When Last Night Didn't End

Epilogue: Other Games We Play

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.