[CONTENTID1]06[/CONTENTID1]
[CONTENTID2]Red Ribbon[/CONTENTID2]

[CONTENTID3]

Notice: ___ is the sign of flashback in this story.

"I'm HIV-positive!" Emma screamed and with that, Sora stepped back. She was scared. All that time, she was living with a HIV-infected girl under the same roof and wasn't aware of it. And it might not only be her, a girl in her age couldn't get infected by ual activities. So, Prof. Byun could be infected, and his late girlfriend, then Emma. Sora gasped. Where was she living? That house was scarier than hers! "You have a wound on your hand! You will get infected!"

Sora looked at her hand; she had forgotten about it, but Emma mentioned it. She hid her hand behind herself. "I..."

"You know what Sora-ssi? I didn't want you to stay here because of this! I didn't want to be rude! I didn't want to be a brat! I just... I was scared... I'm always living in fear because I'm afraid of making someone's life like mine..." Emma sat on tiles and started crying. "I know how you feel now... you are scared of me. So just do what you want!"

Hearing his daughter's screams, Baekhyun ran out of his room. "Wha- what's wrong? What are- Emma, why are you sitting on tiles?" He pushed Sora away and sat next to Emma. "What's it? Don't cry..." He started checking her body. "What has happened to your finger? Let me s-"

"No! How many times should I say not to touch me when I'm bleeding?!" She shouted at her father and moved away. "Leave me alone! Both of you!"

"Ok... ok sweetheart. Wash your hands and then walk out." He stood up and led Sora out. Emma banged the door, but her wailing could be heard. "Sora, I can explai-" He was about to touch her shoulder, but Sora pushed him away.

"You..." She pointed at him. "Are you infected too?"

Baekhyun breathed deeply, he must have known that was coming. "No. I'm not."

"Then how is she infected? Liar!"

"Can we talk somewhere else? I don't want her to hear us." He said. "Please... I'll explain."

Sora didn't respond, she just went downstairs and Baekhyun followed her. She walk to her room and sat on her bed. "Ok, explain. How is she infected, but you are not? Even if her mother was-"

"Listen... this is not like what you think. Not me, nor her mother were infected. It's... it's like... she got infected accidentally." Sora raised her eyebrows. "It happened around five years ago, when I was teaching at Harvard... in Cambridge. Emma was coming back from school by herself that a car hit her and injured her badly. The place that was stitched on her leg is still visible." He paused. Remembering that harsh memory was too tough for him. 

"Ok?"

"The driver took her to the hospital. Emma had lost a lot of blood so she needed someone to donate her some. The driver happened to share the same blood type as Emma, so he donated his own. My daughter was healthy before that incident... my daughter wasn't infected before that accident, can you understand me?"

"You mean... that man was infected?" Sora asked. 

"He was... but he wasn't aware of it." He hid his face in his palms. 

"How is that possible? They examine blood befor-"

"The nurse said they didn't test it, because they were runnig out of time." He didn't let her continue. "If they had... I had lost Emma." 

"Are you being serious?"

"What should I do so you'll believe me? Should I show my own HIV test?! What's wrong with you? What makes you think that I'm lying? If you're not going to believe, then leave."

"Why did you hide it?"

Baekhyun stood up. "Please leave before tonight, I don't want a young lady to be out in the dark." He left her alone.

Sora sat there, looking out of the window. She was confused, the amount of sudden information was too much for her to digest. She felt pity for Emma, but her own life was in danger. She took her necessary things and left the house. Sora started running as she took her mask out of her bag. She was frightened, too frightened that she couldn't think sensibly. Suddenly, Sora stopped. "What am I doing?" She sat on a chair in bus stop. "Are you going to be a doctor, Sora?" 

Her sense of proportion was back. She started to think again. It took her about ten minutes to organize her thoughts. Emma was just an innocent girl who wanted to be treated like others, but that virus had made her different from others.

The med student stood up. "I can't leave my friend." Sora didn't understand what got into her when she made that decision; but as a woman and as a medical student, she knew that Emma needed her help. She made her way back to her professor's house.

Meanwhile, Baekhyun was staring at the closed door. It looked like all of his hope was gone. Happiness left his house as fast as it arrived. He didn't know how to tell his daughter about that. "Dad... where's Sora-ssi?" Emma walked closer to him. "Dad? I asked where's she? She wasn't in her room."

