Underwater || BBH

36. Innocence

C H A E Y E O N G

"Now, Chaeyeong." Minho speaks to his nine year old daughter, who's face was tear stricken and puffy. "If those boys get in your face again, I want you to take this pretty little hand of yours and punch them straight in the face."

"But dad, aren't I going to get in trouble?" the little girl wipes her tears with her spare hand that her father wasn't holding.

The boys at her school had started to pick on her, it started with name calling and moved on to becoming physical with the little girl, pushing her down and throwing dirt in her face. She tried her hardest to hide this from her parents, but when she walked up to their car with red eyes and a dirty face, her mother immediately walked back in the school grounds to confront the teacher while her dad comforted her in the car.

"You are a strong little girl and one day you are going to grow up to be a strong independent woman. You take crap from no one especially those who do the wrong thing." He put his hand out for a fist bump to which the little girl obliges to, smiling at her father, her hero. "Don't tell your mother I swore."

~

"This is going to hurt, okay?" Saemi lets her ten year old daughter know, as she waits for the numbing agent to take effect.

"More than a graze?" Chaeyeong looks up into her mother's eyes, that resemble her own.

Saemi laughs at the comment made by her only child, tucking a piece of her short onyx hair behind her small ear with a tiny diamond stud in it. "That depends on your threshold, baby."

Saemi put on a set of white gloves and threads the medical thread through the surgical needle as she was preparing to stitch up her child wound, she acquired from running around the house and not looking where she was going, which led her straight into a glass door that shattered on impact.

"Okay!" Chaeyeong exclaimed after mentally preparing in her head for what was about to happen. "I'm ready!"

Saemi smiled at her daughter before moving closer to her wound. "Alright, first step to make sure you clean the wound thoroughly and apply the numbing agent, which we have already done. Make sure all utensils are disinfected and ready for use, another step that is done already."

"You showed me how to clean these yesterday." Chaeyeong points to the utensils on clean white towel, referring to the needle driver and tissues forceps. "And you taught me how to clean wounds when I first scrapped my knee."

Chaeyeong was known to be a bit clumsy which resulted in Saemi having to patch her up quite often. "This is the needle driver; I'm going to use it to hold the needle. This is the tissue forceps; they are going to pinch and hold you skin together to I can stitch together."

Saemi started by placing the needle driver on the needle and locking it in, she grabbed the forceps and used them to grab her daughter's skin. "When you push the needle in you have to go in at a 90-degree angle just above the fat. Once it's in turn your hand and start pulling it up."

Saemi continued to walk her daughter through every step of stitching, explaining thoroughly as she did the action. Chaeyeong watched with awe on her face, to focused on learning something new that she forgot all about the needle being pushed in and out of her skin with the thread attached to it.

~

"Happy birthday!" Both Minho and Saemi cheered as their daughter walked into their decorated kitchen, balloons, confetti and streams littered around the counter and chairs. She rubbed her tired eyes as she smiled at her parents, the newly turned 11 year old rushed to tackle her parents in a bone crushing hug.