Jun-seo
The house was quiet.
Too quiet.
It had been this way for years, ever since Hyun-woo left for England.
I sat in my office, fingers resting against my temple, staring at the untouched papers on my desk. The clock on the wall ticked away, each second dragging on longer than the last. Outside, the city hummed with life—cars passing, distant voices echoing—but inside, it was nothing but silence.
I wondered how my son was doing.
Hyun-woo.
How long had it been since I last saw him in person? Almost two years now.
I picked up my phone, scrolling through our last conversation. The messages were brief. Surface-level. "I'm fine." "Studying." "Busy."
He never said much.
And I suppose that was my fault.
I used to think I was doing the right thing.
That pushing him, molding him into someone strong, was what any good father would do.
Because I had seen what happened to people who weren't strong.
I had seen what weakness could do.
It stole my wife from me.
It left me alone.
And I swore—on the day I lost her, on the day I had to carry a crying Hyun-woo in my arms, unable to explain why his mother wasn't coming home—that I would never let my son be weak.
I would shape him into someone who could survive anything.
Someone who would never have to suffer the way I did.
But I hadn't realized, not until much later, that in doing so…
I had turned into something else entirely.
Possessive. Controlling. Ruthless.
I knew what people said about me. That I was cold. That I was suffocating my own son.
And maybe I was.
But wasn't it better this way?
Wasn't it better that Hyun-woo didn't waste time chasing dreams that would only lead to disappointment? That he didn't ruin everything by chasing after some girl? That he didn't make the mistake of thinking happiness was something easily earned?
I gave him a path. A clear, stable, undeniable path.
Yet, as I sat there, alone in this house, staring at my phone, wondering why my own son barely spoke to me anymore…
I wondered if I had made a mistake.
I closed my eyes, leaning back in my chair.
I could still remember the way he used to look at me.
Back when he was younger, when his eyes held admiration instead of exhaustion. When he used to talk—really talk—about his thoughts, his dreams, his ideas.
"Dad, do you think I could be an artist?" he had asked once. He was so young back then, sitting on the living room floor, sketching something in a notebook.
"You can do whatever you want, Hyun-woo," I had told him. "Whatever makes you happy."
Those words felt foreign now.
Had I really said them?
Had I really meant them?
I had changed so much.
No—I had been forced to change.
Because the world was cruel. Because life didn't wait for people who hesitated.
But in my efforts to make sure my son would never feel lost, had I taken away his right to choose?
I exhaled, pressing my fingers against my forehead.
Hyun-woo wouldn't understand. He never had. He thought I was just controlling, just trying to dictate his life.
He didn't know what it was like to lose someone and feel utterly powerless.
He didn't know the fear of watching the person you love slip away and realizing that no amount of money, no amount of strength, no amount of anything could stop it.
He didn't know that the only thing that kept me from breaking was the determination to make sure he never had to experience that same powerlessness.
I opened my eyes.
The silence pressed in again.
Hyun-woo was in England, miles and miles away, living a life I could barely see.
Was he eating well? Sleeping enough? Did he ever think about home?
Did he hate me?
…No.
Hyun-woo wasn't the type to hate.
But I knew he resented me.
And that was somehow worse.
I reached for my phone again, staring at his name on the screen.
For a moment, I thought about calling.
But what would I even say?
Would I tell him that I was proud of him? That I was worried? That I missed him?
No.
I had never said those words before.
And I had no right to say them now.
Instead, I put the phone down, leaned back in my chair, and closed my eyes once more.
I would never know if I had done the right thing.
But it was too late to turn back now.
---
The road stretched ahead of me, empty in the dim glow of the streetlights. The sky was overcast, the kind of night where the stars hid, and the world felt heavier.
I exhaled, gripping the steering wheel tighter as I changed lanes. The streets were quieter than usual, the late hour thinning out the usual traffic. I was driving from our company's headquarters in Gangnam, heading toward home in Hannam-dong. The route was one I had taken a thousand times before—straight down Olympic-daero, cutting across the Han River before the familiar turns leading into the affluent hills of Hannam.
