CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Minutes

(The Last Twenty-Four Part II)

“Do you think she’ll make it in time?”

“I hope she does...As much as I would like to help her, I cannot...But I want to save the boy.”

“As do I.”

Jessica is standing in front of her house, waiting for a cab that will hopefully arrive. She really didn’t want to run. But as the minutes passed by she found herself taking steps away from her house and closer to Seoul Gen. She needed to move so she breaks into a run, deciding that running while trying to find a ride to the hospital would be faster. She reaches the grocery store where she stood hours ago and finds sees a cab approaching the front of the store. The ice princess speeds up immediately and signals for the cab driver to come closer to her. Surely, he comes to a stop and she opens the door. Jessica gets in and closes the door a little too hard, almost like she was banging it. She scoots over to the middle of the cab and eyes the driver through the mirror.

“Take me to Seoul General.”

TWENTY-THREE

The ice princess sits in the cab quietly, trying to look as calm as she can. Her expression betrays her feelings. She wears a blank mask as her face, though in truth a million things are rushing through her head. She shifts over to the part closest to the door and looks out at the window, watching the city lights fade away in blurs and neon lights paint lines on the dark canvas of night as the taxi cab zooms past the busy streets of Seoul. Jessica sighs, trying to figure everything out as she tries to forget how impatient she felt at the moment. The blonde grits her teeth together in frustration.

She gets lost in her thoughts, aggravated but somehow relieved that she had answers to her most of her questions. So Onew was driving to Seoul with Kim Taeyeon- who could possibly be his lover- who happened to be Jonghyun’s cousin. They got into an accident while they were on the road and a reckless truck driver crushed the front of their car- according to her dream, at least. Taeyeon died on the spot, but Onew got into a coma. Judging from the hospital he was admitted in, he and Taeyeon were probably almost at Seoul when that driver ruined their dreams and changed their lives forever.

Then it struck her.

‘Wait, Onew and I have been hanging out...how could he have been in a coma?’

And she remembers what Krystal said about ghosts having special abilities, not forgetting her own special “skills” in seeing, feeling, touching, hearing and talking to ghosts- plus tasting them; they did kiss after all. Combining those two, that means she would’ve seen him anyway seen he was a ghost. ‘What about Tiffany and Yur, though? They met Onew didn’t they?’

‘Well that could be attributed to his abilities...maybe he chose to show himself to them. It’s either that or I would’ve looked like a total idiot in the mall, talking and laughing by myself,’ she thought.

But he was able to buy her that necklace that she loved so much- the one she lost- so he probably had insane powers that made him visible and tangible and everything that went with it.

Jessica sighs.

And she realizes one more thing.

He’s a ghost.

What can that mean?

He’s in a coma...but he’s not dead.

Maybe he isn’t, not yet.

Not yet.

She bites her lip as she tries to process her thoughts. The thought of losing him made tears well up in her eyes. Jessica swallows hard. She doesn’t know what to make of all of this.

Without him, she is good as dead.

And she remembers the first time she met him, with the scenery and his smile and her school books all over the place. She remembered how much of a gentleman he really was- carrying her books and her bag when they would go out. And she remembered the good times when he would take her to their place and they would lie on the grass and watch sunrise after sunrise, sunset after sunset, day after day. They would talk about themselves, about their childhood and founding cucumber hate clubs. Because of this, the short span of time they have known each other didn’t seem as short as it was. It felt like they grew up together. It felt like they have been together from the start.

She remembered his laugh, and his smile- his bright smile, shining brighter than all the light of all the stars in the sky combined. She remembered his walk, and how equally clumsy they both were. She remembered the way he dressed. She remembered his eyes. She wished she remembered his kiss. Hell she wished she experienced it.

But then she thinks of the angel in her dreams that kissed her so passionately and how she could not stop him from doing so. She thought it would feel like that.

And she though she must have loved the angel, because she remembered a Grey’s Anatomy quote saying that “For a kiss to mean something, it has to be with someone you can’t get out of your head.” It has to be with someone you love.

That kiss meant something.

And she couldn’t think of anyone else that she loved, that she couldn’t get out of her head.

There was only one, and it was him.

Jessica does not realize that she is smiling.

And she remembers something as the cab comes to a stop in front of the traffic lights at an intersection.

She hated the road.

She hated it.

It seemed to be destroying everyone she loved and taking everything she had.

First her sister passes away in a car crash and Jessica is somehow still breathing- breathing, but barely alive. And then there’s Onew, who’s good as “not alive”- because she’s had enough of that word- and Taeyeon who didn’t make it. And then there was the loss of parents- both hers and Onew’s. Not to mention Sunny.

