Without a Heart; chapter 7
C H A P T E R 07
Sohee was sitting alone in an empty waiting room. The only noises were the echoing of the ticking clock and occasional rustle of paper as the receptionist turned the page of her book, paying no attention that any form of life was in the room at all, the sound of breathing muffled by the thick solemn air.
Sohee’s head was lowered and her back against the seat, staring down at her shoes. They were black, leather, old but comfy. Her eyes traced up to her white socks and then the bare skin of her legs. Her forehead wrinkled and she tugged her skirt that draped over her knees so it would cover more, tugging at it hard even though she knew it would rip. She wasn’t even sure why she was being self-conscious out of nowhere; there wasn’t even anyone here to look at her. Sohee let out a shaken sigh and instead drew her legs up from the ground and hugged her knees tightly. She didn’t know why she was shivering when she was wearing her oversized school sweater, the wool even felt warm against her bare legs. But she felt something in the depths of her body quiver uncontrollably, not from cold but from something else.
Her eyes busily moved along the lines of the timber floor, keeping herself distracted for a little while. Her mind was numb, leaving just this horrible feeling of nervousness to gnaw at her stomach. She hugged herself closer, the wool of her long sleeves brushing onto her lip, the thumping of her heart in synch with the clock, which seemed to tick slower and slower as each second stretched by.
The sound of a door opening caused Sohee to flinch, snapping her out of her thoughts as the silent room fill up with voices, so abruptly that her ears felt like they had burst. Sohee quickly released her legs and gripped onto the handles on either side of her seat, attempting to compose herself despite the racing of her heart. She swallowed her saliva, only now realizing how dry her throat was.
A middle-aged man came out of the room, followed by a woman in a white coat. Sohee watched apprehensively from her seat as the woman heaved a sigh and swept past her to the front desk, exchanged a few words with the receptionist before picking up a file. Sohee chewed on her bottom lip, her heart throbbing and her body completely frozen, feeling too afraid to move, or even breathe, praying to God that she could turn invisible at this very moment. The woman had her back facing Sohee as she took a few seconds to flick through the file before she slowly turned around.
“Ahn Sohee?” she called out. Naturally, the woman looked first to her right, then her left, and only after that did she look in front of her. Spotting the scared teenage girl huddled in the corner, the woman smiled kindly.
“Sohee yah,” she called again. This time her voice was softer and warmer, making Sohee’s tension ease a little. The young girl stood up nervously with her hands clasped in front of her and bowed. Awkwardly, cautiously. The woman smiled again, extending her hand towards the door. “Let’s go in, shall we?”
Sohee nodded. She reached down and picked up her school bag, heading to the room with the woman following close behind her. Sohee slowly felt the emotion inside her stir, each footstep feeling like she was stepping barefoot on broken glass.
Sohee was a quiet person when around people, especially people she didn’t know, but truthfully she wasn’t awkward, if that was the right word to use. She could sit alone, even a small distance away from a group of people to read a book or eat her lunch if she wasn’t familiar with them, but that was just because she liked a quiet space if there wasn’t a friend to talk to. She wasn’t awkward, she was just quiet. However, right now she was definitely awkward, as well as nervous.
Doctor Lee wasn’t a person Sohee was awkward with. In her early-30s with kind eyes and warm smile, she was also the only person Sohee knew in the entire hospital and had taken care of her whenever she visited. But even so, Sohee’s heart would beat so hard and she would lie awake the night before, fearing for their meeting the next day.
Doctor Lee wasn’t just simply her doctor, but she was the very person who was there that night after the house fire that took Sohee’s father away, and she was the first to attend to Sohee’s wounds after the paramedics brought her in. It had been 3 years since that day, and Doctor Lee had closely monitored everything to make the pain of recovery as comfortable as possible. Sohee felt at ease with Doctor Lee’s kindness and her soft-spoken words, but even with that, she dreaded having to come every month for treatment, the excruciating thoughts being enough to make her physically sick.
Sohee’s eyes winced as she came into the room, the bright light hitting her right in the face, much too bright for her liking, and she subconsciously clutched her bag close. She looked away from the wall over to the doctor’s desk in the far corner, the light bouncing off the computer monitor as well as the patient’s bed in the other side with the a curtain stand, which was also uncannily white. The overwhelming nervousness from before plunged into the pit of Sohee’s stomach, reminding her again of why she was here.
