The image above was taken at Salar de Uyuni, the world's largest salt flat. In the wet season, the plain is covered in a thin sheet of water, mirroring the sky above.

I. DUSK

While the hot water continued to pour onto her head, she took the time to inspect her feet. With nothing but the sound of the shower to distract her, the woman started to count her toes. Just to check if they were still there. An insignificant ritual she just happened to perform every now and then.

Just to check if she was still there.

She counted ten of them, which was a good thing. All was ordinary.

No wonder her heart skipped a beat at the sudden sound of the doorbell.

“I’ll get it!” someone yelled from the living room.

She heard the front door open. A brief muffled conversation.

Then all went unusually quiet.

“Who is it?!” she yelled, but no one cared to answer her question.

Feeling slightly on edge, the woman counted her toes one more time. She counted ten of them.

As she closed the tap, she heard someone call out to her.

“Jinsil?!”

“…Yeah?”

No response followed.

From the tone of Edith’s voice, she could tell that something was wrong. Without hesitation, Jinsil stepped out of the shower. With noticeable expertise, she tightly wrapped a large white towel around her body before making her way to the doorstep.

Her brows pulled into a frown as she caught Edith blankly staring at a crumpled piece of paper in her hand. The front door was wide open, allowing a cold, nasty chill to blow onto her skin like a hair dryer. An unknown man was standing in the doorway, desperately trying to make his words reach the two women.

It wasn’t working. Jinsil wasn’t listening, and she could easily tell Edith wasn’t either.

As she drew closer, Jinsil felt her chest tighten. The man’s lips had stopped moving – he was now simply staring at his feet.

Perhaps he was counting his toes as well, she thought.

The trio wallowed in a pregnant silence for a while. Jinsil could sense that it was time for her to pick the microphone up.

“I’m guessing this is bad, isn’t it,” she began, not bothering to refine her sentence with an inquisitive touch.

Edith’s eyes briefly widened. “Je ne sais pas,” she replied. The frosty-haired woman gave the crumpled sheet of paper a quick last glance, before shakily handed it over to her girlfriend.

A faint, bombastic bass tone swelled up in her ears as Jinsil recognized the familiar handwriting.

To you, Jinsil and Edith,

“This is…”

Edith gave her head a slight nod.

Jinsil frowned, thought of her ten toes in the shortest of seconds, and continued reading.

If you’d ever want to imagine how grateful I am to you, picture how cool it’d be to take a trip to the moon.

((I don’t know where that metaphor even came from.))

I’ll never be able to say enough thank-yous because of this. And I’ll never be able to say enough sorrys either. All I can say now is that it feels like my heart has shattered into pieces, like a stupid brittle rock that wasn’t able to transform into a diamond on time.

(I feel like I’m wasting my words with all these weird associations I’m penning down I think it’s because of the medication they gave to me.

Anyway ,  I wanted to tell you that I have made a foolish decision. And all I can do is hope it won’t grow to be a mistake or something like that. But I just really felt like there was no other option – I tried everything you know. I can’t bear to write the details down. But I wanted to tell you that I’m reaching for the stars. I feel like I’m the darkness and Kyungsoo is the light, I mean like they can’t exist without the other.

Everything I am now is everything I want, and if it weren’t for you I would never have gotten there. You are my fuel. You always will be.

- . The ing pills are nauseating  .

Jinsil looked up at the man on her doorstep, blinked, and turned to the woman next to her. “I don’t think I’ve ever come across anyone who’d even consider writing like that.”

Edith let out an unexpected, short chuckle.

“Can I help?” the man carefully offered. That was the first time Jinsil registered the sound of his voice, which was actually rather soothing.

“I’m afraid so,” Jinsil replied. “We need to move quickly.”

The first fifteen minutes in the taxi were spent in silence. Jinsil stoically stared at the drenched city streets outside, while her two companions nervously shifted about in their seats. The radio was playing, but not one of them was listening.

“Jinsil?” Edith finally asked.

The dark-haired woman turned to face her. “Hmm?”

“Do you know what’s going on?”

Jinsil’s expression darkened. “I might.” She readjusted her gaze to the window.  “I told you many things about Jongin and Kyungsoo, right?”

