“Are you Kim Junwoo’s mother?”

Eunji stood in front of the shocked convenience store worker in the candy aisle. Looking at the older woman’s face, there was no mistaking it. Junwoo was very obviously her son, but she had still asked to make sure.

“Yes, I am,” she answered defensively. “Who are you?”

Eunji removed her hat and pulled down her mask. “I’m Jeong Eunji of Apink,” she said and bowed down low.

Immediately, Junwoo’s mother dropped the bag she had been holding and clambered around the barricade of boxes around her. “Goodness,” she murmured as she nearly tripped over a box. Eunji lurched forward to help her, but she waved Eunji’s hand away.

“I’m sorry,” Ms. Kim said, flustered. “I didn’t mean to act rude. It’s just that my son hasn’t had the best reputation these days, and those who have asked if Junwoo is my son have not been the kindest people.”

Eunji clenched her jaw. Had people been bothering Junwoo’s mom? She had seen the comments attacking her, but Eunji didn’t know if people had actually personally confronted her. She tipped her head. “I’m sorry to hear that. I’m also sorry for startling you. I should’ve approached you differently.”

“There’s no need to apologize. What are you here for?”

To be honest, Eunji herself didn’t even know why she had come. “I wanted to speak with you. I can come back later, if you’d like.”

Ms. Kim glanced at her watch. “My shift ends in ten minutes, so if you’re willing to wait, I’ll finish up here, then speak with you.”

Eunji agreed and nearly left, but something in the older woman’s walk caught her eye. She was favoring one foot, like she was scared to apply too much pressure on it and injure it. Junwoo had said that his mother had collapsed, so maybe she had somehow hurt her foot in the process.

“Can I help?” Eunji asked, reaching down into the boxes of candy.

“No!” Junwoo’s mother objected with wide eyes. “No, you don’t need to.”

“But I want to.”

“It’s not necessary, really.”

“Please, Ms. Kim. It’s always been a dream of mine.”

She rose a brow. “To restock candy in a convenience store?”

“It’s every child’s dream, isn’t it?”

The older woman looked around them. Except for them, the aisle was empty. She sighed and said, “Alright.”

Eunji grinned and picked up a bag of chocolate. “One of my members’ parents own a convenience store and she often visits to help. I’ve always been curious about what it’s like.”

“You’re talking about Yoon Bomi, right?”

“How’d you know?”

Ms. Kim looked straight ahead. “I wanted to learn about all the members of Apink. After what happened and the situation that my son is in, it only felt right.”

Eunji’s hand lingered on the bag of chocolate. “What do you know about me?”

“Jeong Eunji. Main singer, actress, from Busan, paid off family debts, has a brother named Minki, likes hip exercises. In a way, you remind me of me.”

“You like hip exercises too?”

She tilted her head back and laughed, her eyes crinkling up into small crescents and chin tucking into her neck. She laughed with her whole body, her belly and shoulders shaking with the movements. Eunji stopped and stared. You remind me of someone too, she thought.

“I meant the part about your family. You’re putting your brother through school, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

“And you paid off your family’s debts. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that you love your family. You’ve sacrificed a lot for your family and have always put them first, no matter how difficult it got. That takes a big heart.”

“I don’t regret it.” She truly didn’t. If she was given the choice to do things differently, she wouldn’t change a thing.

“Of course you don’t.” Junwoo’s mother smiled softly. “I don’t either.”

If Eunji closed her eyes and thought hard enough, she could imagine that she was talking to her own mother right now instead of Junwoo’s. She was tempted to do just that and relish the sweet thought, but that wasn’t why she had come. Not that she had a plan to begin with, though.

“Could you tell me about Junwoo?” Eunji asked.

She hesitated. “What would you like to know?”

“Anything.”

Ms. Kim considered for a moment, then began, “My Junwoo has always been a timid boy. Growing up, he always had trouble making new friends, because he didn’t know how to approach new people. He clung to me and familiar things, and whenever he was put into a situation outside of his comfort zone, he tended to freeze like a popsicle. He still has this tendency, you know. Whenever he’s in an uncomfortable situation, he sits very stiffly with his hands gripping his knees. He gets angsty too and starts shaking his leg, glancing around, or playing with his fingers. It’s quite contradictory.” She chuckled to herself. “We call him a jittery popsicle. I can imagine that you’ve seen him like this, since this situation is certainly out of his comfort zone.”

Eunji thought back. “I think this is the only way I’ve seen him.”

“That sounds right,” his mother replied. “Because of this, he cherishes the friends that he has now. He’s a good boy, my Junwoo. He always prioritizes others over himself and tries to do whatever will please others. I think it’s one of his best yet worst qualities. It pains me to see him suffering so other people can be happy, but he always says that he does it because it makes him happy to see them happy. I suppose I can’t be too critical, though, since I do the same for him.”

The way Junwoo’s mother was talking about her son, with her gentle smile and soft gaze―it was the way Eunji’s mother talked about Eunji or Minki. Eunji’s hand ached to take out her phone and call her mother.

“Does it hurt seeing Junwoo in this...controversy?”