Doctor Lee came in after her, still scanning through the file with a solemn face. She nonchalantly closed the door with her other hand.
“Okay,” she began. Her expression changed instantly into another warm smile as she looked back up at her patient. “So, how have you been, Sohee? Is the medication working well?” Sohee nodded with a lowered head. Doctor Lee’s smile faded a little. “What’s wrong?” Her eyes lifted up towards the ceiling.”Oh! I’m sorry, I almost forgot.” She let out a sheepish chuckle and went to the switch, turning it off so the only source of light was through the closed blinds of the window and under the door. This drastic change of brightness brought the atmosphere to a more comfortable level, much to Sohee’s relief. Seeing this, Doctor Lee smiled again.
“Do you want to start right away?” she asked. “Or would you like to talk about some things first?” Sohee puffed her cheeks and shook her head hard.
“No,” she said confidently. She carefully began to take off her woollen sweater. “I want to get it over and done with.”
Doctor Lee saddened a little hearing this; she remembered in the first few visits Sohee would start crying and begging her to just lie to her aunt that she had the procedure done because it was so painful afterwards, but as the years passed she simply wanted it to be done quickly and without a word. She wouldn’t even make a sound through the whole thing.
Sohee walked over to the patient’s bed and threw her bag on the mattress, still inching her arm out of the sleeve. The doctor placed the file carelessly on her desk, staring at it for a moment or two as lines of worry deepened in her forehead, emitting a heavy sigh. She heard the clanking of the curtain stand behind her where Sohee struggled to pull with one hand. Doctor Lee went and pulled the curtains together herself, closing them around Sohee so she could undress.
“Just take off as much as you can,” she told her softly. Sohee nodded to herself.
“Okay.”
And so it began, like it always did. Ironically even though this was the moment Sohee had been dreading about so much, her mind became numb once more as soon as she put down her sweater, emotionless. Her body was trembling from the pain; the scars were so raw today that they felt like they were ready to burst open with red hot liquid, burning through the skin that held it in. The pain struck through her like a bolt of lightning before it faded again when she stopped everything, even the rising and falling of her chest as her breath lingered. She clinched her jaw and moved her arms robotically to slowly unbutton her school blouse, revealing the bandages, even though wrapped thickly, were no longer white and blood was visibly seeping through it. Beads of sweat rolled down from Sohee’s hairline, her hands stopping midway for a second, almost unable to the bear the ripping pain of touching the bandages, or even just feeling the air caressing the fabric.
The scars ran from just under her chest all the way to the back of her lower thighs, spreading almost around her entire front and back torso. Since the incident, Sohee stopped going swimming and doing sports, and because the scars could be entirely covered by her school uniform, no one except her family, teachers and doctors knew the true extent of the damage from the fire. Sohee would close her eyes every time she changed, seeing the scars only reminding her of the night where she was woken by the burning pain of the blanket wrapped around her that was set alight from the flames, melting into her body. The unimaginable horrors of the memory were still engraved in her mind, sometimes waking her up in the middle of the night, and she’d be sleepless for days after each doctor’s visit.
Sohee forced herself to pull the bandages off quickly, choked gasps escaping from her mouth as she had to use strength when found that they were stuck to her skin. Doctor Lee was getting the medication ready and could only pretend not to hear the muffled sounds as Sohee struggled with all her might to not cry.
Once she peeled all the bandages off and dropped them with a faint thump onto the ground, the hairs on her skin stood up on ends. The room was so cold. She couldn’t hug herself, even the slightest touch by the breeze against her exposed skin felt like icicles stabbing into her body. Out of reflex Sohee tensed her shoulders, and a surge of pain lit up in her back. She held in a reaction and just shut her eyes, a drop of sweat fall down from the tip of her chin. There was a clatter as Doctor Lee pushed aside the curtain, peering into see if Sohee was ready. But people weren’t really ever ready for these kinds of things.
You’re used to this, a voice in Sohee’s head said. You’re used to this.
