“I love you.”

“I know.”

“My life began when I met you.”

“You’ve got a scholarship in a prestigious college and a group of friends who care about you so much. Your life had been on track way before I met you.”

“Shut up, I’m trying to be serious here.”

“And I’m trying not to break down.”

 

❄❄❄

 

The sound of a city trying to shake itself awake trickles past Mina’s ears, guiding her to an unwilling state of consciousness. She blinks sleepily at her ceiling as she replays the dream—or rather, the memory—and instinctively, she reaches out across the bed, only to be met by an empty space and cold sheets.

She keeps forgetting, in every waking moment, that she really can’t expect anything else.

Still she feels her breath catch tightly in , a cruel and bitter lump that freezes the air in her lungs. She chokes on it, and she feels her eyes stinging from tears.

It’s been years, but nary has a day passed by when Mina doesn’t cry.

She supposes this would be her lot for the rest of her life.

 

(Not that it’s much of a life, without her.)

 

Sighing, Mina rubs her eyes and wipes her tear-stained cheeks. There’s a constant throbbing in her chest she knows not when would stop—if it ever would—and her head feels like it’s splitting into two.

She’d rather spend the day curled up in this too-huge bed and try to feel better, though she knows perfectly well that she’d just feel worse. Being alone with nothing to do means that there’s no stopping the past from consuming her again, and it’s only a matter of time before she lets it. She’d say she wants to forget the memories, but that would be lying too.

After all, memories are all she has, now.

And she’d rather go through the constant pain sharply pressing in her skin and stinging like ice within her veins than take those memories away.

 

Surely, she thinks, living with this pain is better than living with nothing at all.

 

❄❄❄

 

Mina is not a religious person. The only times she ever willingly stepped foot on a church were to attend weddings. She visits temples, but that’s more because of tradition than of connection to any faith or belief in any creed.

However, right now, as she drives to the hospital with her hands gripping the steering wheel so firmly they are almost white, she could have been mistaken for the most devout of followers: prayers and supplications are uttered to every deity she can think of—Yahweh, Allah, Shiva, Ra, she even spares a moment to pray to the ancient gods of Greece and Rome.

She doesn’t care who hears her so long as they do hear her, and she hopes with every fibre of her heart that they listen and answer.

She squints past the windshield and tries not to skid along the sleek concrete roads. She’s pretty sure she’s within an inch of breaking every traffic rule there is in the country, and she has to remind herself to keep it down lest she gets pulled over.

She thinks she hears thunder, but that’s nothing compared to the roar of blood between her ears, drowning everything in excruciating agony.

 

❄❄❄

 

Mina heads to the bus stop after eating two slices of toast and downing a cup of coffee. She could have taken the car, but it’s Tuesday.

Tuesdays mean that her schedule matches well with Sana’s, and so they go to work together.

“Rough night?” Sana asks as soon as she arrives, her grin wide and eyes sparkling beneath the morning sun. Mina sort of envies how she seems teeming with life.

(She’s forgotten how that feels like, after all.

When she looks in a mirror all she sees is a dead girl with dead dreams too.)

“You ask me that every single time,” she says.

“Well”—Sana shrugs, grin widening even more—“you’ve never really given me a satisfactory answer.”

“I’m fine.”

Sana hums as the bus arrives. “You don’t look fine, Mitang.”

“Geez, thanks, Sana. You really know your way to a girl’s heart.”

Sana shakes her head. “You know what I mean,” she says as they board the bus.

“Yeah, no, not really. Does that mean I don’t look good?”

“Oh, you’re just fishing for compliments now. I thought that’s beneath you.”

“I’m not fishing for compliments.” Mina scoffs, mock-offended. She settles more comfortably on the seat. “You know I don’t need to fish to get those,” she says primly.

“Oh wow,” Sana laughs, the sound crisp and bright around the edges, and Mina’s lips quirk up a little, “you’re becoming terrifyingly like Nayeon. I don’t think I like that.”

“Don’t let her hear you.”

“Please, I don’t think Nayeon would like another Nayeon either, anyways. Well, hypothetically.”

“Why not? She loves herself enough to fuel like, an entire nation. If anything I’d think having another her would thrill her.”

“Au contraire, mon chérie, it’s precisely because she loves herself that she won’t want another one of her. Can you imagine the clash of pride in that scenario? Nayeon’s ego won’t let, well, herself breathe. And don’t even get me started on how she’s gonna make sure that Dahyun’s attentions won’t stray to the, uh, other her.” Sana scrunches her nose. “This is giving me a massive headache.”

Mina laughs. “You’re the one who wanted to delve into this scenario in the first place.”

“It’s hypothetical!”

“That headache doesn’t seem hypothetical enough to not be felt though, does it?”

“I—” Sana shakes her head. “You’re being deliberately obtuse, Minari. It doesn’t suit you.”

“Okay, so first you tell me I don’t look good and now you’re calling me obtuse. I don’t think I like this you either, Sana.”

“I never said you don’t look good!”

“Ah, but you admit to calling me obtuse.”

“I did not!”

