Sunshine
Sunshine: There's a girl who visits the wards every Saturday. She's there to make them happy. Thunder/IU.
Warnings: Possibly upsetting. Character death. Het.
A/N- I don't know, i started writing this one day and couldn't stop. Sorry if it's implausibly ooc.
There's a girl who visits the wards every Saturday, 5:00pm on the dot. She's short and plucky with a guitar strapped over one shoulder.
She's there to make them happy.
At least, that's what the nurse tells them every time, with a smile that strains on her deep-set wrinkles.
Sandara doesn't like her. She sits propped up against too many pillows with a rigid face, fingers clutching Sanghyun's hand as the girl plays an upbeat, catchy tune he can't place. He likes her.
She raises his spirits, even if he's not the target audience. He watches the way she sometimes moves her lips silently to the nameless songs, and he wonders if she's a singer. She's like a ray of sunshine on the otherwise cloudy hospital, and he forgets his whereabouts until his sister's fingers are gripping his hand hard enough to snap and he's brought back to reality.
When the girl finishes up, she bows to the room and smiles softly but never once makes eye contact. When she plays, her eyes are always closed. Sanghyun doesn't think she's ever noticed him, though he's watched her weekly for nearly three months now.
After she leaves, Sandara is moody and it takes him almost twenty minutes of coaxing until she allows him to pry her fingers away. He makes her promise she'll eat her dinner and dries her watering eyes before he turns out of the ward, leaving his sister sitting so small and fragile, buffered between pillows and sheets.
That day, he hangs back by the reception are, bottling his courage as he watches nurse after nurse bustle by. He wonders what's stopping him from asking, and he can't think of anything yet there's a roadblock between his mind and mouth.
It's only when a receptionist asks him somewhat irritably if he's waiting for someone and he thinks he'll shake his head and walk out, but the words slip past his lips of their own accord: "Wh-what's the name of the girl who plays here, every Saturday?"
She gives him a curious look and shrugs, indicating towards the log-in book sitting on the desk in front of her. He scans it, cheeks flushing and feeling extremely stalkerish as he slides his finger down to 5:00pm
Beside the time, there's only two neat initials: I.U
---
Sanghyun is doing badly in school. His teachers are long past giving him kind, knowing looks and squeezing his shoulder comfortingly, and a thick pile of paper is slammed down on his desk at registration. He barely glances at the angry red scrawl written on the top sheet before packing it into his bag.
He wasn't particularly outgoing before, but he barely interacts with any of his schoolmates now. Sandara was popular at school, and he was tentatively considered cool by association. They all knew why she had dropped out so suddenly, the badly concealed whispers as he walked down the hallway told him that. They called her a freak, hissed that they'd always known she had a screw loose and he wants to explode because they didn't know anything, noone understands (understood) her like he did.
His classmates are awkward with him, they tiptoe around like they're walking on eggshells, as if they fear Sandara's crazy is contagious and he's seconds away from whipping around and biting them.
He eats his lunch on a wall in the schoolyard, feeling the urge to tell off anyone who feels the need to to fill in their friend on the story of unstable Sandara Park when they pass him, but he never does.
---
One day he's running late for school because his Mum didn't get out of bed to make Durami her breakfast and he had to take her to her classes, when he passes a cafe and abruptly backtracks.
It's her, in the window. She's on a stool with her guitar propped on one knee and her lips are parted and moving so widely he knows she must be singing. Noone seems to be paying her any attention, people purchase their drinks and leave without sparing her a glance and the ones seated don't look over.
He wonders vaguely how long he's been standing there staring when she finishes a song and looks up, directly at him. He makes a mental note of how pretty her eyes are before spinning on his heel and darting down the street.
---
Sandara is talkative today. She manages a tight smile when he presents her with a laden fruit bowl and doesn't protest when he passes a cut of apple to her lips, though she takes a painfully long time to chew and swallow. She tells him about the movie they let her watch last night, something about a giant owl, and there's a glimpse of the sister he knew for sixteen years in that pasty, sunken face.
However, it seems to tire her, for she becomes quiet and slips slowly down the pillows the way she does when her body goes eerily stiff and she's staring into nothing, not reacting whilst he chats away as if nothing's out of the ordinary and strokes her hand.
"I had a dream last night" She interrupts halfway through his sentence, her voice sharp and shaky. He sits up straighter, nodding at her calmly to go on. He knows from the doctors that she's been plagued by nightmares routinely for the duration of her stay.
"It was me and you. We were at a park, it had a swingset and stone elephants in a pool. We were having a picnic"
Sanghyun nearly drops her hand. The dream she's talking about is a memory, she's describing the park they would visit weekly, along with their mother and baby sister.
Her face crumples, like they've reached the same line of thought at the same moment and tears leak down her cheeks. Her body is smaller and frailer than he'd ever have liked to imagine as he envelopes her in a hug and he loosens his hold with fear he could break her in half.
---
His mother hasn't responded to the various letters and emails the school has sent, requesting urgent meetings to discuss his slipping grades and frequent tardiness, no doubt. That morning a white letter with an urgent looking red stamp is sitting by the door and his mother barely eyes it before dumping it in the bin
The familiarity of the action almost makes him smile, but she's pouring herself a drink of something other than a regular morning brew and he takes Durami's hand before she could notice and walks her to her friend's house.
Ever since he'd spotted I.U playing at the cafe he'd taken the route around Durami's middle school to chance a glance at her. He discovers that she plays there daily, she wears a different colour for each day, usually a soft pastel shade that stands out amongst the badly lit beige cafe. Whereas she always wore her hair strictly tied up when she visited the hospital, through the week it's always down.
He's never once rummaged up the means to walk inside, telling himself he'll be late for school even though by walking this way he's already made himself tardy, and he runs off before she has the chance to look up and clock her part-time stalker.