“How they switched their comatose state around? And how the unconscious one would wander into the conscious one’s mind palace?”

“Exactly,” Jinsil said, “and the imbalance behind that.”

“But how…”

“Let’s say Kyungsoo’s in a coma and Jongin’s awake. They meet up in the mind palace Jongin created. Jongin is conscious, so he has full control over that world. His mind is awake, so he can actively influence whatever happens in there. Kyungsoo however remains unconscious. He can’t control the world because it isn’t his creation. And he can’t control his own emotions either, which is even worse. While Jongin is fully aware of what’s happening around him, Kyungsoo is fuelled by the raw urges from his subconscious. And the same thing happens vice versa.”

“That sounds horrible.”

“It must be. And most of all, it’s not fair. They could never be equals that way.”

“So that’s why it was so important to have both of them out of the coma at the same time? So they could both be conscious and the circumstances would be balanced?”

“Yes,” Jinsil nodded, “but for some reason it wasn’t working. All they did was switch around for a bit. It’s like the laws of nature wouldn’t allow them to meet in the conscious world.”

Edith sniffled. “I’m still not sure what’s going on, Jinsil.”

“I think Jongin now believes that the only way they can ever live as equals is in the unconscious world.” Jinsil noticed that her feet had gone numb. “I think… Jongin attempted to induce himself into a coma.” 

No more words were exchanged until the three reached the hospital.

“I’m not sure if I can do this,” Edith nervously whispered as the couple paced towards Geonggang’s drowsy N-ward.

“I’m not sure I can either.” Jinsil tightened her grip around her girlfriend’s hand. “I’m scared of what we’re going to find.”

“What if it’s bad, Jinsil?”

Despite the weakness of their knees, the two women managed to walk on at a steady pace.

“I can’t answer that.”

As usual, the coma-wing was close to silent. Feeling anxious, Jinsil repeatedly clicked her tongue. She couldn’t pinpoint what gave it away, but she could feel that something was out of the ordinary. Edith’s hand was still in hers, and from the way it was shaking, she sensed that Edith felt it too.

Their suspicions were justified when the two reached their destination.

A group of staff members silently stood before N112, fully focussed on the yelling coming from inside the room. Making out the words was challenging, but it was easy to tell who were yelling them.

“Think Riley will recognize me like this?” Jinsil asked as she motioned at her bare face.

Edith smiled. “You look like a new-born.”

The two gave each other a reassuring nod, before pushing down the door handle and entering the heart of chaos.

The calmness of the white room was being disturbed by several voices shouting at the same time. Jinsil recognized Mrs. Kim, Jongin’s mother first. She had one of those faces that can continue to intimidate you for some time. The skinny woman furiously shrieked at the phone she was holding. A male voice raged through the device’s speaker. Jinsil was guessing the woman was communicating with her husband.

Dr. Riley was also present, barking out every swearword known to man as he pointed two angry fingers at a young doctor Jinsil hadn’t seen before. The blonde woman snottily sobbed, hiding her face in her palms. She looked small and defenceless.

None of them were talking, all of them were shouting.

It took a while for the three present doctors to notice the visitors. As soon as they did, they redirected their angry shouts towards Edith and Jinsil. It was utter chaos.

Amidst all the noise, Jinsil fixed her gaze on the bed in the room. She felt a weight drop off her shoulders.

The bed was narrow; yet somehow Kyungsoo and Jongin had managed to squeeze into it together, side by side. The pillow under their heads had been dyed a bloody shade of red. The scene appeared horrific, but Jinsil could see deeper.

The two boys lay still as death, but she could tell that they were full of life. Their chests heaved at a slow but steady pace, perfectly synchronized.

The blood on the sheets made it seem like they were in pain, but she could recognize their alleviation. Their eyelashes were full, their lips slightly curved upwards.

Kyungsoo and Jongin appeared annihilated, exhausted, dissipated, but she could tell that they were revived. They’d repaired each other.

For the first time in a long time, Jinsil shed a few tears. She felt a familiar hand caress her shoulder and smiled.

“I’m not sure what I’m looking at,” Edith whispered to her.

“Balance,” Jinsil softly responded. “Serenity.”

