“Tomorrow?”

                “Tomorrow, then.”

                The next day, she didn’t show up.

                Su Ji showed up three days later. She was wearing a plain white dress, ended right before it could lean on her knees; soft pink cashmere covered her shoulder and ended on her wrists. She was as beautiful as always, but unfortunately, today she was paler then she used to be; and to think that she used to be pale enough.

                She greeted Myungsoo with the smile she should have showed him there days ago. “Sorry,” she said, biting her dry lips.

                “It’s okay. I suppose you are better now,” Myungsoo comforted the girl. Myungsoo knew precisely why she didn’t come three days ago, or the next day after, or the next day after that. There was only one reason for Su Ji not to come to the Baby Breaths field. She always wanted to come, everyday, and she would always come, everyday, but in some particular days, when her fever increased, and her body was covered with clean beads of sweats, and drops of bloods found its way out through her nostril and she could do nothing to stop it, in some particular days, she just couldn’t.

                He understood that, and he didn’t need Su Ji to tell him what happened the last three days, because he understood that already, and to be frank, Myungsoo preferred not to hear it.

                It supposed to be a good memory for Myungsoo, after all, it was the day he first met Su Ji, the girl who born weak, but lived as strong. It was also the day for him to fall for her. And it was funny, because usually, people would fall when they found beauty at the object they fell for. And again to be frank, Su Ji that day was far from beauty.

…

                Myungsoo was seventeen when a family from Seoul moved in to the countryside he lived in. They wore fancy clothes and brought workers with them. Just like the other villagers, Myungsoo was there to watch the new comer moving their expensive furniture from the vehicle to their new house—a house solely built by bricks and woods with white fence and was surrounded with many kinds of flowers. Myungsoo could only watch.

                Weeks after that, Myungsoo was told to deliver the milks ordered from his family restaurant to the Seoul Family’s house. He called for anyone to pick the milk from the front door, but then he got no response. It was when he tried to lean on their wood door, he heard a loud noise of a fallen object, and he thought he had just made a mistake.

                He checked on the door, sweating, counting on how they could possibly be and in the same time how long he had to work if he really broke the door. He realized he had not do anything wrong when he heard screams from inside the house.

                “Su Ji-yah! Su-Ji-yah!” a women’s voice screamed in panic. “Help us! Anyone!” she screamed and Myungsoo couldn’t help but to enter the house with his trembling feet.

                “What happen,” his voice crooked, not sure whether it was because he managed to step on the luxurious zone or because the woman’s voice had lead Myungsoo to the shocking view of a girl younger than him crawling on the floor and the older one was hugging her on her lap.

                “Please., help us, call our doctor, he just went to buy the medicine, he was just away for a few minutes, we only left her for a few second” the older one said while crying, Myungsoo was confused whether she was talking to him or to herself. The younger painful choughs snapped him back.

                “I’ll search for him,” Myungsoo said quickly as he ran toward outside. He tried to function his brain, thinking where he could possibly be, a place which provided a lot of medicine, he thought.

                The good thing was those newcomers were so fluorescent you could recognize them without even meeting them before. In one of the store he managed to reach, a man maybe older than his own father with a thick glasses and wrinkles under it was one of the fluorescent newcomers. People could see it from his fancy clothes, but Myungsoo actually found it from the way he acted.

                Myungsoo was not really sure what he told to the doctor when he met him, but it was enough to make him understand. The next moment, they ran back to the house, hoping they were not too late.

                The doctor asked Myungsoo to help him and without thinking for a reason, Myungsoo agreed. The young girl was still on the floor, crying and screaming in pain. The older was actually quite the same, on the floor, crying and screaming in heartache.

                The doctor told Myungsoo to hold the girl because he needed to inject her back. Myungsoo followed the instruction, unaware that the word inject was not as simple as what he heard. Myungsoo brought the stranger to his arms and carried her to the nearest sofa of their living room. He laid her there, prone, and he was holding her hands from the end of the sofa where she leaned her head to prevent her from resisting.

                Her hair was covering her face, but as she shook her head in rebel, Myungsoo found drops of blood were flowing from her nostrils.

                “She is having a nosebleed,” he tried to tell the adults, and it surprised him because none of them was shock on the fact.

                “Just don’t let her rebel for now,” the doctor calmly said. “Madam, can you please sit on her legs? I can’t inject the medicine properly if she keeps moving,” he added and the older followed his instruction.

                The doctor lifted her damped shirt and looked for the right place to inject it. At the same time, the younger girl kept screaming in pain. It was like she was actually waiting for the needle to stab her pale skin but her own body resisted her from doing so. It was like her body wanted her to be in the unbearable pain for forever.

                The girl screamed in silence as a needle managed to sneak between her skins. And when Myungsoo thought that everything was finally over, the doctor didn’t stop until he shot her with another three needles. A moment later, she stopped screaming, but she was still crying. Myungsoo took a better look to the girl’s face in front of him for the first time; sweats, tears, blood, and saliva were covering her face. It was between his moment of thought and wonder, the girl vomited.

                Myungsoo backed down in instant, but some of her vomit was hitting him already. He looked to his parts of body which now covered with her vomit, feeling shocked, surprise, but somehow not feeling disgust by it. He looked back to the girl’s face in front of him and even though she still looked horrible, but somehow, she looked better.