He comes to a standstill, as usual, by the window but instead of gazing in as if he were hypnotized, his eyes roam the room frantically; I.U isn't there.
A wash of disappointment settles in the pit of his stomach and he can't help but feel somewhat silly. It isn't as if he even knows I.U, he doesn't know her first name or what her voice really sounded like, other than a muffled 'Kamsahamnida'
He shouldn't be affected like this at one day of not seeing her. In spite of this, he's inexplicably drawn to her, as if she were a dim light struggling to illuminate mediocre settings.
There isn't much going on in his life. He doesn't know how drunk or moody his mother will be when he get's home, he doesn't know how dragging school will be each day, and he doesn't know if his sister will be responsive or not each visit.
Seeing I.U singing and playing and being too completely lost in her music to take in her surroundings was nice and familiar and he'd subconsciously found himself counting on it until now.
I.U being missing in action was enough for him to brave entering the cafe, and he decides that since he's late already another few minutes won't hurt and a hot chocolate will take the edge off the cold Mid-August winds and disappointment. He thinks he has enough to get a cookie for Sandara to smuggle in later; they tell him they don't want her to have too much sugar, but he thinks it's okay to treat her now and again. Mixed chocolate chip is her favorite, when he brings it in she'll smile and tuck it under her pillow and say she's hiding it for later.
It's when he's accepting his change that he hears a shuddering sniff and the man serving him rolls his eyes. When he turns around his entire body seizes up.
At a table just out of the windows view is I.U.
She's sitting hunched over with a sheet of hair obscuring her face, a small pile of scrunched up tissues by her side. Her guitar case is zipped up and resting by her feet. He can hear the quiet, angry sounding little sighs and watches, dumbly, as she pads at her cheeks with another handkerchief.
His first instinct is to flee, but his feet are rooted to the floor. He nearly drops his coffee when someone pushes past him and he notices the man at the til eyeing him oddly. A long queue has formed and he feels awkward and overthinks in situations where he has to say simple things like excuse me to strangers; his voice is quiet and they usually ignore him. He always looks for the less interactive if more complicated way out.
Which would be passing I.U's table at the front of the cafe.
He steels himself to stroll past her casually but there's an insatiable voice in the back of his mind niggling for him to talk to her. Then, slyly, it buries a seed of doubt in his mind of him ever seeing her again.
"A-are you alright?"
He doesn't think before he speaks and as soon as the words are out he curses himself. What a redundant question. His voice was a mere squeak.
She flinches as if he'd pinched her and looks up, eyes swimming with tears and her cheeks pooling with colour to rival his own. She whips her face away, pressing a tissue tightly to her lips as if to try to seal her sobs.
"I'm sorry" He says frantically. He's never been adept at comforting upset girls. As someone knocks roughly against his arm he perches himself lightly on the seat opposite her, bum barely touching the leather cover. He pushes his untouched hot chocolate towards her "Have this"
She nods, replacing the soiled tissue with the cup to her lips and takes a long drink, spluttering slightly as another shuddering breath passes through her. He doesn't know what to say, but he inhales deeply, from the pit of his stomach, and releases through his mouth. She watches for a moment before copying.
It seems to stem the fall of her tears. She gives him a watery smile "Well, this is embarrassing"
Her voice is light and feminine like he'd expected but she lets out a tinkering little laugh that erases his brain of anything remotely clever to say.
"Don't be. Embarrassed, I mean" Sanghyun thinks he should be te one choked with tears considering the difficulty he has getting that out "I see you sometimes. A-at the hospital" He's painfully aware of how high his voice is.
She's dabbing at her eyes and searching his face and his throat is clenching "I didn't notice. I-I try not to look" She admits "I'm not supposed to get close to the patients, after one girl tore my hair"
He hopes the girl in question isn't Sandara. Surely the nurse would tell him, but he gets the feeling they sometimes withold the complete truth from him. There doesn't seem to be many other young girls on that particular ward.
I.U's gone back to gazing into the table with that empty, lost expression creasing her forehead and Sanghyun's mind is racing with questions he's longed to ask her for months now but he knows this isn't the time to pry. There's only one safe enough to enquire about.
"I'm Sanghyun" He says
"I'm Jieun" She smiles, weak but genuine, and holds out her hand to shake. Pretty, he thinks absently as their fingers slide together. Even with red circles and smudged mascara so her eyes look a lot smaller. "I did see you, one time. Outside at the window"
His throat clenches and he must be wearing a very silly look on his face because she giggles and suddenly he doesn't care about how awkward he is if he can make that lovely, tinkling sound happen again.
"I uh, go passed here on my way to school" he explains, patting consciously at his hair as a panic alarm rings inside his head. Oh yeah, that annoying little thing known as school that he'd completely forgotten about until now. She doesnt seem to want to ask about why he's playing truant and Sanghyun wants to know why she is too, because they must be around similar ages, but it's not the time "I guess I'm a fan"
That seems to be precisely the wrong thing to say however, for her eyes are brimming with tears again and she dives for her tissues "I'm sorry" She gasps at his alarmed look, and sighs heavily, seeming to decide she owes him an explanation "My manager dumped me"
Jieun swallows, and Sanghyun finds himself patting her hand as she tells him about how she's an aspiring singer who'd been picked up by a talent scout from a small management company, and that she'd been too grateful and trusting to look further into his background, especially after he'd secured her this gig. She'd even dropped out of school because he'd told her to practice more. He was finalizing a deal for her to be snapped up as a trainee (even though she confides in him now that she really, really didn't want to be an idol) and she'd given him all of her savings but she found out that his company had went down and he'd fled to another country last night.
"It feels better saying it" She says, shaking her head like she still can't believe it "I haven't even told my parents yet. I'm so stupid"
"You're not" Sanghyun says sharply, causing her to look up in surprise, and he's glad to see the distressed expression vanish "I-if someone offered me a way to get out of here, I'd take it too"
He can't remember the last time he's ha a two-sided conversation as long as this with someone, and she's looking at him as if urging him to carry on, so decides if she can confide in him, why can't he?
