A/N: Hey guys, I know it's been a while. Aside from grad school and now having a full-time job (like an actual adult lmao), I've been dealing with the news of having lost someone very important to me. That being said, please don't ever feel like there is no end to the darkness. As someone that wanders in it often, I know that there is always a light that will guide me back out. 

If you or anyone you know is struggling, please don't hesitate to seek help by contacting the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-8255. Calls are confidental. Or you could visit their website here. 

As for this chapter, you guys know how it goes. But luckily, I think we're past the big ones now. TW: Crime, mental illness, hospitalization.

It was a strange thing to be out and under. There was darkness. There was light. There was the sound of familiarly strange voices. It felt like a dream almost, one that she continued waking up from only to fall into again. Like a black ocean that pulled her to and from the shore with its dark waves.

Until it dragged her underneath the waves and she knew nothing.

“Why isn’t she waking up?”

“The doctors don’t know.”

“She should be waking up. The surgeries went fine. She should be waking up.”

“Jiho-ah.”

“Hyung. Why did this happen?”

A coma. That’s what the doctors had said. Song Ma Ri had gone into a coma after surgery. They tried to keep a positive outlook, but Taewoon could see the worry and fear hidden deep within their eyes. To their medical minds, they did not understand why Ma Ri had gone into deep slumber. The surgeries had been successful. Her body was recuperating wonderfully.

So why wasn’t she waking up?

Taewoon took her hand in his, lacing his trembling fingers through her limp ones. They felt cold, probably due to the low temperature of the hospital room. He caressed her scraped skin, pressing soft kisses to her beaten flesh.

The doctors did not know why she wasn’t waking up, but Taewoon had the nasty, black suspicion that Ma Ri did not want to wake up. Her anxious heart had finally found rest, the kind that was so deep she would not willingly relinquish if she could help it.

Taewoon swallowed the knot in his throat, pressing her hand between both of his. He bowed his head, exhaling a shaky breath.

“Please,” he whispered. “Please wake up, Marisol.”

The world seemed to be spinning in chaos. Zico found himself being ushered in and out of police departments, further into the legal disaster that ensued Eun Mi’s accident.

Accident.

Zico scoffed at the word. The media reported it as an accident for the better part of the first few days until someone had finally had the guts to call it what it had been: a murder attempt.

Tae Jun and Zico had been eyewitnesses, but Zico was further involved as the motive behind the attempt.

How disgusting. How distasteful. How utterly inhuman. The girl behind the attack had been a former fansite master, one that Zico had hardly any recollection of.

It had been quite a scene. The moment she had seen him she had tried to proclaim their undying love for one another. But Zico didn’t remember her, and he had told the detectives and the prosecutors the exact same thing.

“I might have known her as a fan at one point or another, but I make an effort not to get involved with those that disrespect my privacy.”

It was a mess. A complete and utter legal mess.

And Eun Mi still wasn’t waking up.

Song Min Ah tapped Taewoon on the shoulder. When he didn’t stir, she shook him awake. Taewoon’s head came up, his eyes swollen from exhaustion and grief.

“Taewoon-ah,” she whispered. “You should go home. Get some rest.”

“What time is it?” He rubbed his eyes.

“Around 10 P.M.”

He ran his hands over his face and hair, sighing. “Have you had dinner?”

Min Ah’s throat tightened. The past couple of weeks, Taewoon had remained constant. He had shown up before Ma Ri had been taken into surgery and hardly left her side since then. Min Ah and Taewoon had been rotating nights, until it became too unbearable for him and he had refused to leave since.

Min Soo had attempted to dissuade him, making for a weak argument about his career. Taewoon wouldn’t listen, not about this. Min Ah suspected that it was because he had a never-ending feeling that he had already lost too much; he would not lose Ma Ri.

Min Ah could see why her niece loved him. He cared deeply, loved deeply, and his kindness was so evident that he could not easily bypass it without hurting his own feelings or those of the people around him.

“Yes, I had dinner earlier. Have you eaten?”

