Lisoo Love Story

*Daylight

{7/12/20}

Yunso dozed peacefully on her bed in the mid-morning, with her fan blasting on the end of the bed. The beginning notes of "River" by Natalie Merchant played in her ears as she got comfortable. Distantly, the teenager heard her mother laughing loudly from the living room, combining with the sounds of her music, creating a perfect lullaby.

Everything was perfect as the rain battered the roof of the house, the noise amplified by both the front and back door being open. The storm was cooling the air off enough to pull a sheet over her body as she tried to drift off for a nap.

A moment later, she felt a hand on her shoulder. Yunso jerked her head up in a second to find her brother standing over her. Hasun bent over her bed as she tugged out her earbuds to hear whatever he had to say. But it wasn't right now. The music was gone, the rain was louder, and her mother wasn't laughing. She was crying, wailing from the living room.

"I don't know how to say this. Granny Lisa is gone," Hasun said quietly. It didn't sink in for Yunso as she sat up in bed, her phone forgotten as she heard the howling from the living room.

"No, no, no, she can't be gone," Hye-Gyo bawled. Yunso got out of bed and followed her brother to the family room in a daze. It didn't make any sense. Granny Lisa had been gone at a rehabilitation center for the last month or so for a compression spine fracture. How could she be dead?

Hye-Gyo wailed into her hands as she leaned on the arm of the couch, her husband Sochun patting her back from behind. When the older woman heard her kids' footsteps, she whipped her head up. Gran-Gran Jisoo emerged from her bedroom with her eyes squinted as she tried to find out what was making her youngest child cry so hard.

Yunso's stomach dropped as she saw her Gran-Gran standing in the doorway to her room, looking so frail. Sochun saw this and stood up, breaking the news to Gran-Gran that Granny Lisa was gone. Yunso watched her mother, unable to look at the eldest in the room. "Lisa passed away," Sochun said softly.

In what seemed like the span on a second, Hye-Gyo lifted her head and stood, whimpering, "Oh mama," as she followed her mom into her room. Yunso lost her brother for the time, unable to register where he was, what he was doing, what she was doing. Nothing made sense. The world seemed fractured. The seventeen-year-old girl sat down on the couch and looked around the room.

She didn't tear up; she didn't bust out in sobs like her mom, she just sat there, feeling like a horrible person. Why wasn't she crying? Why wasn't her chest caving? What's wrong with her? Sometime later, though Yunso wasn't able to tell you how much later, it all seemed very quick, Hye-Gyo came stomping out of the bedroom like she always did and said, "Yunso, go sit with your Gran-Gran. I can't-"

Yunso finally teared up as she walked quickly into the room and saw the strongest woman she'd ever known laid across the bed in her little grey nightgown, sobbing into her hands. It was the first time Yunso had seen that woman cry, and she never wanted to be a witness again. The floodgates broke, and tears rolled down her face in quick succession as she sat down next to Gran-Gran.

Yunso put her hand on the older woman's back, so boney with most of her spine protruding through her thin skin, and gently rubbed circles on it. Gran-Gran lifted her head, her eyes squinted, and her face crumpled in tears as she glanced at her youngest granddaughter crying next to her. Gran-Gran put her face back in her hands and sobbed loudly.

"What am I going to do without Granny," she cried. "What am I going to do without her?" Yunso held back a painful sob as she mumbled nonsensical answers, just so her Gran-Gran would hear her voice.

A few minutes later, Hasun peaked his head in to the bedroom, his long face crumbling as he saw Gran-Gran crying so hard on the bed. Yunso waved him over, barely able to keep herself together as she whispered, "Can you sit with her?"