By the time he's finished all of her tissues are gone and he's the one experiencing what it's like to have his hand rubbed (it is comforting) and it's like a huge weight has disappeared from his shoulders.
"What a pair, huh?" She's reusing one of her tissues because she had welled up again halfway through his story.
A waitress walks by and inquires hesitantly if they need anything; Jieun's eyes meet his and they both crack up in a fresh peal of laughter.
---
"Do you want to play a song?" Sanghyun nods towards her guitar.
She glances down at it "I don't know if I still have this gig" she says, patting the case ruefully.
He shrugs, even if it's just temporary, the relief of his troubles has left him feeling somewhat adventurous "Just go for it"
Jieun smiles broadly and he thinks his heart has to be fluttering somewhere around his throat. She unzips the case to reveal a large, acoustic guitar which she looks at affectionately as if regarding an old friend. She asks if he knows any nursery rhymes.
"Oh, no" he shakes his head, laughing uneasily at the glint in her eyes that tells him she isn't going to back own "Don't ask me to sing"
She adjusts the guitar on her lap, pick poised expertly between her fingers and that intent, passionate look he's accustomed to sets on her features. She tunes it and Sanghyun watches her fingers work seamlessly, without a second thought. Then she launches into the song.
It's familiar and happy and she nods her head to the beat she's strumming, a slight smile on her lips.
"Okay, go" She's looking at him expectantly.
"I don't kn-know the words" He lies.
With a blowfish pout, she begins to sing, and it's beautiful just like he knew it would be. Again, he finds himself stunned at his inability to prevent his lips from moving on their own, and he joins in as she repeats the verse.
He sounds awful, he knows he does, but Jieun is looking at him to go on like a teacher proud of her student and he matches her grin, warbling along to her playing. She joins in at the chorus; she's good, but it would be impossible to cover up for his mistakes and make him sound presentable.
"This is the most attention I've ever had here" Jieun giggles once they're done, a hand over her mouth as Sanghyun buries his red face into the table top. She pats his head "I'm sure they're just wondering who my good-looking new duet partner is"
----
The nurse tells him Sandara has been crying a lot lately, asking for her mother, and appeals for what seems like the hundredth time for him to bring her. Sanghyun is again faced with a useless, cold feeling washing over him and churning in his stomach. His mother hadn't even crawled out of bed this morning, and had shouted to him to bring her a cold drink when she heard him padding past her door. That was the most she'd spoken to him in days. He doesn't tell the nurse this, of course, and only nods as if he's considering it.
He's glad she hasn't requested Durami, because he doesn't think he'd be able to refuse her that, but he doesn't her to see Sandara like this, impossibly skinny and stony faced and doing her best to whisper a few coherent sentences. He wants her to remember their sister as the fun, dorky, sweet girl they had grown up with.
The cookie he's successfully sneaked in and presented her with once the nurse wheels out another patient cheers her up, bringing colour to her pallid face as she tells him to put it under her pillows. He does it without question, not thinking about why she doesn't do it herself.
She asks him about school, managing to turn her head to face him like it takes her every ounce of strength. He answers hesitantly that his grades are getting better, and he's mixing with the other kids, and he's made a new friend. Two-thirds of this being a lie and the latter not school-related, but the last thing he wants to do is depress her.
He wishes he could say he was a successful student without a worry, that their mother was sober and was taking great care of him and Durami, and they were just waiting at home happily ready to welcome her back any day now.
He gives her a smile he doesn't feel and she settles into the pillows seemingly satisfied, giving his hand a small squeeze.
It's Saturday, and sure enough Jieun comes in when the clock hits 5.00, bowing to noone in particular and smiling to the floor, tight ponytail bobbing from side-to-side. She sits down on her usual chair in the middle of the room, strumming a familiar song. He sings the last few notes out of tune, and she looks up with a smile before catching herself and averting her gaze, parting with a final "kamsahamnida'
Sandara doesn't speak to him for the rest of the visit.
---
When Sanghyun gets home he's greeted by the stench of alcohol. This isn't uncommon, but this time it's so overpowering that he nearly gags, and he rushes into the kitchen braced for the sight of his Mother collapsed in a drunken stupor.
Instead he sees a row of empty glass bottles grouped on the bunker by the sink, and his mother sitting motionless at the table, gazing at a bright yellow pamphlet across from her with an air of finality.
"Thanks" he says, just to say something.
"It's not that I don't want to see her" she says cautiously, voice a terrible croak. She's been crying "I don't want her to see me"
"It'll help" He tells her, not holding out but hoping it could motivate her, before he heads to his room to do his homework even though he's long past the point of understanding most of it.
He meets up with Jieun nearly every day after school for a little less than an hour before he goes to visit Sandara. She's quiet and reserved to begin with, and sometimes they can go without talking for minutes but it's not really uncomfortable. Sometimes he'll say things he doesn't find particularly funny that make her laugh so hard tears brim in her eyes.
She tells him her parents flipped once she confessed about her manager, and as new opportunities weren't exactly leaping out at her she's been busking on the streets until she can get enrolled in a new school. She hopes she can get into the same one as him.
"I really need a tutor" She sighs.
"Me too"
When he tells her he thinks he's found someone who can tutor them both, she brightens up considerably. She's like a little ball of sunshine, always ready with a smile to share and words of comfort. And tissues, he found out she always had a tissue to spare as they were both partial to springing a leak. They were decorated with bunnies.
Sanghyun finds out everything he ever wanted to ask Jieun and more. Her favorite colour is red and she loves marshmallows, she gets flustered when he calls her cute and she's interested in acting too, but her parents don't have a lot of money. He wonders why it ever took him so long to talk to her. She's possibly the friendliest person he's ever met.
