Minseok arrived at the hospital two days later at one o’clock.

He met a rather excited Kyungjin whose eyes brightened up when she saw him come in.

“Hi!” she cheered.

He lifted his hand up in acknowledgement.

“I was wondering when you were coming by. I was so excited, you don’t even know.”

He nodded, thinking, “And you don’t even know that I do,” reaching into his pocket to grab the object he brought along.

She noticed his rummaging and leaned forward, trying to get a better look. “Is that for me?” she asked excitedly.

He stopped moving and looked up. “You were the one who told me to bring you something.”

She smiled. “So what is it?”

He pulled out a grab pebbled stone and handed it over to her.

She the cool stone and examined it, turning it over it in her hands. “It’s pretty.”

The stone fit in the palm of her hand, but what made it more special was the fact that it was roughly shaped like a heart.

He watched her and explained, “I found it when I was walking here.”

She brought it above eye-level, slightly turning it to the right and to the left. She smiled again and set it on the table next to her.

Minseok stared at her. “Can I leave now?”

She looked curiously at him. “Already? We haven’t even had a proper conversation.”

“I didn’t know that was a requirement,” he replied.

She rolled her eyes. “Now it is. Why don’t we get to know each other better?”

He watched her with disinterest. “I never found the need to know others better.”

“Not even your parents?” she replied in a surprised tone.

He shrugged. “I know enough.” He paused. “But I am curious about something.”

She nodded for him continue.

“Why did you get so mad at me last time?” He looked at her confusedly before sitting down on the chair that was situated diagonally from the foot of the bed in the corner of the room. “It was the truth. Wouldn’t you rather hear the truth than a hopeless expectation?”

She stared at him with a frustrated expression. “I already knew.”

“You knew?” he murmured, surprised.

She sighed and leaned against the pillows behind her back. “Yeah, I know. I know that finding a bone marrow donor is difficult. I know that even if I do, that in my case, the surgery for it is fifty percent chance of successful transplantation and the risk of death is twenty percent. I know. The doctor told me this ages ago. I even found out for myself before he told me.”

He frowned, “Then why did the doctor lie? Why were you so upset even if you knew?”

She looked at him like he was dense in the brain. “Because of my mother.”

“Your mother?”

She sighed, looking past him and out the window. “My mother has this undying hope that I’ll live to see the next day. She’s been delicate about my condition ever since I’ve been hospitalized again. She can’t handle the thought that I might die someday. So my doctor and I agreed to let her down slowly. That for now, we will tell her white lies until she manages to cope with it.”

She turned at him and looked sadly at him. “Something you obviously didn’t understand. I don’t know how you knew, but next time, don’t do that again.”

He watched her carefully before saying, “I’m sorry.”

She shook her head. “We already apologized already. No need for anymore.”

He paused. “Another question.”

“Well, aren’t you curious? What is it?”

“I may have known the statistics of the success of you living, but I don’t know what exactly are sick with.”

She let a small laugh, turning away from him and stared out the window. “That’s right, you did somehow knew the probability of if I was going to live or not. Are you going to tell me how you knew?”

Minseok didn’t say anything, only waiting for her to answer.

She chuckled, “Of course you wouldn’t say anything. And I guess I should have explained that first. I have severe aplastic anemia which is a blood disorder where my body doesn’t make enough new blood cells in the bone marrow. If untreated, it may lead to death. ”

She turned back to look at him. “In my case, it’s so severe that the only way to recovery is for a bone marrow transplant. But it’s hard to come by someone willing to donate bone marrow as well as finding someone with the same HLA antigens as me, which is what makes up my tissue type.”

She sighed, “I have no siblings and my parents don’t have a similar match for me as well. My doctor told me it was better to find a donor with exact match, a six out of six match of the major HLA antigens, but even a five out of six has yet to appear. Which is why I’ve been waiting for someone with the same match as me to come along.”

“For a long time apparently,” he murmured softly.

She frowned, hearing his mumbles. “Yes, it’s been nine years since I first found out that I had aplastic anemia.”

He nodded thoughtfully.

She looked at him curiously. “You don’t seem surprised at the fact that I’ve waited so long. People usually do.”

He shrugged, not knowing how to explain that he heard her think those words before she said them.

“No alternate treatment? You simply need a transplant?” he questioned.

She snorted. “Simply? It’s not so simple. I could get supportive care by getting blood transfusions, but if I have too many, over time I could have an iron buildup. And that may lead to a less successful transplant in the future.”

