Marahuyo

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Her body had been floating since she had closed her eyes. She spent each passing and unrecognised days trapped in the same scenes – recurring and unreal. A reminiscent loop to the memories of her past. Sometimes it portrayed the day she got her dog or that birthday celebration that she had, but it will always be scenes with her parents. Mina had embraced the cold and had refused to wake up after what she went through with her parents, and after that, all she had for herself were the unending cold and the memories on repeat.

She had accepted all of it and she was already contented if she could only live in that world that she was trapped in. Mina had decided that for herself and she had promised to herself that she will still be in the right track even if she was bound only in a trapping illusion that her head created to protect her heart. Everything was set still and perfectly in order, but when she felt that pulling distraction in her created world, her truth resurfaced. That slight disarray in her looping dream caused her to long for the warmth again. “Mom, Dad,” she muttered softly, opening her eyes to the white ceiling. Her misty state was interrupted when she heard another voice – from someone who was evidently new to her room.

When she turned to her right, she saw a girl with pale face and eyes that were in between the state of shock and horror. Am I already dead? Is she my guardian angel? she wondered as she continued to look at her, judging, No, she added worriedly. The girl, clearly younger than her, spoke more words before she started to crumble down to her knees. Alarmed, Mina’s eyes widened as she realised that what was in front of her was an actual living girl.

The younger girl then clutched the fabric of her gown and the bedsheet as she fell to her knees, obviously in pain. Oh, no, Mina thought, I have to help her. Yet, she couldn’t move an inch. Despite the need to help the gasping girl, she couldn’t. Her legs wouldn’t and couldn’t move a single muscle. The apparatus connected to the unknown girl quickly joined its owner on the floor, clanking loudly and pulling Mina away from the knowledge that her legs were absolutely useless to the current scene in front of her eyes. “I have to do something,” she said, panic rising in her chest as she continued to see how the other girl was losing the life of her.

In hasty decision and movement, Mina quickly reached out to a wire from her machine and pulled it as strongly as her arm could. A loud sound blared in the room, disturbing the quiet of the night when the wire was detached. She let out a sigh of relief, knowing that it will only be a matter of time until someone had been alarmed by the wailing machine to check up her room and see the helpless stranger beside her bed.

The nameless girl had closed her eyes and had slowly melted on the ground, defeated by the pain that seemed to directly attack her chest with how much she was clutching the area. Her worries for her only calmed a bit when she saw her breathing struggled to even out. At least, that was a good sign from her confused end. Then a question unintendedly slipped out quietly from her lips as she continued to monitor her fallen state. Bewitched and unaware, Mina slowly leaned and tried to reach out to her with trembling fingers, “Who are you?” she asked as she tried her best to swipe some hair from her forehead to better see her face.

“Did you wake me?” she whispered before pulling herself away, seeing her face much clearer so she will not forget of her so easily. As if under a spell, Mina felt her whole body softened the same as the other girl's did, and after pulling her arm back and landed back to her bed, the freezing comfort of her state had kissed her again back to sleep. She accepted it whole-heartedly, and then everything vanished back to being dreams again without knowing if the younger girl will be okay or live for another day. Though, that was how it should be, right? Her and just her dreams on repeat without a care about whatever was outside of her false world.

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For today, or what felt like today for her, it was the scene before it happened. Even if her forgiving mind always cut off before the most painful part and even if it was the last time she saw her parents smiling, it was still Mina's least favourite from the series of her memories. She just couldn't see in another light where she wouldn't blame herself for what had happened.

She wanted to play another memory if she could because in most cases, she couldn't. I guess, this is the small token that I have to pay then, Mina thought hopelessly as she felt herself smile in that reminiscing. A quiet gasp struggled to pass her lips when she suddenly found herself abruptly interrupted from her dream like a small fish suddenly tugged by a curious kid out of the lake. "You, you're back," she let out softly, feeling another presence in her white room, "You're back again." Mina found the same girl from before, but now on her feet and in a state of obvious disbelief.

She watched the dumbfounded girl stared at her intensely. From horror, maybe, so she extended a friendly smile when her visitor had spoken the local tongue then a hand to the trembling wrist. "You're clearly sneaking in here" she observed, from the lack of supervision, before she eyed her once again.

"How are you waking me?" she asked, more to herself than to the shorter girl. As she pulled their hand down, Mina nodded in her own understanding that it didn't feel like her question will be answered. The other girl started to move her lips either way, like she was obliged to speak humanly at this point of their twined faith.

From her point of view, her visitor began to explain and unknowingly she sparked pristine and unspoiled excitement in her. Because at that moment, she was not in front of the memories that had passed. Mina smiled and then stopped as she absentmindedly drowned in the presence of her stranger, causing her smiles to fade and be replaced with tilts of confusion.