He finds out it was indeed Sandara who ripped out her hair, even though she tried to refute it insistently when he asked but she wasn't a very good liar and admitted it after some pestering. However she holds no ill feelings towards her, even asking him to tell her about his sister, and he jumps at the chance.
After an age of enduring descriptions such as "Crazy bitch" "Mental case" "Unstable headcase" he can finally confide in someone about her, how she was shy but loved for being perky and funny and imaginative, always dancing, inventing games to play with her siblings and taking ridiculous photographs.
The best thing is that she believes him.
She laughs at the pictures on his phone of Sandara pulling elaborate faces and striking silly poses with her fingers.
His smile fades when he reaches the end "They don't think she'll get better"
She slips her hand into his firmly "What do they know, right? She's young" He doesn't dare believe her words but hearing them is still a comfort. Sandara's condition had seemed hopeless and noone had ever bothered to consider it anything else until now.
He's left a lot of holes in his story about Sandara but Jieun never presses him.
---
There's a slight breeze but noone minds because heat is radiating from the sun, suspended in the clear sky and radiating a warm glow across the park, giving life and brightness to the grass and plants that grow in abundance. It was beautiful. Kids were everywhere, swinging and sliding and tearing around in the play park, splashing in the pool and hanging off the stone elephants, playing tag hiding behind trees and sitting with their parents, just as he had done with Sandara and Durami before.
"Isn't it pretty?"
"Gorgeous" Sanghyun smiles, and comes to a standstill "Here do?"
Sandara nods up at him and he pushes down the safety break on her chair.
"Won't be needing this, right?" Jieun's grin is as warm as the temperature and she gently lifts the blanket they'd brought in precaution of a cold chill from Sandara's lap and unfolds it to place on the grass. Sanghyun kneels down beside her and begins unloading the food from their large basket, and Sandara laughs as his eyebrows gradually rise up his forehead.
"You've packed enough for an army"
"Well, your mother and Durami will be here soon"
"Quick, grab a biscuit or Durami will eat the lot" Sandara informs Jieun, and they begin playfully bickering over the chocolate chip cookies; they're Jieun's favorite too.
He sees his mother in the distance, at first he has a dreaded feeling she's stumbling but Durami appears behind her, slapping her arm and tearing ahead.
"Oi, Sanghyunnie, watch out!"
He turns around and gets a blast of water in his face.
---
When he turns into the kitchen he's surprised to see his mother sitting upright at the table. She'd been off the wagon as far as his knowledge went for almost a week now, but had insisted she needed to sleep in order to avoid the morning urge.
"Are you okay?"
"Sit down, son"
He knows, before she says anything. Before he sees the look on her face. His throat has seized and there's a heavy, empty feeling in his stomach.
"Sandara" He says, his mind screaming for her to say no, that he'd been suspended, expelled, anything but this.
His mother only gives him a tiny nod. "She's died" she says in a great, heaving voice and doubles over in tears.
He rubs her back as if on autopilot, falling into her once she stands up and brings him into her arms. She's talking but he's not taking anything in, it's like a constant glare of white noise is coursing through his mind and he isn't registering any thoughts; all he catches is "Pills" "Found her this morning" and "So skinny" and she let's him go. He feel like he's floating up the stairs and only registers he's in his room once his head hits the pillow.
He wonders absently why he's not surprised. He rations that she was ill, frustrated, he'd braced himself for this already (really, how long could he go on pretending he didn't know what those machines she was hooked up to were for?) but then he thinks of her sitting propped in her bed, rolling her head over to give him a small smile and tears burst out. Shuddering breaths evolve int near hysterics and his mother is back and holding him and they're both sobbing and clutching at each other.
Just when he begins to calm down, he thinks how happy Sandara would be to smell just the fresh, lavender scent on their mother's blouse, how happy she would be just to see her, and now she never would.
---
He couldn't stop thinking about Sandara. His sweet, wonderful sister who'd been pushed beyond help, nothing was fair.
He couldn't believe it had happened and every time he thought he'd reached the acceptance stage a memory would hit him and he'd be stricken with sobs again, memories rushing one after another and pain clenching around his heart. He was laden with guilt over his failure to coerce his mother into visiting, how he hadn't brought Durami, the times when he'd sat there with her and wished he was somewhere else. The maybe's, the questions that would drive him crazy wondering if whether he'd done something different, it could have helped; because he'd never let go of the hope she could be brought back to health.
The funeral is unbearable. His mother had let him pick out the pictures to go by the coffin, and he'd lined it with a few of her silly, signature poses with family, and in the middle a blown up photograph of her smiling, eternally young and beautiful and how he wanted to remember her. In the end he couldn't bring himself to look at her in death.
He's dressed in a suit he doesn't think fits, and longs for Sandara to be there to snap a picture and upload it to her me2day with an embarrassing comment about how grown-up he looks.
Durami holds his hand bravely and he feels a sting at how he doesn't know how to do her hair in the intricate, fancy ways her sister could.
Sandara's old friends who'd never bothered defending her or even worse, helped spin the rumor mill at school sidle in looking appropriately guilty.
Sanghyun nearly gets into a fight when their father shows up.
He's been trying to block out all emotions to endure the service but his visions turns red when he sees the man who caused the undoing of his family, of his wonderful, endlessly kind sister. It's like all the anger caused by every hateful whisper defaming Sandara is packed into the punch he hooks in his father's stomach.
He almost looks like he's ready to hit back but his uncles appear, looking solemn and lift him up, quietly leading him away.
Sanghyun is seething, and precariously close to losing it and running away from everyone but a reassuring arm wraps around his shoulder and Durami, who looks so much like her, is holding his sore, sweaty hand, smiling understandingly and somehow he makes it through the service.
When it's over and everyone else has slipped away to be with relatives, he stares into Sandara's photograph. A familiar hand takes his and he accepts the bunny-patterned tissue pressed into his palm.
