Tehzeeb

"My child! The letter’s here!"

Raven was playing chess with her godfather when she heard Nanny Rong excitedly shout at her from just outside the garden. Looking up, the girl could only blink as the woman handed her the letter. Meanwhile, Senior Choi looked at his little Raven, who seemed to be oblivious to what was just handed to her.

"Come on,” Nanny Rong impatiently egged on. “Open it up already."

"Why don’t you give it to me and I’ll read it for the rest of us?” Senior Choi chuckled as he waved at the nanny. Looking at his goddaughter, he noted that she was still a bit tense. “It looks like our little Raven can't handle the suspense."

At the instruction, Nanny Rong immediately passed the letter on to Senior Choi, while Raven was still a little shocked at what was even happening. As her godfather quietly read the letter, she silently observed her surroundings, still unsure of what to do herself.

"Master, is it good news?" Nanny Rong asked, already getting restless as she looked more and more eager than the other two people present.

An unpleasant expression showed on Senior Choi’s face as he let out an exasperated sigh. Seeing the reaction, Nanny Rong’s mouth twitched. "Master, is it bad news?" she asked again, holding her breath as she waited for an answer.

Silently, Senior Choi turned his attention back to Raven as he started speaking.

"As I've told you before, little Raven, there are a lot of good schools here in our country. You don't have to study abroad,” he reasoned, looking intently at his little girl. “Why bother yourself with the hardships of living alone and choose to leave your old man behind?"

In all honesty, he wanted her to stay with him, in the house where he had brought her up ever since she was a child. Indeed, time flew by so fast. His goddaughter, little Raven, who had miraculously survived a tragic accident when she was three years old, was already seventeen. And it won’t be long till she turns eighteen as well!

Looking back, he had lost count of how many times he tried to discourage her to study abroad when she opened up her intentions to him. His Little Raven wanted to pursue her studies at a top-ranked, world-class university, but a part of him really didn’t want her to leave. Still, he knew that she wanted to be independent; to learn to live without her father and the comforts she had been living in since childhood. For that reason, she wanted to experience a few years staying in a foreign country, all by herself.

Senior Choi knew all that she had in her mind. He knew that she loved him from the bottom of her heart, yet she still wanted to explore life independently. And despite his own misgivings, even he agreed with the way she thought. He also wanted his little Raven to do what she thought was good for her future. Whatever decision she might take, he would always support her as much as he could.

Meanwhile, after seeing her godfather's grim expressions, as well as hearing his comments, Raven's shoulders dropped in disappointment. She was already assuming that she wasn’t accepted at the school she had applied to abroad.