The girl was warm, and she loved every second of her. Maybe, it was the reason how she only remembered that their hands were still connected when she softly squeezed it to hear her speak again. In comfortable curiosity, Mina thought that maybe just for this rare occasion and meeting that she could feel rather than hear a spoken word. Without knowing anything but feeling everything, this unknown girl warmed her frozen being, and selfishly, she wondered just how a hug will feel like with her. Her thoughts were brought back into present when the girl shook her head in redness. Then an avoidance between eyes, Are you already leaving? Mina thought sadly. Honestly, she didn't want to. Not yet for the night, at least.

She could only guess that she was wrong when her eyes lit up bright after another squeezing of her hand. Mina received a pat on her hand before the girl got up from her bed to take the clipboard and the pencil that she never knew was located near her. With furrowed brows, scribbles quietly hummed their shared night. She waited patiently until the younger girl looked up again at her.

"Chae-young," she said yet her word or words still puzzled her, not helping in any sort of attempt. The pencil moved again against the flipped paper and slowly a doodled tiger joined their unaligned conversation. "Chaeyoung," one and then another followed as she pointed to the tiger, "Chaeyoung."

Mina smiled finally understanding her, said, "Tora-san." She nodded cutely in her own way of understanding her. She repeated proudly which visibly elated her visitor and then her in a contagious effect from a small, adorable, mushroom-headed tiger. The girl shyly tucked her head down before she heard a smile and a poorly pronounciated Tora-san in agreement.

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For her, Tora-san was a bundle of goodness. The morning light on a weekend or the breeze coming from the beach. Warmth? she thought while listening to her foreign words. "No," she muttered, way too soft to be heard, as she continued to watch what the other girl was drawing.

She was warmth, but not exactly. Part of her was warmth, that, Mina could agree, but Tora-san was also the unexpected force that pulled her from her deep sleep. An enchanting being shrouded with mystery. Like a stray firefly calling for her to stare at on one hot summer night from her grandma's village. Tora-san was like that – warm, open, and an enigma she continued to observe in her own way. Her running thoughts only halted when Tora-san stopped from talking, now staring back at her after asking a barely registered question. Mina smiled as she was thankfully able to hint the cause of her pause.

The pencil was quickly dropped as soon as it was picked up from her visitor's hand. She tried to explain her answer in hopes that the other girl could get a hint as well, "I've been into dancing since I was a small girl." When confusion was evident from the other pair of eyes, Mina carefully thought of a better way to convey her words to her adorably helpless friend.

Cupping her cheeks warmly before saying clearly, "Ballet." Once understood, she then let their hands shared the same warmth that kissed her baby face. Her fingers danced in tune of her hum and Mina enjoyed every second of it – one of her many treasures that she used to have. "Eh," her hand quickly stopped when a tear decided to join their shared moment.

"T-Tora-san," she called out worriedly, feeling hot tears on her palm falling one after another. "Don't cry," she added as she was quickly affected by the evident outburst of sadness, again returning her hands on her cheeks. Tora-san took her hands in return before freeing words that she knew nothing to its meaning, but she sounded reassuring and that was enough for Mina.

Her visitor cried expressing her words in between sniffs as she tried to rub her eyes dry. She said more words that Mina could not understand. It was immensely flowing out of her, the cry of reassurance, to the point that it pulled the older girl to an instinct to soothe and lift her sadness.

With foreheads connected, Mina hummed again like how she demonstrated ballet in her mere fingers. She stared closely and stayed as perfectly still until Tora-san's sobs quieted down. Wasn't it funny? And it could be a reach if she would be honest, but just when she was slowly being filled by the sadness of what she had from the past or what felt more like she had lost now, Tora-san salvaged her from her own tears and instead cried for her. Those treasures that she had lost from the fire of her unfortunate event.

"I'm being selfish," Mina said, giving back foreign words that the younger girl will need to fathom about, "I'm embracing your warmth while keeping the coldness in me." Tora-san leaned close to her and muttered a syllable representing her confusion. Her patient and soundless waiting were stopped when Mina just smiled at her and decided to have her own silence for that night.

Before Tora-san left her own white room, the visit for the night simply ended that way – blanketed by silence with questions that were unsure how to be asked and meanings that were selfishly kept from grasps.

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The next day Mina couldn’t forget Tora-san’s tear-streaked face. She never expected the girl to react that way to, no, for her. Truly, she wasn’t being fair with her, and she will never be. “Hey, Momo,” she called as she played the food settled in front of her. She really couldn’t eat or function that well with Tora-san running through her mind insistently.

