Eun-Ae stared out of her bedroom window, watching the street as the cars rolled by and people strolled the sidewalks as if they hadn’t a care in the world. Birds chittered in the tree outside her window, and the sun shone bright down onto the healthy green grass in her front yard. It was the perfect picture of a beautiful day. Meanwhile, Eun-Ae could hear her mother sobbing outside the bedroom door, imploring the doctor to try anything and everything in an effort to save her daughter’s life. Eun-Ae knew that it wouldn’t be much use. After years of fighting to crawl her way back up only to be savagely knocked down again, Eun-Ae was numb, indifferent to it all and just simply waiting for her final moment to come at last.

A few hours later, after the doctor had left and an in-home nurse had been installed to monitor Eun-Ae’s condition, her mother knocked on the door and timidly stepped inside. She had tear stains on her face, and only walked over to embrace her dying daughter. Eun-Ae consoled her quietly, reassuring the distraught woman that everything would be alright just like it always was, but deep down she knew that it wouldn’t. Somehow, Eun-Ae could feel it inside herself. She had seemed to recover for a moment, able to walk and talk and function as she normally could, but it was almost as if she could feel the disease slowly eating away at her. As her mother pulled away, putting on a brave face, she smiled softly.

“Dear, you have a visitor,” she whispered, and Eun-Ae sat up in her bed with surprise. Many of her friends had moved on with their lives, gone on to become doctors or teachers, and all but forgotten about her in her hospital-bound state. Her gaze slid to the door, and she gasped when a man she never thought she would see again quietly stepped into the room.

“Key?”