Maybe the road had a thing against her, or them, and maybe trucks hated her.

But she couldn’t hate the road- it was one of the things that tied them together.

TWENTY-FOUR

Jessica sighs.

Once again, she loses herself in her thoughts.

Somewhere in the heavens, the Gods start to cry.

‘Crap,’ Jessica thinks. The cars ahead of them aren’t moving and she is getting impatient. The taxi driver has been driving as close to the speed limit as he can- mainly because she demanded it- and they were almost there. All they had to do was turn right at the fourth intersection and then go straight ahead.  Why did this have to happen? She grits her teeth in frustration. She took a nap at 11:25, now it’s 11:40. They haven’t been moving for the quarter hour that seemed like forever. And Seoul General wasn’t even that far.

‘Oh, heck!’ she thinks.

“I’m getting out of here,” she says to the taxi driver, pulling out her purse and paying him the full fare- from the grocery store to Seoul General- and a little extra tip.

“Thank you.”

The driver unlocks the door and Jessica opens it and steps out. The only thing she could hear were the sounds of horns beeping and frustrated drivers. She looks around and spots the intersection to the right straight ahead.

TWENTY, NINETEEN, EIGHTEEN...

Jessica breaks into a sprint. She heads straight for the fourth intersection, thinking of the fact that she was so lucky she there was almost no one to run into in the dead of the night. The city lights were rapidly dissolving, disappearing behind her and she could feel the wind in her hair.

‘Hold on, I’m almost there.’

As Jessica draws closer to the spot where she has to round, she becomes more determined. She is focused on her goal, like she is running a race- and maybe she was- ignoring everything else around her. She was running a race against time, they can’t unplug him and kill him.

She shudders at the mention of the word and his name in one sentence, but continues to run and finally rounds the goal corner. She can see the hospital from where she stands blocks away. She stops for a moment and checks the time. It’s eleven forty-five, according to her phone. She was amazed at how fast she could run. She stops for a while.

And she thinks of him.

The very thought of him spurred up embers in her heart, but thinking of losing him ignites a fire in her. And today it was burning brighter than ever.

She knows she cannot let that happen.

She can’t let him die.

She has to save him.

And she will.

Tonight, she will be his guardian angel.

And she will protect him.

She starts to run once again.

TEN, NINE, EIGHT...

She reaches the hospital at eleven fifty-two and she stops in front of the big doors to catch her breath- her head was spinning- before walking in. She closes her eyes for a bit and breathes in, then she wipes the sweat on her forehead with the back of hand and continues on, ignoring how fast her heart was beating and how much her legs hurt.

She remembered what Jonghyun said.

They were on the fifth floor at 0509.

She had to get there.

Jessica walks in a little later after she regains her composure. The ice princess looks around the lobby. The first thing she did was search for the elevators. Sure enough she sees them and focuses her eyes on them and the nurses’ station that was a few steps away from her ride to freedom and her ride to Onew. She knew visiting hours were probably long over. And that guard checking the visitors’ passes near the elevator doesn’t seem to be in a good mood.

But then again she could take the fire exit stairs, which were usually at the end of the hall. The elevators were faster but she had a higher chance of not getting caught if she took the stairs.

She stops for a moment to think.

Jessica eyes the area the end of the hall where there are no people to look at her. Then she fake a startled expression and takes her phone out from the pocket of her white skinny jeans and stares into the blank screen. She touches the screen and holds it to her ear.

“Yeoboseyo?” she says.

Jessica looks around and cups her hand around as she speaks to no one over the phone. She heads to the area where the stairs are.

A smirk crosses her features as she puts the phone back in her pocket and pushes the door open.

She starts to run.

FIVE, FOUR...

‘Hurry, Jessica Jung.’

Jessica finally reaches the fifth floor, panting and sweating like crazy. She stops to catch her breath once more and she peeks out from the fire exit door. She looks at the top of the doors and checks the room numbers.

There, five doors away, she spots it.

She zooms in on her target to make sure she wasn’t having hallucinations.

The ice princess grits her teeth, determined to get where she had to get.

She takes careful steps, brisk walking to the door.

Jessica peeps in through the open window on the door and sees Onew- tubes sticking to him in random places- pale, thin, lifeless. She closes her eyes. It hurt her so much.

From where she stood she also saw Jonghyun and Hongki, the friend and the cousin, at his bedside seated on chairs next to each other. They seemed to focused at holding his hand and looking at him to notice she was even there.

THREE

Jessica has a moment of hesitation, but after a while she puts her fingers on the cold silver and turns the doorknob, surprised it was unlocked. She walks into the room. Jonghyun and Hongki stare at her in shock, and she stares back at them with a blank expression on her face.

