Days slid by one by one, blending into the other effortlessly on their part, but for Yoon Hee and Soo Jin, who felt as if a piece of them was missing, the days moved by with a slowness that seemed beyond unbearable. Summer slid away and Soo Jin began school and her mother was happy for the distraction it gave her. For Yoon Hee nothing could shake Joon from her thoughts. She missed him more and more everyday and she felt her heart splinter little by little with each day she spent without him.

She went to work as usual, but her nights had become shorter and shorter. Eun Mi just wasn’t able to watch Soo Jin as long as she used to. Her neighbor’s health had greatly declined and it took effort the elderly lady didn’t seem to have to even make it to Yoon Hee’s apartment in the evenings. To make it easier Yoon Hee had began having Soo Jin stay over at Eun Mi’s and it seemed to ease the old woman’s burden a little.

However the reprieve didn’t last long. It was a cool fall night, but the club was still crowded, every table occupied, every chair sat in. The music was loud, pulsing throughout the building, thrumming through everybody in attendance; whether dancer or viewer. Yoon Hee was lost in the music, her body swaying and shifting, gyrating and pulsing to the beat of the song, thoughts of Joon’s own dancing rampant in her mind fuelling her movements more.

As the music faded and her body slowed she lifted her eyes to survey the crowd and she cast a smile at the men and women sitting before her before she made her way off stage into the shadows of backstage. She passed by various dancers, some whole and just looking for extra money, while others had that stingy, gaunt appearance of one who uses. She waved at her boss as she passed him talking to a couple of men in street clothes, but didn’t wait for his return gesture as she hurriedly entered her dressing room and changed out of her stage costume and back into her regular clothes. She was sitting at her small vanity table when a knock sounded on her door.

Wiping the last of her makeup away she stood and went to the door. When she opened it her boss, Choi Hak Chan, stood with the two men she had seen him with before. The three of them stepped inside, their faces grave and she felt fear clutch her heart. “What’s going on?”

One of the men gave her a sad smile. “I’m Officer Seo,” he gestured to the man beside him, “And this is Officer Jang. Miss Kim, do you know a woman by the name of Lee Eun Mi?”

Yoon Hee nodded, the fear expanding to take over her entire body. “Has something happened? Is Eun Mi alright?” Then the graveness of their faces, the reason why the police would be there hit home. “My daughter, Soo Jin, she was there with Eun Mi. I need to know what’s going on. I need to know what’s happened to Eun Mi and my daughter.”

Officer Seo set a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Calm yourself Miss Kim. Your daughter is fine and is waiting back at the apartment with one of our officers.”

“Then why are you here?”

Sadness settled into the kind officer’s eyes and Yoon Hee knew then without him having to tell her. Tears filled her eyes as she reached beside her to a table beside the door and grabbed her purse. “I need to be there. I need to be with my daughter. I need…to see Eun Mi.”

The officers gave her sympathetic looks. “Miss Kim before we leave is there anyone you know of that we can call and notify of Lee Eun Mi’s passing?”

The sadness of the truth was bitter as she shook her head. “There is no one. Eun Mi had only ever had me and my daughter. As for her family, I’ve never known of anyone to visit her and she has never left to visit anyone either.” She shook her head again and repeated, “There is no one. No one, but us.”

The officers nodded and her boss gave her a brief pat on the shoulder and gently hugged her in the friendly way he had and Yoon Hee drew strength from that as she left with the police. An unmarked car waited for them outside the club. Yoon Hee slipped into the back seat and as the car moved towards her apartment building she felt the sadness blanket her and she didn’t stop the tears that fell.

The memorial service was brief and filled with silence. She and Soo Jin said their goodbyes as a kind woman led them to a wall where ashes of the deceased had met their final resting place. The woman stopped in the middle where an empty slot sat and Yoon Hee stared at it, the sadness of knowing that Eun Mi was left to this place forever settling over her as she placed the small urn inside and arranged the few pictures she had brought along with her.

Stepping back she watched with teary eyes as the woman locked the glass front and bowed before leaving them alone in their grief.  Yoon Hee held her daughter close as Soo Jin cried, her tears soaking through the black fabric of her mourning clothes. She let her own tears fall for Eun Mi, a person who had been most kind to her, like a mother, a friend.