A gloved hand took her gently by the arm and beckoned her to take a few steps out from inside the curtain. Doctor Lee quietly turned on the air conditioner with a remote, and immediately a gush of heat flowed down around Sohee, soothing her just enough to regain feel of the ground under her feet. Her vision was blurry and she felt dizzy, numb and suffocated all at the same time, not seeing anything around her even when her eyes weren’t closed.
“Just stand still, Sohee yah,” Doctor Lee whispered.
Nothing was said in those 15 long minutes. Sohee just stood there as Doctor Lee began injecting a special serum into the scars with a sharp, pointed needle. Sohee couldn’t hold in as tears seeped out from the corner of her eyes, her fists clenched so tight that her knuckles were gleaming white. The needle that was so sharp and long, pierced in deep, shooting in the injection that burned through her veins like acid. Doctor Lee made her turn around slightly so she could get all the parts of the scarring, needle after needle... Sohee lost count after 15... but after a while the pain subsided and she became numb.
No... that wasn’t the right feeling. The pain was still there, but at the same time....numbness. Horrible, horrible numbness. Her eyes started to sting and her mouth watered, but she couldn’t recognize if the taste was salty or sweet. A sensation pulsed in her lower back as the needle pulled away, but she couldn’t recognize if it was ticklish or if something sharp was digging into her. It was like her senses had been jumbled up, and this was the part that scared her the most.
She swallowed again and parted her dry, chapped lips for a breath, the blurry outline of the room coming back into focus. She saw a tray filled with the used syringes next to her, Doctor Lee mindlessly dropping them in one by one after they were done.
As the last needle embedded in her thigh was pulled out, Sohee felt her knee buckle, holding onto the bed to support her body weight. Doctor Lee let out a huff as the final clank of the syringe hit the metal base of the tray, wiping her forehead with her sleeve before preparing the fresh bandages. Sohee glanced up saw that the doctor’s face was glistening with sweat; no doubt the heater was turned on only for Sohee’s comfort, not hers.
Sohee lifted up her arms as Doctor Lee started wrapping the bandages around her, applying pressure to make sure it was tight enough. Exhausted now, Sohee held her breath to keep her chest from moving, the thick bandages weighing down more than she remembered. After Doctor Lee securely fastened the strap, Sohee’s chest automatically relaxed, but it was so tight that she could only drew in short, shallow breaths at a time.
Doctor Lee pulled off her plastic gloves with a snap, again wiping her damp face with the back of her hand. She looked concernedly at Sohee.
“Are you alright?” the doctor asked in a hushed voice. She reached over and brushed a hair out of Sohee’s face as she came out of her trance.
“Yes,” Sohee replied breathlessly. She blinked rapidly a few time, the moist of the sweat and tears around her eyes making them sting like grains of sand. She raised her hand and touched her hot cheek, panting and finding a throbbing in her throat she didn’t feel until now. Her heart pounding like she had run a thousand miles, pounding so hard that it hurt.
But it was over now. It was all over.
Sohee’s body was so stiff that Doctor Lee had to help her put on her blouse again, the bandages effectively stopping her from stretching out too far and hurting herself. She returned to her senses again after a few seconds, the drug working to give her just a small period of time where she was relieved of the pain, even though from having experienced this so many times before, Sohee readied herself for her body to be in 10 times more pain in a couple of hours’ time.
When she finished, Doctor Lee gave her a piece of candy to suck on so she wouldn’t feel nauseated. The room grew sombre again when the doctor put away the last of the equipment and ushered Sohee to sit down at her desk. Lowering herself down with care, the tangy sweet flavour in her mouth only did so much for Sohee at this point of the meeting, knowing Doctor Lee couldn’t sugarcoat her words for what she was about to talk about with here.
Doctor Lee took off her white coat and set it on her armrest before sitting down, putting on her reading glasses as she turned to the file. Again, she smiled a smile that reached her eyes, a genuine smile that made her clients at ease.
“You’re good?” she asked cheerily. Sohee sucked the candy and nodded. “You’ll have to rest in bed for about a week, so I’m going to write you a permission slip for school. And remember not to take the bandages off or take showers for the first 3 days. Hot water will make your sensitive areas worse, so be careful.”
“Okay,” Sohee replied.
