CHAELISA One-shots

Letter

**

A letter.

That's all it took for Chaeyoung's world to come crashing down around her.

A letter delivered by a general who just happened to be on duty that day at the closest army base. He didn't even know her. Didn't know her wife. Didn't know the son and wife that she had left behind to serve her country.

He didn't know anything.

But he feigned sympathy as he walked up to her front porch where she sat sketching as their son Leo played with some toys in front of her.

She planned to send the sketch to Lisa. A drawing of her son so she could see him playing with his toy planes and soldiers, pretending to be fighting alongside his mom. He said he'd be a pilot like her some day.

But the general walked up, his uniform pristine as if he had never faced a day of war himself. Never had to fear for his own life. And Chaeyoung knew why he was there. She knew what the letter in his hand had said. Other spouses left behind had received them. Had gone through the motions of receiving the letter, preparing the honorary funeral, received their flag as if that was enough of their loved one. As if that eased the pain.

And here was her letter. Here was the beginning. Lisa was...

She took the letter out of the general's hands, her own trembling as he looked on with mock sympathy. And she ripped it open, Leo playing on behind her none the wiser to how his life was about to change forever. He eyed the general over her shoulder, the man's shiny medals and polished shoes impressive to the young three year old.

He was only three years old. This couldn't happen to him. It wasn't fair.

But she read the letter. One word at a time.

"She's missing," she gasped out, falling to sit on the top step to the porch.

The general nodded, his eyes pinned on the wall behind Chaeyoung's head. He couldn't even meet her eyes.

"She's not dead. She's missing."

Again, he nodded. No emotion. No encouragement.

"She's not dead," Chaeyoung declared with conviction. Lisa couldn't be dead. Her tour was up in a couple of months. She was coming home to meet her son for the first time. To help raise him into the man he was going to become. She was coming home to Chaeyoung and she. wasn't. dead.

"Ma'am," the general said with a salute before turning on his heel and marching back down the sidewalk to get into his fancy black car and drive off to the next home to deliver news that no one wanted to receive.

Chaeyoung stood and gathered Leo into her arms.

"Mommy?" Leo asked, a toy plane hanging from his fingers.

Chaeyoung brushed his shaggy bangs back from his forehead, seeing glimpses of his mother in his features. He was the perfect mix between the two of them, and he was the miracle that they both loved more than anything else.

Lisa had to meet him in person. She loved him so much, and he needed to feel that. To know that.

So Lisa was coming home.