There’s a loneliness in her heart she can’t shake. It feels like… a disease. One with thorns that stick in all the wrong places with little vines that twist and curl until, suddenly, she can’t breathe.

“And what do you think, dear?”

Soojin blinks. Around her are bright lights and cameras and expectant stares.  

“I think…” she begins, trailing off as the well of… something gets caught in .

“Jinjin loves me most.” It’s the voice that should fill all the empty spaces but doesn’t.

The interviewer waits. It’s that patient sort of wait, the one with the bobbing chin and soft crinkle that sits in the corners of their eyes. Like she wants Soojin to feel comfortable, to feel like everything is okay.

“Life is funny. Like it has… a sense of humour that I don’t always understand.”

The room fills with chuckles. Not the sort of chuckles that are had on a summer day with loved ones on the mountain tops of life. No, they’re the sort of chuckles that are had in the muck and mire of life. Ones built on painful understanding.

“Ah,” the woman in the armchair across from her hums with what might be agreement, “That’s an interesting way to see it.”

Next to her, in another arm chair, a man laughs. It fills the studio with a warm sort of heavy blanket. Almost like snow, but in the middle of summer. “She’s beautiful. And astute. How did you become so and at such a young age?”

“If we can’t tolerate the small misfortunes, we’ll never accomplish great things. Let’s accomplish great things, okay Jinjin?”

Soojin wants to pick at the fabric that clings to her skin –too tight, too suffocating. “I had help.” The corners of her lips curl and the vines in her chest grow lax, the thorns a little less painful.

“When you’re tired lean on me, okay jagiya?”

A second man hums along. With one hand folded over his chest and the other under his chin, he muses, “No one’s an island, are they?”

The conversation carries on, held afloat by the three voices around her. It lets her breathe, as best she can, and collect her thoughts. Or maybe get lost in them. It’s hard not to get lost in them, not when she has so many of them.

When the interview is done, Soojin gets up. The rise to her feet is on autopilot and the gratitude ingrained. She thanks her seniors for the time on their show. She thanks the director and the crew and makeup and the woman who brought her a water when the back of felt like a desert.

“It isn’t easy.” The interviewer from earlier remarks. That soft crinkle still sits in th