*the parts in italics are all flashbacks*

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My heart stopped beating at that moment when I felt her body went limp in my arms. I honestly don’t know what to do and it’s not because I have no knowledge of first aid for situations like this but because the person involved is not just someone; she’s the woman that kept me alive for so long with her own warmth and brightness, and seeing her like this for the first time the life out of me. My whole body won’t move no matter how much my mind is screaming and telling me to help her, to do something-anything!

Fortunately, while I was frozen on my spot with the unconscious girl on my arms, someone came rushing to the scene with a cry.

“YOONG!”

“Jessica-ssi.” I looked at her and mumbled in surprise and thankfulness at the same time.

In an instant, she was at our side calling out Yoona’s name and shaking her body. All her efforts failed to wake up the passed out girl but instead, I was the one that woke up. Stopping my incompetence, I carried Yoona to bring her to somewhere more comfortable.

“I’ll bring her to her room. Where is it?”

I turned to Jessica-ssi for directions and she pointed at the only black door inside the house. Carefully, I made my way towards the said room and with the help of Jessica-ssi the door was opened and I was greeted by her room.

The way her room looks initially surprised me. It was designed in a very familiar way. It looked like her old room, or better yet our old room since I stayed there more than I do at my own house. Even the furniture looks the same and looking at it while I’m here with her can’t do anything but make me feel nostalgic.

Jessica-ssi tapped my shoulder breaking my trance. Remembering what needs to be done, I shook my head free of those thoughts and placed Yoona down on her bed.

To be honest, looking at her with her eyes closed as she lies on her bed, she looks stunningly beautiful; just like some sleeping fairytale princess. If only I’m not aware that of the truth that she fainted and is not asleep, I would have just stayed there to admire her, but that’s not the case.

“I don’t know what happened. She was just fine a while ago when her body started shaking and she began crying and then…” I started recalling what happened to give Jessica-ssi a glimpse of the turn of events.

There was silence for a minute and then a deep sigh came from the other person in the room. Doing so caught my attention and temporarily, I left Yoona’s face and looked at her instead.

“I should have known that this would happen.”

“What do you mean by that? How come you were able to guess that she would faint and yet you still left her?” Calmly, though I’m anything but calm, I asked.

“This happens often.” She said, making my eyes widen in shock and worry. “I mean, this usually happens around this time of the year when she clearly remembers everything that happened 6 years ago.”

Whatever Jessica-ssi is trying to explain, only made things more confusing for me. I looked at her with creased brows as I try to decipher her words. Hopefully she’ll get the idea and clear things out.

“I’m also positive that you triggered this even more.” She gave me an accusing look catching me off guard.

“Me?” I pointed at myself in disbelief. “Why me?”

Instead of answering my questions, she just heaved another deep sigh and took a seat at the edge of Yoona’s bed as she her beloved dongsaeng’s hair.

“You better take a seat if you want to hear what happened 6 years ago.” She sounded more like commanding than suggesting. “Even I still get weak knees and air out of me when recalling the events.” She admitted sorrowfully.

If she’s this serious and somber about the situation, I found it best to follow her advice. Hesitantly, I sat on the vanity placed on the left side of Yoona’s bed so I would be facing Jessica-ssi as well.

“How much was Yoong able to tell you?” Jessica-ssi started probing.

“We only talked about how Soojung-ie was adopted and then we stopped since the little girl asked for Yoong’s help with writing something.” I explained. “Come to think of it, the last thing that we talked about was about her being a wonderful mother.” I added after getting a better memory of the most recent scenario before everything turned for the worse.

I saw Jessica-ssi rubbing her forehead obviously frustrated with something which I still don’t know what. Was it something that I said? What’s so wrong about praising her as a mother? Shouldn’t she be flattered about it?

“Why Jessica-ssi? Did I say something wrong?”

“No.” She shook her head. “It’s not your fault. After all, you know nothing back then. It was also a subject that the both of you would have tackled sooner or later.”

“What do you mean? You kept mentioning that something happened 6 years ago. What exactly happened?”

