The transition zone where a warm air mass is replacing a cooler air mass. Warm fronts move slower than cold fronts, due to how cold air is denser and therefore less easy to remove from the Earth's surface.

Despite slowly regaining consciousness, Kyungsoo couldn’t manage to open his eyes. He laid in bed, still motionless, listening to the sound of an alarm clock furiously beeping next to his head. The quickened beeps pierced through his ears, making him feel dizzy and nauseated. He wondered how tollers were able to carry out their daily job of swinging gigantic church bells back and forth every hour, when he couldn’t even bear the sound of an alarm clock anymore.

Next, he heard the footsteps of several people rushing towards him. Kyungsoo wished they would stop bothering him at this ungodly hour. Everyone was speaking at the same time, the sound waves of their voices battling for dominance in the atmosphere. The boy couldn’t make out what they were saying, but a few words managed to free themselves from the loud clutter.

“What is he doing here?”

“Get him out, immediately.”

He wanted to protest, but like his eyelids, his mouth wouldn’t open.

You can't just take him away. I need h- We need each other.

With great effort, he managed to elevate his hand from the surface of his bed. He heard a few gasps, before falling back asleep.

The sun had risen by the time Kyungsoo managed to open his eyes. Bright rays of light shone into the room, forcing him to cover his face with his hands. The natural light reminded him of something, though he couldn’t recall what exactly. It bothered him.

In an instant, the sunlight was gone, allowing him a better view of the room he was in.

He gulped, realizing he wasn’t home after all.

A tall man he’d never seen before flashed him a crooked smile as he walked back from the now veiled window. “That’s better, isn’t it?”

The boy didn’t answer.

“You’re probably wondering who I am and why you’re here. Give me one second.” The unknown figure walked to the medical machines, jotting some stats down on a large notepad. The crooked smirk reappeared as he closed his notes and sat down on the bed, by the boy’s feet.

Kyungsoo didn’t want him to, but found no strength to protest. He used his arms to slowly raise himself up and leaned his back against the headboard.

“My name is Dr. Riley. You’re in the Geonggang hospital.” The man paused, expecting some sort of response from the patient. Kyungsoo merely stared at him, his round eyes now fully open.

The doctor cleared his throat. “Could you tell me your name? Do you remember?”

Kyungsoo nodded. Yes, he did remember. But his lips wouldn’t move.

“You remember?”

The boy nodded once more.

“It’s Kyungsoo. Do Kyungsoo,” Dr. Riley slowly pronounced. “Could you repeat that for me?”

A shake of the head was all Kyungsoo responded with.

“You can’t speak?”

Another shake of the head.

The doctor frowned, scribbling a small note on his document. “How about this: I’ll state some assumptions and you’ll tell me if they’re correct or not. Then we’ll work from there. Just make a circle with your hand if you think it’s true, and make an X if you see it as false. Does that sound alright?”

Kyungsoo lifted up his hand and adjoined his fingers in a circle.

“Okay. So Kyungsoo, you’re 16 years old, is that correct?”

Circle.

“And… the year is 2011?”

Another circle.

Dr. Riley nodded as he recorded the information in the file he was holding. “Good, good,” the man muttered, before looking back up. “And Kyungsoo, do you remember being admitted into this hospital?”

X.

“So you don’t know what got you here in the first place?”

X again.

“Okay,” the tall doctor frowned. “Could you think of a reason you’d ever even have to go to the hospital?”

It took a while for Kyungsoo to process this question, but he finally raised his hands up again. Circle.

“Was it… a car accident?”

X.

“A sudden illness?”

X once more.

“…A disability maybe?”

The boy felt his lip quiver slightly as he created a round shape in the air. He certainly remembered, but it was something he’d rather forget.

“Very good!” Dr. Riley exclaimed, a bit too happily for his patient’s liking. “So not all of your memory is lost! I must say I'm amazed: usually it takes days or even weeks for coma patients to come back to their senses. Don't worry, I bet your voice will come back soon. You’ll be fixed up in no time, then we can restart the trial.” The doctor smirked as he stood up from the hospital bed.

