Is what I’m doing some sort of stubborn protest, a demand for love? Does this have anything to do with the fact that he looks like my father? Ugh, I don’t know. Why are his lips so much sweeter and softer than Hyunmi’s? After our lips part, he smiles shyly. He strokes my cheek, and then kisses my forehead. He reaches his arm around me and pats me on the back.

“Yeoul, I want to fall asleep with you in my arms. I feel like we will rise up and float in the air. This feels like a dream. Once you are discharged, let’s go on a gondola ride. No, not the one in the amusement park, but the real gondola in Venice …”

Knock knock knock. The doctor walks in with her hands full of shopping bags. She looks like some rich lady who loves shopping just getting back from her favorite department store. The hands of the clock on the wall are pointing eleven o’clock. “Yeoul, what are you doing staying up with the lights on this late?” Her wide eyes gleam. “And you!” she says to Jihyun, “Weren’t you here earlier today? What are you still doing here? Do you plan on going to work tomorrow? Go home. She needs to rest too! Lying in bed with the patient, how professional. Some doctor you are!”

“Speaking of professionalism, Mom, what are you doing visiting here in the middle of the night?”

“What? I was going to stop by tomorrow, and I saw the lights. Yeoul, I thought you wouldn’t have clothes to wear when you are discharged tomorrow, so I brought you some things. They’ll probably fit you.” She opens the shopping bag, inside is a pair of Jordache jeans, a cool T-shirt with skull patterns, a pair of sneakers. Everything looks super trendy. They must be expensive, the kind even rich kids have a hard time affording.

After she’s shown me everything, she goes back to her fake scolding tone. “Yeoul, go to sleep. Jihyun, get down from the bed. It’s cramped! Come on. Go home and sleep in your own bed.” It’s hard to tell if Jihyun and his mom care for each other given the way they are at each other like cats and dogs. The doctor nags him a little more, and then whispers to me, “Before you leave the hospital tomorrow, stop by at my office. I have something I have to tell you.” She says it with such gravity, I wonder what it could be.

After she’s left the room, Jihyun awkwardly climbs down from the bed. “Is there something going on between you and my mom?” he asks.