She already knew this, and Doctor Lee knew she had told her a dozen times through their meetings, but like all her patients, it was a necessity in case they did forget.
“Your results have come back,” Doctor Lee went on, flicking through the folder. This time she didn’t try to hide the concern on her face. “I’m not quite sure why your scars would be bleeding like this. Have you been taking the pills and applying the medication cream accordingly like I told you to?”
Sohee pursed her lips.
“Well, my family has been in a tight situation lately,” she muttered, fiddling with her fingernails. “We don’t have a lot of money to buy more of my medication, so...”
But this was a lie. Doctor Lee was a kind, caring person who never judged people, but she believed Sohee’s words when she’d tell her that her aunt could never make it to these appointments with her because of work. Doctor Lee thought it’d be better to discuss Sohee’s medical matters with her only legal guardian since she was still underage, but due to this reason as well as seeing Sohee being mature enough to understand her condition, she complied to talk to just Sohee and expected her to repeat her advice to her aunt. Doctor Lee was seemingly oblivious to the fact that Sohee didn’t tell her aunt at all, nor did her aunt show interest in needing to know. After Sohee turned 17, her aunt told her that she now had her own responsibilities. This meant aside from living expenses and food, Sohee had to make her own money for personal things.
The medication was initially an exception her aunt was willing to make, but ever since she changed to a more expensive brand, Sohee found it harder and harder to ask for money until ultimately she stopped asking at all, unable to stand seeing her aunt scoff.
She just couldn’t stand it.
Instead, Sohee began working more for the money at the Coffee House, even though it took an entire month’s pay to be enough for a fortnight’s worth of medication, she’d rather go through with it than turn to her aunt for help. Sometimes even that wasn’t enough, and Sunmi would use her own money to help pay for the medication. It made Sohee incredibly guilty to be forced to use her cousin’s money, so she tried her best to never miss a shift and accept whatever hours they gave her. She couldn’t afford to spend a week resting in bed either.
The doctor’s face hardened at Sohee’s reply; clearly after been given the same reason so many things, one had to be suspicious. Whatever her real thoughts were, she put them aside and instead scribbled something down in a small notebook.
“I want you to take your medicine as I tell you this time,” she said sternly. She ripped the slip out and handed it to Sohee across the desk. “This a cheque for $200, it should cover for about 4 refills for your medication cream and the pills I gave you last time. It’ll last you at least until our next appointment.”
Sohee’s eyes widened in surprise and she almost swallowed her candy.
“Oh, no,” she said, flustered. She shook her head. “No, I couldn’t take your money like this.” Doctor Lee’s expression didn’t change.
“Take it,” she urged. “Think of it as a parting present from me.”
These simple words struck Sohee hard, her smile evaporating. She broke the eye contact and dropped her gaze to the table, just taking the cheque in silence and folding it away into her pocket. Doctor Lee cleared her throat loudly, putting her hands together.
“You know I’m leaving for Busan in 3 months,” she told her. “I’m going to pick a new doctor to take care of you from now on, okay?”
Sohee nodded but said nothing, the sweetness in her mouth going sour.
Yes, Doctor Lee was leaving to work at another hospital in Busan after being offered a position. It seemed inevitable for Sohee to not feel sad because of this. Doctor Lee told Sohee about it over the past few visits, showing much enthusiasm as it was at a prestigious hospital, but the day always seemed far away. She only ever said that she wanted to go someday, maybe next year, maybe after two years, but in the end she would add that she was only thinking about it. Now that Doctor Lee actually decided on the date of her resignation, it was heavy in Sohee’s heart. It was especially personal because she felt eternally indebted to her for saving her life that fateful night of the fire. Doctor Lee knew Sohee’s personality was not one to trust people easily, least of all trusting them with something so private; this wasn’t just a medical condition but emotional trauma as well. She wanted to find someone who was kind and soft with her words, someone who could connect on that level with Sohee and understand what she needed. Doctor Lee made sure to take her time to find the right choice.
“I’ve scheduled you have a skin grafting in that time,” Doctor Lee went on. “I’ll introduce them to you then so you’ll be more comfortable.” Sohee winced at the word ‘skin grafting’, almost biting her tongue. Her hand started to tremble.
