A loud swoosh from the curtains that was shielding the examination table startled Chanhee as he jumped up from the uncomfortable plastic seat he was sitting on. Hyuna emerged from behind the curtains as she removed her sterile latex gloves from her delicate hands before reaching for a clipboard and flipping the papers that were attached on it with absolute concentration.

“Songsaenim, how’s my wife? He was experiencing really bad pains just now… Is our baby okay?” The worried and frantic husband rambled on like a bullet train without giving a chance for the doctor to explain the situation to him.

The entire time Chanhee felt like he had a thousand ants crawling at the pit of his stomach and his temper was about to boil over and spill when the doctor took such a long time to examine Byunghun and not updating him with his wife’s current condition.

“Please calm down sir. Your wife and your child are fine for now.” Hyuna calmly answers to Chanhee’s concerns, not looking up at him as she continued flipping her patient’s notes.

“But I can’t say the same if he continues to stay in this condition. He nearly had a miscarriage so we have administered progesterone into him to stabilize the fetus.” She finally looks up from her notes and straight at Chanhee with a cold expression on her face, her tone laced with ice as she ended the sentence with a hard edge emphasis.

“We have carried out a thorough examination and your wife’s amniotic fluid index came out abnormally low. In medical terms he’s suffering from oligohydramnios. This is worrying because it can cause preterm labor and also labor complications. In your wife’s case, we believe that it’s caused by immense stress. But not to worry, we will constantly monitor the index over the next one month to bring the levels back to normal. For now I suggest he gets admitted and we’ll administer a drip for him to get enough nutrients and fluid in his body. But if he continues to be under such high levels of stress, it’s going to be extremely dangerous not just for the baby but for the mother as well.”

“Stress…?” Chanhee mutters under his breath after thanking Hyuna as she nods and saunters away leaving the husband and wife to their own privacy.

Chanhee frowned as he watches his peacefully sleeping wife, taking a plastic chair and putting it by the bedside as he settles himself in the hard and rigid seat before taking his wife’s small cold right hand into his own and bringing it up to his face rubbing the smooth surface of the back of Byunghun’s palm on his left cheek.

His insides started twisting, a sour taste lingered upon his tongue. How could he have been so blind to not realize how much of a emotional burden his wife was carrying on his shoulders. Despite his wife’s small build, he knew Byunghun had a lot of strength within himself and if anyone thought of him as weak and fragile because of his small build they were dead wrong.

But maybe Chanhee took Byunghun’s strength for granted, just because his wife never seem to break down he took it for granted that his wife was always coping well. He never would have thought that his precious wife was struggling. After all, his wife had survived through obstacles that were beyond imagination.

Byunghun’s biological mother was when she was 16, the stranger left her pregnant with Byunghun. Under the influence of alcohol and how the child reminded her of her hateful past, she constantly abused the boy and ultimately abandoned him at the doorstep of a local orphanage when he was 3. He had to carry on living with the undeniable fact that he was the product of a crime and how his existence was the constant reminder of how his mother was tainted.

With his free left hand, Chanhee the bump that was carrying his unborn child. It stood tall like a mountain underneath the clean white antiseptic hospital sheets.

“He nearly had a miscarriage.”

We almost lost the baby.

The image of Byunghun’s harrowing confession of how he was scared to lose their child surfaced in Chanhee’s mind. The latter fisted his left hand that was resting above his wife’s stomach into a ball before bringing it to his mouth to stifle his cries. His eyes were bloodshot red, his cheeks wet.

“I’m sorry Byunghun ah… I should have paid more attention to you...”

He never knew behind his wife’s masked bubbly and cheerful personality was a heart tainted with so much sorrow.

But what could have been the reason for Byunghun’s overwhelming stress and emotional struggle? Speaking of which as Chanhee ponders of the subject, the said rarely ever seek solace in him. Chanh