The Yoo parents enters the hospital room, and Mrs Yoo’s eyes immediately darts to the heart rate monitor that is attached to her daughter. She sighs in relief when she sees that it is showing a normal and healthy heart beat, and Mr Yoo seems to sense her tension, squeezing their entwined hands. She smiles at him before they both walk closer to Chaeyoung, taking a closer look at the comatose fighter.

Just yesterday, they had transferred Chaeyoung out of the ICU and into this normal ward, and even though she doesn’t show any indications that she is waking up soon, they take this as progress, that their daughter is getting one step closer to waking up. Mrs Yoo starts to massage Chaeyoung’s arm, and Mr Yoo steps around the bed to do the same for her other arm. The doctors had told them that Chaeyoung might suffer from muscle atrophy since she isn’t using her muscles during her coma, and they can help to slow this down by helping to massage her limbs often.

“How are you feeling today, my child?” Changjun asks, even though there will be no reply. The doctors had also told them that it will be good to talk to the patient, because even though they are in a coma, they can still hear their surroundings, and by talking to them, it helps to increase the patient’s brain activity, which helps in recovery.

“I know you must be feeling better now since you are in a normal ward now. You are doing a good job, baby cub. You are getting there, okay? Just a little bit more, just keep fighting like you always do.” Changjun continues to give words of encouragement to his daughter. He knows his daughter is a tough one, that she is tenacious and that she will never give up so easily.

“Yeah, everyone is cheering for you.” Jinhee smiles as she pats Chaeyoung on the head gently. “So you have to do your best, okay?”

--

Jeongyeon appears with Jihyo at noon, bringing lunch for her parents. Jihyo holds the door open with her back since her hands are full with bags, and Jeongyeon slowly hobbles in with her crutches. 

“We brought lunch!” Jeongyeon greets, slowly hobbling to her mother, who is sitting by Chaeyoung’s bed side. Mr Yoo moves to help Jihyo with the bags, and Mrs Yoo stares disapprovingly at her older daughter.

“I told you to stay at home and rest, didn’t I?” Mrs Yoo chides, wanting Jeongyeon to stay at home and recuperate instead of running around with her crutches. But she also knows her older daughter is here because she’s just as worried as them. Jeongyeon plops down onto Chaeyoung’s bed, and Mrs Yoo her hair. “How are you feeling?”

“A lot better.” Jeongyeon smiles her mother to reassure her, and she takes Chaeyoung’s hand into her own, glad to find that her hand is warmer than the previous few days. “Hey buddy. Good job, heard from the doctors that you are out of the woods already. Give it a few days and you are going to be up and running, eh?”

Jihyo joins them, sitting down on the other side of Chaeyoung. “She looks better.”

Jeongyeon hums, and the two just stare at the comatose fighter on the bed silently. Jihyo looks away and wipes her tears, hoping that Jeongyeon and Mrs Yoo doesn’t see it, but it doesn’t escape them.

“Aish, there you go again.” Jeongyeon doesn’t miss this chance to , but her voice sounds shaky as well.

Mrs Yoo frowns and sends her knuckle flying to Jeongyeon’s head, before reaching across to hold Jihyo’s hand, squeezing it lightly. Jihyo smiles back and wipes the last of her tears before nodding at the older woman. There are no words exchanged, but they could communicate just fine with their gestures. She will be fine; we just need to have faith.

--

They all have their own ways of coping with the current situation, where Mr and Mrs Yoo tries to be strong to reassure the kids, while Jeongyeon and Jihyo provides food support for everyone. And then there’s Dahyun, who has a list from Google titled “The 15 unorthodox ways to wake someone up from a coma”. The first way on the list was to tilt the patient head down so that blood flow to the brain is boosted, which is believed to stimulate brain activity in coma patients, and help them wake up from their coma. After being caught trying to hold Chaeyoung upside down by her legs a week ago, Jeongyeon has been keeping a hawk eye on her the moment she enters Chaeyoung’s hospital room, making it hard for her to move on to the 2nd item on her list. 

When Dahyun and Tzuyu enters the room in the late afternoon after their classes, there’s only Jeongyeon and Jihyo sitting on the couch. The Yoo parents must have gone back earlier to rest, and Dahyun cheers internally at this. Lesser people means lesser surveillance, which means she will have a higher chance of succeeding in her plan. She holds out a bouquet of flowers, asking for a vase for it, and Jeongyeon snatches the bouquet from her, immediately scrutinizing it to make sure there’s nothing weird with it. Dahyun puts the most innocent pout she can muster on her face, and it seems to work because Jeongyeon shoves the flowers back to her with a guilty grunt. Great, now that she has lowered Jeongyeon’s guard of her, she just has to wait for a chance to strike.