“A... nother one?” she stuttered. She still had bad memories of recovering from the last one.
“Yes, I’m afraid,” Doctor Lee sighed. “Since your scars having been improving at all after treatment last time. I want to make sure that you use the medication right so we’ll know how much we need to...”
“...graft off,” Sohee finished for her in a bitter voice. Doctor Lee smiled gently.
“I’ll find someone to take care of you,” she reassured her again. “Don’t worry.” She bent over to the drawer and opened it, taking out a form. She placed it before Sohee. “Your birthday is less than 3 months away, right?” Sohee nodded, making Doctor Lee chuckle. “You’ll be...20?”
“19,” Sohee corrected her, lowering her eyes again.
“Ah, right,” the doctor murmured, taking a mental note. She chuckled and shook her head. “I must be getting old.” She smiled again and pushed the note closer. “Just get your aunt to sign this permission slip for the grafting operation and send it to the receptionist.”
Sohee wasn’t going to give this to her aunt, just like she didn’t for the last permission slip, and the one before that. Being underage, she had learned for some time now how to forge a perfect signature. Until she would finally reach her legal age, this wasn’t something her aunt needed to be bothered with. Sohee took the note without a word.
The drugs soon began to take effect, and the numbness lifted, leaving behind a prickly sensation that slowly began to spiral into sharp razors. But again, Sohee hid her expression. She sat and continued to listen as the good doctor discussed some more things with her, such as pressing the importance of taking the medication and resting. Sohee simply nodded and kept an emotionless guise, the words falling through because she knew she couldn’t keep her word no matter what. She didn’t need to be 100% healthy.
She just needed to be enough.
When everything had been explained, Doctor Lee got up and opened the door for her, asking how she would get home. She showed the usual signs of concern that Sohee would have to walk by herself from the hospital, but Sohee just answered with another lie; that her aunt was going to pick her up. Though reluctant to let her go, the doctor really had no other choice but to take it as the truth like she always did.
“I’ll be fine,” Sohee reassured her, bowing stiffly.
Doctor Lee crossed her arms and watched with a heavy heart from her office door as Sohee quickly bowed to the receptionist and trotted off to the exit, away from the nurturing atmosphere of the doctor’s care, back out into the real world where she had to fight for herself. Doctor Lee regretted that she wasn’t able to protect her outside of these walls, and that she was leaving such a vulnerable patient behind.
The afternoon was warm, still bright as it approached the evening with the scent of the night. Sohee wandered away from the hospital grounds, past the grassy field and then onto the concrete footpath, the familiar concrete footpath that she walked before, in the opposite direction. She vaguely remembered that the path didn’t change from the moment she stepped out of her house, she vaguely remembered that this was the way home, no matter how long the path looked, like it didn’t end, it would lead her home.
One step, two step... she’d follow it to go home.
At least, that was where she wanted to go. She wasn’t sure if her body understood her. The gravel crunched loudly under the sole of her shoes, the bag on her shoulders feeling so heavy that it was almost as if her feet couldn’t lift off the ground. The drug was dimming her mind and she felt weary and melancholic, her darker thoughts clouding over her consciousness that it distracted her even from where she was walking.
She couldn’t think properly, her brain felt like it was drowning, drowning in smoke. The taste was in her mouth, a bitter burnt taste that overtook her tongue, still lingering from the sweetness of the dissolved candy.
What was she going to do with herself? What was she going to do once Doctor Lee went away, and she had to rely on a stranger who could only pretend to care as much as Doctor Lee did?
Her hand touched the side of her pocket where the permission slip had been folded away. Why was she feeling so scared and even a little angry?
Sohee’s thoughts moved on to the memories of her father, who was ripped away out of her life because of his kindness, because of his courageous attempt to save her life that night. What did he do to deserve being taken away? What did Sohee do to deserve to have the person who she loved so much be taken away from her forever? Why did she hate herself because of this?
An eruption of pain in her hip stopped Sohee in her tracks, staggering over to the side of the street. She fell hard onto her bare knee, scraping it, but she hardly felt it at all, clutching the side of her body that. She clenched her teeth hard to not let out a sound, a stray tear escaping from the corner of her eye as she desperately took quick breaths. Her right leg had gone numb, pins and needles running up and down her thigh that the strength she had left was useless. Her calf felt like it was swelling up bigger and bigger like a water balloon, ready to explode with the weight of the world pressing down on it. A teardrop rolled down her cheek.