"Tell me about it"
Warnings: Possibly upsetting. Character death. Het.
A/N- I don't know, i started writing this one day and couldn't stop. Sorry if it's implausibly ooc.
There's a girl who visits the wards every Saturday, 5:00pm on the dot. She's short and plucky with a guitar strapped over one shoulder.
She's there to make them happy.
At least, that's what the nurse tells them every time, with a smile that strains on her deep-set wrinkles.
Sandara doesn't like her. She sits propped up against too many pillows with a rigid face, fingers clutching Sanghyun's hand as the girl plays an upbeat, catchy tune he can't place. He likes her.
She raises his spirits, even if he's not the target audience. He watches the way she sometimes moves her lips silently to the nameless songs, and he wonders if she's a singer. She's like a ray of sunshine on the otherwise cloudy hospital, and he forgets his whereabouts until his sister's fingers are gripping his hand hard enough to snap and he's brought back to reality.
When the girl finishes up, she bows to the room and smiles softly but never once makes eye contact. When she plays, her eyes are always closed. Sanghyun doesn't think she's ever noticed him, though he's watched her weekly for nearly three months now.
After she leaves, Sandara is moody and it takes him almost twenty minutes of coaxing until she allows him to pry her fingers away. He makes her promise she'll eat her dinner and dries her watering eyes before he turns out of the ward, leaving his sister sitting so small and fragile, buffered between pillows and sheets.
That day, he hangs back by the reception are, bottling his courage as he watches nurse after nurse bustle by. He wonders what's stopping him from asking, and he can't think of anything yet there's a roadblock between his mind and mouth.
It's only when a receptionist asks him somewhat irritably if he's waiting for someone and he thinks he'll shake his head and walk out, but the words slip past his lips of their own accord: "Wh-what's the name of the girl who plays here, every Saturday?"
She gives him a curious look and shrugs, indicating towards the log-in book sitting on the desk in front of her. He scans it, cheeks flushing and feeling extremely stalkerish as he slides his finger down to 5:00pm
Beside the time, there's only two neat initials: I.U
---
Sanghyun is doing badly in school. His teachers are long past giving him kind, knowing looks and squeezing his shoulder comfortingly, and a thick pile of paper is slammed down on his desk at registration. He barely glances at the angry red scrawl written on the top sheet before packing it into his bag.
He wasn't particularly outgoing before, but he barely interacts with any of his schoolmates now. Sandara was popular at school, and he was tentatively considered cool by association. They all knew why she had dropped out so suddenly, the badly concealed whispers as he walked down the hallway told him that. They called her a freak, hissed that they'd always known she had a screw loose and he wants to explode because they didn't know anything, noone understands (understood) her like he did.
His classmates are awkward with him, they tiptoe around like they're walking on eggshells, as if they fear Sandara's crazy is contagious and he's seconds away from whipping around and biting them.
He eats his lunch on a wall in the schoolyard, feeling the urge to tell off anyone who feels the need to to fill in their friend on the story of unstable Sandara Park when they pass him, but he never does.
---
One day he's running late for school because his Mum didn't get out of bed to make Durami her breakfast and he had to take her to her classes, when he passes a cafe and abruptly backtracks.
It's her, in the window. She's on a stool with her guitar propped on one knee and her lips are parted and moving so widely he knows she must be singing. Noone seems to be paying her any attention, people purchase their drinks and leave without sparing her a glance and the ones seated don't look over.
He wonders vaguely how long he's been standing there staring when she finishes a song and looks up, directly at him. He makes a mental note of how pretty her eyes are before spinning on his heel and darting down the street.
---
Sandara is talkative today. She manages a tight smile when he presents her with a laden fruit bowl and doesn't protest when he passes a cut of apple to her lips, though she takes a painfully long time to chew and swallow. She tells him about the movie they let her watch last night, something about a giant owl, and there's a glimpse of the sister he knew for sixteen years in that pasty, sunken face.
However, it seems to tire her, for she becomes quiet and slips slowly down the pillows the way she does when her body goes eerily stiff and she's staring into nothing, not reacting whilst he chats away as if nothing's out of the ordinary and strokes her hand.
"I had a dream last night" She interrupts halfway through his sentence, her voice sharp and shaky. He sits up straighter, nodding at her calmly to go on. He knows from the doctors that she's been plagued by nightmares routinely for the duration of her stay.
"It was me and you. We were at a park, it had a swingset and stone elephants in a pool. We were having a picnic"
Sanghyun nearly drops her hand. The dream she's talking about is a memory, she's describing the park they would visit weekly, along with their mother and baby sister.
Her face crumples, like they've reached the same line of thought at the same moment and tears leak down her cheeks. Her body is smaller and frailer than he'd ever have liked to imagine as he envelopes her in a hug and he loosens his hold with fear he could break her in half.
---
His mother hasn't responded to the various letters and emails the school has sent, requesting urgent meetings to discuss his slipping grades and frequent tardiness, no doubt. That morning a white letter with an urgent looking red stamp is sitting by the door and his mother barely eyes it before dumping it in the bin
The familiarity of the action almost makes him smile, but she's pouring herself a drink of something other than a regular morning brew and he takes Durami's hand before she could notice and walks her to her friend's house.
Ever since he'd spotted I.U playing at the cafe he'd taken the route around Durami's middle school to chance a glance at her. He discovers that she plays there daily, she wears a different colour for each day, usually a soft pastel shade that stands out amongst the badly lit beige cafe. Whereas she always wore her hair strictly tied up when she visited the hospital, through the week it's always down.
He's never once rummaged up the means to walk inside, telling himself he'll be late for school even though by walking this way he's already made himself tardy, and he runs off before she has the chance to look up and clock her part-time stalker.
He comes to a standstill, as usual, by the window but instead of gazing in as if he were hypnotized, his eyes roam the room frantically; I.U isn't there.
