almost. [ wen junhui ] ━ [ completed ]

eight.

2 years later and everything was going slightly better for the two. they had managed to keep each others numbers and stuff but they hadn't had a decent conversation in a while.

jirae was back in busan to take care of her mother and of course junhui was in seoul grasping on to his dreams.

the smiles on their faces had stuck there for a while, and their souls were happy.

that was of course until jirae had woken up one day to a terrible surprise.

the day was gloomy when it first began. jirae was slightly hungover from the night before and her nose was runny from her mild dust allergy acting up. she felt and looked like shit. her skin was sticky from the sweat that had drenched her last night since the girl had decided to wrap herself in at least 5 different layers in the middle of summer. her skin was acting up and it looked like a mountain range had grown on her forehead. everything was slowly going south.

from spilling coffee on her white shirt to demolishing a quarter of her phone screen, nothing was going great.

and in comes the dreaded news. she knew this would happen but like any other person, hope was still keeping her up. not anymore.

her feet were sore as she reached the hospital, having ran in her black converse and being flat footed was not fun. the walking shoes felt like the soles were about to break when she got to the front desk, her breathless cries of plea being heard by the person behind it.

as she enters the white-walled room she catches sight of the monitor that was now off, then to the plug that used to be inserted into the socket.

and there on the bed was the body of her mother. lifeless and still, the wires still being attached since she was devoid of life just a couple minutes ago.

her mother was diagnosed with lung cancer due to her smoking all the time. jirae had tried to get her stop and she would but only for a minimal amount of time. as soon as the girl would be out of busan, her mother would immediately go back to her old habit as if that part of trying to stop was completely erased from her memory.

and now here she was, dead on a hospital bed.

jirae was crying, hard and she couldn't stop. the sight of her siblings and father arriving didn't make it any better.

as the now family of 4 cry grieve and cry together, jirae had wondered. if only she pushed her mother to stop the bad habit harder, then she wouldn't have to go like this.

but yet again, she was almost there. she was so close to stopping her. she almost saved her. but guess what? she unfortunately didn't.