"This is not like the movies…"

She stood still on her spot, letting her love away from her eyes. He left her behind, didn't turn his back anymore. Rain poured hardly, soaking her wet. She didn't put any emotion on her face. Her lips already pale because it was too cold.

She didn't care about it.

 

She remembered how every happy moment she shared with her boyfriend; they laughed happily as they watched football match on television that night. She accidentally hit his eyes and quickly set her body up to check his condition. Then he took her hand and stared her deeply. "Do you love me, Hyerim?" His voice grew husky and she nodded.

He pushed her body lightly onto the sofa. They exchanged stares for a while and then everything happened so fast. She forgot that she was almost close with her period and that means she was fertile.

In two months, she felt the symptoms: morning sickness, less appetite, and her weights increased. She then bought a pregnant test, tested it on the bathroom and she gasped for the result. She was really having a baby in her belly. Worriedly, she walked to her boyfriend's apartment. She told him everything and what happened next was out of her expectation.

"It isn't mine!! You might sleep with other guy and he's the father, not me!" She didn't know, her angelic-faced boyfriend turned into a devil one while she told her pregnancy. She was like dropping an atom bomb on his house.

"Oppa, we did it that night and you're my first boyfriend." She cried out as she tugged his sleeves. "This is our baby."

"No! I don't want to be a father." Then he acted like a crazy man and his eyes rounded, "Abortion! Yes, an abortion is the best way!!" He held her shoulder tightly and shook her hard. "You have to do it before your belly is bigger!"

"No! I won't. It's same way like killing a human being. I will let her/him alive and I will be a single mom. I don't need you, coward!" She pushed him away and left him.

 

That was just the first step. The next one was harder. She had to tell her parents and like what she thought, her father would get angry for it. He would curse her and his boyfriend for being stupid. She would let him doing that because she deserved it. He was too ashamed for having a daugher like her. He was too disappointed with her and Hyerim soon felt so regretful. If she could turn back the time, she won't choose him as his boyfriend.

She mourned in misery as she hugged herself. She walked through the bridge alone. It was kilometers away from her house. She couldn't come back to tell her parents that her boyfriend didn't want to be responsible of her pregnancy.

Hyerim knew that this was her own fault. She trusted her boyfriend too much that she's ready to give him everything, ready to give him the world if he asked her to. She believed that he was her Prince Charming who would take a responsibility. He said that he loved her but in the end, where was he at the time when she needed him the most?

She realized that she arrived in the middle of bridge. There was no car passing by. Suddenly a stupid idea popped up inside her brain. Why she had to be alive when there’s no one for her side. She touched the bridge’s grip and looked out. The river flew hard and Hyerim knew when she jumped, she would die soon.

“Hey you, don’t jump!” Suddenly someone called her. She turned her head and saw a man staring at her way. Her breath stopped. Suddenly she froze on the spot. “Who are you?” Her voice trembled.

“I’m here to save you.”

“Save me? For what? I don’t think I need your help. Just go away!” She yelled at him and continued to think about jumping.

“HEY! STOP!” He ran as soon as she jumped down. He caught her hands on time before she hit the water. “Just let me go, fool!” She cursed as she tried to yank his hand.

“I won’t. Hang on!” He said as he pulled her up. Eventually, she fell on him. She then cried on his chest, "Why do you help me? Why don't you let me die instead?"

"I just think that you should be alive. That's it. Perhaps you just need a friend to talk. Suicide is not the best solution for you, dear." He caressed her hair gently.

- - - - - - - -

They sat leaning on the bridge's grip. She still cried and he didn't try to stop her cry. He just had a feeling that she had to cry it all out. When he knew that she had been calm down, he started to ask. "Enough?"

"Why do you help me? Why?" She kept asking.

"I love to help people. And why don't you just tell me the reason why you almost jumped down?" He smiled. "Is it because of broken-hearted?"

"I'm pregnant and my boyfriend didn't want to take a responsibility. My parents hated me and this child. Why do I have to be alive? I hate my life." She explained.

