Kang Seulri is fighting all kind of pain she feels inside her, the man beside her has shed more tears than he ever did in his life and she can’t keep on watching him hurt himself like that. She has to stay strong and she has to fight the pounding sensation she feels in her head, she has to ignore the sickness she experiences in her stomach and she must keep her eyes open no matter how heavy they are.

She has to show Kyuhyun that she can keep at least one promise to him, that she will be fine, that she will stay awake and aware, she will let him fix what’s broken between them and if she heard him right, she’d happily allow him to create a new life for both of them. The cost of her brighter future lays on her own hand, all she needed to do is to fight the natural urges to close her eyes and collapse. Sound very simple yet really hard to do for her right now.

Kyuhyun has lost his words beside her as his cries takes over what he wanted to say to her. He never felt his heart ache so badly like this, regrets have taken over his emotion and he keeps on thinking what ifs.

What if he stayed with her tonight the way she asked him?

What if he didn’t do his mean act just to intentionally hurt her?

What if he took his disappointment like a man should and forgive her?

What if he didn’t say those words to her?

Maybe Kang Seulri would lie in his arms in her small yet comfortable bed, maybe they will cry together as a result of their fight the way it always happened for them, maybe she’ll hide her face in the curve of his neck to find her comfort and maybe he’ll be hugging her tight as he showers her with kisses.

He’s aware that wondering over something that was already too late is useless, he should focus on keeping her alert. But he’s just a man with a weak heart and his biggest test comes tonight.

His cry stopped only by the brushes of her fingers on his face, he knows Seulri wants to say a lot of things to him. There are so many things left unsaid between them and he still needs her explanations over her misled life. He said he didn’t care, but tonight he’d rather hear her defenses than let it buried forever in her heart.

“Seulri-ya.” He gasps in between his breath, “Can we start over? Do you want to start over?”

Her gaze dimmed a little but she tried to nod, that’s all she wants. She wants to leave it all behind and get a second chance for her life.

“Let’s start over, ne? I’ll find a way to make it work for both of us.” He kisses her hand, “You can try to get the degree you wanted and I will spare my time to teach you what you need to catch up.”

She squeezes his hand as a sign of agreement.

“We can move to our happy place, I’ll get a job at the local clinic and you can still go on with your study or you can be a stay at home mother and take care of our children, you can do whatever you want and we can go over the details later once you’re recovered. Do you want to do that with me? Can you please give me a chance to make it happen for us?” He continued his sincere plead.

Her tears fall for some more, a mix of happy tears and also pain that battles in her heart.

“But we can only do that.. if..” He catches his breath in between his cries, “If.. you stay here.. with me..”

Seulri wipe another tears that flows from his eyes.

“So..” He hiccups in between, “Let’s fight this.. together.. I won’t go anywhere.. I swear..”

She squeezes his hand three times like she’s been doing in the past minutes.

“I love you too,” He gasped, “I want to spend.. the rest.. of my life with you.. I don’t care about your past.. please.. please stay..”

His pleads interrupted by the sound of the open door, a doctor comes in a hurry and the man quickly grabs Kyuhyun shoulder.

“What’s her state?” His sunbae asks.

Kyuhyun need some times to gather himself as he catches his breath.

“NO TIME TO CRY CHO KYUHYUN! TELL ME HER STATE!”

“Blunt force trauma to the head, open skull fracture. We already hang four units of blood. She had bad MVD when she came in.” Kyuhyun answers quickly, “Lost of verbal skills, right pupil blown and possible bleeding in the brain.”

The remaining doctors in the room gets up to greet the neurosurgeon that just arrive.

His sunbae take put on his head scarf and placed the mini head lamp to help him examines Seulri. “What’s the name of the patient?”

“Kang Seulri.” Kyuhyun answers for her.

“Kang Seulri-ssi, can you listen to me?”

She blinks and squeezes Kyuhyun’s hand that’s still holding hers.

“She can, doctor. Tactical movement still works.” Kyuhyun answers again.

“Good.” He takes his place on top of her head. “Now I will cut you open to take care of the bleeding inside your skull, I will numb you, but I need you to stay awake so I can continue to check on your senses. Can you do that for me?”

She blinks again.