A wash of disappointment settles in the pit of his stomach and he can't help but feel somewhat silly. It isn't as if he even knows I.U, he doesn't know her first name or what her voice really sounded like, other than a muffled 'Kamsahamnida'
He shouldn't be affected like this at one day of not seeing her. In spite of this, he's inexplicably drawn to her, as if she were a dim light struggling to illuminate mediocre settings.
There isn't much going on in his life. He doesn't know how drunk or moody his mother will be when he get's home, he doesn't know how dragging school will be each day, and he doesn't know if his sister will be responsive or not each visit.
Seeing I.U singing and playing and being too completely lost in her music to take in her surroundings was nice and familiar and he'd subconsciously found himself counting on it until now.
I.U being missing in action was enough for him to brave entering the cafe, and he decides that since he's late already another few minutes won't hurt and a hot chocolate will take the edge off the cold Mid-August winds and disappointment. He thinks he has enough to get a cookie for Sandara to smuggle in later; they tell him they don't want her to have too much sugar, but he thinks it's okay to treat her now and again. Mixed chocolate chip is her favorite, when he brings it in she'll smile and tuck it under her pillow and say she's hiding it for later.
It's when he's accepting his change that he hears a shuddering sniff and the man serving him rolls his eyes. When he turns around his entire body seizes up.
At a table just out of the windows view is I.U.
She's sitting hunched over with a sheet of hair obscuring her face, a small pile of scrunched up tissues by her side. Her guitar case is zipped up and resting by her feet. He can hear the quiet, angry sounding little sighs and watches, dumbly, as she pads at her cheeks with another handkerchief.
His first instinct is to flee, but his feet are rooted to the floor. He nearly drops his coffee when someone pushes past him and he notices the man at the til eyeing him oddly. A long queue has formed and he feels awkward and overthinks in situations where he has to say simple things like excuse me to strangers; his voice is quiet and they usually ignore him. He always looks for the less interactive if more complicated way out.
Which would be passing I.U's table at the front of the cafe.
He steels himself to stroll past her casually but there's an insatiable voice in the back of his mind niggling for him to talk to her. Then, slyly, it buries a seed of doubt in his mind of him ever seeing her again.
"A-are you alright?"
He doesn't think before he speaks and as soon as the words are out he curses himself. What a redundant question. His voice was a mere squeak.
She flinches as if he'd pinched her and looks up, eyes swimming with tears and her cheeks pooling with colour to rival his own. She whips her face away, pressing a tissue tightly to her lips as if to try to seal her sobs.
"I'm sorry" He says frantically. He's never been adept at comforting upset girls. As someone knocks roughly against his arm he perches himself lightly on the seat opposite her, bum barely touching the leather cover. He pushes his untouched hot chocolate towards her "Have this"
She nods, replacing the soiled tissue with the cup to her lips and takes a long drink, spluttering slightly as another shuddering breath passes through her. He doesn't know what to say, but he inhales deeply, from the pit of his stomach, and releases through his mouth. She watches for a moment before copying.
It seems to stem the fall of her tears. She gives him a watery smile "Well, this is embarrassing"
Her voice is light and feminine like he'd expected but she lets out a tinkering little laugh that erases his brain of anything remotely clever to say.
"Don't be. Embarrassed, I mean" Sanghyun thinks he should be te one choked with tears considering the difficulty he has getting that out "I see you sometimes. A-at the hospital" He's painfully aware of how high his voice is.
She's dabbing at her eyes and searching his face and his throat is clenching "I didn't notice. I-I try not to look" She admits "I'm not supposed to get close to the patients, after one girl tore my hair"
He hopes the girl in question isn't Sandara. Surely the nurse would tell him, but he gets the feeling they sometimes withold the complete truth from him. There doesn't seem to be many other young girls on that particular ward.
I.U's gone back to gazing into the table with that empty, lost expression creasing her forehead and Sanghyun's mind is racing with questions he's longed to ask her for months now but he knows this isn't the time to pry. There's only one safe enough to enquire about.
"I'm Sanghyun" He says
"I'm Jieun" She smiles, weak but genuine, and holds out her hand to shake. Pretty, he thinks absently as their fingers slide together. Even with red circles and smudged mascara so her eyes look a lot smaller. "I did see you, one time. Outside at the window"
His throat clenches and he must be wearing a very silly look on his face because she giggles and suddenly he doesn't care about how awkward he is if he can make that lovely, tinkling sound happen again.
"I uh, go passed here on my way to school" he explains, patting consciously at his hair as a panic alarm rings inside his head. Oh yeah, that annoying little thing known as school that he'd completely forgotten about until now. She doesnt seem to want to ask about why he's playing truant and Sanghyun wants to know why she is too, because they must be around similar ages, but it's not the time "I guess I'm a fan"
That seems to be precisely the wrong thing to say however, for her eyes are brimming with tears again and she dives for her tissues "I'm sorry" She gasps at his alarmed look, and sighs heavily, seeming to decide she owes him an explanation "My manager dumped me"
Jieun swallows, and Sanghyun finds himself patting her hand as she tells him about how she's an aspiring singer who'd been picked up by a talent scout from a small management company, and that she'd been too grateful and trusting to look further into his background, especially after he'd secured her this gig. She'd even dropped out of school because he'd told her to practice more. He was finalizing a deal for her to be snapped up as a trainee (even though she confides in him now that she really, really didn't want to be an idol) and she'd given him all of her savings but she found out that his company had went down and he'd fled to another country last night.
"It feels better saying it" She says, shaking her head like she still can't believe it "I haven't even told my parents yet. I'm so stupid"
"You're not" Sanghyun says sharply, causing her to look up in surprise, and he's glad to see the distressed expression vanish "I-if someone offered me a way to get out of here, I'd take it too"
He can't remember the last time he's ha a two-sided conversation as long as this with someone, and she's looking at him as if urging him to carry on, so decides if she can confide in him, why can't he?
