“Do you want to see a picture of my son?” Gary asked.

Hyun nodded, shyly interested. Gary smiled and fished out his wallet from his back pocket. He flipped open the wallet, and there was a photo of the three of them. He pointed to the baby he was carrying.

“His name is Taeyang.”

Hyun nodded. He looked at Gary, then back at the photo again. He smiled a little. You look alike, he thought.

“Do you know why we named him Taeyang?”

Hyun shook his head.

“Because he brightened up our lives,” Gary said, a mixture of sadness and happiness in his voice. Hyun smiled sadly. Clearly, he was understood the immense pain they felt when their son died.

“Jihyo never told you about him, has she?”

Hyun shook his head. Gary nodded knowingly.

“Do you want to know more?”

Hyun nodded firmly. Gary smiled again. Sometimes, it pained him to think about his son, but it made him happy too.

“He was really playful. He ran about all day and all night, without tiring out. It was hard to get him to stay still for a moment. This photo… I remember, it was Jihyo’s birthday. We went to a studio to take a family portrait. It was a fancy event. We took an hour to get ready… and another hour to get Yangie to sit still,” Gary recalled, his eyes crinkling up with smiles as he reminisced that day.

“Jihyo loved him a lot,” Gary said, his fingers moving over his son’s image. “She said he was a gift.”

“She loved children… You could tell that, don’t you?”

Hyun nodded, smiling.

“She was a kindergarten teacher, in the past. She was so soft-spoken, I couldn’t imagine how she led the rowdy children. But she had this soft, gentle touch to her that makes all the children listen. You know?”

Hyun nodded firmly. He knew it very well. From the first day she spoke to him. All the workers in the orphanages were kind and gentle, but with Jihyo, it was a special kind of gentle., like she really, truly cared and wanted to make the child comfortable. It was why he agreed to go with her.

“But she was told that she shouldn’t conceive. You know what conceive is?”

Hyun shook his head.

“It means to have a baby,” Gary said. Then paused for a while to let it sink in. Hyun frowned, a little confused.

“Before a baby is born, he grows inside the mother’s tummy, where he’s protected from the outside world until he’s big enough,” Gary explained. “But having a baby inside means the mother needs to work extra hard. And Jihyo’s body wasn’t strong enough, so the doctors told her not to.”

Hyun went quiet, his eyes far away. He thought about the mother- his real, biological mother- whom he had no memory of. Suddenly, he felt sad.

Gary noticed. He mentally chided himself. Gary waited for Hyun to come back, but he didn’t.

Gary put his hand gently on Hyun’s shoulder. “Let’s play another game, shall we?”

Hyun didn’t respond.

“Hyun…” Gary called softly. When he still hadn’t respond, Gary carried him up again. He was almost 7 years old, but he was so light, Gary noted sadly.

“Do you think it was hard for my mother too?” he asked softly, in the squeak