Gaeul looks at the flowers neatly adorned by the balcony. She wishes that in her next life she might be one of these beautifully planted flowers, because being a human was too difficult and troubling for her. Especially in her case, as she finds even the simple task of breathing strenuous.

“Flowers are very devoted. They only look at the sun.” A voice interrupts her thoughts behind her.

Gaeul spins her wheelchair around and faces the owner of the soft voice. She looks at him puzzled and wonders why a stranger is standing in her private balcony. Considering the white coat he was wearing, Gaeul could assume he was another doctor. However, it was a rare occasion to see another doctor inside her room. Her room was strictly maintained by Dr.Byun.

“I’m your new doctor, Kim Jongin.” He walks over to Gaeul and places his hand forward. Looking at her face, Jongin could notice immediately the features of Sohee within her.

Gaeul glances down at his hand and wonders if she should shake it. Meeting new people was always difficult for Gaeul and she never had much experience socializing.

“What about Doctor Byun?” Gaeul asks curiously, ignoring the new doctor’s hand. She had decided best not to make new acquaintances as they would easily be gone the next day.

Jongin frowns for a moment realizing that his handshake was blatantly rejected. However, he quickly flashes a smile and tries to come up with an appropriate answer to her question.

“We are both going to be the main doctors for you and Solbi-ssi, but I will be taking care of you mainly,” he informs her calmly as he awkwardly places his hand back down. He had hoped for a handshake, but she seemed very cautious and suspicious.

For a moment Gaeul looks at his eyes quivering. Although she didn’t have many opportunities socializing, she was skilled at reading people, and the guy standing in front of her was hiding something. He was approaching her with a different reason. But why would a doctor have another motif of reaching out to her?

“I’m glad to have you as my doctor,” Gaeul replies with a cautious smile and turns her wheelchair around. She faces the flowers again and realizes for the first time how miserable they look. Although they are pretty, they are always and only longing for the sun: one-sided love. Maybe it wasn’t such a great thing to be a pretty flower.

Jongin stares at Gaeul’s back, perplexed. Somewhere, amongst that short conversation they just shared, he sensed an awfully cold response from Gaeul. He had seen her smile, and she didn’t say anything rude but she was clearly distancing herself from him. What was the problem?

“Is there something wrong?” Jongin asks Gaeul cautiously too. This whole interaction seemed to revolve caution.

Without turning behind to face him, Gaeul replies indifferently, “Nothing, except my defective heart.”

As the breeze comes closer, Gaeul quickly clutches onto the wheels of her wheelchair and pulls it forward, closer towards the bars of the balcony. The passing cold breeze sends chills from her exposed toes all the way up to her spine and heart.

Suddenly, Baekhyun roughly opens the door and enters the room urgently. He pushes Jongin out of the way as he sprints towards Gaeul. While passing by, he had spotted Gaeul rolling her wheelchair towards the incoming cold breeze. As he noticed Gaeul’s toes twitching and her face frown, he jumped into the room. At the same time he was bewildered as to why Jongin had just chosen to stand behind and watch.

“Gaeul-ssi!!” Baekhyun scolds Gaeul as swiftly closes the doors of the balcony. He then bends down to pull her blanket closer to her body, and carefully wraps the blanket around her shoulders and covers her feet from the cold breeze.

Gaeul looks up and smiles apologetically. “Hi Doctor…sorry about that. I just needed that breath of fresh air. People really get suffocated in this room.”

“If you don’t want this to be your last breath of fresh air, you have to listen to me!” Baekhyun shakes his head disapprovingly.

“I just needed to know if my heart could still feel something. Like a checker.” Gaeul bites her bottom lip and smiles apologetically.

All the while, Jongin, who had been pushed aside, looks at the two cluelessly and wonders what all the fuss is about. Was getting fresh air such a dangerous matter? Was it such a big of deal that Baekhyun had to violently push him aside?!

Baekhyun wraps his warm hands around Gaeul’s foot and massages them carefully to circulate the blood within her. Jongin stares at the two with sudden anger. How dare he touch her feet so casually when he was engaged to Sohee! If Sohee knew about this she would feel heart-broken! Jongin glares at Baekhyun angrily as he remembers how depressed Sohee had been when he refused to switch doctors. Couldn’t he have just done it for her?!

Slowly, Jongin walks over to Baekhyun and gently presses his stiff hand on Baekhyun’s shoulder.

“Doctor Byun, I think you should have a word with me.” Jongin tells Baekhyun with the calmest voice he can maneuver.  

