Kim Yerim was sleeping in class. Her head was buried on both of her palms. The class was quite crowded. Lucky it was not located in front of the teacher’s office. If so, they were all already being nagged at by the teacher for being so loud.

By chance, they have free time. A few hours ago, a teacher who was not in-charge, had told them that their Math teacher; Lee songsaengnim, had an urgent meeting at Seoul’s education authorities. The unknown teacher passed a task from Lee songsaengnim for them to work on and collect today. But, Kim Yerim was one of the students who did not do the task.

“What date is it? I forgot!”

“August 21st."Yerim accidentaly heard it. A second later, her closed eyes were  half opened. August 21st. August 21st. August 21st 2015. Just another ordinary August 21st, Yerim repeated in her head. What was it with August 21st 2015 anyway?

One year ago...

The class was really quiet that day. Just the sound of the chalk which was hitting and scratching with the blackboard, the sound of papers from every book that the students had brought being turned over and over again—when the pages were all used and full of writings which were a copy of what was written on the blackboard by the teacher. That was how it passed by in an hour of lesson.

After that, a teacher with a half grey,outlandish hair came into the class. He interrupted the teacher who was writing on the blackboard to stop for a minute, and made some students’ focuses to be put on him. Actually, there was someone who was following behind him. But, that man did not come into the class. He opted to wait outside, a few students inside the class could only see a quarter of that man’s body.

Yerim stopped her hand’s activity. Her eyes fell onto the teacher who had interrupted their lesson. She does not know why, but her heart was beating loudly. To be honest, she had felt it since morning. Her feelings were like telling her that something would happen today. Something bad. And when the old teacher came in, her feelings were worsening.

Yerim could not even breathe properly this time. There at the front, the two teachers were talking in a low voice. They were whispering. Not long they did that, because after about five minutes, the teacher who was teaching the class—Jung songsaenim, turned his body, facing his students, including Yerim. Again, Yerim’s bad feelings were worsening.

“Kim Yerim” Jung songsaenim called, alerting Yerim in an instant.

Right? From the beginning Yerim had had that bad feelings.

“You should go home now. Your brother-in-law is waiting outside.” Yerim was even more shocked.

What was going on? Why did her brother-in-law pick her up out of the blue? Yerim did not say a word nor she asked a thing. She just slowly nodded her head with a bit opened. She started to tidy up the books and stationery that were scattered on her desk.

When she put them all in her bag, her mind was already running in every direction. She tried to think about what could happen to herself or someone—who had a relation between her and her brother-in-law.

That time, Yerim was worrying about her family. Something must had happened to one of her family members. The old teacher brought her outside once she was done with her farewell. And right in front of the door, Yerim was shocked for the second time seeing the state her brother-in-law was in—Sungjae. That man, with a face as pale as a white paper and sweats as swift as waterfalls, was standing next to the door.

Yerim wanted to ask, “What is wrong?”, but her voice refused to come out of her vocal cords. And merely from seeing her brother-in-law’s expression, Yerim clearly realized, there was something bad happening.

***

“Sooyoung is having an internal bleeding. She is in the hospital right now.” Sungjae explained to Yerim.

Both of them were going out of the school building. Yerim’s felt like her insides were not functioning well once she heard her older’s sister’s name, Sooyoung. She was right, her bad feelings were really proven.

“How?” Yerim should have asked a longer question, like, “How could it happen?”. But she could only manage to speak out that one word. It was the effect of her worriness and anxiousness that had crossed the maximum line.

Sungjae did not answer right away. Making Yerim want to protest to him. But Yerim knew, Sungjae was in a panic mode—maybe even more panic than her. Because something was happening to his wife.

She stared at Sungjae all the while he was not answering, the sweats he produced were flowing so swiftly that he looked like he had just gotten out of a swimming pool. Even his hair was now damp thanks to the sweat which was exitting through his scalp.

“I don’t know.” Yerim almost wanted to let out her protest at the unreasonable answer. But, “I was in the office when dad called me.” Yerim waited until he who was four years older than her completed his answer, “He said Sooyoung was brought to the hospital. Internal bleeding. Something fell from above and hit her in the stomach.” Yerim’s mouth was opened in disbelief that her one and only older sister had encountered such a thing.

When they got to the car, Yerim sat at the back. While Sungjae sat in the driver’s seat. Once she was seated, Yerim saw her mother who was sitting at the front, crying. Yerim was confused as to why her mother was there. Eventhough Sungjae had not told her, she thought her parents were already at the hospital to accompany her older sister. But in front of her, her mother was sitting with worry seeping out through her skin. At the end, though Yerim was enveloped in confusion through the journey, Yerim decided to not ask anything. She chose to be silent.

Anyhow, the three of them were in a deep worry. Asking something so simple might turned out bad. Moreover, Yerim acknowle