"Of course you have to. You're pregnant. You bring another life inside you. Don't you ever think that he/she is innocent and he doesn't understand why you hate him?”

“I want to raise this child alone but then I thought it’s impossible. I’m just twenty years old girl that has nothing and how I will feed my child later. I’m so stupid. Why I’m so stupid?” She sobbed again. Then he sighed.

“It’s not only your fault. It’s both of you, not your child. Before you did it, you must know the consequence, didn’t you?” He tried to not judge. "So if you want to die, just wait for your child to be born. He deserves to live."

She then became speechless. He continued, "You will be a mom. It's a noble job. You know, thousand of couples wait for children for many years. Don't you ever see anything from another side? I mean, you can see this as a chance for you to grow up and be more mature than before. As an adult, you should take a responsibility for everything you've done."

With teary eyes, she turned around. "What should I do then? I can't come back home. My father won't accept me as his daughter anymore."

He stared back at her, "I'll help you to talk with your father. Now, you just need someone to take you home and I'll take you home."

"Do I know you?" She questioned.

"Hmm?" He answered. "Yes I know you. We're neighbours." He grinned.  

"Neighbours? Do we?"

"Yes. I live beside your house. I was on my way back home when I saw you crying and planned to jump. And I'm Yang Seungho, by the way." He grinned at her.

She didn't reply him and lowered her hand in ashamed feeling. Seeing her like that, Seungho continued, "Here let me tell you something." Then he looked up, staring softly to the dark sky.

"I know your one and only boyfriend have left you but your world won't stop rotating even if everything didn't come out as you wished. Look around! Star still blinks, moon still hang on there," He pointed to the sky. "And your heart still beats. Perhaps at the first time, you will feel like you have nothing anymore but the more you try, you will pass it. You just need an adaptation."

"I saw it at movie. Everything is beautiful on there. I thought it existed. Happy ending, kiss, love, family. Where is it?" She asked.

"It exists but it depends on you and with whom you will spend your life. We must make our own ending. He might be a bad guy and he didn't deserve you. I think you're a nice girl and you can find another man if you want." He patted her shoulder gently. "Be strong! You can do it."

"I hope so."

Then he held her hands. They walked together to her house. On their way to her house, she looked at her hands that linked with him. Her heart beat faster.

It was him, actually.

Her first love. Her first hero. She didn't know why she could forget about him. She just... Pushed him into the deepest mind until she couldn't think about him anymore.

Then she moved into a different school. She met her boyfriend and ended up like this. She felt desperated and almost did a suicide.

She arrived in front of her house. She looked at him and suddenly she became stronger after seeing his smile.

They stepped into the house and she already be ready for the next moments. "I'm sorry, mom, dad. I have dissapointed you all but let me taking any responsibilities for anything I've done. I'll take care this child." She strongly stated. When she talked like that, she held his hand tightly, asking for any power.

"You!" Her father shouted. Then she couldn't hold her own tears. She kneeled down and hugged her father's thigh. "I'm sorry, Dad. I love him too much until I can't think clearly that time. I'm so sorry. I know I should go away from this house but I want to come back to say sorry before I'm really going out."

"You don't have to get out from here, Hyerim-ah! I'll be by your side." Her mother came to her and hugged her. "We love you, Hyerim."

Then the mother and daughter hugged each other. They cried for the sadness. He just looked at three of them with soft gaze. He suddenly thought about being her friend for these nine months.

As her father, he wouldn't leave her side.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Hyerim knew he wouldn't go anywhere.

After that night, Seungho always came to her house just for checking her condition. Every morning, he would greet her mother just to say hello and hugged her mother. "Good morning, Hyerim. How's your baby?" He asked it every morning once she opened her eyes. His smile made her feeling stronger.

"It's good." She smiled.

"Is there anything you want to eat this morning?" Seungho asked. "I can cook it for you." He told. "Just go back to sleep and I'll wake you up when I'm done with it."

"Ah, you don't--" She wanted to stop him but he already left the room.