Alerted, her nurse, stopped her inspection on the clipboard in her hands and leaned to see the face of her patient. “Yes? Mina,” she replied, eyeing down her food, hands, and then her eyes again. The younger girl smiled yet mirrored sad eyes to her before asking a softly spoken question, “What is her name? The girl who visited me,” Mina eyed the clipboard at her nurse’s hands, deducing that it was unlikely to still have the same paper that her visitor initially scribbled on.

“Chaeyoung!” she called loud enough before her visitor could even close her door again. The expression on Chaeyoung’s face will never be forgotten. Happiness evidently shining in front of her eyes even with the darkness of the night. Her visitor spoke in clear disbelief and pleasure as she walked closer to her. Mina watched her every movement until she had sat herself on her bed. Chaeyoung laughed and then shook her head as she spoke the next never understood words.

At that moment, Mina just wanted to reach out for her mane, to wrap and pull her into a warm, tight embrace for that night. Calling someone’s name as a greeting will always be as important as bidding goodbye to them, except instead of the sweet welcoming effect it will be the bitter separating aftertaste. With her state, the latter was unfortunately more fitting than the former, especially when another deep slumber had been reaching out for her which in return she was being obediently accepting of its existence because she would never be the one to miss it. The deep slumber where she could be with her smiling parents in foggy, looping, and quick-ended scenes that her child mind will repeatedly play.

After Chaeyoung’s visit, she had started to doze off again. In all honesty, she would’ve got into another sleep much earlier, but she wanted to see the younger for one last time. Mina didn’t know as to why, but she simply had to. She might just really be connecting and warming up to her quicker than she had expected, and, That was okay, she thought as she slowly succumbed into her dream’s embrace.

In the process of falling asleep, Mina would always feel her body starting to go numb while her surrounding felt smaller and smaller as she began to lose the track of time and the whispers of sounds. Soon, she will begin to see fog just at the edges of her eyes until it completely rounded her view and enveloped her, slowly forming her own world. Finally, the tips of her fingers and toes will freeze to stillness. It always felt like she had laid down to a seemingly shallow lake until when she had turned cold and empty will swallow and drown her into a deafening darkness. Then and only then the lost dreams will play before her.

Now, everything seemed and felt like a whole unpleasant experience to have over and over again, yet she always accepted its call and reach. She never missed them because despite everything even when she was clearly the losing end from her state, Mina was aware. She was aware that when and if she woke up, everything was just a dream – a replay of the memories of her past. The ones she lost in reality, but never in her own little world. Albeit cold, dark, and lonesome, Mina will always have her smiling parents, and in her world, she would never let them go.

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Mina pursed her lips as she stared out of the window of the car. The very familiar scene of the day that she will lose her parents. It seemed that the odds of having this dream increased over the other scenes that her mind could play.

It was the same Christmas day in Korea, a flight that she and her parents had taken on the same day. The same black car that her father’s work had provided, the same night before a supposed eventful party, and the same tragedy that she had caused. Her ears rung, and she felt like crying in that moment, but she couldn’t, and she wouldn’t because that was not the actuality of what happened. Mina will cry; though, only once the tragedy had completed its course.

She pursed her lips tighter as she heard the closing crunches of footsteps against the snow. In less than a minute, her parents will join her inside the car and the memory will play part after part until its ending. Mina readied herself as she heard the same muffled conversation of her parents. The doors of the black car opened, and then shut, keeping the inside warm for her family. She sat quietly as she looked and waited to see the smiles that they would give that night. After that, we’ll start driving, she thought hopelessly, And the inevitable will happen.

When her parents stopped their conversation and had started to turn and look at their seated daughter – to give that last smile for her, Mina felt a sudden warmth, no, hotness that darted to her chest then settled into her heart. Tick, tick, tick, and just like that, she was back inside her white room, blinking to the ceiling as the sunlight from the glass windows greeted her confusion. She turned her head to one side, to the same spot she first met and see Chaeyoung.

Mina was awake, and the first thought that registered to her head was Chaeyoung must have woken her again miraculously, but that wasn’t the case as the younger girl was not present in her room. She pulled herself up into a sitting position and listened to the sweet chirps of the birds. “Three weeks,” she mumbled, staring at the date reflected on the digital clock just beside her bed, “I had missed three visits from her.”

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Her nurse was in the middle of explaining something to her while writing her clear observations on a clipboard. On the usual days, when she was awake, only Momo and from time to time a doctor visited her. Nothing unexpected as she was a foreigner for the country, but when she heard her door clicked, her ears perked up and she tried her best look past her nurse. "Chaeyoung," she called, smiling and eyes visibly portraying excitement as her commonly night visitor was assisted into her room.