“That word – ‘trial’ – does it ring any bells?”

Feeling annoyed by the doctor’s endless questions, Kyungsoo let out a deep sigh while crossing his hands into an X shape.

“I see,” the man muttered as he took some more notes. “Well, I know enough. I guess I should give you a short briefing of what happened to you. As you probably remember, you were born paralyzed from the waist down and have been confined to a wheelchair for your whole life. Now here comes the tricky part. Take a few deep breaths.”

Kyungsoo didn’t take those few breaths. He held it all in, in fear of whatever the man was about to tell him.

“Back in 2011,” the doctor continued, “our nation’s two best neurosurgeons worked hard on a ground-breaking trial, meant to cure people like you. They made some astounding discoveries – all really complicated – that led to a new sort of operation. You were the first and only person it’s ever been tested on. The procedure was carried out but ended up having one major complication: you never woke up from it… that is, until now.”

Dr. Riley, who had proudly been pacing around the room, now halted by the white railing around the patient’s bed and looked him straight in the eyes. “Do Kyungsoo, you’re not 16 anymore, you’re 19 years old right now. The year is 2014. You’ve been in a coma for more than three years.”

X.

The boy crossed his lower arms in front of his face, hiding his shaky expression away from the crooked man in front of him. The words violently echoed through his ears, juddering his head like a destructive earthquake. It didn’t make sense. Kyungsoo had tried to follow along, but those simple words had been enough to destroy the already shattered pieces of his memory, leaving nothing but dust and rubble.

He’d heard of people being in a deep state of unconsciousness for days, weeks, months, maybe even years. It was possible, but that necessarily make this true. Because it wasn’t. It couldn’t be.

Tears welled up in his round eyes as he lowered his head and hid underneath the hospital blanket. He had been lying under it for a while, but only now did he realize how much he hated it. How much he hated this room. How much he hated the gnarled expression on the doctor’s face. How much he hated himself.

This wasn’t true. It really wasn’t.

The deafening screams in his head suddenly mixed with a raised voice.

“Kyungsoo! Kyungsoo! I asked you a question!” Dr. Riley barked as he fumbled around with one of the machines next to the patient’s bed. “This is important! Calm down, I’m giving you an extra dose… there. This should calm you down. Listen to me.”

Despite the extra drugs that now flowed through his veins, the boy couldn’t stop feeling agitated. He needed to reorder his thoughts, to reconstruct the framework, and he needed to do it by himself. Why couldn’t this guy leave him alone?

“Kyungsoo! For the last time, can you wiggle your toes for me?!”

No, he thought to himself. No of course I can’t, you dumb prick. I’m a limp piece of that’s been paralyzed since birth, you said it yourself. Stop bothering me.

Before he knew it, Dr. Riley had yanked the blanket off his legs and took one of Kyungsoo’s feet in his free hand.

“This’ll hurt,” he spoke with a stoic tone. “There are other ways to test your reflexes, but this method is by far the most effective.” 

As the scorching tip of the weird instrument made contact with the sole of his foot, Kyungsoo let out a scream so loud it could have woken up the entirety of patients in the hospital building. 

The sudden perception of extreme heat on his skin pushed the boy over the edge. Kyungsoo’s screams only intensified as he wrestled his limbs around – all of them. It felt like he was falling down a dark yawning pit, ready to swallow him whole. The voices started coming back, voices conveying astonishment and amusement. Dominant sounds of hollow laughter and deafening applause rang through his ears, pulsating through the body he had lost control over. He was being tormented by sadistic demons. He felt ridiculed, mocked and abused. The demons wouldn’t stop kicking him, pushing him around, poking him with spears. Kyungsoo would’ve been able to take it if it weren’t for the hurtful words that labelled him a fool, a mistake, an eyesore, a failure. He’d heard those words over and over, but that didn’t make them less painful. They would always hit hard, because Kyungsoo considered them true.

By the power of several sedating drugs, the boy slowly fell back asleep - again.

