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Miyoung didn’t move, her body still, her mind racing. She glanced up and saw Somin and Changwan walk past the nurses’ station. They didn’t even spare her a look. Everything she had thought she could have here was gone now. She was a fool to think she deserved anything good in this life.

“Miyoung-ah, did you hear me?”

“Yes,” Miyoung finally said. “I heard you. We’ll leave today.”

37

JIHOON WOKE TOa broken life, but his body was whole. He’d expected some kind of gruesome surgical scene when he lifted his sheet to look, but the bandage was a simple square of gauze over his abdomen.

At first, a part of him was convinced it was just a dream, though he knew better.

Christmas came and went while he was in the hospital. Somin and her mother had visited with presents and silly Santa hats. But it just made him more aware that Halmeoni lay in a coma down the hall. This was the first Christmas he’d spent without her in thirteen years.

Three days after being discharged, he had the first episode. A headache that started behind the temples and grew to a migraine within seconds until the pain became a nauseating wave. He barely made it to the bathroom before he was sick. He didn’t tell anyone. But when he passed out at the PC room, he woke up in the hospital.

They called it a seizure.

He’d been scanned and tested and had gallons of blood drawn. Everything showed that he’d completely healed, no blood clots, no tumors. A perfectly healthy boy who kept getting migraines so bad that he’d end up in the emergency room.

He spent New Year’s in the hospital. And he wasn’t liking this trend of celebrating his holidays in a patient gown. So with Lunar New Year fast approaching, he resolved to stave off the headaches.

It didn’t help that bills piled up from the hospital and late rent, and Miyoung never came back. He waited to hear from her, convinced she wouldn’t leave without a word. Life couldn’t be that cruel, to have his parents abandon him, then his halmeoni so sick she wouldn’t wake up, and now Miyoung had left. However, as the days, then weeks passed, he realized he’d been wrong to have such faith. Life wasn’t fair. It was a mocking master that yanked at the frail strings of his life until they threatened to snap.

•••

“You skipped Sunday dinner,” Somin said, plopping down beside Jihoon.

He didn’t look up from his computer screen. Theclick-clackof gaming filled the air of the PC room.

“My mom is starting to get worried. She might call your mother again if you don’t—”

“Fine,” Jihoon said. “I’ll come next week.” He still didn’t glance up from the screen.

“Halmeoni will be proud of you when she wakes up.”

Jihoon didn’t reply but his throat tightened as he clicked through the practice test. It was like a full-time job catching up on years of missed schoolwork. But he’d learned that the tactical mind he used for his gaming was actually pretty good at studying.

“Jihoon-ah, don’t you think you should get some decent sleep? And some food?” Somin leaned closer and sniffed, then scrunched up her nose. “And a shower?”

“Don’t bother, Somin-ah,” Changwan said from the other side of Jihoon, where his screen announced his losing score. “I already suggested a trip to the jjimjilbang. It was a fail.”

“Like your father would even let you go to a public bathhouse,” Jihoon muttered.

“Jihoon-ah!” Somin chastised, and he knew he must have crossed a line. Somin never took Changwan’s side.

“Second year is almost over. Once senior year starts next month, I won’t have time to catch up,” Jihoon reminded them.

“You need to take care of yourself, too, or you’ll burn out.” Somin studied Jihoon. She’d changed her hair again this week. It was black and blunt cut at her chin with straight bangs like a porcelain doll. It fit her small build and round face. A face that currently watched him with deep concern.

“You slept at the hospital again last night, didn’t you?” Somin picked at Jihoon’s wrinkled blazer. “Is it because you’re not comfortable at your place alone? You could stay with us. My mom wouldn’t mind and Dubu misses you.”

“No, my place is fine,” Jihoon insisted, his eyes never leaving his screen.

“Is it even your place anymore?” Somin asked. “Your mother is paying the hospital bills. I’m sure she’d help with rent if she knew the landlord changed the lease from long-term to monthly. You know he’s trying to kick you out while Halmeoni is in the hospital.”

“I don’t need that woman’s charity.” Jihoon closed his eyes to ward off a growing headache. It had been hard enough accepting his mother’s help to pay the hospital bills. But Somin had pointed out it was her duty as a daughter and mother to pay for it. But he’drefused to admit he needed more financial help for rent, especially when his mother hadn’t even offered to let him stay with her and her new perfect family. She had to know he’d say no, but still she hadn’t risked asking him.

Somin turned him by the shoulders so she could look at his sallow complexion. “Jihoon-ah, I’m worried about you.”