“Yongguk –“ I sniffled and croaked out. “Bring him back.” I didn’t care how I sounded or what I looked like. I was desperate and if I needed to, I would beg. Yongguk continued to hold me in his arms.

“We’ll get him back.” 

“Yongguk, he needs me.”  I couldn’t even think about how scared Joon must be at the moment. He was ripped from my hands and I couldn’t do anything…I couldn’t protect him. “I’m sorry, Joon.” I cried into Yongguk’s chest and he wrapped his arms around me tighter.

I felt my body get lifted up from the ground and brought into my bedroom. Yongguk gently placed me on my bed and lie down beside me. Hiccups and small whimpers left my lips as a feeling of desolation continue to grow within me.

Yongguk held me closer to him as he ran a comforting hand through my hair.

“When we wake up tomorrow, we’ll go down and explain to them.” Yongguk tried his best to calm me down but I wasn’t having it. I wanted Joon returned to me now. “Go to sleep.”

How could I sleep? My mind was working at a thousand miles an hour. I wasn’t in my right mind. My son was just forcedly taken from me, I couldn’t be calm. Yongguk hands continued to soothe my back and my cries grew less and less until I ended up blankly staring at his chest.

That was when reality finally settled and I could finally understand what happened.

Joon was gone and my aunt successfully did what she set out to do.

***

Yongguk slowly opened his eyes as the sun rays broke through the cracks of the blinds. He didn’t realize where he was until he remembered why he was in Wonnie’s bed.

He looked down at her and was relieved to find a calm face instead of the teary one from last night. Honestly, he was taken aback. Wonnie was always so calm and collected. Occasionally losing her cool because of something stupid he did or smiling because Joon was around…

Right. When Joon was here.

When Joon disappeared through that front door, he saw another side of Wonnie. The side of a mother who was so desperate to keep her son beside her. He reached out and smoothed away the strands of her hair that strayed across her forehead.

Traces of tears were still on her cheeks and he gently wiped them away. Yongguk was never serious about anything nor did he care. His motto was always to take care of himself and worry about himself – it was less bothersome that way. But there was something that Yongguk realized he couldn’t do.

He couldn’t sit here and continue to watch an inconsolable Wonnie crying out for Joon. He wanted to do something, to return Joon so that he didn’t have to see Wonnie so heartbroken. Because for the first time in his life, Yongguk felt just as bad…like he could suddenly feel what Wonnie was going through.

Like Wonnie had said before about him being scared to let people take up places in his heart, he had unknowingly allowed Wonnie and Joon to take up big spaces in his own heart. He didn’t give permission but they somehow snuck by and now he couldn’t do anything about it.

Except to protect them.

He brought Wonnie’s hands up to his lips and kissed it. Like how Wonnie kissed Joon’s injuries so his pain would go away, he wanted to take away her pain as well.

Wonnie’s eyes fluttered open and Yongguk was sad to see that like last night, there was nothing there.

Wonnie looked at Yongguk blankly. “It was a bad dream, wasn’t it?” She croaked out forlornly but he couldn’t answer, he didn’t want to see the same pain again. “Yongguk please, I’m begging you. Tell me it was a dream.”

After getting tired waiting for his answer, Wonnie jumped up from bed and ran out the room. He quickly got up to follow her. When he left the bedroom, he found Wonnie standing at the doorway to Joon’s bedroom. And something told him to prepare himself.

All at once, Wonnie unsteadily dropped to the ground and began to sob. He didn’t waste a single second to run to her sid