---

Once again, you find yourself walking along the frail path towards the light. You can’t even count the many times you’ve been here already. It’s always this dark tunnel with a bright, trancing light on the other end. You also remember that this time has been the closest you ever got to the end. Usually before, you’re only halfway down when someone or something pulls you away from the puzzling tunnel and back to the real world. Now you wonder. Am I really going to vanish this time… forever?

Five steps… four… three… A step towards the light and the scenery blurs down and changes to the maple tree among cherry blossoms. So this is the other end of the tunnel?

You stare at the dying maple tree, the leaves are scattered on the ground and its branches seems to be wilting. You don’t understand. This never happened in your dreams before. The tree… it was always glowing and alive. Your head stings and your body aches as someone hugs you from behind. Your eyes widen and immediately you turn around.

You are met with the cheeky grin from the boy in the maple tree. “Squishy, you came back!”

You narrow your eyes down at him. “I was gone…?”

“I thought you’d leave me here all alone.” He looks so sad.

“I…I don’t know…” You stutter. You don’t understand what he’s saying.

“You promised you’d wait for me right? Why are you leaving me?” He steps a step forward.

You fall a step back. “I won’t leave you.”

“The tree is dying… and I’m going to lose you forever.” His eyes are full of sorrow.

“What…” Now you fall your back against the trunk of the tree. You have nowhere else to go. He holds your hand and squeezes it so tight it seems impossible.

“Don’t go, squishy. Please stay.” His eyes are filled with determination to make you stay.

“I… I will.” You smile at him and you watch delicately how each leaf rise up and back to the stems of the tree, how each stem glimmers with color, and how the tree turns back to life. It is now as beautiful as it had always been. You are too engrossed in watching the tree come back to life that you didn’t notice the boy slowly fading away until it’s too late to try and save him. You reach out for his hand one last time and everything turns dark and pain shoots up all over your weak body.

---

You are a lying mess on the bed covers of the hospital bed. And no, you’re not dead, but you aren’t there either. The machines are the only things that keep you alive. You had it pretty badly, you see. The truck was able to stop indeed, but it didn’t stop soon enough. There was still that little impact that caused your body to be thrown off the ground. Quite unluckily for you, you had broken bones and some cuts and bruises. You lost a lot of blood as there was also internal bleeding. You may seem okay on the outside, but your whole body is close to shattering and breaking down.

Tao… well he saw all of it. He couldn’t even speak a normal sentence after. He keeps on stuttering as he wasn’t able to keep his cool. He was crying and screaming and not even his friends could stop him. Why would he anyway? He really thought he was going to lose you then and there. To make it worse, he actually blames himself.

You can’t blame him though, he was running after you. He keeps on insisting that he could have saved you, like he always had. He was your savior after all. And the only actual time you needed saving, he was some seconds too late. He’ll never forgive himself.

Technically though, he was going to lose you. But you are the daughter of the richest business man in Korea; your father can always pull some strings around. He knew the best doctors and surgeons around to fix you. They did their best to save you and they were successful, but not quite. You still are, after all, not waking up.

You were all over the news; headlines of reports, front pages of the newspapers, buzzes of the web. You got more popular than already. Your father had a hard time keeping this a secret because quite frankly, this is what the paparazzis’ been waiting for. To see you fall and suffer. They’ve been making up false reasons why you did this. Some says it’s an accident, while some would insist you planned on doing this.

It’s just so amazing how they have answers to the question you can’t even answer yourself. You don’t know why you did it, but somehow, you did want to be right there, in the middle of the road, at that exact time of the night of your birthday. Even when you’ll be given the chance to turn back the time and undo some things that you’ve done that day, you’d still want to be there. It’s pretty messed up, your mind. You can’t be blamed though. You have had enough of it.

And now, the winter snow has long melted and the leaves start to have their vibrant colors back again. The cold air no longer lingers around as it was washed away by the warmth of the burning sun. It’s summer now. And yes, it has been three months.

