1 - Lost

Jung Yerin came home to an empty and dustful house. Lonely and silent. She was never a big fan of being alone because it made her insecure and scared.

She moved slowly to the sofa and dropped her body with heavy sigh. That day she received another scolding from her director. These past days, or should she say past months, Yerin hadn't been performing well at work, even caused the team to lose a tender they had been working for due to her lost focus. Her director was always a kind and understanding boss, but this time was an exception.

"This isn't how you used to be."

Yerin could only lowered her head in shame when she stood in front of her director's desk.

"The company isn't pleased, obviously. We need someone to put the blame on."

Without waiting further from his words, she volunteered. "I'll quit, sir."

This wouldn't have happened if not for six months ago. Six months ago, repeated, was when her wife Choi Yuna took her last breath. She didn't know at that time, when they had argued for a little in the morning over a petty matter, Yuna went out for a driving to the convenience store sulking from her, only ended up crashing her car in an accident with another truck at the traffic light. It scared Yerin when she received the phone call, and she went unconscious post hearing from the doctor Yuna was confirmed dead. The truck's driver was fine though, hence she went furious and caused a scene at the hospital.

"My condolences."

"I'm so sorry for your lost."

Yerin felt it was too surreal to hear the whispers and wishes from her friends. They knew Yerin loved her wife so much thus to hear the news of Yuna's funeral was shocking.

Yerin got rid of the image when the white cloth covered her wife's corpse, the funeral photo and the coffin being carried ahead of her. She cried, her wife's family cried, her own family cried. A lot more people cried and mourned over Yuna's death than she thought there were. Probably because Yuna had always been a good, kind, nice, pretty and thoughtful person.

However now they lost her. Yerin lost her. The only person she had loved. Yuna was gone. No more happy ending saved for her in the end. Yerin's only counting sad days ahead. At last, she drifted to dreamland from fatigue in the sofa where she used to cuddle with Yuna, empty and silent. Yerin was alone again.

***

She could feel the bed dipped down and there was a weight force laid beside her. "Open your eyes," someone whispered, tickling her ears. Yerin ignored and got some more sleep. The whisper had yet to disappear too.

"Open your eyes~ Quietly open your eyes," now the whisper was singing a song from some idol group, and there was a giggle too. She chuckled at what she heard but pretended to sleep for more. "Open your eyes, darling~"

Yerin finally opened her eyes and tackled the person into her embrace before turning and hovered above. It turned out she was only dreaming and the object beneath her was only a pillow Yuna used to sleep in with.

Sighing in disappointment, Yerin sat dejectedly in the bed and buried her face in her palms. Her hair was messy and her breath was stunk of alcohol. Last night she had drenched her night away with cans of beer from empty stomach, caused a mess in the living room and went to sleep without caring of the world.

She had sent in a resignation notice and her director accepted in acknowledgement although it was hard to let the former hardworking girl go. To Yerin, she wasn't prepared to resign from her career just yet but she also did not wish for the company she worked for received the slump due to her constant failure.

Without she realized it, tears started to fall from her eyes after staying in the same position for the past minutes. Everything came out vain on her end since Yuna was gone. Nothing came out right for her, or she just wanted nothing else than having Yuna back in her arms.

Her phone rang on the bedside table, music blasting for a whole 30 seconds but Yerin did not budge to pick up the call. She was already lost in her sadness, grieving over the past that she wished could be undone. Unfortunately, nothing came as she wished either.

Giving up in the end, the phone stopped ringing but a notification tone popped up. The caller must have sent a text message this time.

Blowing her nose and wiping her remaining tears, Yerin finally got up from the bed, ignoring the notified message then entered the bathroom for a shower. She still remembered to clean herself despite all the mess she got herself into recently.

***

"Eunbi, I'm worried of your sister. Can you please go and check how she's doing?"

The Jung's mom had asked a favor from her youngest daughter, after countless worry over the eldest daughter whose health and being had been unknown. Unlike Eunbi as the youngest of the Jung, Yerin lived apart from the family and alone. Her parents couldn't stop worrying about Yerin's condition which kept getting worse, and recently they heard the eldest daughter had lost her stable job.

Taking her mother's favor seriously, Eunbi had gone for a drive to Yerin's house, which lived not more than 20 minutes ride away from the family's house. Sojung was the one who picked her up and both looked forward to see how Yerin had been coping up.

Upon their arrival at the apartment's block, Sojung parked her car at the visitor's area, turning off the engine and pulled out the key. Both she and Eunbi got out from the car then rode the elevator up to the 6th floor. They walked slowly to the 607 door unit with Eunbi a feet ahead then the latter pressed in the password of Yerin's apartment, her wedding anniversary with Yuna.

When they came in Eunbi made a remark, "Yerin unnie will never change this date," which Sojung chuckled at.

It was a rather amusing sight to see the house was cleaner than they thought it would turn out. They knew Yerin was a living mess after Yuna was gone, so aside from the trash cans of beer and few empty bottles of soju in a plastic tossed in separate plastics, the rest was pretty tidy.

"Yennie's still keeping her place tidy. Impressive," Sojung snickered before receiving a light hit on her shoulder from Eunbi. "She must be in her room. I'll have a see there first," Eunbi turned to Sojung and the latter nodded at her. She then paced lightly to Yerin's room without suspicion and saw her eldest sister was still sleeping despite the high sun up in the sky.

Yerin had her earphones plugged in both of her ears. Eunbi took one off and listened to the song her sister was listening to and realized it was a sad ballad song from Nam Woohyun, Still I Remember. Eunbi sighed before putting away the earphones and shook Yerin up, waking her.

"Unnie, wake up. It's already 12!" She glanced and saw Yerin wasn't stirring from her sleep, thus Eunbi shook her body harder and raised her volume. "Wake up sleepyhead. Sojung's going to cook us lunch!"

However Yerin didn't budge and had Eunbi fidgeted nervously as the minute passed. "Unnie," she called once again and glanced to see her sister's chest wasn't moving normally. Eunbi anxiously checked Yerin's breathing and she got restless as it was very weak.

"Sojung-ah!!!" She screamed, calling for her girlfriend's help urgently. Upon hearing Eunbi's unusual loud scream, the tall girl ran to Yerin's room and worriedly stared at Eunbi and Yerin back and forth. "What's wrong?"

"Yerin unnie's barely breathing!" The younger sister was already weeping, reached for Sojung's hand to help her calm down. Sojung hugged Eunbi before checking Yerin's pulse on her wrist. Eunbi got more scared the next seconds when she saw Sojung was frowning.

"We need to send her to the doctor immediately!"