The neurosurgeon and the rest of the doctors prepare the devices they need to operate on her head. The intern help to put half-circle aluminum frame to anchor her head and keep it steady while the doctor opens her up. Traditionally the doctors would operate on her based on the CT scan result, but in Seulri’s case, the longer they wait, the more worrying her brain hemorrhage would be so this time the neurosurgeon has to go blind on her.

They took out the breathing tube in and changed her airway from the long pipe inserted through her nose. The breathing tube in could prevent her from speaking while the neurosurgeon will try to wake up her senses and one of the things he needs to check is her verbal skills that still a problem at the moment.

Seulri is in pain still since not all of her body are being sedated, she begins to feel piercing pain on the side of her waist and on her chest when the doctors try to lift her upper body part to positioned her in an angle to easy the access for the neurosurgeon. She ignores the unnecessary pain because Kyuhyun told her that the main problem is her head wound, her sight begins to get blurry and she worries that the more she waits, the worse her other senses would get.

“Kang Seulri-ssi, I’m about to begin the operation.” He stands next to Kyuhyun that’s still holding her hand.

Seulri replies by squeezing his hand and let Kyuhyun be her messenger.

“Doctor Cho here will be responsible in keeping your senses alert.” He taps his hand on Kyuhyun’s shoulder. “First I will take care of your bleeding; after I remove some clotting I will stimulate all of your senses one by one by injecting several solutions into your brain. You won’t feel a thing I promise, but you must follow my lead. If I ask you to wiggle your finger, you have to do that. If I ask you to speak, you also have to try to do that. Do you understand?”

Seulri blinks one more time.

“Good.” He smiles at her. “Just look at my colleague here, he’ll stay beside you through the whole process.”

Kyuhyun gives his sunbae a little nod and the operation soon begins.

She felt at ease at first as she fills her head with the happy thoughts: that she’ll survive this hit, she’ll recover; Kyuhyun will stay by her side as he said he will. But her happy thoughts quickly interrupted by the sound of heavy machinery that rumbles only inches away from her left ear.

She widens her eyes and look at Kyuhyun in fear, she knows what this is, the new doctor is cutting into her skull at the moment and amazingly she didn’t feel anything—no matter how gruesome the image portrays in her he imagination.

“Seulri-ya, just look at me.” Kyuhyun talks to her, noticing the new fear in her eyes, “I will distract you from all of that, ne?”

She rubs her fingers softly on his palm and Kyuhyun does the same thing on her hand.

“Let’s focus on one thing, your recovery.” He lifts her hand to give it a kiss, “Once you recovered, we’ll do our runaway together, you can pick any place that you like, we will start over and we’ll live happily ever after. How’s that sound to you?”

She feels her tears fall from her eyes as she tries to smile to his words.

“We’ll do it one step at the time, but apparently this is the first step to our future together. You have to get through this first, okay?”

She holds his hand tighter.

As his sunbae goes deeper into her brain, Kyuhyun noticed something is changing from her face.

“Doctor, her right eye gets droopy.” He informs in alert, knowing it’s not a good sign.

“The bleeding is bigger than I thought, I have to quickly finish this or else she’ll have a .” He hissed behind his surgical mask. “SUCTION!”

*

She shifted briefly in her sleep, glued her back to the warmth she felt behind her as Kyuhyun embraced her from her back. He ran his fingers playfully across her left arm, traced her soft skin from the top of her shoulder, made his way down towards her elbow then linked his fingers in between hers once her reached her hand. He squeezed her hand three times before he lifted his body a little bit to give her a morning kiss on her shoulder.

She squeezed his hand back but refused to let go the comfortable warmth she felt on her back, she only turned her head to glance from her shoulder and let him climbed on top of her.

“Wake up, sleepy head.” He made himself comfortable as he spread her legs and positioned himself in between.

Seulri smiled shyly but her hand run through his hair, “I thought you said you won’t try to make your way with me.”

He giggled, “You know that’s impossible.” He lowered his head and used his nose to trace her long neck while his hand grazed her hip. “You have this irresistible charm for me.”

She placed her hands on his shoulders and pushed him to laid on his back, placed her head on top of his chest and enjoyed the sound of his beating heart.

Kyuhyun pulled the blanket closer to cover her exposed body and used his fingers to make twirls on her back. “I miss this.” He said.

“Me lying next to you?”

He chuckled and kissed the top of her head, “No, I miss lying comfortably like this with the person I love, waking up next to you, how long it has been since we last do this huh? The part is an added bonus.”

“.” She pinched his hip.

Seulri lifted her body and used her elbow to support her body, she lifted her fingers to trace some marks on his skin that she never saw before.

“Why are you frowning like that Seulri-ya?”

“What happened to you?” She pointed the first scar she saw on his left hand.

“Got that when I accidentally scratched my skin with a sharp stone in the army.” He explained, and pointed to another scar on his top arm, “This I got from the army also, we were practicing to handle hostage situation when one of my troop accidentally broke a window and I fell on top of it.”

She grimaced, “Did it hurt?”

“Nah, it healed.” He slipped her hair behind her ear. “Besides, it looked cool, don’t you think? Make me look manlier.”

Seulri laughed to his silly statement, “You know what make you look even manlier now?”

“Tell me.”

She ran her hand to his arm and gave him a firm grip, “This look manlier than I remember, I mean seeing your veins tighten up last night as you support yourself on top of me—that was really . Don’t even get me started on how y your wide shoulder looked like from my point of view.” She grinned with a playful dirty look in her eyes.

“Omo, what happened to my innocent girl? Where did you learn to like that?” He pinched her cheek but enjoyed the attention she gave him.

“And this.” She moved her hand to caressed his chin, “I don’t remember you grew this much hair back then.”

“I usually shave every morning, it’s a weird hobby of mine.” He agreed to that part of his changes, “I’ll shave later before we have breakfast.”

Seulri smiled widely and pucker her lips to give him a peck on his lips. She then placed her head back onto his chest with her arms hugged around him tightly.

“Oppa, is this a dream?” She whispered. “If it is, I don’t want to wake up. If I can stop the time, it’ll be here and now.”

In some ways Kyuhyun understood what she meant. They went overboard last night as they let their hunger over each other consumed them, they forgot everything behind them and took comfort in each other’s embrace, acted as if they’re the only people occupied the world and nothing could tear them apart. But they both know that reality waited for them by the end of their trip, he must return to his girlfriend and she had to get back to her life.

“I’ll figure something out, Seul.” He said out of the sudden.

“Ne?”

“To make this works” He kissed her again, “I’ll take responsibility to end things with Jinae, but maybe I might have to ask you to give me some time, because things are a bit complicated between me and her.”

She smiled, slightly felt happy but burdened at the same time. “Now I really feel like your secret affair.”

“I’m sorry.” He said shortly.

Seulri didn’t want to push him about that decision because a little voice in her head still told her that she doesn’t deserve the man in her arms—at least not until he knew the whole ugly truth about her.

“She’s a girl that my parent chose for me, our parents are good friends and both parties seemed to be very delighted when we started dating.” Kyuhyun explained, misunderstood her silent as a sign of disappointment. “We met during med school and she had repeatedly confessed to me. It was a year ago, she came to my home during chuseok, charmed my parents and before I knew it, my mom started to talk about her so much, mom encouraged me to man up and be a good man to her. I was too tired to listen to my mom’s constant whining so in the end I asked her out.”