I don’t know how I manage to stay awake through hours of the dawn but now here I am at school. It’s already the day’s end. There’s Bunhong, my best friend, walking beside me with this somewhat dull look on her face, something I’m not really accustomed to seeing.

“You’re not in the mood again, are you?” I turn my head to my right, where she is.

She shakes her head.

“Why, what’s wrong?” we settle on a bench.

It takes a moment for her to answer. Her shoulders hunch inward, and she replies, in a low voice, “Too much club work,”

“Don’t worry. I’m sure the event will turn out better than you think,” I give her  a reassuring smile, to which she doesn’t reply to.

I let her enjoy the silence she wants. In front of us the Joo siblings pass by, a brother and a sister, and they’re the most famous siblings across the school.

“I used to have a brother too,” chimes the friend beside me, in the same nonchalant voice.

I remember she had mentioned this before. “Oh, yeah, you told me that before,”

Her eyes grow smaller as the thought goes deeper. “Maybe if he were alive today, he’d be a singer. He’s always wanted to become an artist,”

I try to be cheerful despite of the gloom. “He must be handsome too, then,”

Bunhong looks at me with an expression I couldn’t exactly name.

“Look at you—you’re pretty and really smart. Imagine if you had a male counterpart,” I giggle, getting giddy. “Eeeeeh. Your brother would totally be my type,” I slap her arm once and cover my face.

“You’re crazy,” she remarks, and lightly smacks my forearm in retaliation.

When my laughter subsides I ask her, with careful politeness, “But…Bunhong-ah…”

“Ne?”

“How did he…you know,”

She shoots me this really angry look on her face, that for a moment, I get scared. I frantically wave my hands in front of her, excusing—

“I’m sorry! You know how forgetful I am,”

I could see that the anger boils inside her. A little later it’s extinguished, and she replies to me, with bitterness very thick in her tone, “He got hit by a car. Well, it was more like run-over; he died at a parking lot.”

I blink twice.

“The driver of the car left his vehicle . He said he was just going to get something in the building and will be back real quick. But then it was in neutral mode, and the lot where he parked it was a little steep…”

“I…”

Bunhong glances at me, a little too abruptly. “My twin died in a stupid way, didn’t he?” with a smile that’s forced.

“No, no. Of course not.” I shake my head and put my arms around her. “Don’t say that. It was an accident,”

“That’s what they said,” Bunhong’s voice is shaky now. it scares me. “But no, I don’t think so. Some said he could’ve lived, if he was attended to immediately—if someone had helped him,”

“Shhh,” I put my chin on her shoulder and rub her for