You look up at him, at those starlike brown eyes that are briefly shaded by the fading light of the sun, and try to smile. Really, you do, but smiling hurts for some reason. Smiling feels like an alien thing, a thing that forces you to comply, and all you want to do is just disappear, so Yongguk doesn't have to see you like this. It's not that you're embarrassed. Rather, you're afraid. You're afraid that, if he sees you like this, he won't smile anymore.

"Thanks," you say and quickly blink your coming tears away. The sun has entirely vanished, and the top of the world is swimming in a sea of darkness. The machine that moves the ferris wheel squeaks and moans as it brings your cable car down, and you wait silently until you finally reach the ground.

"Ready?" Yongguk asks you as the employee reaches over to open the door for you two. Yongguk takes your hand and helps you step off, but then lets go as soon as your foot touches the floor. He turns to the worker, who is turning back to his little podium with a wad of money in his hands. "Sir?"

"Hm?" He eyes Yongguk tiredly.

"What time do you close?"

"Uh, in thirty minutes," he informs him. "So if you guys need anything ... snacks and whatnot, go ahead and get 'em."

"Alright. Thanks," Yongguk says, and looks at you with expectation in his eyes. You follow him across the amusement park and past rides and stalls of various games. He almost passes right by shelves of stuff toys but then backtracks. "Ah ... " he says in curiosity and approaches the stall. The worker stares at him with dissatisfaction, obviously having hoped that no customer would appear. "Excuse me," Yongguk says, pointing at a stuff toy on the wall, "How much is that?"

"That's twenty," he says bluntly.

"Can I have it?" Yongguk asks, taking his wallet out. The worker shrugs, turns around, and grabs the stuff toy. You can finally get a good look at it now, and you realize that it's a bunny. It's a little bigger than the length of your hand, and it's a black bunny with long, floppy ears and flat feet. It almost looks like a humanized version of a bunny. It even has some sort of red mask on its mouth. 

"You like that?" You question Yongguk, and he just gives you a silly grin that makes you laugh. He thanks the worker and then takes the stuff toy, which he promptly cradles in his arm.

"It needs a name, don't you think?" Yongguk asks you as he starts walking out of the park. Various other people have begun to leave, as well, much to the relief of the employees.

"Sure," you agree. You stare at the bunny. No names come to mind. "Like what?"

"Uh ... like ... " then it hits him, and in a wave of overexcited eagerness, he lifts the bunny high into the air and loudly declares, "Shi Shi Mato!"

"What?" You look at him in bewilderment, but you're smiling.

"Shi Shi Mato," he says, bringing the bunny back to his chest. He gives an awkward smile to the passersby who have begun to give you judging stares and shakes the bunny's ears. "Or Shi Shi. For short."

"Not Mato?"

"I like the sound of Shi Shi better," Yongguk insists. "Don't you?" He asks you as he smiles while biting his lower lip. You can't disagree with him when he stares at you like that, so you nod. "Okay. This is my souvenir for this place."

Doubt tweaks your conscience. "Souvenir? Where are you going?"

"Oh, I'm not going anywhere, I meant, souvenir for this park," he tells you. You've exited the park and are now in the parking lot, where some remaining cars stay idle on the asphalt. "But ... well, I'm going somewhere," he adds irresolutely as he fiddles with the ears of the bunny.

"To where?"

"I'm going to a hospital ... about, two hours from here," he says, and at the word 'hospital', your panic ensues. 

"Are you okay? Are you hurt? Is everything - "

"I just need to go there because the hospital I go to now can't ... well, they're not ... ah ... they can't support my ... needs," he states carefully. The sound of his footsteps ripple across the ground, which are too empty and too lonely for a blissful guy like Yongguk. 

"What's wrong with the hospital ... here?"

"I ... it turns out I have a ... unique case," he says haltingly. "Um. And they want me to go see a better hospital ... you know, the one owned by that big Kim family?"

"I don't know that one," you reply.

"Well, they're really good, apparently," he tells you. "And they've just developed a new medicine ... " he absently the head of the bunny, the fur pulling back at his touch, " ... and they want to try it on me."

"They don't even know if it works?"

"Oh, I don't know, but, why not try? So I told them I wouldn't mind testing it out." His eyes rest on the floor. "They do that a lot. People. Find new medicines. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't."

You don't want to ask, but your heart prods you to say, "And what if ... it doesn't?"

Y