At The End Of It All

She touches her face, her fingers falling across the decoloured skin. She has learnt not to sigh anymore, and sets the mirror down. It’s the one YoonA had given her, the one with sequins and sparkles at edges, pink all over. She has smiled and accepted the small gift, taking the small girl into her arms and holding her till she falls asleep.

YoonA’s parents are working most of the time, so the girl’s pretty much lonely in her ward, so Tiffany lets the girl stay at nights, alternating between telling the small girl fairytales and singing her songs off the radio in Tiffany’s room.

She doesn’t feel like doing anything but to sit down and just drift. She pats the pale blue bedspread around her, and swipes off the biscuit crumbs from YoonA’s last visit.

The curtains are drawn, just because Tiffany doesn’t like looking outside anymore. There’s a new water fountain that had been built early this year, and most of the small kids play around there when waiting for their parents to be done with visits. They’re so happy, having so much fun that Tiffany couldn’t help but to envy them.

But the rational side of her is chiding her for being so stupid and foolish.

She counts the petals of the flowers in the vase on her table for the sake of it, and frowns when the number doesn’t even hit twenty.

She stops when the door creaks open and a small figure, clad in a baby pink blanket, stumbles into Tiffany’s room, rubbing at her eyes with her fists and yawning into the back of her hand.

“Fany-unnie, YoonA can’t sleep,” she girl says, though it’s obvious she’s lying.

“Aww,” Tiffany opens her arms and the girl clambers into them, “Yoong can’t sleep?”

YoonA shakes her head, and Tiffany the girl’s pigtails slowly, smoothing the coarse, curled strands out.

“Well, you should get some sleep. I heard it’s a big day for you tomorrow.”

YoonA’s little fingers grasp Tiffany’s gown tightly, like she’s afraid of letting go, and nestles deeper into Tiffany.

“YoonA doesn’t want to go. YoonA wants to stay here with Fany-unnie.”

It’s that child-like statement that makes Tiffany ask where her innocence went.

“You shouldn’t stay, Yoong. This place is only for sick people, but your mother told me that you’ve become stronger and better and prettier. So you should go home,” Tiffany pulls the blanket over themselves and gazes at the white wallpaper, “and see your parents, see your friends, go to school.”

Tiffany’s eyes feel dry, and she blinks rapidly, but she has to turn away from YoonA because YoonA is a smart girl and she might find out that Tiffany is jealous of YoonA too.

“Why can’t Fany-unnie come?” YoonA asks like it’s possible.

“Because Fany-unnie’s home is here, Yoong.”

“Fany-unnie can have a new home, with YoonA!” Tiffany pretends not to notice the sparkle in YoonA’s eyes, though she doesn’t say anything to tear it down.

“Have you packed your stuff?” Tiffany asks gently, and YoonA shakes her head stubbornly.

“YoonA wants to stay.”

Tiffany smiles softly. “You have to be good to your mommy, YoonA. That means you have to pack, and eat your vegetables, and drink your milk.”

YoonA doesn’t say anything, and when Tiffany looks down at the girl, she notices YoonA’s soured expression.

YoonA is leaving, and Tiffany, Tiffany is still stuck here. She’s happy for YoonA, but being here for too long is making Tiffany a pessimist, which her father tells her is not possible, since she’s a born optimist. Tiffany begs to differ.

“YoonA wants to hear a bedtime story,” YoonA requests quietly and Tiffany obliges, and she tells the story, with the soft grumbling of the air-conditioner and the muted dialogues of the characters of some drama re-run.

Being with YoonA makes Tiffany forget about time, forget about the nurses knocking at the door, forget about everything.

And soon, after two bedtime stories and a song Tiffany has learnt from the radio (and YoonA has taken a special liking to it), Tiffany has YoonA curled up in her arms, sleeping. Tiffany isn’t spared either, liking how the escaped light rays slant in across her walls, and eventually falling asleep as well.

They haven’t told YoonA yet, and they’re hoping YoonA will forget her, which she had requested for herself. Though saddened she might have YoonA forget her, since she adores the small girl so much, Tiffany believes her fairytales and the songs sang to YoonA will always be a familiar line in a book, or a knowing tune somewhere.

With every hello, there’s bound to be a goodbye.

And, oh, goodbyes make her so tired.

~+~

Tiffany’s eyes open at a jerking on her arm, loose around YoonA’s small frame.

“Hey, sorry, go back to sleep. I’m just gonna take YoonA back to her room,” a soft voice tells her.

She’s not ready yet, she doesn’t want to say goodbye yet. She tightens her arms around YoonA and shakes her head sleepily.

“No, just a while more. Please.”

“It’s nearing eight, Tiff. She’s leaving soon.”

She refuses to let YoonA go and holds her close like a child would to her mother.

“Mom’s already waiting to take her home.”

The room is dark, all the lights are off and the television is switched to some channel she’s never seen before. But the edges of her vision are blurred and she rubs her eyes to get rid of the blurring.

“Jessi?”

