I’d gone deaf. I couldn’t hear anything around me after Dong Wan uttered those three little words. That’s not true. I could hear those three little words over and over in my head. Hye Sung has cancer. Hye Sung has cancer. Hye Sung has cancer. Hye Sung has cancer.  Did deaf people hear words in their heads, too? All around me I watched in frenetic motion as people hugged their tanned, post-summer hellos, and all I wanted to do were to fold my body up and stuff myself into my narrow and small locker.

“You didn’t know?” I made out Dong Wan’s muffled reply, and I responded with a wobbly headshake. He enveloped me in his newly buff, thick arms, my own arms pinned to my side. I didn’t have the ability to move them even if I wanted to hug him back. Which I didn’t.

 The school bell rang, and the students scattered and went to their lecture rooms. The first day of school was the only day everyone seemed to want to be on time to the first period.

“I’m going now. You sure you are alright?” I’m sure Dong Wan’s concern was sincere, but it just felt hollow. A nod from me to him, and Dong Wan was off down the hall and off to his lecture class at the third level. I managed to stuff my empty backpack into my locked and remembered to grab a pen and notebook before I zombie-walked to advisory.

While everyone around me chattered about vacations, parties, hookups and breakups, I doodled on the cover of my pale orange notebook. Cancer. I scratched. What did I know about this word called Cancer? I knew one of my mother’s best friends who were in America died from it. I also knew a couple of my father