The tears hadn’t stopped trailing over his cheeks, thoroughly soaking his pillow.

Asleep. Perhaps that was how he was destined to exist. Not dead, but not awake either.

We all have good days and bad days, but most of them evaporate from our memory over time. It would be very tiring if you could remember every single day of your existence into detail, so it’s probably for the better.

Some days are exceptionally good. You might eat a mouth-watering dish, or have an eye-opening conversation. You might share a first kiss, win a contest, get a new job, visit a beautiful place. You might label it as ‘the best day of your life’. Truth is, you can’t really say that until you reach the end of your life, right? How could one be sure that the best day isn’t yet to come? How often have you called a day ‘the best day of your life’?

Picking one specific day as the best day of your life - so far - is difficult for a lot of people. Selecting the worst day of your life might be a bit easier.

Kyungsoo was five years old when he had his first P.E. lesson in elementary school.

Going to school was something he had looked forward to from the day he could talk. To him, every day was an opportunity to learn something new. He made it his goal in life to learn as much as possible. He finished his schoolwork at a pace no one else could keep up with. As soon as he finished it, he would work ahead. As soon as he’d worked his way through his schoolbooks, he’d read other things – anything he could find lying around the house. Kyungsoo loved to learn.

But in his first P.E. class, he learnt something he’d rather have stayed oblivious about.

“Alright, that leaves us with Kyungsoo. Go ahead, join the blue team.”

“But teacher, we’re playing basketball! I don’t want him on our team! It’s not fair!”

“Why not? This way both teams have ten players.”

“But he’s in a wheelchair! He can’t use his legs, which makes him only half a person!”

“Hmm. I suppose you’re right. I guess that means the blue team has a handicap in the game, haha!”

Since that day, Kyungsoo had been in many similar situations. He had started to notice how people stared at him on the streets. He could almost hear them guessing what kind of disability he had. He noticed how people crouched down when they talked to him. His classmates started calling him ridiculous names. They aggressively pushed his wheelchair around, knowing that the boy couldn’t fight back. They pushed him under cold showers. They pushed him off hills. In most cases the bullies would eventually help him back up when his wheelchair toppled over. But Kyungsoo would never forget the faces of those that didn’t.

On the first day of high school, a tall, fat guy with a crooked nose had invited him to eat lunch on the roof of the building. When the elevator reached the top floor, he had raced Kyungsoo’s wheelchair over the tiles and let go of the handles. The wheelchair toppled over, resulting in a broken rib. The fat guy had laughed in his face before sprinting back to the elevator, leaving Kyungsoo all by himself for nearly three hours, defenceless against the torrential rain.

Later that day, a teacher had found him by chance. Kyungsoo didn’t even have the energy to cry or scream about it anymore. He was used to it, accepting his inferiority.

Kyungsoo had lived through many horrid days, but the day of his first P.E. class had been the worst. The day he realized he’d never be good enough. The day he decided he’d never deserve to be happy. That he would always be a failure.

His upper body might work perfectly; his lower half would always confine him to a chair.

His intelligence might make his mind strong; the prison he called his body would always be weak.

He’d never be good enough.

After all, he was only half a person.

People have positive associations with the ‘best days of their life’. Why is that?

The worst day of your life is far more significant. It gives us a definite promise: a promise that things can only get better in the future, for the worst has passed already.

Waking up was something Kyungsoo would probably never get used to. Despite the blue curtains being drawn, blocking out the bright sunlight, he still had trouble to open his eyes fully. He his side and let out a painful groan. He wasn’t sure why his throat felt that sore.

As he squinted against the light coming from the hallway, he laid eyes on Dr. Riley’s tall stature standing in the hallway, the white phone on the wall glued to his left ear. His shoulders shook as he let out a thunderous laugh, a sound that made the patient cringe.