He's not her real husband but he acted like one. In the end, that childhood fling came over her heart again. Everytime Seungho touched her hand, her heart felt warm and relaxed as if she knew everything would be alright. She also watched how her family and his family treated each other.

"Hyerim, come here. Mom and Dad want to see you." He said to Hyerim when they visited his house.  

Once she took a step closer, his mother soon hugged her. "Are you okay?"

She nodded but she couldn't control her tear of happiness. She realized that she wasn't alone here. His mother then brought her to the dining room. Hyerim could see how many foods have been prepared for her.

"Thank you, omonim." She said. Then she looked at him who was standing few steps behind her as he gave her a warm smile.

 

"Ah, you're here? Come in before you get cold."

Hyerim was standing on the balcony when Seungho came to bring her a jacket. He then wrapped her shoulder with a jacket.

"No, it's okay, oppa. I just want to have some fresh air." Hyerim smiled to him as she held the cup tightly.

"How's the tea? Do you want some more?" He asked in concern. "I'll get you another new hot tea." Before he left, she soon grabbed his hand. "It's fine, oppa."

He looked at her hand that was holding his hand. She quickly pulled off, "Sorry." She turned her body around. He smiled softly and then hugged her from behind. "It's okay. Do you feel warmer now?"

Her heart started to beat faster again. "Oppa, can I talk to you?" She slowly talked.

"Hmm?"

"Do you love me?" She questioned.

Seungho felt into a silence and Hyerim pushed his hands off her waist. She then faced him. "This baby will be born soon and after this you'll be free, oppa." After saying those words, she fell into tears. Imagining days without him almost made her crying. He already filled all her days recently.

"Why you've to be such a gentleman? Do you know," She inhaled a long breath, "that you have successfully made me depending on you so much."

His eyes widened, "Hyerim-ah."

"If you don't want to love me back, it's fine but please don't give me a false hope, oppa. I don't want, after this baby's birth, you'll continue acting as his/her father and make them believe that you're their father." She covered , couldn't control her tears anymore. She once again asked him, "Why? Why do you have to help me?"

"Because I love you, Hyerim."

One sentence made her stopped crying. She stared at him in disbelief glare. "What? Please don't lie."

And the next scene officially took her breath away.

He kneeled down after her, took out something from his pocket. He opened it and showed her a beautiful ring. "The more I spend my time with you, Hyerim, the more I feel something else inside my heart. I imagined countless scenarios about my own life about having you on my side. Not only that, I also think how you'll be my wife and take care of me. Seeing you like this, I want to protect you and this baby from harmful thing. I don't want you to get hurt. You know, everytime I'm with you, I imagined myself being your husband. And I want it becoming true."

She gasped in shock with his confession. "What are you doing?"

"Choi Hyerim, do you want to be my wife?" He asked wholeheartedly as he beamed at her.

She clasped her hands over , feeling touched. "Oppa, you shouldn't do this." She turned her body around. "And I don't think that we can be together."

"Why?" He stood up. Hyerim could feel how close he stood behind her and stared down at her with painful gazes. "I thought that you loved me back."

"But you shouldn't do this. You--"

She wanted to talk more but the more she moved, her belly reacted a pain that she couldn't explain it. Her legs went limply and then she felt something warm pouring her legs. It wasn't a birth water but it was blood.

"Oppa."

He stared at her in horror and then caught her before she hit the ground. "Are you okay, Hyerim?"

"It's hurt oppa."

He soon lifted her body in bridal style and brought her to the car. Their parents were talking in the dining room when they saw him in panic, bringing Hyerim to the car. "What's going on, son?" His father asked.

"I think that Hyerim's going to have a birth soon." He said.

- - - - - -

"Hold on, Hyerim."

She soon was wheeled to the surgery room. Her face turned into a white. Seungho ran beside her as he held her hand tightly. "Oppa, it hurts." She bawled.

Behind Seungho, her parents also came with him. “Hyerim, just hold on. The doctor will help you soon.” When they arrived in front of the surgery room, nurse stopped their way.