At that, her own nurse became alerted before looking at the current scene, eyeing the other patient, the other present nurse, and then back to Mina when she heard her spoke quietly – more to herself than for the both of them. "I feel like I do not deserve to miss seeing her," the younger Japanese said with saddened eyes which the younger visitor answered with softly trembled words.

Again, Mina smiled to her and chuckled to hide her guilt, saying, "Because I fell asleep for three weeks." She felt her nurse's left hand on her head, noting, "So you do know Son Chaeyoung from the other end of the floor," before patting her gently and then speaking to the other two presences of the room, "She said that she's very sorry that she took quite some time to wake up."

She couldn't really understand what Momo had just said and she would have to ask her about it later, but right now, her main focus was on her friend. The words from the other nurse had simply fallen to be background noises around the two of them. Chaeyoung even silenced her nurse gently and finally joined Mina on the bed where their hands connected naturally and almost by instincts.

Everything and everyone, other than themselves, just simply blurred when they finally met again in that seemingly repeating scene in the same room that only they could share and understand. Chaeyoung, at that moment, was utterly beautiful, a dreamy enigma as she told stories one after the other – feeling the bespoken time limit of her visit. Mina was aware and could empathise easily to her best efforts.

She imagined Chaeyoung telling about her days from that three weeks that she missed. Her own visits from loved ones, how her parents, friends, and siblings if she had any spent their visiting days with her. Probably, feeding her, talking to her, and giving her presents from the most expensive to the most simplistic. Mina laughed when Chaeyoung did, and a smile gently adorned her face as she noticed how the latter's cheeks turned rosy from talking. The colour made her friend more beautiful, and it looked the kind of warm that the tips of her fingers will need to touch. Maybe for a second she could; but right before she could have done it, Chaeyoung's nurse made her presence known again by touching her friend on a shoulder.

She watched the smile on her visitor's face got drained as words were spoken by the two nurses. Her friend nodded, squeezed and patted her hand, and then forced what seemed to be a goodbye. There, Mina had a glimpse of that flash of sadness in Chayoung's eyes, realising how the latter knew something about her that she hadn't admitted yet.

Chaeyoung understood the yawns that she let out caused by the slowly lulling song at the back of her mind. Mina realised that her friend understood that she will be sleeping again, and they both knew, unfortunately, that it will be soon.

She watched Chaeyoung walked as best as she could for her exit; and after that, Mina had fallen asleep once again without remembering anything besides her rosy cheeks and toothy smile.

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The sun was barely in the process of setting down when Mina had woken up again in that very late of the afternoon. Exasperated, she pulled herself up with straightened lips and furrowed brows. She just couldn't attain what she had planned or what she felt was for her, to return into the swallowing sea of her past memories in a form of a long slumber. Because if the dreams were reaching out for her, but wouldn't last, then what would they mean and be for her? Mina just couldn't understand and it frustrated her as she had woken up again when all she did was to be with the dreams.

She clicked her tongue and then clenched her jaw, "What now?" she sighed to herself, eyes boring past her window. A smile finally moved her lips when after a good stare, she had noticed a piece of candy placed idly atop of her table. Definitely, "Chaeyoung," she said, cheeks warming just by thinking of her. She reached for the candy and its wrapper crunched audibly with the slightest pressure of her hand.

A clatter of wood followed by the loud click of her door caught her thoughts back away from her friend. "Mina," her nurse, Momo, gasped in horror. Mina looked back at her with a smile still lingering on her face – the piece of candy held close to her chest. "When did she visit me?" she asked with her surrounding slowly calming down with the setting sun.

"She's dead," Momo answered, horror turning into pain for her patient, as she slowly approached her bed.

"What," the younger girl shot back. She didn't hear it correctly or that she hoped she didn't hear her words correctly. "Chaeyoung's dead, Mina," her nurse clarified, reaching out for her sitting position, and then tried to loop her arms around her shoulders and head.

Mina pushed her nurse away, strongly. "No," she exclaimed with bitten lower lip, "You're lying." Momo shook her head as she watched how her patient's eyes slowly watered, "I really wish that I am lying."

The girl tremble in sadness and then anger when her nurse tried to reach for her again, "No," she cried, shoving her away again. She's lying, the words rung to her head over and over again, deafening her surroundings and only keeping the sounds of her beating heart. Hand clenching the candy tightly, Mina pulled her weight as strongly as she could, causing to turn and fall off of her bed. She yelped in pain and the direct coldness of the floor, but she didn't care. I want to see you, she thought as her eyes further blurred because of her tears.

"Mina, stop it," Momo called and knelt down to her level. Again, Mina defied her, pushing her nurse and then her weight forward. "You're lying," the girl cried, and in trembling legs she stood up. Her nurse could only look at her in surprise and sorrow, watching the painful mira