Taewoon shook his head. His cellphone chimed, doubtlessly with another message from Jiho. The brothers had been in constant communication since the incident.

Min Ah’s eyes focused on her niece. She looked so beaten and worn. Not for the first time, Min Ah wondered if she had done the right thing in bringing her to South Korea. Perhaps it would have been better to stay home. It would have been difficult, but Marisol would have found her strength again. Somehow. Right?

Tae Jun sat in one of the old vocal practice rooms. Eun Mi had spent so much time in that tiny room that she had carved her initials on the doorframe: M.R. For the longest time, Tae Jun thought they stood for Ma Ri. Now he knew better.

He wished he had known better. He wished he hadn’t lost sight of what was truly important, that he had kept his head on straight and done his best to protect those that were his family. Instead of protecting L6, he should have been protecting CELESTIAL. He should have been helping Eun Mi.

Someone opened the door without knocking. Tae Jun squinted up at the outlined figure, recognizing it as Su Jong’s.

“Are you going to continue moping?”

The hard edge on his voice made Tae Jun wince. He didn’t know how to approach Su Jong. If he had had a difficult time reigning in his wild nature before, he hadn’t the slightest inkling as to what he would do know that Eun Mi was not around to help him.

No. Tae Jun shouldn’t think like that. Eun Mi would wake up. She had to. She loved life too much. She loved too much to simply let all that love slip from her hands.

“We’re going to visit unnie.” Tae Jun couldn't see her, but he heard Ieanna speak from somewhere behind Su Jong. “It’s about time that you went to see her, don’t you think?”

Tae Jun did think so. He'd thought about it every day since the incident. But he had been so horrible to her. How was he to face her? He couldn’t.

Su Jong and Ienna waited. When he made no notion to stand, Su Jong slammed the door shut.

“Suit yourself,” he heard him growl.

“Isn’t there something you can do?”

“All that’s left to do is wait for her to wake up.”

“It’s been two weeks! Don’t you have a way of waking her up?”

Taewoon tried to tune out Min Ah’s arguments with the doctor. They had come to check on Ma Ri, to check on the healing of her bones and the rest of her beep-beep-beeping vials. They had found everything stable, same as the day before and the day before and the day before for the better part of the past two weeks.

Min Ah was starting to lose hope. She became more frantic with each passing day. Taewoon couldn’t blame her. He wouldn’t blame her. He felt his own hope strangling his heart, a viciously powerful thing that wouldn’t allow him to breathe.

If he spent just one more minute beside her, if he kissed her sullen cheek one more time, if he whispered he loved her gently enough, maybe she would wake up.

Taewoon’s prayers were wearing thin. He no longer knew what to say to God or Mary or the saints. All he had now were his raw feelings and his growing, pulsing fear coupled with an endless supply of tears. Taewoon hadn’t known that he could cry that much.

“…woon-ah…”

Taewoon pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes. He could feel the sobs coming. They would wreck him. Wreck and wreck and wreck him until he could feel the shattered pieces of his soul rattling around inside him.

A soft pressure on his head made him stop. He raised his eyes slowly, hoping against hope.

Ma Ri’s eyes were on him, glazed over but open. She tried to his hair, wincing at the pain of moving.

“Marisol!”

He stood over her, taking her hand in his, kissing it over and over. Ma Ri smiled, her blinks slow and heavy.

“Taewoon-ah.” Her voice was hoarse and dry from lack of use. “Why are you crying?”

“Shh,” he pushed her hair back, kissing her face softly. “Don’t talk right now. It will be okay, Marisol, everything will be okay.”

Whether Ma Ri remembered what had happened and the circumstances that had landed her in a hospital bed, it was difficult to say. She closed her eyes and the seconds it took for her to reopen them filled Taewoon with dread.

“I’m thirsty.”

Taewoon wept with joy. She wasn’t going back under. He placed a desperate kiss on her lips, promising her he would return before she noticed he was gone.

Ma Ri watched him rush out of the room, calling for Min Ah and the doctor. She smiled after him.

“Silly,” she whispered against the pain, “I always notice when you’re not beside me.”