No Matter What

Chapter 3

   When Sun-Woo came home, she started her normal routine. She prepared dinner, clean the house, get coke from her parents to let them feed on it later on in the night.

Next, she would have to take her pills for her heart condition. She was born with a weak heart and has to live with it for the rest of her life. The doctors say that if she miss her pills even if for one day, she will need to go to the ER by the morning or her heart will completely stop and she'll die.

After eatting her dinner, she went into her room to finish her homework.

However, there was something different about tonight then from all the other nights.

    When she was sleeping tonight, she was dreaming about her older brother. It was very odd because she hadn't had a dream in years, a good one at that.

   The dream was about one of her, actually good, childhood memories she shared with her older brother. It was during the summer and they were climbing the tree in the middle of the meadow, which they usually go to whenever they wanted to get away from their horrible parents.

    Her brother's name was Kim Sun-Yeol. He was 2 years older than her. Since she is now 18 years old, he would have been in his 2nd year of college by now; if he was still alive. Sun-Yeol was a very intelligent, kind, forgiving, and thoughtful person. He was always thinking about the well being of everyone else but himself. He died on April 26th, 2005 dued to Leukemia.

    She visited him everyday until he passed away. On his last day, he said to Sun-Woo "Forgive our parents. Eventhough they are not here right now to tell me goodbye, I still forgive them."

     With those last words, he toke his final breath. She never went to that meadow ever again after that day.

     Suddenly, her dream got interupted when she heard somene banging on her window.

    Trying to open her eyes slowly, she instantly felt someone take her shoulders and pushed her into her bed.

    She tried to scream but the person's hand covered her mouth.

   "Shhhhhh! Shhhhh!" The person was whispering. She stopped screaming in time to hear that familiar voice.

   "It's me! Jung-Min!" He then got his hand off of her mouth and got off the bed.

   " Why are you here?!" Sun-Woo whispered in anger. She then reached to the lamp on her night stand, and turned it on. He was still in the dirty clothes he wore when she met him in the afternoon. Not to mention he got all muddy and disgusting again.

    He started to rub the back of his neck sheepishly and explained " Um, I kinda followed you here..."

    She backed away a litte, getting very freaked out.

    As he see her reaction, he immediately raised his hands in defense and said "No! It's not what you think! It's just that...... I kinda need a place to stay tonight. And since you said that if I needed anything, I could ask you. And I was wondering.......... can I stay here?"

    Sun-Woo looked at him puzzled and then said " First of all, when I said that 'if you needed anything you could just ask me', I was just being nice, I didn't actually meant it literally! Secondly, where have you been staying all this time then?"

   "Around. Mostly under trees, parks, meadows, etc." Jung-Min replied

   She started to feel simpathy for him as he kept listing all of the places he has stayed at. She couldn't believe that she is considering it.

   Suddenly she said " Ok, fine. You can sleep here. But ONLY come here at night. And then in the mornings, you have to leave before my parents wake up. Because they will kill me if they find out that you are here, and also the fact that you are sleeping in my room during the night. So do we have a deal?"

   Lee Jung-Min then replied with a huge smile on his face " We got a deal!"