Why did Doctor Lee have to leave?
Why, after all these years of caring for her, looking after her, being the moral support that she was going to overcome and recover from the pain... why must she leave when Sohee still needed to hold her hand?
The very thought made Sohee’s blood boil, and she thrust herself off the ground, spitting out the half-dissolved candy from her mouth. She forced her eyes to open wide and her lungs to draw a full breath even if it felt like her ribs were being crushed by the pressure of the bandages.
She couldn’t trust anyone. In this world, she had to survive on her own.
Sohee clutched her thigh and staggered back on the footpath, her version blurry from angry tears that she hastily wiped away. She breathed loudly through her mouth, the sound and feel of the air gushing in and out. She concentrated on that, taking her mind off everything, of her sorrow, of the unbalanced road that hurt at each step. She could do it so well... breathing. She wanted everything to be as easy as breathing, so perhaps she could be given a chance to rest. With each touch from this cold, cruel world, Sohee wanted to just let go.
But she couldn’t, there was still something holding her back.
Eventually, without her knowing, Sohee found herself walking off the concrete footpath, over to the house where she had lived for the last 3 years. From the outside with the brick walls and wooden frames holding up the roof, Sohee felt nothing for it. It could burn down, for all she cared. She didn’t feel any love or gratitude for this place, even with her warm bed, even with her study desk, even with the fridge full of food, she could throw it all away and feel nothing. Her right hand reached out for the cool mental door handle while her left fondled through the side pocket of her backpack for the jingle of the key. She pulled it out and nonchalantly unlocked the door, letting herself in without a word. The air inside the house was warmer than outside, with that familiar scent of life. It was unusually quiet, even with the absence of her aunt being at work. Sohee glanced around the room as she pulled off her shoes, just a quick look out of habit. She already knew why it was quiet.
Taking a deep breath, stepping out of the open into the shelter of the house made her feel more at ease, her heart returning to a normal rate, her mind returning to a state of ease, and her body forgetting the pain. This happened sometimes, Sohee should be relieved whenever it did, but it only ever happened when her mind became occupied with something else and she never even noticed. Tiptoeing towards the bedroom she shared with Sunmi, Sohee opened the door very quietly and peered inside.
The room was artificially dark, the curtains having been pulled shut to block out the light of the setting sun. It felt peaceful, comfortable, warm in the shadows, away from the sun that sometimes burnt too brightly, Sohee even managed a meek smile as she quietly stepped inside. She heard a soft grumble coming from the top bunk of the bed. The bundle of clothes where the noise came from shuffled around, stirred from its sleep by the creak of the timber floor under Sohee’s foot as she came over.
“Sowee...?” Sunmi’s muffled voice croaked. The bundle of clothes transformed into Sunmi as it rolled around to find Sohee looking up from below. Sunmi’s face came into view from a streak of light that seeped through from the small opening of the curtain.
Her cheeks were completely swollen, so swollen that she could barely open her eyes. She didn’t even look like she could open her mouth to talk, her lips squeezed together by the swelling. Sunmi struggled to sit up, pushing herself from the side of the bed and using the safety rail for support, her forcefully squinted eyes wincing at the light from the window. Sohee could see the leftover fragments of tears that hadn’t been wiped away properly when Sunmi cried herself to sleep. Sunmi cupped her own left cheek, breathing noisily through her nose.
“Sowee...” she mumbled again.
Ever since the dentist appointment yesterday, Sunmi had been in incredible pain after four of her wisdom teeth were pulled out. The swelling after she got home was so bad that she couldn’t even take a sip of water, the straw couldn’t even fit through her lips. As bad as it looked right now, the swelling had gone down enough for Sunmi to be able to talk, although her mother told her not to. She skipped a day of school and work, and according to the doctor, she’d have to skip the rest of the week too until she was better. That meant Sohee had to take over Sunmi’s chores while juggling school and work. Just looking at her cousin’s face and seeing her pain right now was enough for Sohee to bite her tongue and keep quiet about her own pain so she wouldn’t cause any inconvenience. Her aunt, of course, had no idea Sohee had her doctor’s appointment today, so she told her to make dinner and make sure it was all ready before she got home. Sohee silently complied, but only for Sunmi this time. Sohee smiled at her cousin and put a finger to her lips.
