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I dragged MiEun behind me and hurried her along, as her tiny legs moved as fast as she could so that she could catch up with me. Arriving at the colorful building, I pushed the navy blue gate open and finally heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness, we made it on time,” I said to MiEun as she let go of my hand and stepped into school. Waving goodbye, she skipped happily in the direction of her classroom, as though oblivious to what had happened to her mother just the night before. Watching her dash off, I silently praised myself for keeping a set of her uniform and stationery in my old house for her. Smiling, I approached the teacher who was greeting the students that enter the school.

“Good Morning, Mr. Jo,” the teacher greeted and bowed and I reciprocated her actions.

“I’ll pick her up later,” I informed her, so that MiEun would not end up taking the school bus back to an empty house. With that, I headed off towards the direction of my car. Looking at the watch, I smiled to myself as I imagined my son running into school with KyuJung, Youngmin’s son, excited about a new day at school. At that thought, I felt my heart flush with warmth as I imagined my children’s smiling faces. And with that, I jogged on the mushy snow as I rushed as fast as I could home.

As I entered our small apartment, I headed straight for our room without hesitation and pulled out a few sets of new clothes as well as her favorite perfume, strawberry shine, as though I’ve already done it a hundred times. Then, I did the same for the kids. Grabbing their favorite item along, I threw them in the bag as I figured that I could fold it properly when I’m at the hospital with MinKyeong. Laying the bag down, I sat on the bed as I took a whiff of the room. It’s exactly like her. Lifting up a picture, it was a breezy morning during our spring break, and we decided to visit the beach at JeJu Doh. That was before… all these happened.

I set the picture back down on the table, my heart sank. The thought of losing her just scared me… Taking a deep breath, I grabbed the bag and walked straight out of the house, once again, to the car. MinKyeong, we’ll get through this together.

MinKyeong has been in and out of the hospital a lot for the past year, that almost all the nurses and doctors in that section knew us. “Good Morning, nurse Lee,” I greeted as I entered Minkyeong’s ward, the bag and a packet of Minkyeong’s favorite food in hand. Nurse Lee nodded slightly at me before turning back and continued to change the medicine in Minkyeong’s drip. “She had just gone back to sleep after taking her medications. She regained consciousness early this morning at about 4 am.” Nurse Lee smiled, before leaving the room to us. As usual , I pulled the curtains open and pushed the glass window out, allowing the cold winter wind to fill the room with a little bit more Christmas cheer. I pulled the covers over Minkyeong’s sleeping body till her shoulders and settled back down on the chair beside her. I resisted the urge to caress her cheeks as I did not want to wake her up. I stared at her sleeping figure as I examined her features closely. Her cheekbones now protrude out and her cheeks sank in. Her skin painted a pale shade of beige, and her body a lot skinnier than it used to be. Her silky hair had transformed into a lifeless bunch and her face lost of the usual flush. The only thing that remained the same was her ever hopeful and energetic eyes. The same eyes that gave me the courage to carry on, and the eyes that made me believe, everything was going to be alright. Unknowingly, I felt my lips crack into a small smile.

Her eyes fluttered open as I tugged the hair out of her face like I always do. Craning her head to face me, she gave me a weak smile. “Kwangmin uh,” she called out and I gave her a bright smile in response.

“Hungry?” I asked, and without waiting for her reply, I pulled the packet of food out and placed it before her. “Your favorite noodles,” I smiled as I watched her grin at me. She looked at me gratefully and took a spoon of noodles up and tried to feed me. I stared at her hand, holding the spoon she had put food on, extended out to me as I felt my heart clench. Her thin hands shook slightly, telling me it took her a lot of strength to even just extend her hand out for 3 seconds. I opened my mouth slowly and immediately scraped the food on the spoon off with my lips. “So,” she started as she drew her hand back after she fed me, “the doctor said I only had three months left… maybe.” Her face kept straight throughout as she spoke. I stopped chewing as I tasted a familiar sour fluid mingling with the food in my mouth, my eyes stung with the tears that were threatening to fall. I shook my head as I looked down. I swallowed my food, along with my tears as I looked up once again, facing her confidently.

“No, you’ll be fine. We will get through this three months together. We’ll watch Mieun and JunHyun grow up together. You won’t … die.” I choked out the last word as the tears finally fell. 

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