“He doesn’t have much time left…” The doctor said with a faint sigh. “He’s on painkillers now and he might not be able to communicate well, but you can meet him now.”

Daehyun’s eyes were b with cold tears. Her chest ached, her body felt weak and no matter how much she tried to hold back her tears, it never stopped. Her torture was endless.

She stood outside the door and wiped her eyes. She didn’t want Kyungsoo to see her with red eyes, red nose and puffed up cheeks while looking as if she came right out of a mental asylum. She pushed back her hair, took a deep breath and knocked on the door once before opening it and peeking inside.

Kyungsoo was sleeping. He was surrounded by beeping machines and tubes that were connected to his body. The apparent one being the one attached to his nose. Daehyun began crying again. The anguish was too much for her to take in. It was eating her alive. She cried but kept her sniffs quiet as to not wake Kyungsoo up.

Slowly, she inched towards the pale body that was once and is still, always will be, the love of her life. He was the one to bring her out of the depression she was drowning in. He stopped her from wrecking her body, from wasting her life, from taking harmful drugs. He was the one to give her rainbows when there was no clouds and no rain.

Now, she couldn’t even give him the sunshine he needed.

She looked down at his fragile hand that was connected to a saline and gently touched it with her finger tips. He was cold.

She gingerly intertwined her fingers with his and looked up at Kyungsoo’s face. His eyes fluttered a little before he opened them and noticed the miserable Daehyun standing beside him with heavy tears in her eyes.

Kyungsoo smiled, “You’re here…” He said softly.

Daehyun nodded and she felt Kyungsoo gripping her fingers tightly. “Thank you.”

She shook her head and smiled back. “I’ll always be here for you.”

Kyungsoo and Daehyun stared at each other for a long time. Although there were no words lingering between them, their eye contact said more than just mere words. Their laced fingers said more than simple ‘I love you’s.’

But the more she gazed into Kyungsoo’s beautiful eyes, the more her heart shattered, the more she felt hurt and damaged.

“Soo…please don’t leave me…” She couldn’t help but let those desperate words leave her tongue.

Kyungsoo’s eyes grew slightly wide. He opened his mouth to speak, but he wasn’t sure what to say. After all, he couldn’t make promises that he couldn’t keep. His cancer was killing him, but knowing that he can’t kiss her, can’t marry her, can’t have a peaceful life with her slowly poisoned his already tained heart. The latter was far more agaonizing than the former.

“I promise to love you until the very end.” Her voice cracked. Her tears fell on Kyungsoo’s hands.

Kyungsoo wished he could get up right this instant and pull her into a warm, assuring hug. But alas, some wishes never come true. Some dreams are never meant to be.

“I wish—” He swallowed his distress. “I wish I could, Daehyun…I really wish.” A tear rolled from the corner of his eyes. He didn’t want to cry in front of her. He wanted to show that he is strong, that he could be strong until his breath, but keeping the tears locked inside seemed like an impossible thing to do. So was living while knowing that his life was at its limit and that the Angel of Death would soon appraoch him.

“It’s unfair…” She uttered.

“No,” He said. “It’s life.”

“Why you…?”

“Wrong question.” He smiled weakly.

“One more kiss…?”

“I haven’t brushed in two days…”

They both chuckled, followed by grief and soundless whimpering.

“Well, you could sleep next to me.” He scooted a little and Daehyun acted suit. She could’ve refused, but didn’t want to lose this oppurtunity to be next to Kyungsoo. To listen to his heart beat. And to feel his warmness despite the fact that he wasn’t warm anymore.

She caustiously got on the bed and slept beside him. Her head was on Kyungsoo’s feeble chest that heaved ever so slightly, and her arms softly wrapped his slim body.

“What if the doctor sees us like this?” She asked.

“He can’t do anything.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s my last wish.”

Daehyun’s tears damped Kyungsoo’s hospital gown. Her body trembled and Kyungsoo tried to hold her tighter. She looked up at him and he looked down at her. Once more their gazes connecting with an unseeable string.

“I love you…” She voiced.

“I know.”

“Can’t we turn back time?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

“Can’t we stop time?”

“You need to stop being childish, Daehyun.”

“Then let me be…it’s the only way I can stay without crumbling.”

Her words were like arrows that pierced his heart. His smile was like a drug she couldn’t overcome.

“Kyungsoo…” She suddenly fidgeted her fingers in her pockets and took out something, promptly closing her fists tightly and keeping it in front of his eyes.

“What is it?”

“Will you marry me?”

