Hye-jin hurried through the house, her phone in hand. She punched the code as fast as her shaking fingers could. The lock chimed and the door swung open. Without kicking her shoes off, she dashed inside. It's dark. It always was.

She rushed past the living room, her periphery never once lingering on the shut laptop over the dining table. There's no time for her pitch even though the deadline for it crept closer faster than a slug. To hell with it.

The door to the guest room flung open with a bang. The usual spot where her mother-in-law usually sat was empty. Where would...? She gripped the door frame to haul herself off the room. The plastic rings clinked against the rod when she yanked the curtains open. Her eyes ran across the roads, cars and people whizzing by at varying speeds. The colors, the crowds...

There's no way she could pick up where her mother-in-law went from here. Shit.

The sound of an infant wailing caught her attention. That's why she was here in the first place. She got a call from the neighboring room about the noise. When she got to the crib, her heart almost stopped. The rancid smell of vomit hit her nose. What...

"Oh, God," she picked the baby up and began rocking him, just to get him to shut up. Bright yellow stains trailed down his bib and clothes. There's some on the quilt as well. What happened? He was fine before she left. She padded to the table where his supplies were and plucked a couple of paper towels. She began dabbing it to clean his face.

"It's fine. You're going to be fine," she whispered—more to herself than the baby. "You're going to be fine."

The baby answered by hurling more of his lunch. Straight into her clothes and face. Something's wrong. She touched his forehead. Hot. Way hotter than he usually was. A fever? Rin. She had to call him. Maybe get him to rush his brother to the ER. Weren't babies with fever a dangerous case?

She palmed her phone on the way to the door. With one hand, she tapped away until the call to Rin's number was underway. Then, she put it on speaker and moved to give the baby some fluid. Something. Anything.

As she dribbled water into his mouth, the call went straight into voicemail, telling her to leave a message after the beep. She wouldn't. She needed Rin now.

She cut the call and tried again. Voicemail. Again. Voicemail.

Again.

Voicemail.

"Damn it, Rin," she screamed at the ceiling. "Fucking pick up!"

She tried again.

Voicemail.

She rocked the baby again. Her phone lit up with an incoming call. She couldn't have snatched it farther from the counter. "Hello?" she rasped into the phone. "Why aren't you picking up?"

It was her father instead. "Hye-jin-ah," he said. His voice was thicker than usual. What's going on? "Eomma-ga..."

Her phone slipped from her hand, falling to the floor with a hearty clatter. The sound startled the baby and he began crying again. She might as well join him. Because her father's words still rang in her ears, bouncing across the chambers of her mind until it became true.

Your mother is gone.

"Hye-jin-ah?" her father's voice croaked through the speaker, muffled by the oppressing silence of the house. She crouched and retrieved her phone, placing it again by her ear. She caught her father in the middle of saying something. "...plan her funeral. Can you come?"

She couldn't speak, even when she fought so hard to. Her father, unable to tell if she was still on the other side, told her he's going to hang up. Within a second, the dull beeps of a call that ended blared in her ears.

Her chest heaved and her world spun. Her hands shook as she slipped more water into the baby's mouth. Medicine. Milk. Maybe he needed food? How long was it since he last vomited? How...

Her insides tightened and tears slipped down her cheeks, her eyes unable to contain them anymore. Rin. Where was he?

She looked around for her phone again. Dialed Rin's number. Heard the monotone stretch on forever. An eternity of rings passed. Two.

Nothing.

Wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand, she tried the next best thing. The front desk of his company. This counted as an emergency, right? They'd surely allow him to have a day-off. She clicked the number saved on her phone and watched it stretch directly into the call. It rang once.

"Thank you for calling frontdesk. How can I help you?"

Hye-jin opened her mouth and forced words to form. "H-hello, is Rin there?"

The frontdesk lady, with her characteristic placid tone, perked right up. "Can you repeat that, ma'am?"

"Nagara Rin," Hye-jin said. "Is he still inside? Please tell him to come home. Quickly. There's an emergency."

"Alright, ma'am. Can you please hold?" the frontdesk lady said. Hye-jin was about to reply when the other side was replaced by a horrid blast of elevator music. She sniffed and tried cleaning herself up while making sure Rin's brother was still being hydrated. A few minutes, the music halted and the frontdesk lady returned. "As for Nagara Rin, I am told he has already left the building."