By the time he's finished all of her tissues are gone and he's the one experiencing what it's like to have his hand rubbed (it is comforting) and it's like a huge weight has disappeared from his shoulders.
"What a pair, huh?" She's reusing one of her tissues because she had welled up again halfway through his story.
A waitress walks by and inquires hesitantly if they need anything; Jieun's eyes meet his and they both crack up in a fresh peal of laughter.
---
"Do you want to play a song?" Sanghyun nods towards her guitar.
She glances down at it "I don't know if I still have this gig" she says, patting the case ruefully.
He shrugs, even if it's just temporary, the relief of his troubles has left him feeling somewhat adventurous "Just go for it"
Jieun smiles broadly and he thinks his heart has to be fluttering somewhere around his throat. She unzips the case to reveal a large, acoustic guitar which she looks at affectionately as if regarding an old friend. She asks if he knows any nursery rhymes.
"Oh, no" he shakes his head, laughing uneasily at the glint in her eyes that tells him she isn't going to back own "Don't ask me to sing"
She adjusts the guitar on her lap, pick poised expertly between her fingers and that intent, passionate look he's accustomed to sets on her features. She tunes it and Sanghyun watches her fingers work seamlessly, without a second thought. Then she launches into the song.
It's familiar and happy and she nods her head to the beat she's strumming, a slight smile on her lips.
"Okay, go" She's looking at him expectantly.
"I don't kn-know the words" He lies.
With a blowfish pout, she begins to sing, and it's beautiful just like he knew it would be. Again, he finds himself stunned at his inability to prevent his lips from moving on their own, and he joins in as she repeats the verse.
He sounds awful, he knows he does, but Jieun is looking at him to go on like a teacher proud of her student and he matches her grin, warbling along to her playing. She joins in at the chorus; she's good, but it would be impossible to cover up for his mistakes and make him sound presentable.
"This is the most attention I've ever had here" Jieun giggles once they're done, a hand over her mouth as Sanghyun buries his red face into the table top. She pats his head "I'm sure they're just wondering who my good-looking new duet partner is"
----
The nurse tells him Sandara has been crying a lot lately, asking for her mother, and appeals for what seems like the hundredth time for him to bring her. Sanghyun is again faced with a useless, cold feeling washing over him and churning in his stomach. His mother hadn't even crawled out of bed this morning, and had shouted to him to bring her a cold drink when she heard him padding past her door. That was the most she'd spoken to him in days. He doesn't tell the nurse this, of course, and only nods as if he's considering it.
He's glad she hasn't requested Durami, because he doesn't think he'd be able to refuse her that, but he doesn't her to see Sandara like this, impossibly skinny and stony faced and doing her best to whisper a few coherent sentences. He wants her to remember their sister as the fun, dorky, sweet girl they had grown up with.
The cookie he's successfully sneaked in and presented her with once the nurse wheels out another patient cheers her up, bringing colour to her pallid face as she tells him to put it under her pillows. He does it without question, not thinking about why she doesn't do it herself.
She asks him about school, managing to turn her head to face him like it takes her every ounce of strength. He answers hesitantly that his grades are getting better, and he's mixing with the other kids, and he's made a new friend. Two-thirds of this being a lie and the latter not school-related, but the last thing he wants to do is depress her.
He wishes he could say he was a successful student without a worry, that their mother was sober and was taking great care of him and Durami, and they were just waiting at home happily ready to welcome her back any day now.
He gives her a smile he doesn't feel and she settles into the pillows seemingly satisfied, giving his hand a small squeeze.
It's Saturday, and sure enough Jieun comes in when the clock hits 5.00, bowing to noone in particular and smiling to the floor, tight ponytail bobbing from side-to-side. She sits down on her usual chair in the middle of the room, strumming a familiar song. He sings the last few notes out of tune, and she looks up with a smile before catching herself and averting her gaze, parting with a final "kamsahamnida'
Sandara doesn't speak to him for the rest of the visit.
---
When Sanghyun gets home he's greeted by the stench of alcohol. This isn't uncommon, but this time it's so overpowering that he nearly gags, and he rushes into the kitchen braced for the sight of his Mother collapsed in a drunken stupor.
Instead he sees a row of empty glass bottles grouped on the bunker by the sink, and his mother sitting motionless at the table, gazing at a bright yellow pamphlet across from her with an air of finality.
"Thanks" he says, just to say something.
"It's not that I don't want to see her" she says cautiously, voice a terrible croak. She's been crying "I don't want her to see me"
"It'll help" He tells her, not holding out but hoping it could motivate her, before he heads to his room to do his homework even though he's long past the point of understanding most of it.
He meets up with Jieun nearly every day after school for a little less than an hour before he goes to visit Sandara. She's quiet and reserved to begin with, and sometimes they can go without talking for minutes but it's not really uncomfortable. Sometimes he'll say things he doesn't find particularly funny that make her laugh so hard tears brim in her eyes.
She tells him her parents flipped once she confessed about her manager, and as new opportunities weren't exactly leaping out at her she's been busking on the streets until she can get enrolled in a new school. She hopes she can get into the same one as him.
"I really need a tutor" She sighs.
"Me too"
When he tells her he thinks he's found someone who can tutor them both, she brightens up considerably. She's like a little ball of sunshine, always ready with a smile to share and words of comfort. And tissues, he found out she always had a tissue to spare as they were both partial to springing a leak. They were decorated with bunnies.
Sanghyun finds out everything he ever wanted to ask Jieun and more. Her favorite colour is red and she loves marshmallows, she gets flustered when he calls her cute and she's interested in acting too, but her parents don't have a lot of money. He wonders why it ever took him so long to talk to her. She's possibly the friendliest person he's ever met.