“Totality.”

A strong pinch brought Jinsil back to reality. Mrs. Kim had firmly grabbed hold of her upper arm, determined to the uninvited visitor out of the room.

“I don’t know who you are, but you don’t even have a fraction of the right to be here,” she snapped. “Hurry up and scram, for I will not hesitate to call the damn police on you two.”

Jinsil felt Edith tense up behind her.

“We… we’re friends of Kyungsoo and Jongin, madame,” the white-haired Française replied.

“I don’t give a bloody damn. Don’t you dare argue with me,” Mrs. Kim snarled.

“Very well,” Jinsil calmly replied as she turned towards the door. Jongin’s mother raised her eyebrows as she watched the woman leave without further objection.

Edith remained still like a statue, unable to decide whether she should follow along or not.

“I know you don’t understand it, Mrs. Kim, and I know it might feel like your heart is breaking,” Jinsil suddenly spoke,  halting for a moment, “but it’s important to understand that Jongin is in a good place. However saddening it may be, I hope you realize that acknowledging your son’s decisions might be the only way to glue your heart back together.”

With that, the woman exited N112, leaving Edith as well as the doctors flabbergasted.

While she walked through the hallway, she could overhear Edith having some sort of discussion with Jongin’s mother. She desperately wanted to go back in and defend her girlfriend against Mrs. Kim’s insensibility, but her legs continued to walk away.

She marched on, turned the same corners she’d passed on her way in. However, when she heard a muffled sound coming from the ward’s waiting room, she couldn’t help but deviate from her path.

Jinsil wiped one last tear away, before quietly sitting down in the white plastic chair next to the sniffling woman. She wasn’t too old, probably in her early forties. Her skin tone was exceptionally light, which made the pinkness around her eyes and nose stand out even more. Anyone could tell she’d been battling her tears for the last twenty minutes or so. Her long, silky black hair had been pinned back in a neat fashion, contrasting with her overall unsettled appearance.

Jinsil quietly stared ahead.

The woman coughed a few times before speaking up. “I’ve made mistakes. More than I can count,” she said with a slight chuckle.

Jinsil nodded. “I suppose that makes two of us.”

The unknown woman, who’d been staring at the floor all along, turned to face the barefaced teacher. She flashed a quick smile, but continued to sob right after, burying her face in her pale hands.

“I’m a horrendous person. Y-You… a young woman like you wouldn’t understand.”

Jinsil’s eyebrows knitted into a worried frown. She placed a reassuring hand on the woman’s shoulder and passed her a handkerchief, which she gladly accepted.

“Hey. It’s normal to make mistakes. It’s only human.”

“Do you have children?”

Jinsil shook her head. “Not yet. Hopefully I will one day. You?”

“I haven’t spoken to my sons in a long time. It’s been f-far too long.” The woman tried to wipe her tears dry. "It’s too late."

“For what it’s worth, I believe it’s never too late to reach out to the ones you love. I’m sure they’ll forgive you, even if it takes time.”

“It’s like you stop being human when you have children, you know? Like you’re expected to evolve into… I don’t know.” The woman placed her hands in her lap. “Mothers are expected to be... like the sun. Full of light. Full of energy. Someone that comes out to shine every single day, regardless of what's going down below.”

Jinsil pondered the woman’s analogy for a moment.

“Even the sun hides sometimes. The sky can’t be clear every day.”

The unknown lady’s eyes met Jinsil’s once more. “But…”

“You know, a boy I know taught me an important lesson.” Jinsil smiled. “Plants can’t grow without a little rain every now and then.”

The woman said no more, but her eyes told Jinsil that she understood.

The sound of approaching footsteps broke the silence. A white-haired woman appeared from around the corner.

“Ready to go, honey?”

Jinsil looked up at her girlfriend, then back to the woman next to her.

She gave her a reassuring nod.

“Alright,” Jinsil said as she rose to her feet. “Let’s go home.”

Edith politely greeted the unknown woman with a small bow, before locking hands with Jinsil.

As the two headed towards the ward’s exit, Jinsil looked over her shoulder and at the woman one last time.

She was wiping her tears with the handkerchief, but quickly managed to mouth a last message.

“Thank you.”