She pointed at him in a mockingly scolding way. “Which is why this situation is not so ‘simple’.”

He nodded again and hesitated for only a second before asking, “Do you think you’re going to die?”

She looked taken aback for a split-second and pursed her lips in slight amusement. “And I thought I was straight-forward.” She hesitated before answering, “Well, yes. I mean, everyone’s going to die someday.”

He gave her a displeased look in return, indicating that was not was he was talking about.

She laughed briefly. “If you’re asking if I think I’m going to die early…” she trailed off, hesitating. “Then, yes. I do. Even if I do get a transplant and it’s successful, there still might be some complications afterwards. I still might die early.”

Minseok was a bit surprised at her composure over this. How that even without her saying, he knew that she had accepted her reality. That she might die before and even after a transplant. And she was completely fine with it.

“You’re okay with it,” he stated.

“It is that obvious?” she grinned. “It’s not like I want to die. I’ve already cried over it long ago. But how does that help? I might as well live each day happily.”

“But you’re hospitalized, which means you can’t do much,” he observed.

She grimaced. “Truthfully, I want out of this place. I’ve been hospitalized when I was first diagnosed. But that was for a few years or so, and even that wasn't really much. They deemed my case as manageable. All I had to do was take medicine and that would suppress my immune system.”

She paused and looked at the window, reminiscing her past. “But then my stamina and strength began to deplete even more than before. I was getting fatigued easily, my skin was oddly pale, and I began to bruise easier. I already knew that these were symptoms of aplastic anemia, but it was getting worse. I went to go get a check-up again, and I found out that my aplastic anemia was a severe case. That was five years ago. I’ve been stuck in here ever since.”

She turned to him with a bright face. “However, I’ve been thinking. I might die very soon. Sure, I might be cured with a transplant, but why wait doing nothing? Why should I measly wait for somebody to save me? I want to do things that I want to do. I want to live my life like I want to.”

“But those things don’t involve you leaving this town,” he murmured to himself.

She glanced at him and gave him a peculiar look. “I’m beginning to think you know things that people never mentioned before. You want to explain why?”

Minseok shook his head.

She rolled her eyes. “Why do I even bother?” She looked at him. “As funny as it sounds, I want to live out my life in this town. I grew up in a big city before moving out here when I got sick. I never found the busy city beautiful, but this place, this place where nature and humans coexist peacefully, I love it. So, that’s why I want to spend what could be my last few days here.”

She grinned happily and reached next to her to take a notebook of the table. “And that’s where you come in.”

She threw the book at Minseok, and even though he knew she was going to throw it, he made no move to catch it, only mildly curiously looking at it as it fell a short distance in front of him.

“You’re supposed to catch it,” she muttered exasperatedly.

Minseok only glanced at her briefly and reached down to pick of the black notebook. He flipped it open to see a list of activities such as eating the most expensive food in this town. “It’s a bucket list,” he murmured. “And everything has to do with this town.”

“Yep! And you’re going to help.”

“I am?” he mumbled monotonously.

She grinned. “I can’t get my mom to help. She would probably have a heart attack if she found out.” She bit the inside of her cheek in thought. “I could ask my cousin, but he would probably have a fit as well. And I’m not really close with anyone else that would be willing to help me.” She brightened up. “So that leaves you, my lovely stranger.”

“You know that I’m obliged to come once a week,” he reminded.

She shrugged. “So? I’m a patient person. I can wait a week.”

He blinked at her slowly. “Let me review what you told me. You want me to help you with you bucket list. And in order to do that, you have leave the hospital where possibly your doctor and family do not know that you are.”

She shot him a smile and a thumbs up. “You got it!”

He blinked at her again. “No.”

The smile on her face fell. “Why not?”

“You’re asking me to help you, a sick person, to leave the hospital. Why would I do such a thing?”

She frowned. “It’s not like I need to stay at the hospital. And it’s not like I have to stay in bed all the time either. I’m free to move around, but my mom is the one who won’t let me leave the hospital.”

She blew out her cheeks slowly, trying to figure a way to convince the boy in front of her. She looked at the door and shouted, “I know!”

Minseok looked up at her.

“If I get my doctor’s approval, will you be willing?”

Minseok hesitated. He didn’t want to get involved with this girl’s shenanigans. It seemed too much effort. But she was persistent and her thoughts were constantly probing him to help her in large shouts.

He sighed. “Fine. If your doctor agrees,” he finally conceded.

She shouted a cheer of joy and jumped out of bed. She put on her fuzzy blue slippers and ran out the room. “I’ll go find him!” she yelled as she disappeared.

