The continuous puncture on her skin manages to bring her back into her half-awake state one more time. with her eyelids that gets heavier, Kang Seulri tries to open her eyes to keep herself awake. She doesn’t want to do that, sleeping is a much better option for her at the moment yet the man beside her keep on telling her to stay awake and she now realizes the punctures she feels on the right arm is actually Kyuhyun stimulating her sense of touch as his effort to hurt her to keep Seulri conscious.

Even though she can’t move that much, her brain still works perfectly and she can study his expression very well from this distance. She slowly tries to turn her head slightly towards him, feeling glad somehow for the worry he has in his eyes, if he worries about her that means he still cares—and that’s enough for her.

“I’m sorry I’m puncturing your skin to keep you awake and I’ll continue to do this.” He explains in apologetic tone.

She smiles—well at least that’s what she thinks what she’s doing—to him and blinks trying to tell him that it’s okay. She wants to tell him that she’s going to try her best to keep conscious and to get over the emergency state she’s in. She knows why he’s trying so hard to keep her alive, not because he needs her, not because his life will be ruined if she’s gone, but because he’ll forever live in the guilt he’d create himself—and Seulri loves him too much to let him led that miserable kind of life.

“Look at the ultrasound! She’s bleeding into her belly, we don’t have time for a CT scan, let’s take her straight to the O.R, we’re gonna open her up.” She hears the sound from the old doctor.

Kyuhyun takes his eyes away from Seulri to look into the old doctor, “But doctor, she’s bleeding from her head, don’t you think a CT is more important?”

“The impact on her head can wait, I’m more worried about the bleeding in her tummy, the French tube we inserted still spilling much blood, if she continuous to be in this state, she’ll need more blood transfusion and I’m not sure we have enough stock of the A+ in this hospital.” He explains.

Kyuhyun takes a look to Seulri, noticing her pupils gets rounder as her lips begins to trembles. Everything she hears today in this E.R is probably something very alien for her and it’s only normal for her to be scared. He knows what kind of procedure she’d have to take immediately and he doesn’t want her to be scared.

“It’s okay, Seulri-ya. They will take care of you, I’ll be there with you the whole time.” He leans in closer to caress her hair. “Are you scared?”

She tries to nods and failed to do so, yet the fear in her eyes is crystal clear. The doctors around her begins to take several charts and busy preparing to move her into operation room, Kyuhyun takes this time to talk intimately to the helpless girl that’s lying on the gurney.

“Hey, look at me.” He cups his hands on her face. “You’ll be okay and if you’re scared of dying, you need to know that you’re not dead, okay? I’m a doctor too Seulri-ya so I know, but if you need reassurance I’ll tell you that the machine that connected to your heart is still beeping and I can feel your pulse.” He touches her wrist to convinces her even more. “So eyes on me the whole time, and we’ll get through this together. Once it’s over, we’ll get out of here and I’ll get any kind of plushy you want from the arcade, okay?”

A tear falls from her eyes. He thinks she’s afraid of dying while that’s not really her concern at the moment, she died a long time ago in the inside and it doesn’t really matter how much pain she feels on her body—it’s the pain in her heart that she can’t really take.

“I promise, I’ll try to be a better friend for you, Seulri-ya. Please give me a chance.” In his desperate measure he pleads her.

“Time to move her to the O.R.” The nurse unlocks the brake in the wheels of her gurney and signal Kyuhyun to begin pushing towards the E.R.

Seulri feels another growling sensation in her tummy when they roll her gurney towards the O.R and not long after, she begins throwing up bloods again from . She shuts her eyes close to hide her embarrassment to Kyuhyun. If this really is the end of the road for her, she doesn’t want to be remembered as a girl that’s covered in her own blood, looking ugly and helpless as hell. She wants him to remember her as his beautiful first love, she wants him to remember her in her best moments when life was still kind for her, she just wants him to always remember her as the innocent Kang Seulri that he fell in love with ten years ago.

“Seulri-ya! Stay awake! I’m telling you to keep opening those beautiful eyes of yours, remember? Eyes on me!” He shouts again from her right.

She spills more blood from and as much as she tries to flick open her eyelids, she can only see flashes of bright lights with certain memories that follows from her past.

*

Having a relationship with a medical freshman was never easy for Seulri. She had to adjust her constant desire to see her boyfriend and she had to be the more understanding one, because she realized how hard it was to be a doctor. The first two months Kyuhyun still able to come home once a week the way he promised her and they still have their awaited date every weekends. But the longer he stays in the medical department, the less time he had to spare to come home to see his girlfriend.

Not that he doesn’t want to see her, but freshmen were required to come to morning classes and also to be active in the university student board to be initiated as a part of the campus’s family. At first Kyuhyun still could juggle his studies, his organizational purpose and Seulri, but by the fourth month his body begins to get weak from the lack of sleep he got and he had to made a decision on what come to the top priorities and what can wait—apparently Seulri fell into the latter category.

To her, it’s not really a big deal if she saw him once a week or once a month, as long as she still can call him and talk so she can conquer her loneliness of his absence. But there were times when she just really need to run into him when matters at home gotten out of hand, there were times when she felt like she needed his advice or tutoring with some of her lessons in schools and there were times when she just really miss his presence around her.

Whenever she felt that way, she would call him and negotiate if she could visit him in his dorm and mostly he’d say ‘no’. However, in one autumn night her voice sounded so desperate and he didn’t have the heart to tell her that he must study for his exams. Seulri took a metro towards his campus station and Kyuhyun was already in the entrance where he promised her he’d be. She didn’t know what she was thinking at the time but she just ran into him and hugged him tight as she threw him her troubled heart.

“You’re not crying are you?” He pats her shoulder then gave a quick kiss on her head.

“I miss you.” She mumbled from his shoulder. “I haven’t seen you for a couple of months.”

“I know.” He takes his distance from her to take her hand and led her to walk out of the metro station. “I’m sorry, I thought I could spare my time, but I really need more than 24 hours a day if I want to do everything I want.” He pressed his lips with an apologetic look.

Kyuhyun quickly noticed her swollen face, he lifted his hand to touch her cheek but Seulri warded off his hands and forced a smile.

“It’s okay, I understand. One day when I become a freshman in a university, I’d be busy too and you’re the one that has to come towards me the way I do now.” She tried to grin but the emotion didn’t reach her eyes. “I’m trying to be understanding, oppa. But tonight I just really miss you, I’m sorry If I interrupted anything.”

Kyuhyun smiled and pulled her closer to his body to wrapped his arm on her shoulder. “So while you’re here, tell me what can I do for you?”

Seulri pouted and looked at him in disbelieve, “I just miss you, you don’t have to do anything other than being beside