Feels Like Home (Purinz)

Sticks and Pebbles

Chaewon will never forget the first time she held Eunchae in her arms.

It was snowing on that day; Chaewon was in her last year in high school when she came out. Kai had been constantly leaving her text messages, updating her about how Yui was doing, and it took a lot for her to not bolt out of class just to run to the hospital.

Chaewon was the type to plan things ahead, and if she doesn't understand a certain thing, she makes the extra effort to do her research. Tickle the curiosity that's itching her brain. But for some bizarre reason, no amount of reading and searching on the internet can really prepare her for what it's like to be an aunt.

Should she be more extroverted for this child? Should she take over when Yui was tired, and the baby would cry at night? Her brother was still fresh out of college and doing his best at his minimum wage job at the local gym nearby, and he might need the extra hands to help with the baby.

Then there was still school. Should Chaewon drop out in case they really needed someone to take care of the baby? She wasn't sure.

Would the baby like her? God, that thought always scared her. There was a possibility that this baby might grow up to be an angsty child who wouldn't even want to look her in the eye.

Her eyes were constantly going back and forth from the board, the teacher talking and then to the wall clock above her.

Kai said that Yui was already feeling the contractions, but the baby still wasn't ready to come out.

Contractions.

She remembered looking up the definition of the word the other day. The process of becoming smaller. But that didn't make sense to her.

Was Yui-chan's belly getting smaller because the baby is getting bigger? Then she searched the meaning on a medical website and the terms didn't make sense to her at all.

There were days where she would look at herself in the mirror, lift her shirt up and rub her stomach as well. Asking herself if she would like a child someday as well. Can she imagine her belly growing that large, bearing an actual human being inside and then going through the agonizing and confusing process of shoving it out of her small body? Probably not.

But she had art, it was everything to her. Since it granted her a scholarship in the school Wonyoung was planning to go to. So having children would probably have to be shoved back into the deepest parts of her mind.

Bearing a child sounded scary. Watching her sister-in-law go through the many stages of hunger, agony, and wishful thinking was discouraging to her on so many levels. Sure, the idea of creating something you'd love for the rest of your life was meaningful, but she wasn't sure if she wanted to sacrifice her life and her career for something like that.

Chaewon was getting ahead of herself again. She didn't even have a partner. But did she really need one if she wanted to have a baby? She shakes her head again; she's thinking about too many things all at once and that was not good for her brain.

But all that thinking and jogging thoughts in her brain all washed away when Chaewon finally arrived at the hospital, out of breath but completely ecstatic. Yui handed her niece to her gently, and she was finally holding the small, blessed creature for the first time. Chaewon didn't know the extent of what love was, but that moment when she held Eunchae, she knew that love was definitely limitless.

She didn't need someone to tell her how much love she needed to give or when to give it. Being around Eunchae was so easy to give such emotion. She knew it at that moment she held her, when she saw her eyes for the first time, when she saw her smile for the first time, her laughter, the small, curious and fragile hands carefully wrapping her finger.