My feet had somehow carried me into the hospital art gallery, where paintings were displayed and shown to patients as a kind of physiotherapy. I was the only one inside the art gallery which relieved me. I really didn't feel like talking to anyone right now, especially not Hoya. But I couldn't help but notice that he didn't run after me, which confirmed my suspicions. I scolded myself. What was I really expecting? A love confession in return? Who was I but the girl he had grown up with and spent Sundays with, keeping his grandma company? That was exactly it. I was no one to him but a reminder of the hard life he led before becoming an idol.

I found myself a nice cosy corner in the art gallery and sat down, leaning my head in my hands. Absorbed fully in my thoughts, I wasn't exactly sure how much time had passed since I came here. Two hours? Three? Four? I sighed - it didn't matter. I felt strangely relieved like a whole weight had been lifted off my shoulders, and now I just felt tired. I closed my eyes and tried to fall asleep but it never came because I heard Hoya's voice in the gallery, calling my name desperately.

"HANA?! ARE YOU IN HERE?!" I heard him yell.
I scoffed. Did he really think I was going to answer him?
"HANA, PLEASE, I KNOW YOU'RE IN HERE."
I scoffed again. If you knew I was in here then why bother asking?
"KIM HANA! COME OUT PLEASE, SOMETHING HAS  HAPPENED TO HALMEONI!"
I jolted up from my corner. Halmeoni? What happened? My heartbeat immediately sped up.
"Hoya, I'm here..... where are you?" I called out timidly.
He yelled out that he was by the reception and I walked quickly to meet him.
"What's wrong with halmeoni?" I asked him, wiping my eyes and hoping they weren't too puffy.
I peered at him closely. It seemed like he had been crying too as his eyes were slightly red and puffy.
"S-she..." He bit his lip, unable to continue.
How badly I wanted to give him a hug and pat his head to tell him everything was going to be okay. To tell him thy halmeoni had been alive this long and it was just a scare. But I had a feeling that things weren't going to be okay because I had never seen Hoya like this before. Not with puffy, swollen eyes and slumped shoulders. That's when I knew something was wrong. Very wrong. And I had a small feeling in my mind I knew what it was.
"What is it?" I asked quietly, not looking at him twiddling my thumbs, head lowered.
He took a deep breath and spoke in a strangled, choked voice that I had never heard him use before. And I hoped to never hear it again. I'll never forget that moment, the moment he told me that halmeoni's heart had stopped beating half an hour ago and declared dead after the doctors had tried to unsuccessfully revive her.

I sank to my knees, my legs giving way. How was halmeoni dead? She had been alive just ten minutes when I saw her. She had survived for over two years after that fatal morning she knocked her head, living on peg tube feeding and constant care. How was she gone? She had fought so hard to stay alive and now she was just giving it all up? But she basically had no quality of life, I thought to myself. She couldn't walk, talk or eat, the three most basic things that we all took for granted. She was bedridden for the past two years and basically an invalid, lying there and staring at the ceiling day and night until it was time to sleep, where she would close her eyes and open them again in the morning; all to repeat itself in a cycle.

"Did she....." I couldn't bear it say it aloud. "Go peacefully? What happened?"
Hoya nodded tearfully. Well, I guessed he did because I still couldn't look at him in the eye - I was that sorry and ashamed of myself.
"She fell asleep shortly after you....left." He ran his fingers through his hair frustratingly. "I was cleaning her cupboard out and I heard a beep.....then all the nurses told me to get out and lots of doctors rushed in. They were yelling and running all over the place with machines and paddles and then - " A gasp wrentched from his chest. "Then they came out and...a-and t-told me she was d-d-dead!" He sobbed and sank down to sit next to me on the ground, and we stayed there, in silence. It was awkward, sure, but we both were thinking of halmeoni, and how much she had done in our lives. How we wouldn't have met, if it wasn't for her. And how we could have done do much more to please her. Like going out, like she told me to. More tears leaked out of my eyes at the thought of this but they blended in.

I was glad that she had gone peacefully in her sleep, and it was all I could've really asked for.