"What time did he leave?" Hye-jin leaned over the counter, expecting RIn to walk in like he was summoned forth. "He's still not here."

The frontdesk lady hummed. "Let me check," the sound of papers rustling and keyboard keys clacking grated on the other side. "According to our logs, he left with Karla Ashley at around 6:30 in the evening. Ma'am?"

Hye-jin had pressed her hand to her mouth to muffle the oncoming sobs. "I'm fine," she said. Why was she even crying about that? "Go on. Where did they go? Why is he going with his boss?"

"There is no sales department huddle scheduled today," the voice answered. "I could only assume he went to the Ashley residence as he had been doing for the past year. But I could be wr—"

"That's enough. Thank you," Hye-jin interjected and slammed her finger on the disconnect button. The past year. That woman's house. Rin in another woman's house while his wife was alone in his. Rin...

Maybe she was jumping into conclusions only to torment herself. Maybe it's not true. Let her call him one last time. Perhaps he'd answer. She had been calling him for the past hour.

She dialed his number and placed her phone near her ear. After a few rings, it connected with a click. Finally. "Rin, I—"

"Hello?" a woman answered. A voice Hye-jin heard only once, belonging to a face she wouldn't ever want to see in her mind. Karla Ashley. That woman.

A whimper escaped Hye-jin's lips as she threw her phone away like it was boiling. Her chest heaved as her breaths came in erratic beats. Her vision tunneled, her heart feeling like it was being squeezed for every last drop of blood.

"How could you..." the words bled off her lips. She clawed at her chest, fighting to still the budding storm in her heart. A sob shook her shoulders. Then another. And another. What was she afraid of? What was she supposed to fear now that everything was gone?

A torrent crashed over her, sending her to the floor. Her legs refused to carry her anymore. She held the baby in her arms, pressing his face against her shoulders, clinging to him like he's the last of her hope and not the cause of her misery. Then, she wailed.

Her cries scratched at her throat, at the walls closing in on her. The house was darker than ever, the pictures on the walls losing their colors this fast. The cold. It was cold—like a thousand winters came at a moment's notice. No matter how many times she wiped at her tears, they were easily replaced. Then and there, she heard a sound louder than the thickening silence around her.

It was the sound of her heart breaking into a thousand pieces. They were the words she whispered over and over. How could you?

How could you leave me alone like this?

The gravel bit against her slippers, the cold wind nipping at the back of her neck. It's winter. Or it would be soon. Dried tears tightened the skin on her cheeks and chin. Her eyes blinked against the frigid air.

Snow began falling. Such little flakes raining from the uncaring heaven.

Her breaths puffed out of her mouth, crystalizing into plumes of worry and grief. She dashed into the street, past the complexes and the parked cars. No lights emanated from the windows of the houses lining the street. A single beam fought against the moonlight, shining from a curved pole at the end of the bend.

What was through that corner? The store? The quickest turn to the main road, and finally, into the highway? Why would Okaasan go to the highway? Her heart hitched, throat closing up at the sudden thought jarring her memory. No. Rin would kill Hye-jin if she let that happen.

So, clad in nothing but her oversized t-shirt, a pair of pajamas, and the flimsy house slippers that should have never made it out of the house, she ran. For her life, she tore through the dusty road void of anyone save from the passing salaryman in their cars or motorcycles. All of them appearing at the same time Rin should have been home.

But he wasn't.

He has never been home for a long time now.

She rounded the corner. Instead of the highway, a series of huge parking lots for tenants of the high-rise condominiums flanking the street greeted her. Her eyes zeroed in on a small, fenced space filled with nothing but sand. Seated on one of the swings, with its chains creaking against the cold breeze blowing here and there, was Okaasan.

"Why did you come here?" Hye-jin couldn't have jogged that fast in all her life, even when she was chased by a rabid dog back in her parents' neighborhood. "I've been looking everywhere for you. What did Rin say about going out alone?"

Okaasan looked at Hye-jin, the edges of the older woman's eyes crinkling when she smiled. Dreamily. Like she hasn't any worries for the daughter-in-law who just had the world fall over her. "For old time's sake," she answered, a bit more coherent than the rest of their conversations for a whole year. "I need to be reminded about it."

