Her only son turns another year older today and Irene can’t help but feel emotional in seeing her husband in him. She turns her gaze away from Minhyuk and back to the soup brewing in her kitchen. She takes these few minutes of peace but is cut short when her children decided to bombard her with questions she has no answer to.

“Mom, could you please invite Aunt Wendy?” Minhyuk asks his mom, but glares at Yeri as he speaks.

“Hm?” Irene continues to put the ingredients on her pot, not taking an eye off it to ensure perfection. “Didn’t you tell me that hours ago? And then another hour ago?”

“Mom, just say yes please. She’s pestering me.” He sighs, sounding more annoyed by the second.

“Who?” She covers the pot before turning towards her son. With an amused scoff, she sees Yeri spinning on her heels with hopeful eyes. An irritated Minhyuk side-eyes her.

“I did.” Irene says calmly. She fishes her phone from her pocket and thumbs over her messages. “But I think she’s still in class. She hasn’t sent a reply yet.”

“I’ll wait.” Yeri says before taking a seat by the counter,

Irene can just shake her head at her daughter’s reaction. Ever since watching Wendy’s play, Yeri looked up to her like a celebrity, with herself as the number one fan.

“Maybe Aunt Wendy has a date, you know.” Jisoo says to Yeri, who just pushes her aside.

“No, she said last time that she’ll come over!”

“That was a month ago. She probably forgot!”

Irene ignores the bickering and turns off the stove. She is carrying the casserole towards the dining area when Jisoo chooses that moment to ask about her friend, and with a private question no less.

“Mom, is Aunt Wendy married?

She's lucky that her tight grip keeps the freshly cooked food in her hands intact.

“No, she’s not.” She tries to recall a past conversation with Seulgi. As far as she can remember, Wendy has never been married.

“Why not?” Jisoo asks, scrutinizing the fruit basket and picking a mandarin to eat.

For some reason, Irene feels uncomfortable with the way this conversation is going.

“I don’t know, Jisoo. Not everyone prefers getting married like we did.  She has her own reasons.”

Her daughter nods. And she’s glad that’s done with.

“But why don’t you ask her?” Her daughter’s voice is garbled by a segment of fruit in .

Apparently not.

“We can’t just ask someone why they’re not married.”

Jisoo looks like she’s pondering her answer, looking down as she eats. Irene brings the food to the table and when she comes back, only then does Jisoo continue the conversation.

“But if you two are friends, how come you don’t know that?”

She’s sure that it’s just an innocent remark. But Irene is getting tired from this.

“Are you done? Maybe you’d like to help me wash the dishes as we talk?” She knows it’ll do the trick. Her daughter hates doing the dishes more than anything else.

“Oh, I just remembered! Mina is waiting for me upstairs to play.” With that, Jisoo rushes off towards the bedrooms.

“Jisoo, she’s taking a nap! Don’t wake your sister up!”

Irene sighs and turns towards the sink. It’s too complicated to explain that there are things she dare not touch, questions she dare not ask, especially about Wendy’s failed engagement.

---

Blame it on the shelves-full of fiction books in their house and her father’s stories about her parents’ love, but Jisoo has always believed that if somebody was the one for her, she would know the moment she laid her eyes on them.

Jisoo takes a glance at the boy beside him. Jinyoung is keeping his finished homework in his backpack but when he notices Jisoo looking at him, he turns to her and grins.

“Do you believe in love at first sight?” Jisoo asks curiously, eyebrows creased as her thoughts continue its musings.

“I guess so…” Jinyoung looks her in the eyes, considering his words but Jisoo is not paying enough attention.

“You think you’d want to marry them?”

Jinyoung stills in surprise at her question but answers anyway. “We’re still in high school, Jisoo. But, yes.”

“So you already know who she is? Lucky girl.”

Jisoo smiles at him and his jaw falls open. She can really be dense at the worst times.

“Yes. It’s you, Jisoo.”

Her eyes widen.

---

Wendy wakes up suddenly at 3 in the morning. She steadies her breathing before reaching out for a glass of water.

She doesn’t normally have nightmares. But when she does, it would go on for days in a row.

Years ago when she and Chanyeol still dated, they would go to coffee shops and spend hours on end studying and working. While she did her research and wrote papers, he would read books on medicine and take notes.

One time, Wendy got too tired and decided to rest while he did his report. Sensing her staring at him, he decided to talk to her about useful things he learned in medicine. Like how certain reactions and symptoms give them an idea of what illnesses patients have or what signs to look for in determining an emergency situation.

Wendy doesn’t remember even half of what they talked about. But he did mention that a series of interrupted sleep and nightmares could possibly be caused by a heart condition.

She remembers that now as she wakes up for nights in a row. She closes her eyes thinking of the diagnosis she gives to herself. Heartbreak.

---

“Mommy, I need to bring a family picture.” Mina holds her homework out for Irene to see. She couldn’t read yet but she remembers what her teacher said before going home and it made her excited about show and tell tomorrow.

Yeri, who is sitting beside Mina, notices the glint in their mother’s eyes. Irene stands up and goes to her bedroom before coming back out with a bundle of book-like things.

In this age and time, Irene is still a bit behind on technology. She doesn’t care much about icloud and facebook and other weird things her children say. She knows enough computer skills to transfer files, save pictures, and have them printed as hard copy memorabilia. She has every album organized by date, with details written at the back of each photo. Call her old fashioned, but this is her best project to date.

Irene starts with the most recent album. Come to think of it, she hasn’t had pictures printed in the past year. For the past months, she couldn’t fathom the idea of not seeing pictures of her late husband.

“Here.” Irene takes out last Christmas’ family portrait. The men wore suits in maroon with the women wearing formal dresses. The couple sat in the middle. Irene wore a tube dress accentuating white skin. Sehun wore a black button-up beneath his suit. His right hand is on her waist while his left arm keeps Mina still on his leg. Yeri sat on the other side of the couple with an off-shoulder style dress. Minhyuk stands behind his father, two inches shorter but still looking manly in his own suit, while Jisoo wears a matching sleeveless dress beside her brother.

Mina and Irene both smile as they look at each family member, reminiscing the time when he was still with them. When Irene tells her that she also has her baby pictures, Mina quickly ran to the other room to nag her sister to hurry. Irene has never seen Yeri as motivated to finish her homework than she is now.

They stumble upon each of the siblings’ baby pictures. All of them were so chubby and adorable and looks similar to the way they do now.

“This is really Jichoo?” Mina stares at Jisoo’s picture from her first day in kindergarten. She wore pigtails and her eyes disappear from the playful grin she has on her face.

“Mom! We’re home!” Minhyuk shouts from the doorway. Intrigued at the mention of her name, Jisoo runs over to the living room and join in the fuss.

“You printed out all of our pictures?!”

Irene laughs at Jisoo’s surprise. Minhyuk looks over the pictures and laughs out loud at a cake-covered toddler Jisoo.

“Hey!” Jisoo playfully slaps Minhyuk and turns to ask