Minseok watched as the door swung closed with a clack and turned his head to stare mindlessly in front of him. He doubted that her doctor would agree.

But as time ticked by and the more he thought about it, he began to regret agreeing it. She was confident to the extent that she thought that once Minseok agreed to her conditions, she believed his fate was set.

He wondered how exactly she knew that the doctor would side with her.

The door swung open and in came Kyungjin with her dragging the doctor in by his sleeve.

“Kyungjin, what’s the matter? Why are we rushing?” the doctor rambled.

“Tell him, Doctor Soo!”

“Tell what to whom?” he questioned, glancing around the room before his eyes fell on Minseok.

His eyes widened momentarily in surprise, but he cleared his throat and nodded in acknowledgement. Minseok barely moved his head in return.

“What’s he doing here?” the doctor asked Kyungjin, his voice dropping into a half-whisper.

She frowned, oblivious to the doctor’s discomfort. “I invited him.”

“What? Why?” he asked in shock.

“I can’t?” she asked, starting to notice the doctor’s odd behavior towards Minseok.

He whispered to her, “Isn’t he a bit… unusual to you?”

She furrowed her eyes at him. “Unusual?”

“You know, how he knew that I was lying. And that he knew all those things. Things that I thought at the time.”

She bit her lips. “I do find it weird that he knew, in fact, I find it extremely weird. I find it weird that he knows what I’m really thinking. But I don’t let that bother me. Perhaps he’s just very intuitive and observant. And I won’t know unless he tells me, which I will patiently wait for him to.”

The doctor frowned and glanced at Minsoek.

Minseok, on the other hand, wasn’t too entirely bothered by the doctor’s wariness of him. In fact, the doctor’s reaction was on the mild side compared to some of the other reactions he had gotten in the past.

At least he wasn’t being called a freak or a monster. Those days he wished he didn’t remember. Those days were ones that led to his personality now.

And Minseok knew that the doctor’s distress was mostly over the fact that Minsoek blatantly revealed everything to Kyungjin’s mother. He more worried about the fact of Kyungjin and her mother’s situation rather than why this random boy somehow knew what he was really thinking.

“I’m sorry for saying you were lying and disclosing those facts to Mrs. Lee.”

The doctor and Kyungjin turned to look at Minseok who was still sitting in the chair.

The doctor watched him in surprise and smiled sheepishly. “It’s alright. I was just worried about how Kyungjin’s mother would react. She’s been rather fragile of the late.” He paused briefly and continued, “And I’m sorry for acting so suspicious around you. It’s feels strange when it seems like someone knows what you’re really thinking. It was almost verbatim at the time.”

“Hmmm,” Minseok hummed in response. He could feel the doctor relaxing and could hear his thoughts of that perhaps that was all a coincidence. Minseok was fine to let him think that.

“Now that that’s done, how about we get to what I brought you for,” Kyungjin piped up.

The doctor turned to her. “What exactly did you bring me here for?”

“Doctor Soo, it’s fine if I leave the hospital once in a while, right?”

He raised an eyebrow at her question. “Yes? But you knew that.”

“So it’s alright if Minseok brought be out once in awhile. No harm done, right?”

“I suppose. But what does that…”

“So it’s settled,” Kyungjin interrupted him. “Minseok? You promised.”

Minseok watched her in ridiculous amazement. “I never promised anything.”

“But you agreed to,” she said, grinning widely.

He sighed. “I know.”

The doctor looked at both at them. “Kyungjin, you know your mother wouldn’t approve.”

She smiled at him. “It’s not like you’re going to tell her, Doc.”

“And why not?” Minseok muttered in a bored tone from his seat.

“Because it’s fine that Kyungjin goes out once in awhile. And I always believed in fulfilling my patient’s wishes if it doesn’t endanger their health. Which is why I agreed to let down her mother slowly. And which is why I’m probably letting Kyungjin leave and not tell her mother about her future escapes.” He looked at Minseok and sighed. “Just make sure she doesn’t overexert herself, and bring her back before the day ends.”

Minseok stared at both of them. “This is all very wrong.”

Kyungjin laughed. “No, this is all very right.”

A/N: Don’t hate the doctor for his reaction to Minseok. I just wanted show brief look of the low side of the spectrum of how people treated Minseok when they realized that he knew what they were really thinking.

I’ll be having midterms for the next two weeks so it’s back to caves of my room to study for them. But I’ll try and update when I can.

Thanks for reading!