Her eyes suddenly darkened. “It hurts more seeing him punish himself for it. He spends every day trying to figure out ways to right his wrongs and hate himself even more. He’s been closing himself off from everyone who cares about him. Including me.”

“He’s doing everything he can, though,” Eunji said quietly.

“But it’s not enough, is it?”

Eunji was sure that Ms. Kim hadn’t intended her statement to hurt her as much as it did, but she still said, “I’m sorry. Things will get better. I’m sure of it.”

Junwoo’s mother pursed her lips and gave a single nod of her head. “They’d better. Junwoo is my biggest pride, my biggest accomplishment, my greatest treasure. He’s the light of my life.” Her eyes had a faraway gaze, like she was there, but not really there. She reached down to pick up the last packet of mints in the box and placed it on top of the neat pile of other mints. Then she picked up the box and stood up, looking into Eunji’s eyes with a clear and determined gaze. “And I’m not going to let that light go out.”

Well, Eunji was going to make damn sure that that light didn’t go out.

She desperately clung to the roof ledge with one hand and latched onto Junwoo’s hand with the other. When she and Junwoo had toppled over the edge, Eunji had somehow managed to grab the ledge with her free hand. Now they were dangling over the side of a twenty-story building with nothing but hundreds of meters of air to break their fall. 

Sure, she had saved them from immediately plummeting to their tragic deaths, but for how much longer? Everything in her body hurt. Eunji could feel the rough concrete tearing at her skin as her hand slowly lost grip. Junwoo was growing heavier by the second, and it felt like an anchor was tugging her down, ready to tear her arm off. She didn’t know how much longer she’d be able to hang on. She could only hope that the others would figure out a way to save them before she could find out. 

The billowing wind continued to roughly jostle Eunji and Junwoo, just two small vulnerable specks against that terrible beast in the sky. Her hair danced wildly with that harbinger of demise, tangling itself over her eyes and mouth, making it even more difficult to breathe. She wanted so badly to curse at it, as if that would do anything.

She heard shouting on the roof and the whirring of the helicopter blades above them. What could they do? The helicopters couldn’t get close enough to catch them without their blades tearing apart the building or, worse, them. Could the others on the roof pull both of them up without toppling over as well?

Eunji felt her grip slip even more. Above her, she heard Bomi’s voice, desperate and frantic, among others. Would this be her last time seeing her members? Would her last time seeing Chorong awake be at the night of their concert, where everything started going south?

No. It couldn’t be. 

She shut her eyes and gritted her teeth, throwing a prayer to any god out there. She did not just throw her body over the side of a roof to save a suicidal man just to have it end up in two deaths. 

Don’t look down, don’t look down, don’t look down…

No matter what, she didn’t want to see how far up in the sky they were.

“Let me go!”

Eunji looked down―and let out a colorful curse.

The people and cars below them were nothing but indiscernible blots, the trees and shrubberies just blurry blotches of green. Her chest constricted, and it suddenly became even more difficult to breathe. She had never been afraid of heights, but they were certainly too high off the ground for comfort.

“Eunji, let me go!” Junwoo repeated. His face was red with strain and wet with tears. 

“Like hell I am!”

“We’ll both die if you don’t!”

“Neither of us are going to die! You have to live. For your friends, your mother, yourself...You can’t give up! Don’t let your light go out!” It took Eunji a moment to realize that the new droplets of water on Junwoo’s cheeks weren’t his. She was crying, and her tears were dropping onto his face.

Her hand slipped even more, her fingers trembling with effort.

“Eunji…,” Junwoo murmured.

“Don’t let the light go out,” Eunji said again.

Her hand tore from the ledge, and suddenly they were weightless in the sky.

Just then, two hands grabbed her hand with a grip that could’ve been deadly. Her body slammed against the side of the building, knocking the air out of her lungs. Junwoo’s body collided against her legs, crushing her injured ankle against the wall. Eunji let out an even more colorful curse. 

Then she felt herself slowly being pulled up. Her body scraped against the wall as she and Junwoo were tugged up and over the ledge.

They both collapsed onto the ground, hugging it for a sense of security and savoring the feeling of having a solid surface beneath them. Out of the corner of her eye, Eunji saw Junwoo’s mother run up to her son and envelop him in her arms. It didn’t take long before Eunji’s members were doing the same to her. 

They were all shouting, crying, and asking if Eunji was okay and if she was out of her mind―both of which she would have answered yes to if she had the energy. Her arms felt like jelly and sagged tiredly by her side. Her legs, even though they had done nothing but dangle in the sky, crumpled in a useless heap on the ground. She was still finding it difficult to breathe.

She felt two hands cup her face. They brought her gaze up until she was looking straight into the worried, red eyes of Bomi. “Eunji-ah, can you say something?”

Eunji stared into Bomi’s anxious eyes, then the equally anxious eyes of the other members. All of their cheeks were slick with tears. Naeun, ironically, looked the worst out of all of them. Bomi was a close second.

She sagged into Bomi’s arms and asked exhaustedly, “What took you so long?”