                It eased him.

                The older woman came a few seconds later. She tied the younger girl’s hair into a bun. Then she wiped all the stains away from her face clean. She wiped her vomit clean and apologized to Myungsoo in behalf of the weak younger girl. She gave Myungsoo a wet towel to clean himself and showed him their bathroom, and even though it was not fully enough to clean him up, but at least it could wipe all the vomit away.

                Later when he got back to the living room, the girl was already changed to new clothes and obviously looking better than she had been before. She was still lying on the couch and the doctor came a few minutes after Myungsoo. The doctor walked toward the girl and gave her a warm smile, it was not that long until their smile changed into a huge grin and they exchanged a weak high five.

                “You did great, Su Ji,” the doctor remarked.

                “And so did you, Doctor Lee,” the girl replied. Then the girl turned her head, facing Myungsoo and she gave him the warmest chuckle a sick patient or even a person could give,

                “Hi, I’m Su Ji. Thank you. You did great,”

…

                Under the evening sky, surrounded by at least thousands of blooming Baby Breaths, Myungsoo could hear the sound of heartbreaking cries of a girl hidden between the flowers she had always loved. The girl’s cries pained the boy more than the evening sky itself, for it had been a constant reminder that there would always come a time for them to be separated. Time itself would make sure it happened.

                It was not hard for him to find where she hid between those pure white flowers, her cries were the only sound audible there, for the field was always been theirs alone.

                “What happened, Su Ji?” he sneaked through the Baby Breaths which was covering her. Su Ji looked at him with tears streamed down from her eyes, and then she stood and left him.

                “Myungsoo, don’t follow me,” she whined with tears still streaming down. For a moment Myungsoo felt that he was now watching a five years old girl crying. She was not running away, just walking away. So Myungsoo didn’t even bother to catch her up. He followed her from behind as he kept asking what happened, and Su Ji would answer by telling Myungsoo to get lost.

                “It’s okay Su Ji. Just tell me. It’s okay,” Myungsoo said to her as they walked around the wide field. Myungsoo was planning to search for another way of calming Su Ji but suddenly Su Ji stopped her steps and turned her body to Myungsoo. She looked at him for a second, and the next thing he realized was that Su Ji was crying in his embrace.

                “I’m pissed,” Su Ji cried in his embrace as they sat around the baby breaths. “I don’t know why I’m pissed. Maybe because today Mom is so grumpy, or maybe it is because everyone is so annoying at school, or maybe because I hate to see Dad looking so stress everyday because of our bankruptcy,  or maybe because I am so tired with all those needles and medicine. I don’t know which one but I’m pissed,” she cried louder, she buried her face on Myungsoo’s chest and grabbed his shoulder tightly.

                “I know, that must be ,” Myungsoo hushed her, his hand was caressing her untied hair softly and the other hand was embracing her.

                “Shut up, stupid Myungsoo,” Su Ji cried even harder. “Now you just remind me that maybe I am pissed because I thought you would upset me too, pissing me in any horrible way possible, and maybe, that is what pissed me the most,”

…

                “Myungsoo, do you think that it all worth it?” Su Ji asked to the lap’s owner she used to sleep on.

                “What is?”

                “Everything. Like having those medicines, or even like eating,” she pointed out. Myungsoo took a look on the girl on his lap; he slid her hair which was covering her swollen eyes away.

                “What makes you think that they don’t?”

                “Well, because no matter how many times we have them, they will only become waste. They won’t remain for a long time and in the end will be replaced. A complete waste” Su Ji trailed off.

                “And I began to think that maybe living is just like that,” she added, or to be exact, concluded.

                “How long do you think it will take for me to vanish and be replaced, Myungsoo? How long will it be until I become one of the complete wastes?” Su Ji asked, her face was looking up to Myungsoo.

                “The thing is, Su Ji,” Myungsoo began. “There’s no such this as a complete waste.

                Taking those medicines, eating, and even living, everything won’t be a waste. It’s true that maybe, nothing will remain, and someone and something in the end will replace another, but some feeling will still linger in any form possible, and one of them is called, memories,”

                “What can memories do to you?”

                “I believe, memories can do something more than the event itself,” Myungsoo looked at Su Ji. “Just like what you said, even if we have them with us, in the end they will leave. And you asked me how long will it take for you to become one of the wastes. But Su Ji, it doesn’t matter how long will it takes for someone or something to end up as a complete waste. What really matter are the memories of that person or something, the effect they give when they still linger,”

                Su Ji stayed silent, looking at Myungsoo’s black lenses and found both her runaway and home there. The place she would like to be for her entire life. The place where she could put her fret to ease, the place where she could everyone frets to ease, of course, mostly her father and her mother. She found where she want to remain and linger, the place where she wouldn’t be a waste. And if the only way for forever to work between them was by having her as a mere memory, it was enough for Su JI.

                “So tell me, Myungsoo,” Su Ji finally voiced. “How long will it take for you to forget me?”

                Myungsoo smiled upon hearing her question, he signed her to get up from his lap to sit. Su Ji sat up, leaning her back against Myungsoo chest. Myungsoo brought his own face closer to Su Ji, both were facing the thousands or even millions baby breaths in front of them from under the big tree in the middle of the field. Myungsoo pointed the invisible end with his finger, then whispered,

                “Until the last baby breathe dies”