Births
Picking me Apart"I love you."
"I love you too."
A man sits by a bed in which his wife is currently lying on. He's smiling and has his head crouched down at her as he places a kiss on her lips. The man has one arm around her shoulders and the other by her chest, fiddling his fingers around the bundle of blankets she's cradling in her arms. The faint beeping sound of different machines in the room mixes together with this year's last birds' singing behind the window that you can barely hear from the inside. The bundle of blankets moves a tiny bit, the newborn inside of them opens his eyes wide and takes a look at the smiling faces of his parents. The room is too bright and white smells too clean, and so he closes his eyes again.
"Donghwa", the man says, so softly, so gently, and a young boy sitting on a chair too high for him, small feet dangling in mid-air, lifts his head up from the corner of the room, "Come and say hi to your little brother." The boy, Donghwa, hops down and toddles to his father, sits on his lap and gazes at the baby in his mother's arms. He looks confused; mommy's big tummy is gone and now there's a little baby resting against her chest, sleeping soundly. He looks at his father with large eyes, questionably, but the man only smiles at the younger and whispers in his ear, "Your baby brother", and the perfect family portrait is complete.
The woman finally lifts her gaze from the baby to Donghwa, her brown orbs gleaming, smiles the brightest of smiles. She then lifts the baby up and places him next to her, between her husband and herself, her arm still protectively around the bundle. Donghwa takes a closer look, and a smile spreads on his chubby face. "Who 's that?" he asks but what he really means is, "What's his name?". The man and the woman, husband and wife, smile at each other until she says in the gentlest of voices, happiness in her aura--pure joy, even, not much louder than a whisper,
"Donghae."
"Push!"
A shriek.
"A little more! I can see the head already. On my count to three, okay?"
An other woman lying on a similar bed as Donghae's mother had a couple of years ago nods her head furiously, perspiration on her forehead and running down her neck, gluing her dark locks onto her skin as her husband stands by the bed and watches with his arms crossed over his chest. The beeping of different machines can be heard at times like this, when she isn't screaming or cursing, or praying to God or anyone else who's in earshot.
"One, two, three! Push!" The woman takes two hurried intakes of air before letting out a growl and biting her teeth together with so much force it could break metal chains. She pushes, pushes with all her might but in the end lets out a scream of frustration, face red, because the baby is still inside of her and she'll have to push yet again, one more time, to get it out and it hurts. It hurts so badly.
"One more time! The baby's almost out. On thre--"
"I can't! Just take him out! Cut him out! I want him out!!"
"You have to. On 'three'!"
And the nurse says three and the woman pushes, her husband nibbles at his bottom lip and worries about their little daughter sitting alone in the corridor, can she hear her mother in agony? With one last scream she brings the baby into the world.
"It's a boy", the nurse announces happily. The woman sighs and collapses on the bed, panting heavily. Her husband finally comes to her side and they change worrisome and wary looks, "What should we do?" hanging on their tongues but neither one of them dares to say it out loud. The man doesn't want to cut his son's umbilical cord so the nurse does it for him and takes the boy away to be washed and wrapped into warm blankets, while his first screams are filling the room.
"I'll go and get Sora", the man sighs and his wife nods shortly. She watches as he turns on his heels and heads for the door, disappears to the corridor. He comes back a second later with their two-year old in his arms, and at the same time the kind-looking nurse returns and gives the baby to his mother, who takes him in her arms with a puzzled look on her face. From her father's arms, Sora eyes the baby interestingly, flashes him a toothless smile and giggles happily. The parents exchange looks of worry. Looks of discomfort.
"I guess we'll keep him."
There's nothing perfect in this family picture.
A/N: Thank you to everyone who subscribed already after my short and crappy introduction :'D appreciate it! This is just a short intro to the story, take it as a prologue if you'd like. I hope you will like this story, I'll try to write this further when I have time, but The Third Song is keeping me pretty busy.... Please comment/subscribe to let me know what you think ^^
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