"Are you her husband?" The nurse stopped Seungho when they arrived on the surgery room. Seungho paused a while and looked at her parents. Her father then said, “Yes, he is.

"Okay, we'll have a surgery to help her and the baby. Come with me because we have to sign some papers." She asked and Seungho nodded instantly.

“But she’ll be fine right?” Seungho took the pen. His hands trembled as he tried to sign the paper.

“We’ll try our best.”

 

Seungho couldn’t sit serenely. He walked back and forth as he bit his nail nervously. Mr. Choi hugged his wife, tried to calm her down.

Not for a while, the doctor went out as he took off the mask. “How’s the baby? How’s my wife?”

The doctor’s face seemed very tired. There’s no smile on his face. It frightened Seungho and then he asked once more, "What's going on with our baby, doctor? Tell me! I deserve to know anything about her."

“We can save the mother but not the baby. The baby can’t make it because the womb is too weak. Probably because of the mother’s age or because of her womb. We need to save the mother or we can lose them both. I’m really sorry for you, Sir. You almost become a father but this is the best we can do. Now the first thing you have to do is comfort the mother. She will have the biggest loss.”

And the bomb fell down, exploding Seungho's worlds into pieces.

- - - - - - - - -

Seungho opened the door slowly. His dark circles grew darker and you could see the fatigue on his face. However, he couldn't sleep yet for these days. Hyerim was sitting on the edge of her bed, staring out of the window. She didn't want to eat, sleep or talk.

Slowly, he walked to the front of Hyerim. When he gazed on her face, soon he got a pang on his chest. She looks so terrible. "Hyerim."

"Oppa, I should be holding her on my hand now." She didn't look at his eyes. "The baby is a girl. I'll be a mother and I'll teach her so she won't make any mistake like I did. But why? Why she can't be alive?"

Hyerim gazed up at Seungho and she felt shocked when she found out that Seungho was tearing up. "I know your pain, Hyerim." Then he hugged her tightly and cried in pain together with Hyerim.

"She's at Heaven now, Hyerim. God loves her more than we did." Seungho caressed her back. "I don't want you to be sad like this. It's not only you who lost the baby; your parents also felt it. They're almost being grandparents."

"Oppa, I'm sorry."

"This is not your fault, Hyerim." Seungho kneeled in front of her and then wiped her tears with his thumbs. "Sshh... Don't cry again, okay? I'll be here for you."

Hyerim yanked Seungho's hands off her hands. "No, you can go now, Seungho oppa. You're free now. You don't have to be a responsible man for this baby."

"What?"

"I'll be on my own now, oppa. The baby is gone now and you don't have to be my side." Hyerim erased her tears and soon stood up.

"So you want me to go? After all of this?" Seungho sounds broken-hearted. "You think that it's only you who feel this way? I lost the baby too, Hyerim. Don't you remember my words last night? I want to protect you and the baby. Now, with or without the baby, I won't leave you." Seungho talked in anger.

Hyerim then turned around, "Do you think I will believe this? I've lost my baby and that's what my ex boyfriend wanted. He's right! I shouldn't let the baby growing up inside me."

"No, he's wrong. Choi Hyerim, stop thinking like that! Fine, if you want me to go out from your life, I will." Seungho stepped out from the room.

Her legs went weak and she fell down to the ground. Her breath stopped and she knew it was wrong. She shouldn't let Seungho going out of her life. She hugged her legs closer to her chest and cried into it.

"In the movie, the girl will have a happily ending. The baby will be born and she will get another man. Why it can't be my ending?" Hyerim sobbed.

"You can make your own ending, Hyerim and I'll help you to make your happy ending." Seungho stepped closer to Hyerim. She quickly looked up at Seungho.

"Oppa? You're still here?" Hyerim asked.

Seungho instantly pulled her into his arms. "Yes I am. I can't fulfill your wish. I can't get out of your life because I want to stay here for you." Seungho kissed the crown of her head and Hyerim hugged him back tightly.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

END

well, i don't know if this could be an ending since i feel want to make a story about their family. probably a sequel, should I?