Before the both of them can speak, she raises her hand to tell them to shut the hell up. And surprisingly, they obey her orders.

Jessica looks at Onew, not moving from where she stands. A tiny sparkle on his wrist near his patient I.D. catches her eye. And her eyes widen. He is wearing the bracelet she got for him on their last big day out together.

Tears fill her eyes and she clasps her hand over .

In his hand, he holds her ice princess necklace.

Just like that she is drawn in and she walks closer to him.

TWO

She approaches him slowly and reaches out her hand, hesitating for a moment. He looked so peaceful, yet he seemed so fragile. He was everything she’d never thought she’d see him as- weak, helpless...dying. The deafening silence was shrieking in her ear and it made her jumpy, but seeing him...somehow made it all better.

 The only sound was the sound of her breathing and his heart monitor. Everything looked so dull and sad and depressing. But despite all the tubes attached to his body and the boring white gown and the boring white hospital blankets, he looked beautiful. He is beautiful, and Jessica wanted to touch his face. She wanted to run her hands through his hair. But she was afraid that he would break because he looked so fragile, like glass. She was afraid that she would break him, but most of all she was scared- she was freaking terrified- that she would lose him.

That was the last thing she wanted.

Jessica bites her lip and runs her hand through his hair and then she traces his jaw line with her fingers.

“I’m here now...”

She smiles.

“Hey there,” she says.

And then she leans in.

ONE

She keeps her hand on his face and she is close enough that their noses touch. The ice princess stares into his closed eyes and the tip of her nose is on the tip of his. She smiles when she hears the sounds of his breath, and the beating of his heart. The rising and falling of his chest and the beeping of the heart monitor assured her that he was very much alive. Jessica tilts her head and shuts her eyelids. She could finally do what she wanted to do for a very long time.

She was sure he would want this too.

And with that, kisses him, for the first time, on the lips. Jessica holds the kiss for what seemed like a long time and she pulls away for a moment, then kisses him more.

She didn’t mind that he was sleeping.

She knew that if he was awake, he would kiss her back.

ZERO

And then in a second it happens.

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep is the sound the monitor makes, and the heart monitor displays a flat line. Jessica pulls away immediately.

And she realizes what’s going on.

His heart stopped.

“What happened? What’s happening?!” Jessica’s eyes widen in shock as she realizes that he is on the brink of death, the one thing she’s been trying to save him from.

Hongki and Jonghyun stand by quietly.

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE DOING?!” She screams, teary-eyed, and starts compressions and CPR, pushing down on his chest as hard as she can. She pounds her fists onto the code button, not taking her eyes off of her angel for even a second.

“NURSE?!” Jessica screams, panting as she pushes hard up and down, and then tries to breathe life into him once again. “IT’S A CODE BLUE! SOMONE’S DYING OVER HERE!” She screams even louder and her voice shakes. Tears are rolling down her cheeks, and dropping onto Onew’s hospital gown.

“NURSE! WHAT THE HELL!” She screams, her eyes darting over to Jonghyun and Hongki. “WHAT ARE YOU STANDING AROUND FOR!!! DO SOMETHING! HELP HIM!’

She keeps on trying to revive him and a team of nurses come in with a crash cart.

“THERE YOU ARE! CHARGE NOW! BRING HIM BACK!” The ice princess demands in desperation as a nurse examines his chart.

And they all drop what they are doing, except for Jessica who is doing her best to pull her angel back to earth.

“He’s DNR, miss.” Jessica is panting and she stares at the nurses while pushing down on his chest.

“Do not resuscitate.”

Her whole world crashes.

“You have to let him go, Sica...” Jonghyun says gently. “It’s better that he goes naturally, without us having to do it ourselves...”

She looks at him in disbelief.

And the tears keep flowing.

“YOU HEARTLESS BASTARDS!! REVIVE HIM!! GIVE ME THOSE PADDLES!! I’LL FREAKING CHARGE!”

She lets go of Onew and tries to grab the paddles from the crash cart as two of the nurses grab her by her arms.

“Sedate her!” They say, but she continues to thrash and kick, clawing at one of the nurse’s faces with her long fingernails. She screams. “BRING HIM BACK!! I HAVE TO SAVE HIM! WE HAVE A PROMISE!”

She kicks the crash cart hard and knocks it over.

“I HAVE TO KEEP THAT-“

And she feels a needle on her neck.

“...promise.”

Suddenly she feels dizzy and the last thing she does is turn her head to Onew’s bed.

“I love you...” she whispers with a shaky voice. She continues to cry.

“I love you too.”

And she swears she hears her angel say it back.