He only heard fragments of the man’s phone conversation, but the few sentences he heard were enough to realize that the man was talking about the medical trial Kyungsoo was a part of, the same trial he had mentioned earlier. The boy frowned as he listened. It was like he was listening to a story about someone else, while simultaneously realizing it was his story.  Seungsoo, his older brother, had admitted an application for him. Kyungsoo was born with a neurological handicap, and two skilled neurosurgeons had been working on an innovative trial in the hopes of changing the face of medicine. Seungsoo was overjoyed when he heard about the news of Kyungsoo’s admittance to the program, however the younger boy wasn’t as enthusiastic. Out of the hundreds of applicants, they had picked him? He was someone that did not deserve to be cured. He deserved to be miserable. He wasn’t worthy of life.

He suddenly remembered being admitted to the hospital. For months, the doctors performed countless of tests on him, fed him all kinds of drugs and electroshocks, and observed him non-stop. The stern faces of Mr. and Mrs. Kim, the two neurosurgeons in charge of the trial, always managed to send cold shivers down his spine. Apparently they were married and even had a son, though they considered him an ‘accident’ before anything else.

Kyungsoo wanted to die. The shimmering reflection of hope in his brother’s eyes was the only thing that kept him going. He wondered why his brother wasted so much time caring about only half a person.

Dr. Riley was bragging on the phone. Apparently he was speaking to a news reporter and eager to glorify himself in front of the media. He kept saying that the two brilliant neurosurgeons were at a seminar in Singapore, but that he was equally as important and fully available. He was exaggerating the part he had played in this whole mess. He was claiming that ‘his’ patient could walk again, and that he, as chief of the hospital wing, had had a large part to play in that. He was already promising interviews, pictures and classified information.

Kyungsoo felt anger boiling up at the bottom of his stomach. How dare this man put himself on such a pedestal?

The phone call dragged on for many more minutes. Kyungsoo swore he could see the man rubbing his palms together as he hung up. Right at that moment, the man’s pager went off. He nodded and gathered some nurses. The boy rolled his eyes as he watched the team walk into his room, ready to disturb him again.

“Good! You’re awake. You had quite the panic attack earlier,” Riley spoke.

If looks could kill, the doctor would have had a noose around his neck. Kyungsoo wasn’t having any of it.

“Anyway. Since you’re no longer in a coma, we’re going to move you to a different wing. You don’t belong here anymore! Congratulations!”

The boy’s glare intensified, tightening the imaginary noose around the man’s neck.

One of the nurses suddenly spoke up, her voice soft and soothing. “Sorry honey, it must be confusing for you to move around so soon, but we need this room for someone else. On the bright side, your new room has a TV!”

Kyungsoo flashed her a polite smile. Watching TV was the last thing he felt like doing, but it was nice of her anyway.

“Alrighty! Let’s get moving!” Riley clapped his hands as the nurses fumbled around with the hospital bed and the machines connected to the patient. Apparently, the whole set-up was designed to be mobile. Within minutes, he was out of the room he had spent the last three years in. It made him feel a bit dizzy.

Dr. Riley proudly marched in front of the small crew that pushed the bed through the hallways. The friendly TV-nurse had taken it upon herself to make small talk with Kyungsoo, though he didn’t respond. She talked about meaningless things, but the sound of her voice was pretty nice so the patient didn’t complain.

“Oh watch out! Traffic in the hallways!” Dr. Riley exclaimed in that annoying happy tone of his. Kyungsoo had no clue what the man was talking about – that is, until the nurses steered the hospital bed as closely to the wall as possible, making way for a bed coming from the opposite direction, heading straight to N112. The bed rushed by in a second.

Kyungsoo’s voice was hoarse and raspy, but nevertheless very audible.

“…Jongin?”

Sometimes a second is all it takes to make your day. Or to ruin it.

Kyungsoo wasn’t sure which of the two was applicable. Maybe it was half and half.

A/N:

POV-switch! I hope this chapter managed to give you all some insight on Kyungsoo's past and present. It seemed only fair.

As for Jongin... Well, I guess you'll have to stay patient (...no pun intended) (omg no)

Feel free to share your thoughts through my inbox or the comment section below if you feel like it ho ho ho~

See you guys next time ^^

♥ pominizz ♥