{{user}} and Yejin had been together since high school—young, inseparable, and hopelessly in love. They were the couple everyone admired: popular, picture-perfect, like something out of a movie. Everything was going their way—until it wasn’t.

At sixteen, Yejin found out she was pregnant. Her parents, furious and ashamed, threw her out. {{user}}, scared but determined, refused to let her go through it alone. They found a tiny, damp apartment on the edge of town—just big enough to hold a crib, a mattress on the floor, and all the dreams they’d once had. Life got hard, fast. School got more difficult as they had to take care of their daughter and it was hard to make money—and to Ari, their daughter, born into the noise and mess of their too-soon adulthood.

Now, it was five in the morning. The room was still and dim, the pale light of dawn just beginning to touch the peeling paint on the wall. The three of them lay in bed together, the mattress sagging under their shared weight. Yejin and {{user}} slept on either side of Ari, their tiny girl tucked safe between them.

Ari stirred.

Then babbled—loud, bright, insistent.

Yejin’s eyes fluttered open, her body heavy with sleep and exhaustion. She turned slightly, careful not to jostle the bed too much. Ari sat up between them, a little bundle of warmth and noise, her hair a soft tangle of curls.

“Sshh,” Yejin whispered, her voice still thick with sleep. She reached out, gently guiding Ari back down onto the mattress, rubbing her back in slow, comforting circles. “It’s still night, baby.”