Hearing her name, a tear rolled down his face. "Sora... she, she left." He simply replied, without looking at her. 

"What?" Emma whispered. "She left too?" Lots of people had left her before, Sora wasn't the first one. Her friends, her classmates, her teachers, their neighbors in Cambridge, everyone left her except her family. Even though that wasn't something new, Emma started crying. She was shedding tears as if she had lost a loved one. "She didn't stay either..."

"Emma..." 

"No one loves me! Why am I even alive?!" She ran upstairs to her room while crying. She slammed the door. 

Baekhyun sighed. "Because without you, I'll die..." He sat on the couch and closed his eyes. "Sora... Sora... why did you come to my life? Why did I bring you to my life, Kang Sora?" He was deep in thoughts that the bell rang. "Who is this now?" He ran to the main door and opened it. Baekhyun's eyes widened at the sight of the girl in front of her. "Sora?!"

She walked in, hanging her head. "P-professor... I..." 

"You what?" He asked before closing the door.

"I..." Sora looked into his eyes. "I want to stay, I can't leave my best friend like this."

"You want to stay..." He whispered before hugging her out of blue. "Thank you." He tightened his arms around her. "Thank you so much... you really deserve to become a doctor."

"Please... stop, you are killing me." By her sentence, his embrace loosened a little. "It's better." Sora put her hands around his body. She loved how it felt like to be hugged by him. It was a familiar feeling. Sora searched for it in her memories. What was it called? Oh... that was it, safety. The last time she felt that was years ago, when her father hugged her. Sora smiled, she enjoyed the short-lived warmth before Baekhyun pulled away.

"I can't believe you're back... thank you." He bowed politely.

"Oh please... don't bow to me, professor!" She said. 

"I don't know how... but Emma became attached to you too quickly. And you know, when she's with you... I can see that joyous eight-year-old Emma again. She's never been that happy since the day she understood about her disease." 

"I understand. But she is a ray of sunshine in my life... after I lost my mother, she was the one who made me smile and the courage to continue." She shivered, hugging herself. 

"Let's go in, it's cold." He led her into the house. "Emma was so sad that you left her. She cried!"

"Oh no! Where's she now? I got to see her."

"Upstairs. I guess she's still crying."  He took a deep breath. "At times like this, she likes to be alone. That's why I didn't go to her."

"No... I'll talk to her." She ran to Emma's room after giving her bag to Baekhyun. 

Professor Byun was on cloud nine. Sora had brought joy into his daughter's life. He was right when he said he hadn't seen Emma that happy for years, but he hid the fact that his heart hadn't beaten that fast for years either.

Sora knocked the door. "Go away dad..." The girl sobbed. "I need to be alone." She smiled and opened the door. Emma sat up. "I said I want to be alo-" She turned to the door and faced with Sora. "You... aren't gone?"

"I came back for you, is this how you welcome me?" 

"I love you!" She ran to her and jumped into her embrace. "I love you, Sora unnie!"

The girl kept silent for some seconds, Emma called her 'unnie', not that uncomfortable Sora-ssi. She smiled. "I love you too, my dear Emma." She put her down on the floor. "Don't cry..." Sora wiped her tears away by her thumbs. 

"Aren't you afraid of me?"

"Huh? Stop being ridiculous! Why should I be scared of a little girl like you?"

"You know what I mean..." Emma looked down at her feet.

"To be honest, I was shocked and scared at first, but now I'm ok with it." She led the girl to her bed and they sat next to each other. "I won’t get HIV from hugging, shaking hands, or sharing toilets or dishes. I also can’t get infected if I kiss you or contact with your sweat or tears. I won't get it by simply living or hanging out with you, either."

"Unnie..."

"I'm going to be a doctor. If I treat you like the people who don't have proper knowledge about HIV, then what's the difference between us?" She asked.

"You're the best..." Emma broke into tears. "I've never met anyone like you... people push me away... because, I'm infected. I still can't forget how they threw me out of school."

"Wait, what?"

"I passed my fourth grade at home." She answered. "Auntie Jen and dad were my teachers."

The older girl felt sorry for her. People can be too mean sometimes, they could throw a girl out of school because of that ridiculous reason. "At least you had them." Sora smiled. "And from now on, you'll have me."

"Promise not to leave again." The younger held her pinky in front of her. "An unbreakable promise."

"Ok..." She wrapped her pinky a