Kyungsoo’s face turned serious. Daehyun shouldn’t have asked that. This was not the time. Definitely not the right time…He understood immediately that she was going to ruin her life. But he couldn’t bring himself to refuse her proposal. How could he? How could he when he was feeling the excruciating pain running through his body? When all he wanted was to be with her?

“Answer me, Kyungsoo,” Her voice was tender. “Will you marry me?”

Kyungsoo’s breathing was turning faint. He could feel his chest getting heavier by the minute, his heart slowing by the second.

Nonetheless, he cracked a smile and answered, “Yes.”

Instantly but mindfully, Daehyun pulled Kyungsoo’s left hand and slipped a ring on his ring finger. Kyungsoo was taken aback by her movements. He stared at the ring for a few moments before turning back to her.

“Come closer…” He whispered to her. Tears were filling his eyes like a puddle, making it difficult for him to focus on Daehyun. Her features were turning distorted. His vision was getting blurry.

She slowly inched forward. Kyungsoo closed his eyes and placed a soft kiss on her forehead. Daehyun felt the warmth of his kiss. He kissed her for a long time. The smell of her shampoo sent him into a state of tranquility.

Daehyun closed her eyes tightly, yet the tears overflowed and ran down her cheeks. Seconds passed, perhaps minutes. Long, composed minutes. Just Kyungsoo and Daehyun in each others arms. Unthinking. Unknowing of the future. Stuck in time. Stuck in present. Just stuck. For a very long time.

--

She opened her eyes when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Her vision was hazy, but she could make out that it was the nurse. She was saying something but strangely, her words her inaudible. She squinted at what she was saying but before she could perceive, Daehyun was forcefully pulled up by another hand.

She looked behind and saw that it was her best friend, Oh Sehun. His eyes were red and watery. Everything around Daehyun moved slowly as if she was in a dream. Maybe she was…Maybe she wasn’t.

Daehyun then felt the a kind of warmness on her forehead and immediately turned to look at Kyungsoo. He was sleeping.

He was sleeping.

She smiled.

But no sooner did the nurse took off the tube from his nose, did she realize that reality was very different from dreams.

She froze. Her heart ached. Her eyes burned and reflexively, she held onto Kyungsoo’s cold, unmoving hands.

“Kyungsoo…?”

He didn’t wake up.

She looked back at Sehun who shook her head and tried to drag her away, but she flinched his hand and cupped Kyungsoo’s cheeks that were still moist.

“Wake up, Kyungsoo…You can’t just leave me…”

Her words cracked. Her words hurt .

“We’ve to get married…We’ve to have kids…We still have a long way to go…”

The nurse was requesting Sehun to take Daehyun away because of the procedures they had to implement. But Daehyun was adamant. She wouldn’t let go of Kyungsoo’s hand although she knew that he wasn’t going to wake up and promise her a future.

Nonetheless, Sehun held her wrist and yelled at her. “He’s gone, Daehyun! You can’t do anything about it!”

Her feelings were disturbed. Her mind went blank. The truth offended her. Sehun’s tone upset her. He eventually dragged her away from Kyungsoo. The only distance between them fading into infinity.

--

Daehyun recalled the pleasant memories they made in the last two years. She cried some more. She laughed some more. Sehun was always beside her, keeping a watch on her lest she should do something rash.

But Daehyun had assured him that she won’t harm herself. That she won’t die because Kyungsoo had wanted her to live.

To live happily.

She didn’t want his effort to go in vain.

No.

She had to keep his faith in her alive.

--

She placed a bouquet of flowers on his grave and talked by herself for a while.
A while had turned into prolonged sunsets.
Into conversations she didn’t expect.
Into hugs she couldn’t feel.

Sehun couldn’t look at her that way. Bandaged yet so broken.

He comforted her.
He gave her the love she needed desperately.
He gave her the soft kisses on her forehead.
He gave her a life she thought she would have with Kyungsoo.

He didn’t want to take Kyungsoo’s place,
but he also couldn’t refuse Kyungsoo’s plea.

“Do not let her wither, Sehun…Keep her petals soft, keep watering her, keep giving her the sunlight she needs. I know she won’t forget me, but please…Do not let her die.”

Kyungsoo looked down at Daehyun who was sleeping peacefully on his chest. Oblivious that Kyungsoo was running out of time. That he was taking his last breath.

“Promise me…” He said breathlessly, tears flowing down his cheeks.

“I promise.”

He smiled at Sehun and closed his eyes in relief.
The monitor beside him suddenly started to beep frantically. Sehun’s eyes grew wide and he was taken aback, paralyzed in his place as the doctors ran towards Kyungsoo and checked his pulse.

A long bleep.

“Time of death—"

A soul taken away.

Daehyun woke up.

A responsibility.

A promise he could never break.