I had driven this road so often that I could probably do it blindfolded.
But tonight felt different.
Maybe it was the exhaustion pressing against my skull, the weight of thoughts that refused to quiet down.
Maybe it was the phone call from earlier—the one where I had stared at Hyun-woo's name on the screen, debating whether to press call, but ultimately setting the phone back down, the words unsaid.
I sighed, shifting gears as I merged onto the Han River Bridge. The water below was dark, rippling under the faint city lights.
Hyun-woo would be waking up soon in England.
Another day of medical school, another step toward the future I had laid out for him.
Would he think of me at all?
Would he ever understand why I had been the way I was?
My mind drifted, back to the past.
I had always imagined watching him graduate, sitting in the crowd as they called his name. Kim Hyun-woo. My son. My pride.
I had imagined shaking his hand, patting his shoulder, telling him, "You did well."
I had imagined a future where I could finally say the words I had held back for years—"I'm proud of you, Hyun-woo."
But I never said them.
And now, for the first time in years, I wondered if I ever would.
The red light at the intersection ahead flickered as I approached. I slowed down, my hands tightening on the wheel.
I should call him.
Not tomorrow, not next week. Now.
I reached for my phone, scrolling through my contacts until I saw his name.
And then—
A flash.
A blur of headlights.
A sickening screech of tires.
The impact was violent.
A deafening crash shattered through the air as metal twisted and glass exploded around me. My body lurched forward, the seatbelt biting into my chest, air forced from my lungs in a brutal gasp.
The world spun. The car skidded sideways, slammed into the guardrail, and flipped.
I barely registered the pain before everything went black.
When I came to, there was a distant ringing in my ears. My vision blurred, flickering between darkness and the fractured glow of streetlights above.
I was upside down.
Blood dripped, slow and warm, from somewhere on my forehead. My fingers twitched, but I couldn't move. The weight of the crushed metal pressed against my chest, pinning me in place.
Somewhere, faintly, I heard voices. Sirens.
But they were too far away.
I was dying.
The realization settled over me like a suffocating wave.
I tried to breathe, but every inhale burned.
This was it.
This was how it ended.
Not in a hospital bed, not in old age, not with time to fix my mistakes—
But here.
Alone.
On a dark road with no one to hear my final words.
Hyun-woo.
I wouldn't get to see him graduate.
Wouldn't get to see him wear that white coat, his name stitched onto the fabric. Wouldn't get to shake his hand and say, "You did well."
I would never see the moment he became the doctor I had always wanted him to be.
Never see the day he finally stood at the top.
Never hear him say, "Father, I did it."
And worst of all—
I would never get to tell him.
I'm proud of you, Hyun-woo.
The pain was fading now.
The sirens grew fainter.
My thoughts, once tangled, settled into one final, quiet regret.
I had spent my entire life trying to shape my son's future.
But in the end, I wouldn't be there to see it.
And that was the cruelest punishment of all.
The darkness swallowed me whole.
---
Hyun-woo
I wasn't sure how long I had been sitting there, staring at the same page of my textbook. Time seemed to stretch into an endless void, hours passing without me even realizing. The night was thick with the kind of silence that had come to be a part of my life over the past few months—no sounds except for the occasional rustle of paper or the ticking of the clock on the wall. My desk was scattered with notes, textbooks, and empty coffee cups that had once been full of caffeine but now stood as empty vessels, just like me.
It was nearly 11:00 PM. Another day done, and still, the burden of med school weighed heavily on me. But that wasn't the worst of it. No, the worst part was that my mind kept slipping back to one thing that I couldn't escape.
My father.
It had been a few weeks since we last spoke. I didn't even remember the last time he called me, let alone when we had a real conversation. We didn't talk about how I was doing here at Oxford, or about anything personal. We talked about the usual—about med school, about how things were moving forward, about how I was going to be the doctor he expected. And last time was even worse, where he confronted me about that girl.
Well, that was it. It was all business.
I ran a hand through my hair, shifting in my chair. The stillness in the room pressed down on me, like the air had thickened and I could barely breathe.