Baekhyun glances at the hard hand placed on his shoulder and frowns. He had a feeling this ‘word’ would be about Sohee. Jongin seemed to have this obsessive protection for Sohee, and Baekhyun didn’t appreciate it.

However, he had a question too so he willing agreed, “yes. We really need a word.” Baekhyun rises from the floor and pushes Gaeul’s wheelchair back into the room. He gently locks the balcony door behind him and warns Gaeul not to go out in the cold weather again.

Gaeul smiles delicately and nods obediently at Baekhyun.

Solbi, who walks into the room just as the doctors leave, shakes her head. She had been delighted to see Doctor Kim, but she sensed the gloomy situation and detained her happiness. With a light wave, Solbi and Doctor Byun greet each other, just before the two doctors leave the room.

“I don’t understand why you want to go out so much! If Doctor Kim stayed in this room, I would never want to leave~” she sings as she places her hands together and thinks about Jongin.

“Sometimes, I just want to know if my heart is still beating. I want to know if I’m actually alive.” Gaeul replies as she rolls the wheels of her wheelchair to her bed. Carefully, she picks her fragile body up from the chair and lies down under the soft white cover.

Baekhyun closes the door behind him tightly and glares up at Jongin furiously.

Jongin also stares at Baekhyun with fury. The two mirror each other with laser beams shooting out of their eyes intensely.

“What’s the ‘word’ you would like to discuss?” Baekhyun asks first amongst the immense tension between the two.

Jongin takes a deep breath and tries to reply calmly, “You first.”

“Are you even a doctor?!! Have you checked Son Gaeul-ssi’s chart at all?!” Baekhyun bursts with anger. He shakes his head profusely as he can’t understand why Jongin even signed up to be Gaeul’s doctor.

Jongin looks down at his feet shamelessly. It was true that he hadn’t been able to check on Gaeul’s specific conditions. However, he still didn’t understand what the big hassle was about. Wasn’t she just a cardiac patient? After her heart replacement, everything would be fine.

“Don’t you know she is the most prone to cardiac arrests in colder weather?! Her heart is incapable of circulating blood at a normal rate! Cold air is detrimental.” Baekhyun fires as he tries to suppress his anger, but clearly fails to do so.

Immediately Jongin replies angrily, “But I still can’t believe how you could so casually touch some other girl when you clearly know how jealous Sohee would be!! Shouldn’t you think about your own fiancé before someone else?!!”

Baekhyun rolls his eyes as the obvious topic comes to surface. As he clearly assumed, Sohee was definitely going to be the main topic again. Every time he was forced into a ‘word’ with Jongin, Jongin would bring up all sorts of ‘inappropriate’ activities that might cause trouble or heartbreak for Sohee. Baekhyun felt as if Jongin was Sohee’s private pet trained to keep a special eye on him and the only thing in his mind was protecting Sohee.

“Look, if you’re so worked up about everything I do, why don’t you just marry Sohee-ssi!” Baekhyun yells with frustrion. It wasn’t his sole choice to marry her anyways! Sohee had just chased after him for years, so he gradually decided to accept her. Although he decided to marry her, it was definitely not a choice out of love. In fact, if his parents weren’t also so persistent, he might have tried to run away.

Jongin stares at Baekhyun with agonized eyes.

If I could, I would’ve married Sohee instead of you.

Baekhyun didn’t understand what he was saying. Jongin would give everything if he were even given the chance to marry Sohee. He replies in the most crippled manner “if I could marry her, I would have. But you’re the one she’s in love with. She won’t even look at me without you.”

Baekhyun sighs. He clearly shouldn’t have said that, and he regretted it the moment he said it, but he didn’t understand why Jongin was so obsessed with Sohee either. “Jongin, you’re a doctor, a world-renown neurosurgeon, not Sohee’s pet. Heck, you’re better than me!”  

Jongin bites his bottom lip and frowns. “If I could choose between being a world-renown doctor and Sohee’s fiancé, I would have chosen the later.” Jongin replies coldly as he turns around and leaves the conversation. He walks away feeling the uncontrollable pain building within him. It always ended this way. He would end up confessing his stupid undying love for Sohee and walk away, fragmented.

Besides, he had never wanted to be a doctor in the first place. It had been Sohee’s dream to marry a doctor. However, when he became a doctor, Sohee was already in love with Baekhyun, and he was left to the sides fishing for her attention.

Now, he just wanted to be by her side. That was all he asked for.