Don't Hate Him!

"I too was the witness for your father's death... That night, I saw him getting stabbed repeatedly with my own eyes!" As the old man finished eating his chicken, he said with anger visible in his eyes.

"What?" Ae Ra felt her knees wobbling.. It was getting harder for her to stand. She started feeling weak. With a loud thump, she sat down on the floor... "What are you saying?" She asked with tears in her eyes..

"The area where you and your father were, it was a construction site... I used to work over there, too. And two weeks before your father's death, a man working with us committed suicide by jumping from the top floor of that building. He held a note in his hand and in that note, only one person's name was present, that was your father's name - Na Young Dal!

This man who died was a very optimistic man and he committing suicide was a thing which we never imagined. And we all stopped working and started with the protest... We demanded for the owner of the building to come and look upon this matter... We wanted that man to give compensation for the man who had died... After all, he had a 20 year old son who was studying. But the owner never came..."

The man stopped and looked at the watch in his hand. He got up from his chair and stood up.

Hearing nothing else from the old man, Ae Ra looked at him surprised. "What is wrong? Why did you stop?"

She saw the old man having tears in his eyes... She couldn't help but ask "Was the owner of that building... my father?"

The old man slightly gave a nod and burst in tears... He said while crying "The.. Man who died... was.. your husband's father and my only brother!"

As she heard that it was Yu Shik's father who had done a suicide, her heart clenched. She started to shiver... She had a shocking expression... Tears also came out from her eyes... She wasn't able to stop herself from crying.

"How can this be? Why... Why... Yu Shik is related to this?" She started to mutter to herself... She looked down and punched on the floor hardly to vent her anger... Her knuckles started to bleed and she cried in pain... Not because of the blood coming out of her knuckles but because her heart was hurting more than anything.

She still wasn't able to believe that Yu Shik was the one who killed her father... She looked at the man and asked "But last time you told me that Yu Shik was the bad guy and I had to stay away from him. Why did you say that?"

The old man wiped his tears and said "Because if I had said that your father is the one who is bad, you wouldn't have believed me and maybe you wouldn't have come today, even.."

"Why would he kill my father just because he didn't come?"

"Did Yu Shik never tell you the story of his past? Did he never tell you, how his parents died?" The old man asked Ae Ra..

"He did tell me about it, a month back." Ae Ra answered thinking about what he told her about his family. Then, he remembered that he had told her that his mother was raped and she committed suicide... The man who raped her was his father's best friend and so, his father also committed suicide... As she connected the dots to one another, she widened her eyes with shock..

The old man understood her expression and said "Your father was my brother's best friend and he was the one who raped Yu Shik's mother... And this is how we both lost someone dear to us."

Remembering that this old man told her that he was there at the time when the murder happened, Ae Ra asked him "But then why did you not avenge for your brother? Why did you make Yu Shik do it?"

"Well, I never told Yu Shik to kill your father... I never did. Maybe he had planned everything before me, because by the time, I had come to kill your father, I saw him getting stabbed by someone with a knife.. After the man was killed, I saw him turn around and remove his mask, that was when I saw that it was Yu Shik himself..."

"NO! I know you all are lying to me..." Ae Ra got up and looked at the old man in front of her... With teary-red eyes, she asked him "Why would you guys just kill someone innocent? I know my dad. He could never do such a thing... He was good. He was the best person ever."

The old man walked near her and kept his hand on her head. "Sometimes, you need to accept how the truth is... Your father was maybe good to you but he never was good to the others!" The old man patted her head...

"I know that you can't believe that Yu Shik was the one who killed him but he did it so that he could avenge his parents just like how you want to avenge your father... Don't hate that man... If you leave him, he will have no one and be torn apart." The old man comforted her with tears in his eyes.

"Despite of knowing that you were his parents murderer's daughter, he still loves you. He truly does... And he is loving you now, also. He felt guilty of what he did and that is why he devoted his whole life completely to you. He just wants to be with you, forever and ever." The old man again continued and just rubbed her back.

Na Ae Ra didn't know what was going on... She felt her whole mind going blank... Her legs felt like jelly and she felt weak... And within a few seconds, she blacked out.