Ji Hyo wiped off the remnants of her tears and put her medical report away into her drawer. She placed her right hand on her tummy and whispered to the little one in there, “Don’t be scared, baby. Mummy will protect you. Mummy will keep you safe.”

She gave a call to her manager to cancel all her appointments except for those that had contractual implications. She also instructed her manager not to take on any more jobs for her. When she ended her call, she placed her phone on her bedside table. She reclined on her bed and her tummy gently. She soon fell into a slumber.

Jong Kook opened the door of Ji Hyo’s apartment and was surprised to find it in darkness. He remembered that she had the day off and he was supposed to pick her up for dinner. He switched on the lights in the living room and walked towards her room. He saw her lying on the bed. He moved towards her and sat on the bed. He gently swept her hair away from her face and gave her a soft kiss on the cheek.

His kiss stirred Ji Hyo from her sleep. When she lifted her eyelids and saw Jong Kook, her unshed tears threatened to spill again. She swallowed them back and sat up. She wound her arms tightly around him and snuggled against his chest while fighting against the raging storm of emotions within her. He was both allured and puzzled by her display of clinginess. He encircled his own arms protectively around her and her back in long and loving movements.

“Ji Hyo.” He called her name lovingly and melodiously. As if her own name was a wake-up call, she composed herself and pulled away from him. She took a deep breath and gazed bravely at him. Jong Kook saw the red rims around her eyes and asked worriedly, “Are you all right? Have you been crying?” His hands cupped her cheeks warmly.

His words made her stifled the sobs which were threatening to escape from . “I’m fine. I was reading my scripts earlier and I got too enthralled and started crying.”  She lied when all she wanted to do was to tell him the truth.

“Silly girl,” he drew her close to him and her head softly. She sniffed back her tears against his broad and strong chest. She sought the sense of security and protection from him.

“What would you like for dinner? Do you still want to go out?” he asked her gently when she refused to let go of him.

She loosened her hold over him slightly and paused to think. Her answer surprised him. “Can I have a glass of warm milk and your oatmeal cereal for dinner?”

“Oatmeal cereal?” he asked in disbelief, thinking that he had heard her wrongly.

“Yes, the oatmeal cereal that you eat in the morning. You said it is nutritious.”

“All right, if you said so. I will make it for you now. You rest a bit more. You looked tired.” He gave a kiss on her forehead before heading to the kitchen.

When Jong Kook was gone, Ji Hyo placed her hand on tummy and whispered, “Be good, our little one. Daddy will make us dinner.” She laid back to rest.

When the food was served, Jong Kook and Ji Hyo ate their oatmeal cereal in tranquil silence. Ji Hyo stirred her spoon in her bowl of cereal before putting each scoop into . It was obvious to Jong Kook that she didn’t like oatmeal cereal. He was surprised when she actually finished the whole bowl without passing some over to him which was her habit to pass food that she disliked to him. Jong Kook was even more surprised when she finished the glass of warm milk. He asked her to rest in the room while he cleaned up the dishes.

She was in her own thoughts when he walked into the room with a thermometer in his hand. Despite her protests that she was well, he took her temperature. Her temperature was indeed normal. When he turned to return the thermometer into the first-aid box, she grabbed his hand and he turned around to face her. He saw the unsettledness in her eyes. She asked him to stay beside her. He smiled at her and did as asked. He sat on bed and held her hand in his. “Are you all right, my dear?” he asked tenderly. She looked at him, her eyes peering into his. She wanted so much to tell him about their baby but she didn’t want to burden him so she kept quiet. “The loss of one’s child is so painful,” she finally said to him.

“Your current role will be losing her child?” he asked innocently as he thought she was referring to the script that she had been crying over for.

 “Yes,” she answered sadly, keeping the truth again to herself.

“Silly girl, it’s just acting. Don’t get so affected by it.” He gave her a hug and stood up.

He put away the thermometer and switched off all the lights in the rest of the house before he came into the room and saw Ji Hyo still in deep thoughts. He crawled under the quilt blanket and cuddled her in his arms. “Can you stay over at my place for the next few weeks?” she asked him, breathing the question against his chest. “Do you miss me that much?” he . When she looked up at him, he saw the uneasiness in her eyes again. He quickly assured her and pulled her closer to him, “Of course, I will stay over for as long as you would want me here.”

As they lie side by side on the bed, she intertwined her fingers with his. “Can we sleep this way tonight?” she asked softly. He turned to her side and planted a kiss on her lips. He tightened his grip slightly and smiled at her. He watched her fell asleep. Something tugged at his heart about her behaviour but he could not put a finger on what was wrong. Soon, sleep came over him too.

That night, Ji Hyo had a glass of warm milk before going to bed. Before Jong Kook joined her in bed, she placed her hand protectively over her tummy and whispered, “We have made it for one more day, our precious one. We have 210 days more days to go.” 

They slept with their fingers intertwined again.

She had her nightly glass of warm milk. When Jong Kook was not paying attention to her, she her tummy tenderly and whispered, “Our brave little one, we have almost made it for one more week. We have 204 days more days to go. Mummy loves you.”

That night she rested their intertwined hands lightly on her tummy with a little smile.

They drove around Seoul that day. They were supposed to look for furniture pieces in the designs which Ji Hyo had shortlisted from the magazines. By the time they had finished browsing the first furniture shop, Ji Hyo was already feeling tired. They drove to the second furniture shop and took a break at the café next to it. He was surprised that she had asked for hot milk instead of her favourite Americano coffee. She rested with her eyes closed while Jong Kook purchased their drinks.

