Sometimes reality hits us so hard that we wish it to be nothing more than a nightmare that we can wake up from. And sometimes, it just seems to be too good to be true that we wish it to be a never-ending dream where we can lose ourselves into.

Park Chorong can tell you firsthand what it feels like to wake up from a dream so good that reality felt nothing less like hell.

“Chorong, love, calm down. Please.” Changsub tried to hold onto her as she tried to get up.

“Don’t ing touch me!” She ripped off the tubes and needles from her veins as she jumped off the bed. “Where’s Bomi?!” A manic glint flashed across her eyes.

“Honey, what are you-”

Before anyone can register what was going on, Chorong dashed outside the hospital room. She didn’t care about the fact that she’s wearing nothing but a hospital gown. She didn’t care about the freezing tiled floor. She didn’t care about the blood dripping from both her hands. She didn’t care about the throbbing pain in her head. She didn’t care about the stinging tears on her cheeks. She didn’t care. She ran. She ran, desperate to find the one person she cared about: Bomi.

But just as she was about to reach the hospital doors, her knees gave in and she stumbled helpless on the floor.

It’s been a year since she jumped off her apartment building and it’s been two months since she frantically ran down the hospital corridors.

She was held back and confined in the psychiatric ward since she woke up where she spent therapy sessions to help her through her ordeals – not that any of it made a difference.

Well, maybe it did.

During those weeks, she slowly recalled what had really happened. How her mom had been away and was busy expanding their business overseas. How her dad had arranged for her to marry Changsub and how she opposed the idea. How she said she was gay and how her dad grew adamant on having her wed Changsub. How everything had been kept from her mom and how she felt trapped and lonely. And finally, how she jumped off the roof deck of her four-storey home to free herself from all this.

It was also during those weeks that she had been filled in with what she’d missed. How she was brought to the hospital by random strangers and how she had been left there. How her injuries had been severe and how puzzled the doctors were that she miraculously survived. How her body stopped responding and how she seemed like a hopeless case. And regretfully, how they wanted to give up on her but her brain stayed astoundingly active.

None of it really mattered to her. The most that she could be thankful for was that her mom had filed a divorce and had taken her away from her dad. Her mom had wanted to come home as soon as she heard the news and but it took her eight long months to finally board a plane and be by her hospital bed. This was the least she could do for her daughter. This and embracing the fact that her daughter is gay.

Throughout her two-month extended stay at the hospital, all she ever heard in the hallways were whispers of her being given a second life and that she’s a walking miracle. It grinds her gears being branded as “the girl who lived”, she’s not Harry-ing-Potter for goodness’ sake. She wanted to die, and she couldn’t even do that right. Nevertheless, the nonsense didn’t die down until after she left.

One of her aunts told her that it was her mom’s call that finally woke her up. She said that we respond best to the cries of the ones we love the most. Since then, she’s been waiting for Bomi to call her in her sleep, to somehow wake up once again in her arms. But so far, it’s been the other way around. It’s been her who cries Bomi’s name – day and night, in waking hours and otherwise.

She held on to every little details of Bomi as if her life depended on it. Because it did. She didn't want to forget. She would rack her brain to recall every moment she spent with Bomi. She would close her eyes and remember what it felt like to be under her touch. She filled her mind with thoughts of her in fear that her memories might slip away.

Sometimes she thinks that she could only ever come back to her when she puts her life on the line and ends up in deep sleep once again. While most of the time, she wished they should’ve just pulled the plug on her; that would’ve been a thousand times better than existing in Bomi’s absence. But the golden necklace around her neck tells her otherwise. Bomi is real. She could feel it in her soul. She could feel her.

She had found the necklace among her belongings a few days after her outburst. The nurse had said that she had her fist around it when she was brought in and they simply assumed it was hers. Of course she didn’t deny it. Sure, it might have been from a random stranger – yet it might not. But it’s the very same necklace that Bomi had given her that night at the balcony – or at least, she dreamt that Bomi had given her.

She remembered what that old wizard from Harry-ing-Potter had said that it does not do well to dwell on dreams and forget to live. But it couldn't be just a dream, could it? It just... can't be.

Up until she had found the necklace, she grieved on the fact that Bomi had been nothing but a dream. That her name had been nothing but a whispered name along the corridors that she picked up while she was unconscious – pretty much like Hani and Hyoyeon who turned out to be her attending nurses. Within the walls of the hospital, no one has ever heard of Yoon Bomi, or Jeong Eunji, or anyone else among the group. She spent sleepless nights crying over the loss of someone she never had – someone who might never even have existed. But the golden star that rests on her chest had given her hope. Just as Bomi had said, it’ll lead the young woman to her. But she just couldn’t sit around and wait, she has to do something. She wanted to find Bomi before she finds her; it was her turn to find her, her turn to close the gap.

There was only one problem though: she wasn’t allowed to have contact with the outside world apart from family members coming in to visit her, as her therapist had said that “sudden exposure might disrupt her recovery.”

However, thoughts of Bomi occupied her mind to the point of obsession, not once did her disposition dwindle. She might already be suffering from schizophrenia for all she knows but she was adamant on finding her. Her acting skills were honed and put to the test during those weeks as she needed to feign recovery just so she could be discharged. That included intentionally leaving out Bomi in her sessions. She was the perfect patie