“Shhhh,” she said. “You shouldn’t talk.” Sunmi let out a few grunts and nodded. “Feeling a little better?” Sohee reached out her hand and pulled Sunmi’s sleeve up back over her shoulder that slipped down when she was tossing and turning. Sunmi nodded, picking up her Mimi doll and hugging it tightly. She made a few more muffled noises about something, but strangely Sohee knew exactly what she was saying.
“You’re hungry, aren’t you?” she said plaintively. She sighed. “I’m sorry, I’ll make you some soup later. Just take another nap and I’ll wake you when Auntie comes home.”
Sunmi’s expression was unreadable, for obvious reasons, but the look in her eyes spoke louder than what she wanted say. She knew Sohee had just come home from seeing Doctor Lee, but the horrible timing of the dentist appointment made Sunmi utterly helpless and dependent on others. Sohee pushed her back down on her bed with just the strength in her left hand, but Sunmi obediently laid down. With her head on the pillow, she gazed sadly at her cousin who began to change out of her school uniform, wanting to tell her she was sorry, but couldn’t because of her toothache. Sohee carefully took off her blouse and removed her socks, pausing for a moment to examine her scraped knee before indifferently pulling a pair of trousers over it. She turned around, giving Sunmi a bright smile as she saw her watching.
“You not asleep yet?” Sohee teased. She chuckled softly. “Don’t worry.” She changed into her normal clothes, feeling as if her school uniform had slipped off like skin on chicken, clean cut off her numbed body. She pushed the determination of taking care of her cousin to the front of her mind, blocking out the darker thoughts, her false smile becoming real for Sunmi’s sake. With one last, assuring smile, Sohee headed out of the room towards the kitchen to make dinner for the family tonight.
Her foot accidentally hit the corner of the cupboard, stubbing her toe painfully. Sohee clenched her jaw to hold back from yelling, biting into her lip. She shot a glance up at Sunmi again, but she had already fallen asleep. Sohee breathed out a breath of relief and bent down, grabbing her big toe and squeezing it in her fist until the pain subsided. She leaned against the cupboard for a moment to rest, closing her eyes and resting her head against the hard surface, the fatigue hitting her hard even before she went out of the room. She reached into the pocket of her trousers, where she kept a precious object more valuable to her than this entire house, which gave her great strength and comfort, which she could only gather enough courage to overcome the guilt to look at. Sohee fell back so she was sitting flat on the floor, struggling more than she thought to take this object out of her pocket. She felt the thin, torn edges bend in her grip, but she was careful, cautiously avoiding her thumb from pressing onto the centre. She finally pulled it out, dusting it lightly with her hand.
It was a photograph, an old photograph where all the colours had faded away, taken 5 years ago when she was 14 years old, when happiness was still in her reach, when love was still all around, when she still looked at the world like it was a beautiful thing.
The one and only photograph left in the entire world of herself with her late father.
The edges were burnt from the fire, but it didn’t matter because the picture was still clear. She didn’t remember how this photo came to survive, but just looking at it gave her strength. Sohee smiled sadly as she gently brushed her finger along her father’s sleeve, where she had placed her arm on in a loving gesture, her head leaned over to him as they both smiled happily for the camera.
She had to keep going for her father, who died to let her live.
Sohee managed another rueful smile and hugged the precious photograph to her chest, letting out a soft sigh.
“Appa, I really miss you,” she whispered. She closed her eyes and sighed again, feeling her body gather strength from the warmth of her memories. She smiled to herself.
Putting the photo safely back in her pocket, she pushed herself back onto her feet. She looked over at the sleeping Sunmi one more time before heading out of the room, closing the door quietly.
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CHARACTERS INTRODUCED:
Siwon (Super Junior)
Baek Jiyoung
Zhoumi (Super Junior-M)
Gyuri (KARA)
Seungyeon (KARA)
Hyuna (4minute)