After dropping Seo-yun off on campus, I head to the office. Usually I’m one of the first to arrive, but these past few weeks the new interns have been arriving earlier than usual. Probably because of the new CEO, who has been reforming the company.

So far all of her new company policies have been to the betterment of D² Designs and we have seen share prices skyrocket. The 5% shares I had purchased when the company was still in its basement stages have now become an investment I hadn’t foreseen. Even the small percentage I have has now quadrupled in value, and due to the new CEO buying out most of the other investors, I now also have to sit in on the board meetings.

What a pain in the ass. As an application developer, I hardly have any idea what is going on, and thus have been taking online business management classes. They are unsurprisingly boring. If it were up to me I’d spend this time in my tiny office cubicle, working on GUI design. And I wouldn't be forced to wear these stupid suits. Working on the floor I could show up in a pair of ratty old jeans and a Spider-man T-shirt and no one would bat an eye. 

Now that I'm part of the board, however, I have to be presentable. That means dressing up like some heir to a multi-billion dollar bussiness empire. Okay maybe it's not that bad, but still. Seo-yun suggested that I wear the one suit I owned, which I had for years since I'd gotten it in high school. The one day I did, the CEO called me into her office and offered to take me to her daughter-in-laws boutique. I refused. Admittedly at first it was because I didn't know what a boutique was exactly.

If Cassidy hadn't helped me pick out these suits I'd probably have been fired by now.

I’m on my way to the boardroom when my phone rings, the ringtone telling me it’s Cassidy. I sigh, and answer the call.

“Good morning, Nam-jin.” My fiancé’s sugary voice does nothing to ease my mood. She was still asleep when I left this morning and I purposefully didn’t wake her up. These days she has become obnoxious in a way I have never experienced before. Hopefully it’s just wedding jitters.

“Morning, Cass. Did you need anything? I’m about to head into a meeting.”

“Why do I need a reason to call my future hubby?” I gag at the annoying nickname, and she continues on as if she didn’t hear. “I wanted to know if we’re still going out after you get of work. On Friday I bought this new dress that I’m dying to try out! It’s so pretty, I can’t wait for you to see me in it.”

“Oh, about that…” I pause. “I’ll be arriving home a bit later than usual from now on.” She’s so quite that for a moment I think she’s hung up on me.

“Why?” Her voice is so cold that I nearly miss a step.

“I’ll be picking up Seo-yun, and we’ll be heading home together. You can wait for us at home, and we’ll leave for dinner as soon as I return.”

“Why?” She repeats.

“Would you prefer to meet me at the restaurant? That could work too. I just thought you wouldn’t like waiting alone.”

“No,” She sounds annoyed now. “I meant why are you picking up your sister? I thought she has work in the evenings.”

“I assume you’re aware of the latest disappearance? I can’t allow my sister to be vulnerable at a time like this. I’d be more at ease if I knew she was safe at home.”

“That girl relies on you too much. She takes all of your time with her unnecessary demands. You shouldn’t let her control your life like this!”

I’m momentarily stunned. I head into the closest male restrooms for a bit of privacy.

“Jin? Nam-jin, are you still there?” She sounds frantic.

“What are you talking about? She relies on me too much?” I am so angry I have to pause to gain my breath. “Unnecessary demands? Do you even think before you speak?”

“Jin wait, listen I didn’t—” I cut her off, annoyed.

“I just told you that I’m worried about my sister’s safety, and all you can say is that it’s unnecessary? What is wrong with you?” I continue, “You know that she is the closest living relative I have, and yet you assume that I’ll put her life in danger just because my girlfriend is being selfish?”

Cassidy is silent for a while, and when she comes back on I’m expecting an apology, even though I know it won’t be sincere.

I don’t get one.

“Girlfriend? That’s all I am? Just another girlfriend!?”

I realise my wrong choice of words too late and she hangs up.

I rest my head in my hands and try not to throw my phone out of the window in frustration. I don’t even know how the conversation started with her being wrong and now ended with me having to apologise. I’ll just get her some flowers after work, orchids are her favourite.

As I enter the boardroom, I think about how maybe I’m expecting too much from Cassidy to understand how much I worry about Seo-yun. Not only is Cassidy an only child, but growing up even her cousins were all years older than her, and she never understood what it’s like to have a younger sibling.

Although even if she did have a younger brother or sister she still might not understand our bond. I don’t think many people could.

Seo-yun was born when I was eighteen. I had just entered Central University, a few weeks into my first semester, when our mother went into labour. She had been admitted into the hospital ten days prior, due to bleeding. The doctors had told her to remain in the hospital because the baby might not survive if she had went into labour at that time.

I remember exactly how it felt when I got that phone call in my Introduction to Computer Coding class. It was unexpected because my mother was only six months along, and also terrifying at the same time. It felt unreal. Like one of those dreams where you win the lotto, and use all your money to buy apples. No matter how much Granny Smith's you bite into, you always end up buying more. I hate that kind of dream.

Three months early, Seo-yun came into this world a fighter. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that she is still the same. When I’d seen her for the first time in her incubator in the NICU, I was stuck by how tiny she was. At nineteen and a half centimetres she was barely bigger than my hand and already fighting for her life. She'd been born a micro preemie, and was only 1091g on delivery. That doesn't sound real. How could she be so small? How was she supposed to survive like that?

I think it was then that I’d decided to do it all for her. Seeing her fight a battle I would never be help her to fight made me feel so helpless. No matter how much I wanted to, nothing I could do would help her.  

Since then the thing I’d ever wanted since then was to keep fighting at her side even though she might not need me to.

I guess she has always been stronger than me. Maybe she thinks I keep her so close because I don’t think she is capable of taking care of herself, but it’s actually the opposite. I need her here for my own selfish reasons. Even though she’d probably survive better than me on her own, I couldn’t last a day without her. Ever since she was born I’d always been by her side, watching over her shoulder armed and ready to step in should she ever need me.

Which she hardly ever did.

The best I can do is be here for when she does. Those moments when my stubborn sister decides to accept my help are more than worth it. She is the only family I have. I’d grown used to it being just us very early on.

Not even a month after she’d been born, our parents died. They had been on their way back home after going to see my father's parents at their nursing home when it happened. A truck overturned on Central bridge sending my mother's car through the guardrail to the freezing depths of the lake beneath. Both of them were killed on impact.

Do you want to know what’s funny? Everyone kept saying things like, "At least they didn't suffer" or worse, "They're in a better place now". How did any of that change the fact that my parents were dead?

So what.

So what their deaths were instantaneous, they're still dead. Dead is dead.

Nothing was ever going to change that fact.

Both of them had been flight paramedics, and had singlehandedly saved countless lives, but in the moment that it really mattered they weren't able to save the ones that really mattered.

Each other.