When she opened her eyes. Sleepiness still comforting her. It took a while for her eyes to adjust to the bright setting.

She was back in a white box, where she spent several years of her late adolescent year, where they gave her chemotherapy to treat her cancer. But now, the setting seemed a bit odd and modified. Her memories were her enemy. She had chosen to forget. Now- when she wanted to remember, her memories were betraying her.

“Ow,”she squinted her eyes as the newly arrived pain in her head throbbed in heartbeat rhythm. She was alive.

“Are you okay?” a male voice asked, but it wasn’t a voice that she expected to hear. When she opened her eyes again, directly above Kai waved his hand, “are you awake? Are you hurting? Let’s me get the docto-”

“No!” she defendingly protested. “Don’t-.” a pause took place before she could find the strength to speak again, “please, don’t call the doctor.”

Seeing her managing to sit, he unconsciously gave  up calling for the doctor and instead he hurried offer his hands to lean her against the pillows.

“You have been unconscious for 4 days and-”

She cut in, her voice sounded dry and fragile, “How did you know I’m here?” She paused to breathe and resumed briefly, “how did I get here?”’

Her eyes were gave an expression as if she was completely lost, but he thought differently: she was found.

“Kris brought you to this hospital. He has been here second, everyday, watching you. Actually I just got here a few minutes ago. It’s a shame that I got to be the one who you first saw after waking up and not him. But it’s a good thing that I forced him to go home and fix himself with a hot shower, trust me,” Kai smiled, “you wouldn’t want to see the stage that he was in, had he still here right now.”

Silence.

“You know Kris?”  she retorted.

He was slow, in term of replying this time. “A-actually...,” he began with his voice covering in guilt, “actually, he’s my cousin. I’m sorry-”

“We've met before haven’t we?”

And it was understood. What she meant by ‘before’. Kai looked uneasy, his eyes searched the room looking for clues. What was right to say?

The answer was simple.

The truth.

“We meet before,” his eyes meet with her finally, “we meet at Sojung’s funeral- but I only realized much later on that you were actually Jessica. When Kris saw us in the bookstore together, that’s when he insisted that I should act as what I always do. But I really did like you. Still,” he corrected.  

She remembered. She was the sick one, the one with the cancer disease. When the news reached her, shocked her, Sojung died from a car accident.  

“How long,” she asked in a whisper.

“yeah” Kai encouraged her to go on.

“H-how long have I- been like this?”

“You think that you were Sojung for  good on and off two years.”

...Silence.

“Love is really mysterious.” Kai realized out aloud. 

With that comment Kai left her alone, claiming he was going to call Kris and let him know she woke up.

Finding herself idle, she laid back down on her bed. Twisted and turned, she realized why the room doesn’t smell like the hospital.

Inches from her bed, there stood a table.

On the table, there was a vase.

And the vase held a variation of warm colors: a bundle of loved tulips.

 

 

 

 

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