I glanced at my phone, sitting there face up on the desk. It was quiet—no new messages, no calls. Just a blinking cursor from a text I had sent earlier to my cousin, Hanuel.
A message that had gone unanswered.
I was starting to feel the exhaustion from all the sleepless nights and long hours of study, and I let my head fall back against the chair. My father's voice echoed in my mind—demanding, controlling, suffocating. Sometimes it felt like the weight of his expectations was crushing me, but then again, he was always so distant. Always unreachable. I wondered if it would have been better to just keep that distance.
Just as I was about to turn back to my work, my phone buzzed. The sudden sound startled me, and I grabbed it with a slight frown.
It was a call.
I didn't recognize the number.
For a moment, I hesitated, and then answered. "Hello?"
The voice on the other end was strained, out of breath. "Kim Hyun-woo? Is this Kim Hyun-woo?"
I straightened in my seat, a cold sensation creeping over me. "Yes, who is this?"
There was a slight pause before the voice continued, shaky. "This is your aunt. From Korea. It's about your father…"
My stomach dropped, a sickening feeling settling in my chest. "What about him?"
"He's been admitted to the hospital. There's been an accident… It's bad, Hyun-woo. He might not make it."
The words hit like a punch to the gut. My heart raced, my hands trembled as I pressed the phone harder to my ear. My father—hurt? Dead? My mind scrambled to make sense of the words. I hadn't spoken to him in days, hadn't thought about him outside the endless cycle of study, work and my own self-inflicted isolation. But now, here it was—this call, this nightmare, all crashing down on me.
"He's…" I couldn't bring myself to say it. "How serious is it?"
The voice on the other end wavered. "He's in critical condition. They're doing everything they can, but…"
There was a finality to the silence between us. The weight of the unspoken hung heavy in the air.
"I… I'm sorry, Hyun-woo. I just thought you should know."
I barely registered the words. My thoughts were swirling, my pulse quickening as everything around me seemed to blur.
My father was in the hospital.
And it was likely that he wouldn't make it.
The thought hit harder than I wanted to admit. It should have been a relief—after all, I had resented him for so long, held onto that anger, that frustration. But in the midst of it all, there was an overwhelming emptiness. I didn't know what to feel, what to think.
I stood up, pacing around my small dorm room, my head spinning as the weight of the news settled in. My father had never been easy to deal with, but he was still... my father. No matter how hard I tried to push him away, no matter how much I resented him for everything he had put me through, he was the one person who had always been there, even if it was just in the form of pressure and expectations.
But now, I might never have the chance to make peace with it. To fix things.
"Hyun-woo?"
I snapped back to reality at the sound of my aunt's voice still on the line. "I… I'll be on the next flight," I said, barely recognizing my own voice. "Tell them I'm coming."
I hung up without another word, the silence that followed loud in my ears. My body felt stiff, distant from everything, like I was standing outside of my own life. I was no longer in Oxford. I was back in Korea, standing before my father's hospital bed, waiting for something that might never come.
The thought lingered in the back of my mind as I grabbed my bag and began stuffing it with clothes, all of it moving on autopilot. I didn't have time to process, to think things through. The emotional toll was secondary now.
There were no exams coming up. No tests. Nothing to hold me back from making this decision.
I booked the earliest flight I could find—three days of leave from Oxford, and I was on my way back to Korea.
I was temporarily leaving everything behind for a man I couldn't understand, for a man who, for so long, had shaped my entire life with nothing but expectations and control.
And yet, as I packed, as I closed my suitcase, I couldn't shake the emptiness that sat heavy in my chest. Despite all the anger I had toward him, despite everything he had done, a part of me still felt the loss already.
I couldn't even fully admit it to myself, but the emptiness wasn't just from losing him—it was from never getting to make things right. Never being able to tell him what I had wanted to say for so long.
I'm sorry, Father.
I don't know if I can forgive you... but I wish I could have. I wish I could have told you that I loved you.
I didn't have the chance.
I slammed the suitcase shut and grabbed my phone again, scrolling through my contacts until I saw the name I had always avoided.
My father.
Instead, I booked the flight and let the reality of it all sink in.
I was going home.