The sun was bright as the clouds had settled on the ground as dew. Jong Kook removed his shoes near the front door after he carefully tried to remove all the mud from his shoes. He removed his long coat and set it on the sofa.

A few minutes after walking aimlessly and quietly through the apartment, he found his mother in the laundry room. The smell of detergents and the sound of the washing machine filled the room. His mother, Cho Hye Seon, a small chubby woman with short curly black hair in her sixties, looked at the motion of the clothes through the glass circle door.

“Eomma,” Jong Kook hugged his mother from the side.

Instantly, Hye Seon turned her head, “Eo, adeul*-ah, when did you get back?”

“Just now.” He sighed.

“Long day?”

Jong Kook chuckled, “It’s more than a long day.” Then in all of the seriousness, he continued, “I almost lost Ji Hyo today.”

Hye Seon looked surprised for a second, but that expression was immediately changed with a soothing gaze, “But you didn’t.”

“No, I didn’t. I was really scared, though. Really scared. For a moment, I thought- my heart had stopped beating.” Jong Kook closed his eyes. “I can’t describe the feeling. The feeling of losing someone you lo-”

Hye Seon Jong Kook’s back with love, “Ara*, Jong Kook-ah. I’ve been there, even more. You know, it’s the doings of love, brings pain if the other is in it.” 

Jong Kook didn’t reply his mother. He simply stared at her, lost in thought as her deft fingers tightened the bolts of the radio. His mother sometimes the small old radio in the laundry room. She said it’s to accompany her when she’s bored. In a gentle, soft voice, his mother began singing the song she often sang him to sleep with when he was younger.

 Jong Kook closed his eyes. The weariness of the day was escaping from him.

“This radio keeps breaking,” Hye Seon sighed, knocked the radio against her hand gently.

“Just throw it away then, Eomma, I can get you a new one.” Jong Kook spoke through half-open eyelids.

Hye Seon smiled, “What can be fixed shouldn’t be thrown away, Jong Kook-ah,” There was this strange peace in his mother’s eyes. “This radio was your Appa’s. He would often tune into the news about the wars. Then, when he left serving the army, I would sit on his chair, listening to the war’s news. It was my only solace in the days when he was so far away.”

“What if it can’t be fixed?” Jong Kook muttered, still not opening his eyes. 

“Then maybe,” She his hair lovingly. “You’re the one who don’t want it to be fixed.”

“Why would I want that?” This time, Jong Kook opened his eyes and stared at his mother.

She gave him a motherly smile, the gentle and calming one. “Because it would be easier to get a new radio, wouldn’t it?”

And the meaning of her words finally settled in.

Jong Kook wakes up, being sprawled on a sturdy sofa. Takes him a moment to adjust the light. Looking around for a minute to know that he’s in Eun Hye’s apartment. After the incident, Eun Hye has brought him to her home.

“You can calm yourself down for a minute in my apartment, Oppa, and rest your tired body.” That’s what she said.

He didn’t protest at that time, afraid he’d hurt her feeling.

He shifts on the sofa, pulling himself up to a sitting position. A sound from the television is heard and he finds Eun Hye’s sitting on the loveseat, opposite to the one he’s sitting in. She is intently watching a drama, a new one maybe, he doesn’t know.

“You’re up?” She asks him when she notices his gaze upon her. “Should I get you something? Water? Juice?”

Jong K