Lee Min-Seok hadn't always been afraid of losing someone.
In fact, he used to be ignorant.
He used to think that nothing could take away the people he loved, he used to think that he was protecting them good enough, that they'd always stay safe. He used to think that living a quiet and sweet life would never cease to exist.
Unfortunately, life was a funny thing and it showed him, quite harshly, too, that he had thought too high of himself.
Lee Bo-Ra was her name.
Kim Ji-A was her name.
It was Min-Seok who had given Bo-Ra's name.
Min-Seok's family lived in a quiet, ordinary neighbourhood where they felt safe and secure within the walls of their home. Min-Seok worked as a police officer and Kim Ji-A worked as a nurse, both of them serving as some form of help to people in need. Despite the inherent risks of their professions, Min-Seok and Ji-A found comfort in each other and in the calmness of their ordinary home. Their daughter, the bright and spirited twelve-year-old Bo-Ra, was the light of their lives. She brought joy and laughter into their home, her infectious enthusiasm lighting up even the darkest of days.
Bo-Ra had a way of making simple things sound as if they were the most magical, softest things known to mankind. She had a way, along with Ji-A, of making Min-Seok's life a bliss, a safe heaven.
However, all good things weren't meant for ignorant people and Min-Seok's life crumbled.
If only he had been home that night.
If only he had time.
If only the traffic wasn't horrible that night, if only he had a chance to see them for the last time, to hear Ji-A's greeting, to see her smile.
If only he had time to hear Bo-Ra laugh.
But life was a cruel joke, life had a way of taking things that mattered.
Of destroying.
That night, Min-Seok had been coming back from work, and while stuck in traffic, he had thought of the movie night he would have as soon as he got home. He thought of the smell of popcorn that would enter his nostrils as Bo-Ra came giggling towards him, raising her hands and waiting to be picked up even though she was growing too old for that.
