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Third spring.

My head throbbed and I clamped my head between my two hands with all my strength hoping it went away.

It stopped.

I slowly relaxed my hand and heaved a sigh of relief as I examined my surroundings with a blurry vision. To my right I noticed my brother stumbling out of bed and hastily sweeping his fringe in a direction. I wondered to myself what he was doing up so early. It was barely even 6 am in the morning. Then the waves of pain were back. I shut my eyes tightly and turned around, trying to go to sleep again. Suddenly, a cold hand came in contact with my forehead and startled, my eyes shot open almost immediately again.

“YAH!” I groaned as I grabbed Youngmin’s wrist. “You’ve been doing this the entire night. It scares me. Stop doing that.”

Sighing, he lifted both his hands into the air as though defeated. “I just wanted to see if you were still running a fever. You were hitting your head pretty hard the whole night. Does it even help?! No one can ever make sense about you when you are sick. Just go back to sleep.” With that, he slapped my face gently and trotted out of the room with a mischievous grin on his face.

Turning back to face the wall, I pulled the covers up to my neck and tried to go back to sleep.

It seemed like just five minutes, before I heard the door creak open again. Assuming it was my brother, I shifted a little in bed before going back to sleep. Soon after I felt someone approach me. Annoyed, I tugged the blanket closer to my face, hoping that Youngmin would get the idea that I did not want to be bothered.

Being sick was bad enough. Having my two brothers come in to check on me every two seconds annoyed the daylights out of me even more. I knew they were genuine but I just did not like being probed about how I was feeling and what I wanted to eat every 5 minutes when I’m already feeling uncomfortable myself.

The person continued to approach me and gently settled on the side of my bed. Carefully, a cold finger pushed the fringe out of my closed eyes. In a fluid movement, my hand appeared from under the covers and grabbed the bony wrist, my eyes still closed. “Yah! Jo Youn-“ I was cut off immediately when a pair of soft lips gently pressed onto my forehead. Cautiously, my eye lids parted and the morning ray stung my eyes instantly, telling me that it was already morning. Blinking a couple of times, I allowed my eyes some time to adapt to the light.

A shady face appeared before me, and with just a whiff of the air, I didn’t need to see to know who that was. “Minkyeong uh…” I whined as I let her go, and pulled the covers down to my waist, but not budging, obviously reluctant to get up just yet. “What are you doing here so early?”

MinKyeong giggled, her bubbliness instantly lifting up my mood.

“Youngmin told me you haven’t left your bed for the past few days except when you needed the bathroom. And since you didn’t even bother to reply my text messages…” she said in a threatening manner, her arms folded across her chest, “So I’m here to get your lazy out of bed! You need some fresh air, then you will get better. It’s spring.”

I looked at her before squeezing my eyes shut and rolled about on bed, pretending to wince in pain. But MinKyeong did not buy any of that. Instead, she pulled me out of bed forcefully, and lugged me to the washroom to make sure I washed up, before dragging me out of the house.

Although slightly reluctant, I still slipped into my brown sandals and interlocked our fingers together as we took a deep breath of the morning spring air and strolled on.

MinKyeong never fails to put a smile on my face.

“You’re right,” I agreed, as my eyes began to fill with energy again, “all I need is just the spring air, to get me well again.”

That’s right MinKyeong, all I need … is you.

I peeped over the counter and paused in my action. MinKyeong leaned back comfortably in the arm chair, her head tipped slightly to the side, asleep.

I smiled to myself.

I never knew why I loved her sleeping face so much. It looked like as though she was almost comfortable and well, free of pain and discomfort.

 I hurriedly scribbled the last bit of the accounts for the day into my old notebook and stashed it away in the drawer. Taking off my jacket, I paced towards her and gently placed it over her thin body, not wanting to wake her up just yet.

Starting yesterday, MinKyeong followed me down to the café where she would sit quietly in a corner reading her books or listening to some music, occasionally complaining about how bored and useless she felt and begged me to let her go home so that she could do some simple chores. But obviously, I ignored that. Nothing could make her leave my sight.

Quietly, I headed for the kitchen and grabbed the mop from behind the door. I had let MinWoo off early for the day since he had helped me with so much, which meant that I had to clean up all by myself.

 I shuffled across the café, scooting down to mop under the furniture and standing up again to swipe down the floors with my mop. Finally done, I set my mop down and lounged into the chair opposite from MinKyeong, my lips parting into a smile as I admired the way her face was so full of peace and calmness. After I was done calming down, I stood up and approached her. Crouching down, I gently tucked the loose strands of her brown locks behind her ear and pulled the jacket up.

And for the nth time that day, I placed a finger under her nose and waited for a breath. A sign that she was still alive.

Ever since she returned from the hospital, I kept doing this subconsciously. It became sort of a routine, to do so every time she was asleep.

The official reason being that I wanted to make sure she was breathing. The real reason being that maybe, I was just afraid to lose her in a second, or that I wanted to convince and remind myself that as long as she was still alive, there was hope.

It always worked like that, be it when someone checks on you when you are having a fever, or when someone checks for a breath as a sign of life. They all have the same motive: to make sure their loved ones were alright.

Softly, I pecked her on the forehead and then slowly, I straightened my back into the standing position again. Staring at my watch for a couple of seconds, I remembered that the kids would probably be home any time now and decided to wake MinKyeong up so that we could head home to wait for the kids.

Upon that thought, the bells hung on the door of my café tingled and in came running my children and KyuJung, along with Youngmin following closely behind. My children crashed their body onto mine and greeted me, as I squat down to match their eye level. “So how was the stayover? Did you have fun with Kyujung?” My children nodded and began describing feverishly the activities they did over at Youngmin’s house, the noise causing MinKyeong to wake up.

She took a deep breath, her eyes slowly fluttering open to the sight of her two children.

Without hesitation, she sat up straight and extended her arms out, inviting the children to give her a hug. She slowly stood up after that and wiped the sleepiness out from her eyes and with a grateful smile on her face she thanked Youngmin for taking care of the children over the weekend.

And with that, we headed home for our first family dinner in 3 nights, where for once, the children get to decide what they wanted to have for dinner without having Appa and Eomma nag at them to eat all the vegetables and drink the soup.

At just that simple thought, my children jumped in joy. And at that sight, Minkyeong was happy. And when the three of them are happy, I’m happy. With that feeling in my heart, I whispered a prayer in my brain, praying that this happiness will never end.

But at the end of my mind, it often tugged me.

‘Will it?’

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