The softest hum of an engine.

A very familiar hum at that.

Her name being called out by Yeri.

Her name being called - by her.

With that name, that call, attached to a sad muttering of one word she'd thought they'd never tell each other - "paalam."

These are the last things Joohyun heard before she felt her body suddenly willing her to stand up, springing her to finally do something.

The screeching of tires.

The heavy clunk of footsteps as she ran outside the door of her room -

- their room - which they have shared for eight years.

These are the last things - the last sounds - which finally jolted Joohyun back to reality.

A week after Joohyun met Joy, she still hasn't - couldn't - will herself to talk to Seulgi.

She just couldn't confront the fact that this is it for her. She will be childless. 

After she learned that Seulgi's also physically incapable of having a child, Joohyun found herself lost in a maelstrom of thoughts. 

She found herself asking if she is ready to have a future that for her, felt so incomplete, because she couldn't have the family she's envisioned.

She found herself asking if her love for Seulgi is enough to let go of the kind of future she's always wanted.

She found herself asking if she also still deserves Seulgi, because it's actually so sickening that she would have doubts about her feelings for her because of something Seulgi has obviously no control over.

And so she started to withdraw from her. From them.

She would leave her in the night, just go somewhere. 

Sometimes she would snuck into nursery rooms in government hospitals, just to look quietly at the newborn babies with the most bittersweet of feelings. How she was able to do something considered as against the rules as that, she also doesn't know.