72 hours had passed, yet she was still asleep. 3 days had gone by, and Junho was still waiting in the same room, sitting on the same chair, by the same bed – holding the same hand. His own appearance was unkempt and dishevelled, but it was the least of his worries right then.

Time continued to tick away behind them as Junho waited (patiently) and unconsciously counted every passing second. He was afraid of closing his eyes, even though he badly needed the sleep because he wanted his face to be the first thing she sees when she opens her eyes.

He intertwined their fingers together and gently rubbed her thumb as he spoke, “Do you remember the first time we met, Sooyoung?”

“I just went there the other day by myself,” he continued in a dazed voice. “The place is still as beautiful as ever, Sooyoung-ah. I want to visit the place again – but this time, I want to go there with you. I want you to bring your sketch pad along and you can draw as many pictures as you like. And I will make you laugh like the first time you smiled for me, Sooyoung. I want to do that for you.”

He thought he heard a distinctive beep, but when he glanced over at the machine, nothing seemed different.

Junho slowly pressed his lips against the back of her hand before saying, “Do you remember our first date, Sooyoung?”

“I took you to a museum. You were so captivated by the art pieces there, weren’t you?” he chuckled softly. “You were so excited about this one exhibition – you almost knocked it over while expressing your enthusiasm and I had to...” he couldn’t help laughing at the memory. “...I had to quickly pull you away from there before they actually kicked us out. Then – “

Another loud beep.

But Junho was already too immersed in his own world to notice it. “...then I took you out for an ice-cream and we ended up cycling in the park where there were so many kids running around. You were laughing so much that you almost hit a tree.” He smiled, remembering how he barely managed to pull back her bike just mere seconds before it knock into the tree – only to have the two of them falling off their own bikes together.

“You had tears in your eyes and I could see how much you wanted to scream out loud due to the stinging pain. I felt so helpless and I didn’t know what else to do to stop the pain so I did the next best thing – I kissed you. That was the first time I kissed you...do you remember?”

While still holding onto her hand, Junho leaned forward in his seat and brought his face closer to hers. “This...” he whispered, struggling to hold back his tears. “...was how I kissed you.”

Slowly, with much delicacy, he placed his lips on hers and gently pressed them. He shut his eyes closed, letting the tears run down his face instead.

A tear touched Sooyoung’s face and right at that very second, her finger moved underneath his grasp. The machine immediately made loud beeping sounds, which caused Junho to pull away in surprise. At the same time, Sooyoung’s body jerked in response as the sounds started to get more deafening.

He punched the emergency button.

Junho paced back and forth the operating theatre restlessly. Every few seconds or so, he darted nervous glances at the big white clock mounted on the wall and he felt even more dreadful. It’s already been hours and they were still not out yet.

“Junho!” he heard a voice calling for his names as footsteps approached him from behind. Whirling around, he saw Doo Joon hurrying toward him, with Dong Woon closely behind him. “How is she? Is Sooyoung okay?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted, gulping hard as he pushed back his hair in frustration. “She was fine...I mean she was steady a-and...stable and I-I thought s-she – “

“Junho,” Doo Joon stopped him by placing both hands on his shoulders. “Take a deep breath. She will be alright – I know my cousin...if anything, she’s a fighter. She’ll fight through this.”

Unless she doesn’t have anything left to fight for...

Just then, the doors to the emergency room flew open and the doctor that had been attending to her, walked out with a grim expression on his face.

“That doesn’t look good...” Junho murmured, already fearing the worst. “He doesn’t have good news, Doo Joon...”

The bespectacled man didn’t waste a second delivering them the very-much anticipated news.

“Things are not looking so good for Sooyoung-ssi...”

No

“We’ve really tried our best...”

No way

“We’ll continue trying but we just wanted you to brace yourselves for the worst. It’s a touch-and-go situation now. Let’s all hope and pray for the best for her.”

Junho had already collapsed to the floor before the words were even out of the doctor’s mouth. He buried his face into his two hands regretfully, shoulders jerking uncontrollably as loud sobs escaped him.

Was this all his fault? Did he do this to her?

Is he really going to lose the love of his life forever?