Tao only went in your room to see you once, a week after your birthday. You see, he wanted to be the first person you’ll see when you wake up. He tried so hard, but he couldn’t take it. He feels like he could kill himself after seeing you weak and fragile. He stayed away from the hospital, even if it hurt him so much. He’d want to see you alive and smiling at him, and not like this. He is still, one of the few people who believe you’ll wake up. He keeps telling himself you’ll be fine without seeing his face the first second you wake up. You both know though, that that is not true.

While Tao has been like that, Kris did his best to always be around during the first weeks. He tried to stall time, reasoning out anything he could think of to keep himself right beside you. Unfortunately, he ran out of it and had to go back to Canada. He bargained to be back in Korea when you do finally wake up. It’s something his grandfather could give, luckily.

---

Your fingers start to move itself because of the little electric zaps you feel from the little machine on your pointer finger. Hana is too tired to really see it. She has been here in your room the whole day and it is night time now, just right after dinner.

Luhan all the while, is wide awake. He sees your moving fingers as he shakes Hana up. “Hana… Hana wake up…” He mumbles as he walks closer to your bed to make sure.

“What is it…?” Hana answers without exactly opening her eyes yet.

“Jae Min’s fingers… they’re moving!” Luhan almost shouts seeing it move once again.

Meanwhile, the door opens revealing the happy kid with a box of chicken on his hands. “I’m back guys, and I bought chicken! I know how hungry you two are so –holy …” Kai sees what Luhan has been observing too. He almost lets go of the chicken actually.

“Hana! Wake up!” Luhan tries once again.

Hana stands up from the chair and her eyes turn the widest they can be. “I’ll call the doctor.” She says and sprints out of the room.

The thing is, with the condition you’re in, even the best doctors say that only a miracle would make you wake up. You’ve never moved your fingers before. It’s the first time tonight. You can say that they’re overacting but screw it; it’s been three months of nothing for all of them.

Kai and Luhan are busy calling everyone about the news that they didn’t even see you slowly open your eyes. They are too happy to see you move your fingers that they didn’t even think about you finally waking up tonight.

You search around the room and only find Kai and Luhan. “Tao… where’s Tao?” You mutter even when it’s painful all over your body. The two seem to have stopped using their phones actually. Their jaws turn agape upon hearing your voice again.

The door opens and you see Hana catching her breath. She is astounded after seeing your eyes open and confused.The doctors follow suit and before you could even ask any more questions, the doctors check your vital signs and everything else you don’t understand. They must be shocked upon seeing you awake too. No one expected this to happen tonight after all.

It’s been an hour since you woke up and people start to crowd in your room now. Still, the ones you really want to be around are not here. You’re too weak to feel disappointed.

“Don’t ever do that again, okay? You scared me to death. You scared all of us… I really thought we were gonna lose you that night, you know.” Hana cries on your arms as she has been telling you what’s been happening for the longest time you’re asleep. By happening, she means all the irrelevant little things that happened. You know she’s trying to not make you think of the people not around tonight.

“How long… was I… gone?” You try your best to speak. Everything still hurts on the insides.

“Three months… Kris was forced to leave last February.” You only nod your head. You feel guilty about all the things that Kris has done. You know how his grandfather deals with disobediency. You didn’t really want anyone to suffer because of you.

“Is Kyu… is he…” Your breathe hitches. Your lungs sting all of a sudden. You try and control it.

“He’s… busy. Tomorrow’s their goodbye stage.” Hana smiles weakly. You’re hurt after knowing that you missed their whole comeback promotions. You at least want to be around during their last.

“Tao…” You mumble.

“He…” Hana cuts in but you see indecisiveness in her eyes. She knows you’ll ask about it sooner or later anyways. “He stays locked up in your house. He… blames himself.” With this, you remember the happenings before you had the accident.

Flashbacks of what happened fuzzes around in your head and you again watch how he screams in pain knowing that you’ll be hit by the truck any second then.

“Don’t worry about it, Jae Min,” Suho consoles you after seeing the pain in your eyes. “He’ll be okay.” You even point that the use of the future tense in Suho’s sentence. That only means that he’s not okay until now.

