There are always going to be obstacles, but the ability to overcome them depends on you.

Donggeun lives in a modest house, considering his job, considering his personality. Upon first impression, he seems like one to live in a rather lavish house. His auto barn was littered with signs of a man who’s adventurous, more or less. But here they stood, on wooden boards, in a room filled with antiquities, and teapots with floral patterns. “This is my wife” he introduces a young lady, tall, with long brown hair that flowed down her back.

She wore a pink apron that said ‘The Chef is in the House’, and sported a grin so wide it reminded Joohee of a cartoon character. “Donggeun told me you were coming!” she says enthusiastically. “Come, sit, please make yourself comfortable” she brushes away the invisible specks of dust on the chair, and ushers for Minhyuk and Joohee to sit. “My name’s Nara by the way, can I get you something warm to drink?”

Joohee shakes her head, and Minhyuk follows, neither wanting to disrupt their hosts anymore than they should “Don’t be silly, maybe even a warm glass of milk? You were waiting for a while” Donggeun insists to which Nara agrees

She leaves them in the room for a bit and comes back with three glasses of milk presented on a silver tray. “Where are you guys heading at this hour?” she furrows her eyebrows and takes a seat on Donggeun’s lap.

“We’re heading to Gwangju” he says in between sips of milk

“Why this late? You couldn’t of have had left in the morning?” There’s a bit of silence in the room, before Nara speaks up again “Well thankfully Donggeun was working extra late tonight!” she smiles

“Honey?” Donggeun says

Nara notices the discomfort on Joohee’s face as she struggles to hold onto Yooyoung’s body. She shuffles her in her arm a bit and settles her in a position, letting Yooyoung’s head to rest against her chest. “Not now, I’m going to take our guest to their room!” Nara shuffles over to Joohee, helping the older girl to her feet. “I think we might need some extra blankets and pillows too”.

Nara helps Joohee climb up the stairs of her house by carrying the oxygen tank behind her. She directs her to the room second last from the end, and shows her where the bathroom is whilst she’s at it. Joohee places Yooyoung down on the bed and tucks her in gently. She makes sure to tuck her in tight because Yooyoung liked it like that. The warmth that it provided, as well as that sense of security helped her get through times when Joohee wasn’t there holding her in her arms.

“How old is she?” Nara asks

Joohee traces her fingers around Yooyoung’s baby face, and smiles “Six”

“She’s beautiful…”

Minhyuk was rather insistent on sleeping on the floor in the same room, even though there was a couch outside for him, even though Joohee had made it fairly clear that it would earn him no brownie points with her. Still he slept, on top of layers of blankets, surrounded by a sea of pillows, and wrapped snuggly in a sleeping bag to top it all off. Joohee on the other hand, barely slept a wink, eyes consistently checking to make sure the nubs were in Yooyoung’s nose, that her oxygen wasn’t being cut off, or that she was still with them. As the night grew old, and the sun began to peer across the horizon, Joohee decided that tossing and turning in bed would do nothing more than disturb Yooyoung, and give her hair knots.

Crawling out of bed, and climbing over Minhyuk’s apparent fortress, she opens the door. Greeted by a pleasant smell of fresh, sweet pancakes, and coffee. She can hear the sound of the bacon and eggs sizzling, and a happy song coming from downstairs. She creeps down, the creaks from the stairs giving her away “Joohee?” Nara peers from around the corner.

“I couldn’t sleep” she admits, afraid that Nara might think otherwise.

“You look like you didn’t” she gives her a comforting smile, and calls her over “I made you guys breakfast”

Glancing at the clock on the wall, Joohee notices how early it was, too early to be eating, too early to even be awake. It was five thirty in the morning, she still needed to use the lights on the ceiling to see, because there wasn’t enough sun to illuminate the room.

“Donggeun has to leave for work at six thirty so he can get there and open at seven” Nara explains “I need to make him breakfast and lunch, so I’m always up early”

“Don’t you get tired?”

It’s a bit frank of Joohee, and she realises it as the words escapes her lips

“I mean…” she stutters

Nara laughs, and clears the air “Not at all…I mean, it’s like you and your baby girl up there” Joohee’s eyes follow the direction of Nara’s head tilt “When it’s for the one you love, it’s never tiring”

Joohee notices the blush on Nara’s face, that sweet smile that spreads across her face as she flips the pancake onto the other side. Nara serves up a fresh, hot batch of bacon and eggs, pancakes and maple syrup, and coffee to top it off. “Please, you must eat…” she pushes the plates in front of Joohee, taking a seat opposite her to observe.

Joohee takes the fork and knife and slowly, she cuts away at the pancakes, drenched in maple syrup. Breakfast like this wasn’t unfamiliar to her. As a matter of fact, it reminded her too much of the hospital café. Still, as a matter of etiquette, she takes a bite. It wasn’t anything like the hospital, it was rather delicious, so she went in for another bite.

“Good?” Nara smiles, eyes lighting up at Joohee’s delightful expression. She nods, and takes a sip of the coffee to wake herself up. “Great!” Nara exclaims, digging into the plate of her own food.

Mid way through, Joohee stops, places her utensils down on the table and pushes the plates away from her.

“What’s the matter?”

“Thank you” she says, a nervous chuckle escaping “For doing this for us”

Nara shakes her head, and instinctively reaches across the table for Joohee’s hands “Please, we’re more than happy to help” she reassures Joohee “I know it seems really out of the blue, especially since we’re strangers, but the thing I’ve always loved about Donggeun was how generous he’s always been.”

Joohee’s expecting an entire back-story on how they meet, but she gets none. All she’s left with is a few of Nara’s words of wisdom “Do unto others, like you would like done unto you”

She’s pretty sure that’s a quote from the bible or something, but Joohee just smiles and picks up her fork again.

“I wanted to ask you though…” Joohee could feel her body stiffen, shoulders were up and guarded, afraid of what was coming out of “Why Gwangju?”

She looks at her plate, and flicks around a few pieces of meat “It’s on her bucket list”

“Yooyoung’s?”

“Yeah…”

“That’s pretty amazing” Nara smiles “That you’re doing this as a family…”

“We’re not a family”

“Oh?”

“He’s just a friend who’s helping us…”

Nara nods, “Well he’s a really good friend for sticking by your side, isn’t he?”

‘You have no idea’ Joohee wants to say, but all she manages is a weak smile.

“I’m sorry if this has made you uncomfortable” Nara realises her mistake and the awkward air forming around them.

Truth be told, besides Ara, this was the closest that she has come to having a proper conversation in a while. One where the other person wasn’t throwing really long, complicated medical terms at her, or one where wasn’t using that infamous baby talk voice.

“Not at all…” Joohee forces a smile “It’s nice…”

Certain that she was probably referring to the food, Nara picks up her fork again and continues eating, reminding herself to stick to clichéd topics, such as the weather.

Donggeun throws his cloth in defeat, Minhyuk staring curiously from the side. “You see this, it’s the battery, it’s really old, and so it keeps malfunctioning”

“Well, can you replace it?”

“Yes” Donggeun sighs

“But…?”

“But, if I do it won’t reach here for another week. This model is really old, and I only can think of one person, who might have it.”

“What do we do then?”

“I’m sorry”

“… Let me know how it goes then” Nara hangs up the phone “The boys are having troubles fixing up the car”

“What’s going on?”

“Something about the battery needing to be replaced… but they won’t be able to get a new one in for a while, and there’s no guarantee”

“That’s it… it’s over…”

“I’m sorry…”