He finds out it was indeed Sandara who ripped out her hair, even though she tried to refute it insistently when he asked but she wasn't a very good liar and admitted it after some pestering. However she holds no ill feelings towards her, even asking him to tell her about his sister, and he jumps at the chance.
After an age of enduring descriptions such as "Crazy bitch" "Mental case" "Unstable headcase" he can finally confide in someone about her, how she was shy but loved for being perky and funny and imaginative, always dancing, inventing games to play with her siblings and taking ridiculous photographs.
The best thing is that she believes him.
She laughs at the pictures on his phone of Sandara pulling elaborate faces and striking silly poses with her fingers.
His smile fades when he reaches the end "They don't think she'll get better"
She slips her hand into his firmly "What do they know, right? She's young" He doesn't dare believe her words but hearing them is still a comfort. Sandara's condition had seemed hopeless and noone had ever bothered to consider it anything else until now.
He's left a lot of holes in his story about Sandara but Jieun never presses him.
---
There's a slight breeze but noone minds because heat is radiating from the sun, suspended in the clear sky and radiating a warm glow across the park, giving life and brightness to the grass and plants that grow in abundance. It was beautiful. Kids were everywhere, swinging and sliding and tearing around in the play park, splashing in the pool and hanging off the stone elephants, playing tag hiding behind trees and sitting with their parents, just as he had done with Sandara and Durami before.
"Isn't it pretty?"
"Gorgeous" Sanghyun smiles, and comes to a standstill "Here do?"
Sandara nods up at him and he pushes down the safety break on her chair.
"Won't be needing this, right?" Jieun's grin is as warm as the temperature and she gently lifts the blanket they'd brought in precaution of a cold chill from Sandara's lap and unfolds it to place on the grass. Sanghyun kneels down beside her and begins unloading the food from their large basket, and Sandara laughs as his eyebrows gradually rise up his forehead.
"You've packed enough for an army"
"Well, your mother and Durami will be here soon"
"Quick, grab a biscuit or Durami will eat the lot" Sandara informs Jieun, and they begin playfully bickering over the chocolate chip cookies; they're Jieun's favorite too.
He sees his mother in the distance, at first he has a dreaded feeling she's stumbling but Durami appears behind her, slapping her arm and tearing ahead.
"Oi, Sanghyunnie, watch out!"
He turns around and gets a blast of water in his face.
---
When he turns into the kitchen he's surprised to see his mother sitting upright at the table. She'd been off the wagon as far as his knowledge went for almost a week now, but had insisted she needed to sleep in order to avoid the morning urge.
"Are you okay?"
"Sit down, son"
He knows, before she says anything. Before he sees the look on her face. His throat has seized and there's a heavy, empty feeling in his stomach.
"Sandara" He says, his mind screaming for her to say no, that he'd been suspended, expelled, anything but this.
His mother only gives him a tiny nod. "She's died" she says in a great, heaving voice and doubles over in tears.
He rubs her back as if on autopilot, falling into her once she stands up and brings him into her arms. She's talking but he's not taking anything in, it's like a constant glare of white noise is coursing through his mind and he isn't registering any thoughts; all he catches is "Pills" "Found her this morning" and "So skinny" and she let's him go. He feel like he's floating up the stairs and only registers he's in his room once his head hits the pillow.
He wonders absently why he's not surprised. He rations that she was ill, frustrated, he'd braced himself for this already (really, how long could he go on pretending he didn't know what those machines she was hooked up to were for?) but then he thinks of her sitting propped in her bed, rolling her head over to give him a small smile and tears burst out. Shuddering breaths evolve int near hysterics and his mother is back and holding him and they're both sobbing and clutching at each other.
Just when he begins to calm down, he thinks how happy Sandara would be to smell just the fresh, lavender scent on their mother's blouse, how happy she would be just to see her, and now she never would.
---
He couldn't stop thinking about Sandara. His sweet, wonderful sister who'd been pushed beyond help, nothing was fair.
He couldn't believe it had happened and every time he thought he'd reached the acceptance stage a memory would hit him and he'd be stricken with sobs again, memories rushing one after another and pain clenching around his heart. He was laden with guilt over his failure to coerce his mother into visiting, how he hadn't brought Durami, the times when he'd sat there with her and wished he was somewhere else. The maybe's, the questions that would drive him crazy wondering if whether he'd done something different, it could have helped; because he'd never let go of the hope she could be brought back to health.
The funeral is unbearable. His mother had let him pick out the pictures to go by the coffin, and he'd lined it with a few of her silly, signature poses with family, and in the middle a blown up photograph of her smiling, eternally young and beautiful and how he wanted to remember her. In the end he couldn't bring himself to look at her in death.
He's dressed in a suit he doesn't think fits, and longs for Sandara to be there to snap a picture and upload it to her me2day with an embarrassing comment about how grown-up he looks.
Durami holds his hand bravely and he feels a sting at how he doesn't know how to do her hair in the intricate, fancy ways her sister could.
Sandara's old friends who'd never bothered defending her or even worse, helped spin the rumor mill at school sidle in looking appropriately guilty.
Sanghyun nearly gets into a fight when their father shows up.
He's been trying to block out all emotions to endure the service but his visions turns red when he sees the man who caused the undoing of his family, of his wonderful, endlessly kind sister. It's like all the anger caused by every hateful whisper defaming Sandara is packed into the punch he hooks in his father's stomach.
He almost looks like he's ready to hit back but his uncles appear, looking solemn and lift him up, quietly leading him away.
Sanghyun is seething, and precariously close to losing it and running away from everyone but a reassuring arm wraps around his shoulder and Durami, who looks so much like her, is holding his sore, sweaty hand, smiling understandingly and somehow he makes it through the service.
When it's over and everyone else has slipped away to be with relatives, he stares into Sandara's photograph. A familiar hand takes his and he accepts the bunny-patterned tissue pressed into his palm.
"Tell me about it"