in order — maybe then she’d be able to regain control over her feelings.
…
A few hours after muffling her crying with a pillow and falling into a lethargic sleep, Mira woke up.
That morning wouldn’t be any easier than the night before, and she realized it the moment she went downstairs. She was alone again. She had forgotten an important detail: even on holidays, her family worked. Damn workaholics…
After eating something without appetite — her stomach seemed to have shrunk by two thirds since the girls had left — she thought about going for a walk. Maybe to the pharmacy, or to see the playground where she used to play as a child. The street felt less lonely. There were strangers passing by, and she could argue with herself about what kind of lives they led, what animal they would be based on the way they walked, or what music they listened to based on their clothes.
It could be fun. She tried to convince herself of that.
“Basic. Classic. And… peacock,” she muttered, balancing on the swing as she judged a stranger wearing dress shoes in the middle of winter, paired with a white sweater. He was roughly the tenth person she had analyzed that morning.
Mira had lost count, accepting that she would never beat her personal record of thirty-three people — achieved on the day her parents forgot her at school.
“Peacock? I think he looks more like a weasel,” a deep voice replied from right behind her, sitting on the swing beside hers.
Mira didn’t look right away. She chose to answer calmly instead.
“It’s not because he looks like a peacock. It’s more… the energy he gives off.”
“Oh. Like a spirit animal?” said the voice she still refused to acknowledge as real.
“Something like that.”
“Yeah. Then that’s it. Peacock.”
“Peacock.”
When she finally turned around, she saw him.
Very much like who he had been years ago.
Abby.