Her passing was a great loss to them, but Yoon Hee knew that now, this day, was the only time she could allow herself to mourn her friend because now she knew she would have to look for work elsewhere. Without Eun Mi she could no longer leave Soo Jin at night, she was still far too young to leave at home alone until the early hours of the morning. She had already called Hak Chan and explained and he had been considerate and understanding, a little sad to see his best dancer go, but let her go with a gift that had arrived just that morning.

Yoon Hee was grateful to him for the money he had sent, knew that in the days to come it would be greatly needed as she searched for work. She also knew that the days ahead were going to be trying and stressful and thinking about it made her feel weary and tired. Taking Soo Jin’s hand she began pulling her away from the remains of their dearest friend. “Come Soo Jin, let’s go home.”

As they walked away it felt as if they were leaving a piece of themselves behind, but Yoon Hee made a silent vow that they would return often to this place and visit Eun Mi. The old woman wouldn’t be alone even in death.

A week passed and still Yoon Hee could find no work. She walked the street while Soo Jin was at school and when they were both home together she scoured the newspaper circling possibilities while crossing out others. All the while her thoughts circled around Joon, always wondering if he was well, if he thought of them while he worked. It had been nearly three months since he had left and Yoon Hee hadn’t heard a single word from him, no text nor call, not even a letter and hear heart ached.

More days passed, another week and then another and finally Yoon Hee found work in a small mart a couple of miles from her apartment. The pay was small, but it was better than nothing. They needed money, the money that Hak Chan had given them already done to mere coins. She began work, her mind focused on the tasks set for her and slowly as time passed, as fall continued to bloom in colors of red and gold her heart numbed and her thoughts of Joon trickled to mere memories in the back of her mind.

She knew that her daughter hadn’t easily forgotten Joon, knew that Soo Jin cried at night wishing for his return and her heart ached for her, but despite the sadness of the night she and her daughter settled into a comfortable routine. Although Yoon Hee no longer danced away the night as she once had, on the rare occasion that Soo Jin stayed the night at a friend’s house she would return to the club and dance as a special guest to earn a little extra money. Life had gotten tiresome, but together the two of them continued to trudge on.

Winter came in a flurry of snow and freezing temperatures, the world around them became a white wonderland and in the warmer hours of the afternoon Yoon Hee and Soo Jin built snowmen, had snowball fights and made snow angels before going back inside and warming their bodies with soup and blankets.

Christmas came and went as did the New Year and finally February was welcomed with more cold and a little less snow. The white world around them became scattered with pink and red as paper hearts were hung in windows. Couples walked the streets hand in hand, but Yoon Hee ignored the twitch of pain in her heart as she swept snow from the sidewalk in front of the tiny mart, her boss smiling and humming to herself as she arranged a candy display in the tiny window bespeckled with pink and red hearts.

Valentine’s Day…a holiday that Yoon Hee had never really thought twice about other than sharing candy with her daughter, but this year the holiday seemed even more melancholy than usual. Tomorrow was the day and she had thought that Joon would have returned by now, that he would be back in time to spend the holiday with her like every other couple, but six months had passed shortly after Christmas and still he had not returned.

She had refused to look on the web for news, turned her head when she passed television music shows displayed in windows, refused to be the one the send the first message in hopes that she’d hear back from him. It was almost as if he had become a ghost in her life, a figment of her imagination, a memory. The heart that he had once warmed had once again turned into an icy stone. She knew now that she had let herself fall in love only to be hurt, but she promised herself that it would never happen again…never again.

A tapping at her door woke her up and Yoon Hee sat up with sleep bleary eyes and stared at the door as the tapping continued. She felt movement beside her as she stood and glanced down as Soo Jin came awake with curious eyes as her gaze followed her mother to the door. Yoon Hee opened it, but instead of a person there sat only a large box wrapped in shiny pink paper with a single, huge white bow atop it.

She eyed the box with wary eyes, toed it with her stocking clad feet. It did not budge and Yoon Hee sighed. Opening her door further she began tugging, scooting and pushing until she got the heavy box into her apartment. She shut the door behind her and then stared at the box unsure of whether or not she should open it.

“Who’s it from Mommy?”

Yoon Hee looked for a car beneath the loops of the bow, but found nothing. “I don’t know. There isn’t a card.”

The box gave a little shake and Yoon Hee backed away from it startled. Soo Jin stared at it with wide eyes and they both waited as the box shook again. Tension filled the room as Yoon Hee pulled Soo Jin to her and together they watched and waited.