Jihyo goes out in search of a vase, and Tzuyu strikes up a conversation with Jeongyeon. Dahyun walks towards Chaeyoung, sitting down on the chair beside Chaeyoung and holds her hand, pretending to just be looking at her friend quietly. She feels Jeongyeon’s gaze on her, so she waits, and it’s a few seconds before Jeongyeon finally shifts her gaze away, certain that she’s not doing anything weird. Bingo. Now is her chance. Dahyun quickly pulls out the scalp massager hidden in her bag and sticks it on Chaeyoung’s head.

“Come on, buddy!” Dahyun whisper yells at the comatose Chaeyoung, but there’s no response from the latter. Usually, the scalp massager will send tingling sensations all over your body, but of course it doesn’t elicit the same response from a comatose person.

“Yah Kim Dahyun!” Jeongyeon shouts, scrambling for her clutches.

--

When Mina arrives later in the afternoon, Dahyun is sulking on the couch while nursing a big bruise on her head, and Jeongyeon doesn’t look away from the former for a second. Tzuyu and Jihyo acknowledges her with a nod, before going back to their phones in front of them. “What happened?” She asked, referring more to Dahyun and Jeongyeon.

“Dahyun-unnie tried one of her “15 unorthodox ways to wake someone up from a coma” again.” Tzuyu says boredly, eyes not even leaving her phone.

Mina shakes her head, unable to say anything since Dahyun did what she did with good intentions, even though it may not bring good consequences. She turns to look at Chaeyoung, sees all the machines attached to her beeping regularly, and she lets it go, knowing that her sunshine wasn’t hurt from whatever Dahyun did. Jihyo claps her hands, getting the attention of everyone in the room. “Now that Mina is here, let’s go.”

They leave after exchanging goodbyes with Mina; Jeongyeon and Tzuyu heading down to the cafe and Jihyo and Dahyun to the gym for training. It’s only left with Mina and Chaeyoung in the room and the medical student goes to the bathroom to get a basin of water and a cloth, using it to clean Chaeyoung. She knows the nurses probably did this already, but she just wants to do something for her sunshine, even if it’s something as simple as washing up for her.

“We had a neurology class today. The professor said that even though comatose patients are unconscious, their brains still pick up sounds around them.” Mina tells her sunshine while wiping her arms. “Can you hear me?”

“If you hear me, it’s time to wake up.” Even though all of them try to remain optimistic about this situation, she knows they are all losing hope little by little, day by day. But she trusts her sunshine, knows that she will come back to her. Mina watches the girl quietly. She looks so peaceful as if she’s sleeping and not in a coma. Her chest rises and falls with each breath and she places her hand over Chaeyoung’s chest, feeling her heartbeat. It’s faint but she can feel it beating, and she knows that as long as her heart continues to beat, her sunshine will try her best to fight, to get back to her.

“You are a fighter, Son Chaeyoung, you can fight and win this too. I believe you. And when you do, let’s go on that convenience store date.” Mina hasn’t forgotten about their promise to each other, and she hopes her sunshine hasn’t forgotten too. “I will wait for you.”

--

He looks at the sleeves of his Hermès shirt, annoyed that it’s stained with dried blood. Oh well, he’s just going to throw it out later, too lazy to try and get the blood out of it. He can just buy another one, who cares if it’s a $600 Hermès dress shirt? It’s nothing to him. That’s all that’s on his mind, even though he is sitting in a detention room of a police station, on two counts of grievous bodily harm. He doesn’t even have a cell in his body that’s afraid of being persecuted, because he knows his father will be able to get him out of here. He sighs again, all this trouble, and he didn’t even get to have fun with the girl.

He hears the lock on the door rattling, and he smirks. His dad must have pulled some strings and they are finally letting him go, and he stands up while smoothing his clothes. A grouchy looking policeman holds the door open, and his father’s secretary enters the room.

“About time, Secretary Kang.” Seo Jaekyung says, ready to leave this place. But instead of him leaving, Secretary Kang enters the room instead, and the door closes shut behind him resolutely.

“What’s this, aren’t you here to get me out of here?” Jaekyung almost shouts.

But the secretary just stares at him with a poker face, not even intimidated by his outburst. “Please take a seat, Young Master.”

Jaekyung sits down with a huff, and the secretary settle down in the seat opposite him. “Old Master has decided that it will be best if you stay here for a few more days until it all blows over, before we get you out of here.”