This time, I’m the one using a tone that demands answers. Everything’s not making sense right now and I’m determined to get to the bottom of this! Something terribly wrong must have happened to Yoona 6 years ago for her to be affected like this. She has always been a strong and care-free person and seeing her broken like this breaks my heart to pieces.

Sensing the urgency and despair coming from me, she took a deep breath and started with a look of remorse.

“I believe that Yoona should be the one telling this story since it is HER story, but seeing her unconscious right now means that she can’t do it. Retelling her past would only break her once again and I refuse to watch her crumble like before.” Tears are now rolling down her cheeks and her eyes are shut tight as if pushing that image of what was Yoona before out of her mind. “Not now. Not ever again!” She exclaimed with so much conviction.

The way she acts right now only shows how much she suffered as well when she witnessed everything. Seeing her react like this assured me of how much she treasures Yoona. Somehow I feel relieved.

“Are you ready Jiyong-ssi?”

I gave her a light nod to say that I am ready.

“Well…” She paused to take a deep breath once again. “This is how Im Yoona lost her future and your first born.”

It was April Fools’ Day when she found out about the news. The past few days, she noticed some unusual and suspicious things about herself and it has been bugging her ever since, she had enough and finally got the courage to actually get some confirmation from a specialist.

When she got out of the Ob-Gyne clinic, she felt like all of her energy was drained out of her but she can’t help but laugh at the situation. Who wouldn’t when she feels like even the Universe is joining in on the celebration of the day and she was unfortunate enough to be the victim this time?

It’s not like she hates the thought of being pregnant because she doesn’t. Truth be told, she was actually very happy about the news especially since she’s bearing the child of the person she loves the most. What’s bothering her is the fact that she’s not ready yet, both of you are not ready yet. She’s still a year from graduating and the father of her child has bigger dreams, dreams that will not allow this kind of responsibility and distraction in order to be fulfilled. Yoona’s not someone that can take the guilt of being the reason for someone not reaching their dreams or even stopping the perfect flow of their lives. Especially not the dreams and life of the person she loves.

With all of these thoughts in mind, what is she to do? Of course, she wants to keep the child. There’s no doubt about that. But can she afford to get the child a complete and happy family?

That’s when she decided to try on gauging the effect of this whole scenario to everyone involved first before even doing anything. Luckily, it was April Fools’ Day, she has something to use as an excuse in case things turn for the worse.

Cautiously, she sent you the message about being pregnant and asking you about what you’re going to do about it. After knowing that you’ll end up stopping your plans of pursuing your dream of becoming a lawyer for the sake of being able to provide for her and the baby, that’s when she instantly made up her mind.

She loved you so much that she was willing to just keep everything to herself and to bear with it alone than to ruin the bright future that was ahead of you. It was torture for her to even break up with you and leave you. Everything that she said, everything that she did, all of it brought immense heartache to her. She left with a broken heart and a dying soul, but she tried to hold it together and keep living for she’s not living only for herself but for her child as well.

When she left, all she did was leave a note to her family about being fine and asking them not to worry about her and that’s it. Getting one backpack on her shoulder and one duffel bag in her right hand, she took the train to somewhere she doesn’t even know just to make sure that she’s as far away from everything as possible. She was actually lucky that she had saved money back then that she was able to rent out a small room that’s enough for her to stay in.

Since she was still on her early stages of pregnancy, she was still able to work to get money to support herself and to save some for her child’s future. Fortunately, there was a small office that we just built around that area and Sunny-ssi is the one handling the stabilization of the business and was looking for a secretary that time. She applied and with her credentials and personality, not to mention good visuals, she was hired by Sunny-ssi that instant.

We did not meet until she was already working for Sunny-ssi for a month already. I wouldn’t even have met her if Sunny-ssi didn’t decide to move back to the main office and she brought Yoona along with her. Good thing Yoona agreed since the pay was good and she really likes working for the company and Sunny-ssi as well since she’s that kind of boss who barely gives her subordinates anything to do, unlike me.

After we met and started living together, I noticed that there was something off with her. It turns out, she was pregnant and she did not even inform Sunny-ssi about it. She was hiding it thinking that we would fire her due to being a hindrance with her condition since there are times that we need to move from one place to another to check on business details and we’re always on our feet. We actually did not mind since she’s very efficient and she became very dear to the both of us already.

