I was too embarrassed to personally hand my mother the letter. I was too embarrassed to be there when she read it, so I decided to mail it to her. Even though I knew it was a waste and something stupid to do, I did it anyway. I couldn’t bring myself to actually give it to her and there was no other way.

          My mother never said anything about receiving or her reaction to it and honestly, after a little while, I started to forget about it. That wasn’t the only reason why it started to escape my mind, though. My mother’s condition started to worsen. Her main doctor took me into one of those conference rooms, the same type of room they took me in when they told me about her heart attack, and told me that they didn’t think she had much time left.

They wouldn’t even bet on six months. They told me that they thought she was doing fine, that the treatments they had her under were working and they thought that they had gotten all of the cancer out, but it turns out that they hadn’t, they missed some.

          The doctor continued to explain all of the technical details about my mother’s illness and her future, but the only thing that I really got out of it was that my mother didn’t have much time left to live, that soon, my mother was going to leave the earth and I was really going to be alone.

          “Just be prepared for the worst,” he said before he left the room.

          Life continued on like that. I tried to be cheerful for my mother’s sake whenever I went to visit her. She probably knew the same truth as well, but neither of us said anything about it. She also never said anything about the letter, it was like it didn’t exist.

          I never told Jinyoung anything either. I just tried to be myself as much as possible as to not let him to know anything that was going on. As much as it pained me to keep it inside, I didn’t want to worry him by spilling the truth. I knew that he was my boyfriend and we were supposed to tell each other things, but I couldn’t. There was just something inside of me that prevented me from saying anything about my mother and her situation.

          I relaxed on the roof that night after work. I took in the cool night air and stared at the bright stars in the sky. My mind was going a thousand miles a minute and it felt like I was about to burst. I just wanted to scream or do something to let out the stress that I was keeping inside but didn’t know what to do. What could I do? My mother was deteriorating right before my eyes and I wasn’t so blind to totally ignore what was happening with Jinyoung.

          Even though he wouldn’t say anything I knew that his situation probably wasn’t doing well. He had been going for more tests recently and he seemed a bit weaker than before. I had done my research on various treatments as well as symptoms, everything possible. I was no dummy anymore, I wasn’t blind to what was going on right in front of me. I may have not known exactly what was going on, but I could put the pieces together to form some sort of picture.

          I stared at the sky some more and attempted to close my eyes in order to rest some more, but nothing seemed to work. I finally rolled over onto my side and stared at my phone and found the number that I was looking for.

          “I know we’re not very close,” I sighed when he picked up, “but you said that I could come to you anytime I needed something… I think I need someone right now.”

          He came five minutes later. I heard the sound of his feet get closer and closer. He didn’t say anything and continued not to when he sat down next to me. I felt his presence, though. I moved so that I was on my back again looking at the sky when I felt him adjust his position so that he could do the same thing.

          I don’t know how long we stayed like that, staring at the sky, but he was the one to say something first. “The sky looks pretty tonight, doesn’t it?”

          “Yeah, it does,” I sighed. We stayed silent for a little while more before I turned to look at him. “Shinwoo-ssi,” I cautiously began, “I don’t know what to do.” He stayed quiet and waited for me to continue speaking. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel. When you went through this with Jinyoung-oppa the first time, were you afraid? What did you do?”

          He seemed to sense the worry that filled my questions since he hummed a bit and nodded his head. “It was hard to accept at first, it was hard to think about living a life without my best friend. I’m not entirely sure how I did it,” he said, his head slowly turning to look at me, “but somehow…it just happened. Somehow I just wanted to make whatever time he would have left the most memorable time he’s ever had. Slowly the sadness turned into a striving feeling to make the most out of it all. It’s difficult to explain…”

          “I just…don’t know what to do about it all. Things like death, they scare me,” I said, my voice turning into a whisper. It was no longer about Jinyoung, it was about my mother as well, but I couldn’t tell Shinwoo that. I couldn’t tell Shinwoo about what was going on with my mother, I couldn’t say the word ‘death’ or even think about it without becoming upset.

          Honestly, I didn’t know why. Before I would think about my mother dying all of the time, but now that it became a reality, a possibility that it might happen, it felt like everything changed. Or maybe I changed. Maybe it was because I met Jinyoung. It seemed like he opened my eyes to the world, that and he allowed me to rely on other people, to share my emotions and become close. If it weren’t for him, I’d never experience the sadness, but if it weren’t for him, I’d never experience the happiness that went with it.

          “They scare anybody,” Shinwoo chuckled and looked back up at the sky, “but it’s how you deal with it, how you make the best of it. If you just stay afraid of it, you’ll regret everything you missed.”

          “But it’s alright to feel this sometimes, isn’t it?” I wondered as I also stared at the stars again. “Isn’t it alright to be afraid sometimes?”

          “Of course it is, but don’t think that Jinyoung’s not afraid either,” he said after a brief moment of silence. “Don’t think that you’re the only one who’s feeling like this. I know that there are some things that you can’t talk about with him, that you think some things may offend him, but being afraid of about losing the other goes both ways. Jinyoung’s probably afraid of losing you, too. I can tell how much he likes you, how much he cherishes you.”

          We both became quiet after that. I had too much on my mind to respond or to think of something else to say. I never thought about it the opposite way. I never thought that Jinyoung would also be sad and upset. Maybe it was because he was always happy whenever I saw him, or at least he pretended to be. Maybe it was because he always seemed to smile, or maybe it was because I didn’t want to believe it, I just wanted to pretend like everything was going to be alright.

          It was my phone that finally knocked me out of my thoughts. It took me a moment before I registered who was calling. It was the hospital.

          “Seo Minyoung?” the voice on the other line asked.

          “Yes?” I cautiously replied.

        “This is Dr. Park. I’m sorry to call you so late, but do you think you could come to the hospital? Your mother’s condition is starting to worsen.”