Your parents come an hour after that shocks you the most. They’re never the ones to be around on such occasions. Your mom hugs you loosely enough to not hurt you while your father just stands there at the back. The atmosphere when they came turns silent and almost cold. No one even speaks.

“Jae Min, your father and I really missed you, you know that.” She smiles and looks by her husband. “He might be stiff there at the back but you just have to know how wide his smile was after hearing the news that you’re awake. Take it easy on him, okay? We didn’t wish for this to happen.” Almost in an instant, your anger towards them shoots back up from the caves of your core.You try to tone it down until you feel yourself calming. You didn’t want it to get to you.

“We’re really sorry, for not always being there. And we learned that now… after we almost lost you. We never gave you that much importance not until you’re always close to giving up. We’ll try and make it up to you from now on. We don’t need you to forgive us soon… but we hope you will.” She whispers and lightly kisses your forehead.

You wonder now, how things changed since the day you almost died. It got you thinking of doing it again, if it means to change people around you. Fear of the unknown after all, makes people alter their ways of life.

“You want… to make it… up to me?” You ask.

“Of course, Jae Min.” Your mother immediately replies.

“I want to… watch Kyuhyun… tomorrow…” With your condition now, it seems impossible to get out from the hospital. You take advantage of the fact that they’ll do anything for you to have what you want. After all, your father can do anything.

Your mother seems a little taken aback but she lets it go. “Okay then, we’ll be back here tomorrow.” She smiles.

They leave after the little conversation and you’re happy they did. You didn’t like them being here. It makes you remember why you are even here in the first place. You didn’t want to remember.

It is later that night, where everyone else has either gone home or fell asleep on the guest beds –your room is big enough to have it – that someone creeps up in your room. You’re wide awake even when the lights are off a long time ago. The person continues to walk towards you and stops beside your bed.

He holds your hand so tight that even with just this connection, you feel like crying. He doesn’t let go that you can feel him shaking. There’s enough moonlight coming from the windows this time that you see his tears fall down his soft cheeks. Because of this, you closed your eyes shut. You didn’t want to cry tonight. “I… I could have saved you. I’m sorry... I’m so sorry,” He keeps on saying after some hitches from his quiet cries.

You want him to stop. You want to tell him to stop and let him understand that it’s not his fault but you can’t afford letting him realize you are not asleep. You know you want to see him but not when he’s crying like this. It breaks your heart to see him suffer so badly from the accident.

You wish to wipe his tears away. “This shouldn’t… have happened. If only… if only I can take your pain away.” He brushes your hand lightly afraid of hurting you for the littlest bit. He leans down on it and kisses your hand. “I’m sorry… I’m really sorry…” You can feel his teardrops fall down on your hand. You’re biting your lip this time, at least to stop yourself from quivering under his tears.

For some minutes, you just listen to his shallow breathes and constant hitches. He’s trying to calm himself.

He wipes his tears hastily. “You know… it actually took me a lot of courage to drive up here. You know, after they called you woke up.” He chuckles weakly. “I –I just had to see you.” He scratches his head. “Anyway… I might not come back here anymore. I’ll see you when you’re finally fine. So you better heal fast, okay?” His breathing hitches again and you know that he’s going to cry any second now.

He lets go of your hand and he stands up. You didn’t want him to leave. So suddenly though, you feel soft drops of tears on your face and you know that he hasn’t really left yet. He leans down and kisses your forehead. And ever so lightly he kisses your nose not wanting you to wake up. And you feel him hesitate, but he kisses your lips anyway. It is so soft you wonder if he actually is there but enough to drive you insane that you force yourself to not kiss him back.

“God –I missed you.” He breathes by your lips. “Goodnight Jae Min.” He gives you a chaste kiss and you float away under the covers. You hear the door click and unclick that when you open your eyes, he’s no longer around. You close your eyes and wonder.

How will I be able to sleep after he just barged in and out like that?

---

And I know you've been waiting for this.
And no, Jae Min didn't die, obviously. ^^
And istg I cried while writing this chapter idk meh.
Okay so 'til next update. :D

ps. I really enjoyed reading your comments on the previous chapter. >.<