August 28, 2014

Today was the day of SinB's surgery, and there was no telling how long it would take. Sitting still was absolutely out of the question. For the most part, I would stay in the waiting room, but I would wander occasionally; it was like every second I was in a new place in the hospital. Eventually, I decided to take a break from my wandering and finally wait in the designated waiting area. Not wanting to look at the world of social media, I silently wished I had some shoot going on during the day. Left only to my thoughts, I let them wander to the conversation SinB and I had the night before we went to the hospital. 

"Can you explain to me what Eunha eonnie told you?" Staring at SinB thoughtfully, I in a tuft of air before letting it ease out. 

"Eunha-yah told me a lot more than a stranger should be allowed to know. Part of me wanted to stop Eunha-yah to preserve your privacy, but another part of me yearned to understand you, and things you had gone through. I thought to myself that if Eunha-yah trusted me enough to tell me her best friends deeply embedded secret, that it would be okay." Taking in a shaky breath, I kept my head down, refusing to look at the girl sitting beside me. 

"What did she tell you?" She asked impatiently. While I wasn't looking at her, I could feel her eyes boring on me. 

"She told me that you had cancer–thyroid cancer, she explained to me that you only had a little longer to live, and..." With a shaky breath, I continued, "she begged me to save you, to protect you, and to brighten your miserable days." 

"Eonnie..." The dry tone in her voice petrified me, I couldn't move. "Yerin-ah. Look at me." Slowly, I lifted my head, facing the lover that I had been hiding so much from. Her eyes were filled with a wave of sad anger, like she couldn't decide which emotion to feel. "Do you remember when I asked you for 100 percent honesty?" Nodding, I stared at her curiously. "I'm going to need you to be 100 percent honest, no bull. No matter how painful it is, I want the truth." Her stare was stone cold, but it was clear that she was on the verge of breaking.

"My love," emphasizing the words that SinB loved, I advanced, "I may have kept it from you, the knowledge of your conditions, your depression and your cancer, but my love for you is not fake, and it never was. I fell in love with you two years ago, your dance cover of Blood, Sweat, and Tears had me drooling. You were a light in my own cruel world, a light that kept me going. And since I know about your past, it's only fair that I tell you about mine." We stared passionately at one another, but her gaze still spoke sorrow.

"Before you do, did you also know about my mother?" I shook my head as a sigh soon followed, "No, but when you almost drank yourself to death, Eunha-yah told me your mother also had cancer. She didn't go into more detail, but from what I knew previously, I figured it was the same cancer that you had." SinB sighed, but nodded, leaning her head into her hand. 

"So what about your 'own cruel world'?" Everything that I had kept from SinB, it was the least I could do for her. Loving her enough to tell her everything, she was worth the recalling.

"My abeoji was terminally ill, he would never tell me exactly what he had, but I had a few ideas."

"Which were?" She asked.

"Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, or COPD, lung cancer...my abeoji was a heavy smoker, so