Her pregnancy was going smoothly and she’s as healthy as a mother could be. It helped a lot that she was so determined to keep the baby healthy as well that she never fails to take her vitamins, go to her check-ups, eat a lot of healthy food, have some exercise and even avoid depressing thoughts. Luckily, she did not put up a fight when we asked her to let us take complete care of her and for her to stop working by the time that she was already on her 5^th month. During her last trimester all 3 of us were already very excited for the little one to come.

The day that we’ve all been waiting for came and a beautiful little baby girl greeted us with her mesmerizing smile. She looked like a true angel and I guess that was what she was truly meant to be because right on her first night after being born, she was diagnosed with a heart defect called Tetralogy of Fallot. It’s a condition where there is an abnormality with the way the ventricle works. It limits the flow of blood to the lungs thus the aorta allows the oxygen-poor blood(blue) to return to the right atrium and right ventricle to be pumped out the aorta to the body. That’s why she turns blue every now and then and how we also found out about her condition.

We were all devastated when we learned about it but it was ironic how Yoona was the strongest out of the 3 of us. She did not breakdown, she did not feel like there was no hope, she did not even fall into depression. When we asked her how she can manage to be like that when there was a huge possibility of her baby dying, she only told us that she’s confident that her baby is not going to give up on her.

Seeing her determined and full of hope, we looked for the best doctors and treatment that money can offer. We were even willing to fly to another country but the baby’s condition did not allow us to do so.

It was absolutely beautiful to witness how Yoona cared and loved the baby girl. Sometimes, when the baby cries so hard because of the pain and difficulty in breathing, the moment she’s held by Yoona in her arms and her voice fills the room she immediately stops crying and her breathing returns to normal and instead of cries there were laughter. The bond between the mother and daughter was something extremely marvelous.

Things went down like that for 5 months; 5 months of research, treatments, check-ups, and happiness. Sadly, we were only able to prolong her life for 5 months. Even after all the extensive and expensive treatments that was administered to her, all of it were just futile attempts because in the end her fragile little body was the one that finally gave up.

After burying her, it was the darkest time of our lives. It was the first time that we lost our light. Ever since we met Yoona, she has always been the one that brought laughter and happiness to Sunny-ssi and I. This is true even during the time that we were fighting for her own baby girl’s life. But right after her baby died, it’s like she completely died as well. All of the pent up sorrow, pain, and remorse that she must have been feeling all this time, that’s the only time that she allowed herself to feel them all. As it turns out, she was just pretending, acting all strong and hopeful and she already felt it coming but she refused to accept it because she can’t just stand there and watch the angel that she brought into this world that she loved more than life itself to diminish into a lifeless being.

“And as you already know, she found our cute little baby Soojung and everything was history. Yoona came back to us and became an even better version of herself but there are still lapses whenever she remembers what happened and whenever the death anniversary comes up. And you’re coincidentally on time for the latter since it’s this Sunday.” She concluded as tears are streaming down her face.

I, myself can’t stop the flow of my tears. I’m not even sure when it started, but I’m guessing knowing that Yoong ran away with our child to give way for my dreams I can’t help but feel immense pain in my heart. Is it betrayal that I feel, or maybe regret, or is it guilt, or is it a mix of all. As I recall the demise of my own little angel, and the fact that I wasn’t even able to see her, to hold her, to be there for her, I can’t stop the sobs from coming out of my mouth. As I try to keep it in, I covered my mouth with my hands but my pain still echoes all throughout the room.

Jessica-ssi was kind enough to give me time to compose myself, to get my thoughts together. She just sat there looking at me with a somber expression as if she was sorry that she had to be the one to give me the news.

Almost half an hour already passed since nothing but my sobs was the only thing that can be heard in Yoong’s room. Gathering the courage that I have left, I started asking.

“What did you name her? What’s the name of my poor baby?”

“MiRae. Im MiRae.” She answered with a smile. “Yoong mentioned that since she was the FUTURE that the both of you wanted and dreamt of, she named her MiRae which means future.”