Kyuhyun and his sunbae look at each other and with a simple nod they are now ready to safe Seulri.

“Somebody pull in the craniotomy tray (surgical saw to open the skull)! We already wasted enough time, she still has a chance!” The new doctor hissed behind his surgical mask.

*

*Byun Jeongha

Seulri looked at her wall clock, it’s four o’clock and she knew that on Thursday Kyuhyun usually finished his shift around that hour. She put on a pretty looking outfit and sat patiently on the space next to her rooftop house. While her eyes hunted for the sight of him, her mind wondered what kind of activity that would make her weird obsession over seeing him looked normal. She didn’t want to look like a weird stalker in his eyes yet at the same time she couldn’t refuse not to take a look into his appearance just for a day.

She figured eating ice cream on the stairs looked casual enough and she just pretended to be busy with the ice cream on her hands while her eyes looked around for him. As usual, Cho Kyuhyun got off his car at around four o’clock. He put his head down and dragged himself towards the stairs of their building, to him, the best part of his day was to go home and see her face. He knew she was waiting for him and he liked the little attention she gave him, but that day was different, that day Kyuhyun had the worse day in the history of his residency.

He passed the fourth floor where he lived and continued to climbed the stairs to the rooftop house, glad to see the one he needed just stand-by on the stair cases with ice cream in her hands.

“It’s autumn, Seulri-ya.” He greeted her then took off his coat.

“You were the one that taught me to eat ice cream to match the weather.” She said with a big grin on her face.

He came closer and wrapped her exposed thigh with his coat, “Your outfit I mean, aren’t you cold?”

She shook her head and studied the frown on his face. “Did something happened in the hospital?”

Kyuhyun exhaled loudly and leaned onto the wall next to him, “I lost a patient.”

She took her ice cream away from , “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Nah, it’s fine. I mean she’s old and she had last stage of cervical cancer. She had the time of her life and everything.” He looked down then took his seat one step below her.

“But your face looks like hell now oppa.” She finished her ice cream and leaned closer to him, “Do you want me to buy you ice cream to cheer you up?”

He shook his head but scoffed softly, “Can I talk to you instead?”

“Sure.” She placed her hands to frame her own chin.

“So this patient of mine was an old grandma that only had her husband to be beside her. She knew she was dying but begged us the doctors not to tell her husband, because she was afraid that he’d freak out to the news. In the other hand, the husband knew about her condition and begged us the doctors not to tell her the state she was in, because he’s afraid she’ll lost her will to live if she knew she’s dying.”

She curls her eyebrows but let him continued with his story.

“What broke my heart was, when she was struggled with her last breath, her husband just stood beside her and encourage her to go to a better place. When she finally left, we took out any machine that attached to her and the remaining ones were the heart pump, so she was medically dead but her heart still beating because of the machine.”

She nodded and paid closer attention.

“When we turned off the heart pump, her husband slowly took his place next to her and began to manually pumped her heart, so the heart monitor still beeped and not delivered the flat line.” He felt his eyes got hotter to his own story, “I had to took over for him, because he kept on whispering ‘I couldn’t let you die in my hands’. I had to be the person that took over, pumped her heart manually several times before I stopped and called her time of death.” His tears fell from his eyes.

“Oppa.” She braced herself to pat him on his back, “You did your best, don’t’ blame yourself.”

“I know, I just couldn’t place myself in his shoes. Loving someone that deep to the point you couldn’t let her go that easy.” He sobbed. “Oh God, I never been affected by a death of a patient this bad before.”

Seulri had no idea what she should do in a time like this. cheering him about it wouldn’t make things any better, he lost a patient and I affected him even after his shift was over.

“Can I do something to make you feel better oppa?” She finally asked.

Kyuhyun leaned his head on the wall and inhaled deeply, “I don’t know, how much free time you have laying in your hands?”

“Free as a bird.” She replied.

Kyuhyun smirked playfully, “Grab your overnight bag, Seul. Let’s go somewhere.”

“Ne?”

“You asked if you can do anything to make me feel better didn’t you? I need an overnight trip.” His face suddenly dominated in a big forced grin, “Don’t let me down.”

“Now?”

“Now!” He got up from his sit and grabbed her hand with his.

Three hours’ car ride and a ferry ride later had brought them to an isolat