“It was implied.”

“It was not. Stop putting words in my mouth.”

“You’re the one implying things, Sana.”

“Okay, whatever they teach you at law school about implications, I don’t think they’re doing a very good job.”

“I’ll ask them to revise the curriculum on that topic if it bothers you so much, then.”

“How did we even get into this conversation? You know what, don’t answer that. You’re just gonna make my head hurt more.” Sana lets out a slow breath. “I just want to know how you’re doing, you know?” she asks, exasperated but fond all the same. The real question and genuine concern beneath the words shimmer in the air for a moment before they fade to nothing.

Mina just smiles, says “I know,” and laughs at Sana’s exaggerated whine.

It’s not an answer, but then again, Mina has run out of answers a long time ago.

 

She’s not sure of a lot of things, now. She’s not sure how to tell Sana that, either.

But Sana’s gaze is kindly knowing, softly promising to let the matter go this time, and for that Mina is thankful.

Maybe she won’t have to tell to be understood, this time too.

 

❄❄❄

 

This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening—

Mina curses under her breath as she drives, for what kind of a sick joke is the universe even playing right now? This surely can’t be happening, no, this has to be a dream.

She’s supposed to be at home, she’s supposed to be with Jeongyeon. They’re supposed to be thinking about guest lists and seating arrangements and caterers and decors and “Are we gonna let Dahyun play the piano while you walk down the aisle, ’cause honestly I’m scared she’ll just play, like, Bohemian Rhapsody instead of Canon, I wouldn’t put it past her,” and “Hey, Mina, what if I ask Momo to be my best ma–er, best woman?” and “No, Jeong, I’m pretty sure Nayeon would curse you to hell and back if you don’t ask her to be your maid of honour, and Momo’s mine, anyway,” and god, a sob rips itself out of Mina’s chest and she has to grit her teeth hard to not lose control of the damn car.

She barely even parks it when she at last reaches the hospital, jumping out as soon as she stops and slamming the door shut with such force her dashboard toys rattle. Not that she actually registers anything. She just rushes past the hospital doors in a haze of panic and heads straight to the front desk.

“Hi, I’m here for Yoo Jeongyeon, I’m her f-fiancée,” she says in a staggered breath, and the nurse immediately recognises the name and calls for someone to assist her.

Another nurse leads her through a series of hallways that seem like a maze, and Mina can hardly keep up. Her steps are unsteady and her vision is blurry with tears that she refuses to shed in this white and severely sterile place.

They stop when Mina sees Nayeon seated outside a room, her head buried in her hands. Her hair is a mess, and Mina can hear her crying, muttering unintelligibly. Dahyun is there too, her usual grin absent; instead her lips are pressed in a thin grim line that seems out of place in such a friendly face. One of her hands is resting on Nayeon’s thigh, a single point of contact in this chaos that Mina doesn’t want to accept.

When they notice Mina, they both shoot up from their seats, and they engulf her in a hug Mina cannot feel.

“Minari,” Nayeon says—cries into Mina’s coat. Mina pats her back, and she turns to Dahyun, who seems to have aged ten years in one second.

“What happened?”

“I—I, we, I don’t—” Nayeon tries to explain, but words fail her. Her face crumples as she sobs again, and despair sits heavily on Mina’s tongue.

“Unnie, please,” Dahyun says, taking Nayeon’s arm and guiding her back to sit. She then nods to the nurse who took Mina here—she almost forgot about her presence, to be honest—and says, “I’ll take it from here.” She’s serious, this Dahyun, and the image is jarring.

Then Dahyun stares at Mina, and Mina belatedly realises that the girl is still wearing her scrubs. She’s on duty, then.

There are bloodstains on her shirt, too, that Mina tries very hard to ignore.

She clears instead. “What happened?” she asks again.

Dahyun sighs, so serious and solemn and subdued, before squaring her shoulders and meeting Mina’s eyes.

And when she answers, every word from drops like a stone on the pit of Mina’s soul and tightens around a soundless scream.

 

❄❄❄

 

Mina and Sana part ways in front of the building of the prosecutors’ office, Mina heading inside and Sana off to the ad agency in the next block. They’ve made arrangements to meet back at lunch; Sana has plenty of friends, but for some reason she still insists on Mina’s company, and Mina is grateful that Sana’s patient enough to eat through her stilted silences.

Mina hefts her messenger bag and mentally runs through today’s urgent agenda: she needs to reinvestigate a case involving a bus driver wrongly accused of murder and review one involving a DUI. She’s thinking of the possible errors in the previous investigations, and she’s too intent on finding loopholes in the case that she’s taken by surprise when a body suddenly barrels into her, making her lose her balance.

She would have toppled face-first to the ground were it not for two hands gripping her, holding her upright.

“I’m sorry,” she apologises automatically, her own hands finding purchase on the other person’s shoulders.

“I should be the one sorry, ,” a voice speaks, and Mina turns to see into whom she crashed for the first time.

She’s opening for another apology but the words die somewhere in and the world stops spinning when she meets a pair of soft brown eyes looking right into her own.