It took me a little over a week before I was allowed to leave hospital. But fortunately, the last three days, I was able to at least lay in the bed upright instead of having to lay on the stomach the whole time.
The older lady had left two days before me. She was just gone one morning, but the deep purple scarf was on my nightstand, with a little note attached to it.
'It will come in handy', it had said.
I had to admit that ever since she had told me this scary premonition, I was slightly creeped out by her. At the same time, I still kind of liked her like I used to from the beginning. I couldn't decide.

"Today is your lucky day", the nice doctor exclaimed after he entered the room, "your spine is quite well, you can leave as of tonight. Be careful with it though. No hiking, don't lift any heavy objects, don't overdo it the first weeks. You should come back in three weeks so we can check it once more."

I packed all my little stuff that a few college friends had brought over, showered and put clean clothes on and walked out the hospital. The fresh winter air hit me and made me feel strangely alive, so a relieved smile ran across my face shortly. I made my way to the subway.

I was still walking stiffly, but it didn't hurt so much so I could get around quite well.
My paranoia was real now though. Ever since this weird kiss, where I still wasn't sure if it had been a dream or real, I felt followed whereever I was. Even now on the subway, instead of reading or playing with my phone, I was nervously eyeing the people around me. Nobody seemed suspicious, everyone was minding their own business, a few people were talking on the phone, the young guy next to me was facetiming with his girlfriend. I tried to relax. Everything felt so weird, as if it hadn't been reality. Why would someone follow me around, watch me, kiss me in a hospital room, make me feel threatened but then at the same time push me off the road to save me from a fatal car accident? I just did not understand a tiny bit.

The subway ride was roughly half an hour, luckily I could go straight with line 2. I got off at Sadang station and made my usual way to my apartment, where I needed to walk about 10 minutes.

The streets were busy as usual, restaurants aside the road looked inviting and filled to the rim with people. I loved being back within the city life, so I slowed down and strolled a little. Just when I could let go of my nervousness for a bit, it returned at once.
I turned around several times, but nothing. I guess I imagined it.

Still feeling insecure and paranoid, I wanted to talk to someone. Irene was probably busy around this time, and I didn't want to bother my friends from class with this, so who would I call? Only one person came to mind. I dialed Seojoon's number.

"Hello?", he said after a few seconds.
"This will sound weird, but can you just talk to me for a few minutes?"
"Uhm... Yes, sure. Did something happen?"
"No, no. Nothing important. Just talk to me."
"You know, I'm still at the office. Are you sure you're ok? You sound quite upset."
"No, it's fine. How is your work these days?", I asked, trying to get him to talk about a different topic.
"Pretty busy. I got promoted a month ago, so I have a longer work day. But I'm really happy with it, it's still what I like to do after all. You see, I'm pretty tangled up with a few projects here, so... What is going on?"
As expected, he knew me way to well to know that something was wrong. I started walking faster - as fast as my back allowed - and sighed. I didn't really want to let him know that I felt followed by some weird guy because I was sure he would be too concerned. But in this moment, my acting was so poor that I couldn't really hide my panic. I tried to instead of telling him about the black man, I would blame it on my injury.
"I just came out the hospital, I was there over a week and have a pretty bad spine injury. I am just a little concerned about it."
"What happened?!"
I quickly told him what had happened and was beyond relieved when I could see my apartment building.
"That sounds terrible! Do you need anything? You can call me whenever you need anything", he said in a sympathetic voice. It kind of hurt me to hear him say that, it'd been six months since we had broken up and I still had these feelings for him.
"No, it's okay. It just-", I started to say when I saw him again.

The black man was sitting on a bench across from a chicken restaurant that was in front of my apartment building.
He looked unusually relaxed, his legs crossed and his hands folded in his lap. But he was looking at me. Again.
I froze in the spot and returned his gaze, as dark and intense as always.
"Sedam? Are you still there?", Seojoon asked through the phone. I didn't answer.

My breathing got faster, my back started hurting and I felt as helpless as I felt that one night in the hospital bed again.
The moment almost felt electric. Something about this man sparked not only my fear, it got me excited. In a weird, unexplainable way.
Not to add that he was probably the most handsome person I had met, his charisma was out of this world. There was something about him that also made me want to trust him, which was one of the dumbest things I'd ever felt.

Because I stopped so abruptly, someone behind me bumped into me, pushing me a few metres forwards. In that exact moment, a delivery guy from the chicken restaurant started his scooter and was about to hit me. This was the second time within roughly a week that a vehicle was about to run me over. Something that had never happened to me before.

Someone pulled me towards to get me out of the way of the scooter. Next second, I realized I was in the arms of someone.
This time I was going to be faster. I wanted to see who saved me this time. Quickly, I looked up to identify the person.
Before I could do that, I felt a hand under my chin, softly lifting up my gaze, only to look into his face. The black eyes, the black hair. Everything.
His touch was freezing, his skin pale and his lips slightly blue, as if he was bitterly cold. But unlike me, he didn't shiver at all.
The moment was intimate, his one arm tightly around my shoulders, his fingers under my chin, our faces only centimeters apart. I couldn't take my eyes off him.

"Only go outside when you need to and watch out for yourself when you are. These situations will continue happening. We will see each other again", he said after a few seconds. His voice was deep and steady, he spoke quietly. For a second, something like remorse crossed his face until it went back to normal.
With his ice-cold thumb, he then caressed my cheek shortly, before he let go, turned around and walked away. After I blinked once, I could not see him anymore.