Tiffany’s arms slacken and Jessica gathers YoonA into her arms, picking the small girl up. But she waits for Tiffany first, because Tiffany always kisses YoonA’s little forehead and brushes briefly at her curls before Jessica takes her away.

Jessica watches as Tiffany does the same, but lets her lips linger a little longer on YoonA’s forehead, putting in every ‘thank you’ and ‘I love you’ into that kiss for YoonA to live off and carry around.

“See you, YoonA,” Tiffany whispers into YoonA’s skin and finally pulls away, looking at Jessica, eyes saying, ‘I’ll see you later.’

Jessica nods at the unsaid words and sends YoonA back, walking through the dimly lit corridors in a daze, wondering why the beauty couldn’t be preserved, why God always wanted His angels back first.

It’s the same with nearly everyone she knows.

~+~

“There are little to zero chances of survival. Are you certain you want to proceed? It might be best to just spend her remaining days with her family and friends.”

Her father had looked at her and implored her with his wrinkled and aged eyes for her not to do it. After all, she was Daddy’s little girl. But Tiffany had always been stubborn, always wanted to do what she wanted, what she thought would be best for everyone around her.

And she knows this is best.

She nodded, and her father had to look away.

“Yes,” said Tiffany, “I want to proceed.”

When Jessica had found out, she didn’t want to see Tiffany for days, and it took a lot for Jessica to finally slip into Tiffany’s room and beg her not to do it.

“But what if it succeeds, Jessi?” Tiffany had the side of Jessica’s face. “We’d have more time together.”

Jessica’s face had paled, and she gripped Tiffany’s hands in distress, and she begs and begs, even when she had known that Tiffany would not change her mind. Under the covers of Tiffany’s blanket, pale legs splayed against the white of the bedspreads, Jessica had tried everything, said everything she could ever think of, to beg for a little more time.

But Tiffany had always been that kind of person, thinking of possibilities to the point of dismissing the things she could lose believing in them.

Right now, Jessica is thinking of Tiffany’s swollen face, and the chances of putting ‘us’ again in a future sentence. She remembers when YoonA had been admitted to the hospital, to cure a disease Jessica couldn’t pronounce. Her mother had told her that YoonA’d get better with all the anti-biotic and therapies they had at this hospital.

But looking at YoonA, she strongly believes that Tiffany had cured her little sister, made her little sister smile and laugh again, became the reason why her sister didn’t give up on hope.

She hands her sister to her mother, her mother looking at her with understanding that she had to be somewhere else.

Her mother envelopes Jessica into a hug, and Jessica is miserable enough to tell herself that she needs any kind of hug, from any kind of person now.

“I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

Her mother nods, a soft smile forming on bitter lips stained with coffee. “Take all the time you need.”

“I’ll come back to settle the paperwork, though.”

“Just go. Don’t worry about it. Hopefully, your father will be back by then.”

Jessica nods and kisses YoonA, silently wishing she won’t forget that she had met an angel in, out of all places, a place where people don’t believe in angels at all.

~+~

Tiffany’s eyes are barely open when Jessica enters, kissing Tiffany at the corner of and raising the blankets over the both of them. Jessica eases the thumb into the creases of Tiffany’s face, and lets it slip off her chin.

“Jessi?” Tiffany’s voice is soft, and it reminds Jessica so much of feathers underneath her fingertips.

Jessica kisses her again. “Go to sleep. I’ll wake you up later.”

Jessica notices how Tiffany’s face has changed considerably, the skin colour, the sunken cheekbones, the swell around the cheeks. But she’s still beautiful, and even if Tiffany becomes bones, Jessica will still call her beautiful. Tiffany defines beauty, in her own, special way.

Jessica shifts closer to Tiffany, stops her eyes from tearing, and whispers all the things she has yet to say into Tiffany’s ears.

“But I’ll make it,” Tiffany says to her. “I’ll come back.”

Jessica says nothing, wanting to believe her so badly, and smiles like she does. Even if she hadn’t said anything, it’s still a lie, and Jessica remembers that she has to apologise.

But whatever it is, Jessica is happy knowing that she left this place with a lot more than she had begun with.

“I think you’re an angel,” Jessica says to the half-asleep Tiffany, to keep herself awake, “and you have wings hiding underneath your gown.”

“You’re so funny,” Tiffany slurs.

“That’s why YoonA loves you so much, because you’re an angel.”

Tiffany laughs lightly, and Jessica tells her ears to remember it forever, because it’s the last time she hears Tiffany laugh.

Though, she believes she hears Tiffany laughing at her from up there. At one point, and it still goes unsaid, she knows YoonA does too.

Well, an angel’s laugher is carried on by the wind, ferried by clouds, in the crackling of the radio YoonA listens to, passed on in some way or another.

Like she’s telling Jessica and YoonA, ‘Laughter is all around you. I am all around you.’

At the end of it all, there really, actually is no end, but a continuous loop (the circle of life, for the Lion-King-inspired YoonA) and there is only one destination, the start.

That’s why Tiffany is still alive, waiting at the start of it all.

—ジュリエット