As he walked towards her, he could not help but felt worried. His usually energetic Ji Hyo had become rather lethargic these days. She seemed to get tired easily even though she had been sleeping early. She even argued with the production team when they wanted her to film overnight; she used to just follow their schedule.

Not that he had to have with her all the time. He found it odd that she had been rejecting his advances for the past two weeks whenever he tried to give her pleasure or initiate with her. Yet, she would offer to e him. He had gently and delicately turned her offers down not out of spite but out of respect – if she wasn’t in the mood, then he would not force it on her. She had settled for sleeping close to him and holding his hand in her sleep. She seemed to be scared about something but she had refused to share it with him. He knew something was troubling her yet he would sometimes catch her smiling ever so sweetly and blissfully to herself. His instinct told him that her recent changes in behaviour were not due to her current acting role but she had refused to tell him anything whenever he probed. In fact, each time when he asked her, her pleading and fearful eyes silenced him and made him regret for asking her.

He let her take a nap while he flipped the magazines provided by the café. When she woke up from her nap, he had offered to get her a cup of her favourite Americano but she turned him down and asked for a cup of warm water instead.

She took a few sips of the water and passed the cup to Jong Kook. She felt weak and giddy. As she stood up from her seat, she felt a sharp pain in her lower abdomen. She held tight on the armrests of her chair and steadied herself. She hastily placed her hands over her tummy and whispered almost as a prayer, “Our precious, please be strong. We have crossed the 200 days mark. We have only 196 days more to go. Please don’t leave us. We love you.”

She endured the pain that she was feeling and walked to their car. She had requested to go home. Once they reached home, she immediately rested herself on the bed. He was worried at how pale she looked. He sat next to her and held her hand. “My dear, are you feeling okay?” he asked with concern. He saw her lips turning from white to blue. “Shall we go to the hospital?” he beseeched her.

Her eye lips weighed like tons and she struggled to lift them. She brushed her hand on the side of his face and breathed weakly, “Yes.” She attempted to sit up but he instantly lifted her up in his arms. He carried her all the way to the apartment front door. He placed her legs down onto the floor gently and supported her full weight with one arm as he opened the apartment door with his other hand. When he bended to lift her knees with his arm again, he felt dampness and saw the blood on the inner side of her legs. “Ji Hyo,” He could not finish his question. He carried her and dashed down the stairs. He could not and would not wait for the lift. He rushed her to the hospital.

She had an operation when she was much younger to remove some uterus fibroids. The fibroids had to be removed because she was unable to carry out her normal life during her periods. They caused her to have heavy painful periods and she had to lie in bed during her periods. While the chances of full recovery for such operations were high, she always had a nagging feeling that her uterus may be damaged during that operation. After the removal of the fibroids, her periods did not come for months and when they finally returned, they were no longer painful but they became irregular.

She was depressed after her operation. She believed that she would never be able to have children and a family like other women. In fact, her depression got so bad at one stage that she gave up on herself and she took on those roles with explicit scenes. She told herself that since she could not have a family like other women, she might as well use her body to build her career instead. Fortunately, her mother’s tears had brought her to her senses. Her mother’s words woke her up – “If you don’t respect your body, no one would. If you don’t respect yourself, no one would.”

If she asked herself closely, it was also this belief of hers that allowed her to go into a relationship with her former CEO boyfriend whom she didn’t really love. She didn’t believe that she could find true love; hence she was willing to settle for a relationship with a man who could provide for her materially and was affectionate enough to her.

When she went into a relationship with Jong Kook, she was always worried that she would never be good enough for him. She was afraid that she could not give him the children whom he had always wanted. She had considered her possible condition as her flaw. She had wanted to tell him about her flaw but she was scared of losing him. To compensate for her flaw, she did whatever else she could as perfectly as possible. She loved him too much that she thought for a moment that she could cheat fate. For a moment, she wanted to be with him so much so that she thought she could overcome the odds.

When she accepted his proposal, she knew that she could not run away from this issue any more. She had been going to many tests, scans and treatments to determine her condition and to increase her chances of conception. She was mentally and emotionally drained by these procedures. She was always worried about the results and she could not share her worries with him yet. Some of these procedures caused her to have bruises too and she had lied to Jong Kook that they were sustained during her filming.

She was waiting for her final medical report when he popped the question of having an engagement party to her. She would have called off the long engagement and married him right away if and only if the report said that she was able to bear his children. Regrettably, the report confirmed her greatest fear – her uterus wall had been weakened after her operation and it would not be strong enough to carry the foetus to his full term. She was likely to suffer miscarriages and premature birth. The report also stated that her fertility rate was lower than normal.

However, the doctor had miraculously found her embryo in her last scan. This began her roller-coaster ride for the past two weeks. She rode up on her hope and joy for one moment and she plunged into fear and worry for the next. She knew that her chances of keeping this child were low. She wanted to spare Jong Kook from the anxiety and the possible pain of losing the child. If he didn’t know about the baby in the first place, he won’t even know when he was gone.

Sorry for another heart-breaking chapter. This story is ending soon. For both endings, Gary will make his appearance. Do stay with me as I complete the story.

Note: this is a pure fiction. What I wrote on the story characters is not based on any facts; I made them up for the purpose of this story. The medical conditions might not be accurate too.

(14.10.2013)