Hye-jin cast a glance around. It was a playground, with all kinds of apparatus meant to encourage children to play. To her, though, they looked more like torture devices more than anything. "Let's go back," she said, offering her mother-in-law one of her hands. Her fingers shook, but it wasn't due to the cold. "I need to leave in the next hour."

At that, Okaasan's face snapped up to hers. "Leave?" she rasped. The word grated against Hye-jin's ears, knowing full well what it meant to Rin and his mother. She had to forget about that today. Especially today.

"Why?"

The question was quiet, like Okaasan was as afraid as Hye-jin was of whatever's going to say. It packed everything they needed to say to each other and the ones they wouldn't ever say to anyone.

Hye-jin swallowed against the growing lump in her throat. "I need to go home," she said. She wasn't talking about the one she had just left. She meant the one she had walked out of a long time ago. "You should too. It's cold."

The smile returned to Okaasan's face. "Ah, the cold," she clapped her hands once and rested them on her lap. If not for Kaito sleeping after a meal and a few drops of medicine, Hye-jin wouldn't have bothered putting up with this woman at this hour. "It's just like that day. When he lost his home."

Hye-jin frowned. What was Okaasan talking about? She couldn't care less, though. They both needed to be somewhere else, to places they truly belonged, whether they liked it or not. "Let's go, Okaasan," she crouched and took the older woman's hands, giving them small tugs. "Before you catch a cold."

"I let him play in a place just like this, bought him ice cream on the way home," Okaasan continued like she hadn't heard a word out of Hye-jin's lips. "He smiled so brightly at me, saying he couldn't wait for his father to get home. But I knew."

Hye-jin's tugs stilled. The strength in her arms faded into something enough to keep holding on to her mother-in-law's arms. "I knew, and I couldn't bring myself to tell him," she said. A tear slipped out of her eyes. Her hands remained still on her lap and underneath Hye-jin's hold. "This is just like that time, right?"

"Okaasan?" Hye-jin said, blinking her eyes vigorously to hold back her own tears. "Let's...let's go home."

"There are some things you just can't say even though you know you should," the older woman said. "It's alright if you go, Hye-jin. I understand. I'm sure Rin would too."

He would. He always has. But that didn't mean he wouldn't hurt, that Hye-jin wouldn't hurt him. Something shuffled from beneath her fingers. Soon, Okaasan's warm hands were the one enveloping Hye-jin's. "We'll be alright," she said. "At least, we'll be trying to."

Even though she did nothing but lie in bed or sit on the couch staring at nothing every day, there was one thing she had never stopped doing. Until now, she was fighting. Fighting to stay alive even when her mind didn't want to. Fighting through the cold seeping through the life of the only person she ever loved. Fighting to keep her head up even when the flood wouldn't be over for another century.

Before she knew it, Hye-jin had pressed her forehead against the older woman's thigh, her shoulders shaking with the sobs she thought to be over a few minutes ago. "Thank you for everything you did for us and with us, Hye-jin," Okaasan's gentle voice made Hye-jin's tears drown out what's left of the universe around her.

How did it come to be—that she's receiving so much kindness from the people she had done nothing but think negatively of? "You will always be welcome here if you come back," the older woman continued. "There are a lot of people who need your help. Be there for the one who has always chosen you and will forever choose you."

Hye-jin snapped her head up, gazing into Okaasan's eyes. It was the only time she ever did that, and it shocked her how empty they were. How...dark. Flecks of snow rested on her graying hair and settled on her lashes. It's cold. Colder. Now, more than ever.

She gave Okaasan's hand a gentle squeeze back. Tears joined the flood of snow. Falling without respite. A gasp rocked her throat, her chest heaving to keep up with the breaths she missed. Her fingers tightened around the older woman's. Okaasan had to pry one of her hands and run it in soothing lines down Hye-jin's back. Up and down. Up and down. Consistently.

"Eomma," was the only word flitting out of Hye-jin's lips.

And so, the Hye-jin who believed shedding tears was a sign of weakness, who saw people grieving and thought she's better than them, the Hye-jin who couldn't understand why the mind blanks out and the heart breaks whenever someone leaves—she cried. In another mother's arms because she didn't have her own.

Not anymore.

The night was cold. The coldest she has ever felt.

She didn't only hate the cold, because now...

Now, she began to fear it.