Wheein breathed in deeply, before starting to wheeze, something that she was starting to get used to, but never did, or will, like. Each breath she took, she took in gratefully, as it meant that she was still alive for that one second, and she knew that any breath could be her last one. The old woman let out an airy empty laugh, realising how ironic death was. You never realise how alive you are until you are in front of death. Looking at the heartbeat monitor beside the hospital bed she was lying in, she thought of how easy that steady beating heart could suddenly speed up, to a point where her body would not be able to handle and suddenly, it stops, leaving a shrill and piercing sound, the sound most feared by people who cared but sounded like the most mundane sound in the world to those who didn't. It wasn't like her to keep these thoughts, she was the few privileged who kept her childhood-like innocence, even through adulthood, but she realised how dark life was after she quit her full-time office job at 48 and stayed at home to take care of her 2 children, a boy and an eldest girl. Her thoughts have been depressing for the past 16 years but her kids were the ones whom she kept going for after her bad divorce a few months before her resignation was handed in. The 64-year-old looked up at the ceiling, her finger tracing random patterns on the bed mindlessly as she left out a quiet, "and now I have no one left." It was partially true, her two baby birds have left the nest as soon as they could, wiring in a big sum of money into her bank account monthly where 3 quarters of it remains unused, the one-quarter used ever so carefully in order to hand down as much money as she could to the children if anything happened to her, which would be soon. Her fingers weakly clenched onto the flower crown she had in her hand, a now wilted one which was once upon a time made with beautiful fresh daisies plucked from her neighbourhood park by a special friend. 

"No, you don't," someone announced as she swung open the door and walked in, a confident smirk on her face. Wheein turned over to face the door and gasped when she saw the unexpected guest. She would recognise that smirk anywhere.  lips managed to choke out one word as her mind was spinning and her eyes were filling up with tears, "Hyejin-ah..." 

Wheein's mind whirred back to Hyejin's and her first meeting. 

Wheein was wandering around the park, quite lost and confused. The 4 going 5 year old had slipped away from her parents when they were at the park for their weekly picnic to play at the playground for awhile and did not know how to go back. Walking round and round in circles, she furiously rubbed her fists over her teary eyes, angry at herself for deciding to run off. The poor girl had been walking for 15 minutes aimlessly, hoping that she would stumble upon them by chance. "Umma.... Appa... I'm sorry I went off... Can you come and find me..?" She mumbled, more to herself than anything else. Just as Wheein was about to plop down on the floor and start sobbing, she heard someone shout her name, whose voice was too young to belong to the elegant voice of her mother and too high pitched compared to the deep voice of her father. Turning to the direction of the voice, she was confused to see a girl around her age running at full speed towards her. "Wheein-ah!" The girl shouted once again, waving her hands wildly to catch the attention of the lost girl. 

"So... who are you?" Wheein as once the now sitting on the grass, desperately trying to catch her breath girl reached to a halt in front of her. All of her previous desperation were now replaced with confusion caused by the sudden appearance of the girl. After a few minutes of waiting, the girl hopped up from the floor and after dusting off her hands, stuck out one of them towards Wheein and said, "Annyeong? I'm Hyejin!" with a grin hanging from each ear. The grin must have been contagious, for Wheein felt a similar one creeping up her face and replied, "Nice to meet you!", while shaking Hyejin's hand back. "Wheein-ah! Didn't you lose your parents? Don't you want to find them? I know where they are! Follow me okay?" Hyejin asked. Wheein's face lit up, literally, and started dragging a giggling Hyejin all around the wide park, pointing in all directions. "Here? Here? Which way do we go!" Words spilled out of the slightly older girl's mouth until she ran out of breath, coming to a stop somewhere on the field. "Wheein-ah, calm down, they're right there!" They were now on a small hill within the field, and Hyejin was pointing towards the other side of the field to the two adults sitting on the picnic mat, munching on some sandwiches. "They were there all the while?" Wheein asked incredulously. Receiving a nod as a reply she proceeded to tug on Hyejin's hand, "Well, what are we waiting for? I want to introduce my new friend to my parents! I'm sure they would want to thank the girl who helped their daughter find them." However, the other girl stood stationary. She shook her head and giving a gentle smile to Wheein, said, "Maybe another time Wheein, I'm sure we'll meet again right?" before running off into the opposite direction and seemed to just fade off into the distance. Rubbing her eyes, young Wheein looked back into the distance, and all traces of her new friend being there vanished, as though she had never been there before. Wheein shook her head before she ran to her parents. 

Over the next few years, 6 if you want to be precise, Hyejin seemed to magically appear whenever and wherever Wheein was in trouble. The older girl had by then, stopped with her curiosity of the other girl's whereabouts whenever she was not being 'Supergirl' and rescuing Wheein, as all she got were gentle smiles. Instead, she now just quietly ap