Jaekyung lets out a snort, his father will never do that to him, make him stay in imprisonment. “Let me talk to him, Father will never make me do that.”

Secretary Kang expected this already, pulling out his phone promptly. The phone rings for a few rings before it is answered.

“Father, tell them to help me get out of here.” Jaekyung tells him.

“I told you to live quietly, didn’t I?” The older Mr Seo tells him sternly. It’s not the first time his son had run-ins with the law, he had paid some good money in the past to help him get out of trouble with the police. His son had promised to turn over a new leaf every time, but it always ends up in disappointment.

“Dad, I’m sorry, just please, just help me for one last time.” Jaekyung pleads. Of course he can’t escape from the scoldings of his father, but eventually, the older man will relent and help him. He doesn’t expect otherwise this time too.

“I will try to lessen the sentence on my side, but you just accept the punishment quietly this time.” Mr Seo says with finality in his voice that tells Jaekyung that this is the end of the discussion.

“Dad! I’m your son! Aren’t you going to help your own son?” Jaekyung finally feels fear creeping into his veins for the first time in his life. His father had always closed one eye on his doings, but it seems like this is his last straw.

“Instead of causing trouble and waiting for me to clean it for you, why don’t you just not cause trouble in the first place?” Honestly, this is not even the worst thing his son had done, but it’s the first time it was blown up all over the news. He had paid a lot to silence the media, but the fact that the news still broke out on the papers the next day meant that someone else had paid even more for them to publish the news. It’s definitely the work of the Myoui’s, and they will not stop until they get the justice their daughter deserves. The only way out of this is to accept the punishment meted by the court to appease the Myoui’s, and when they forget about it, he will pay to get Jaekyung out of jail then. He sighs. “Stay in there quietly, we will get you out of there when the media attention dies down.”

--

Her eyes flutter open, and she can barely make out her surroundings in the dark. Where is she and why is she here? It feels like her brain is in a fog, making it harder to think, to recall where she was before this. Pain, she remembered the immense pain she felt. Why was she in pain? Fighting, she was fighting someone, and that person had stabbed her with a knife. Why was she fighting? She was trying to protect someone. Who? And then it’s like a dam bursting, her memories flooding back to her all at once.

Every time the knife touches her, it brings with it a wave of searing pain. But she forces herself to focus on her grip on the end of his trousers instead of the pain in her abdomen. She can’t let go, won’t let go even if it costs her life. During the third stab, he even rotates the knife a little in her body, the excruciating pain almost causing her to pass out. As a fighter, she’s attuned to her body and its limits, and she knows this is her limit, she has reached the threshold of pain that her body can take.

She lets her gaze drift to the comatose girl on the bench, wanting that to be the last view she sees before she goes. Even when she’s at the door of death, as long as she gets to see her favourite girl in the world, everything is alright again.

I’m so sorry I can’t protect you even till the end.

And she lets the darkness pull her under.

Mina. Where is Mina, she has to get to Mina now. She tries to move, but finds that she can’t really feel her body well, like it doesn’t belong to her. Just when she gets her body to listen to her and finally tilt her body slightly, the door opens and someone rushes to stop her. “Chaeyoung-ssi, don’t move please, you will hurt yourself.”

“I- I have to... get to Mina.”

“She is fine, please stop moving.” The nurse tells her again, trying to stop the fighter from getting up, fearing that it will aggravate her wounds.

She loses strength after that struggle, her weak body no match for the nurse’s strong hold on her. Her eyelids are working against her and threatening to close on her, but she resists the urge to fall back into the darkness, mumbling out, “Is she really okay?”

“Yes, Ms Myoui is okay, please rest and you will be able to see her tomorrow when she comes by.”

Reassured by these words from the nurse, she succumbs to the darkness again.

--

The second time she wakes up, she’s glad to see familiar faces. Her father and mother are on her right, and Nayeon and Jeongyeon are on her left.

“Umma…” She croaks out, voice dry and hoarse from disuse.

Mrs Yoo had always been the strongest among all of them, constantly reassuring them that Chaeyoung will be okay, that they have to have faith in her. But deep down, she was afraid too, that Chaeyoung will leave them, she was just trying to be strong to keep the spirits of the kids up. Now that Chaeyoung is awake, and is calling out to her like that, she can’t help but burst into tears of relief. Grasping her daughter’s hand tightly, she speaks through her tears. “Yes, Umma is here.”

Mr Yoo places an arm around his wife, before placing his hand on their entwined hands, squeezing them gently. He doesn’t say anything, but he can feel the heavy load in his chest finally lift. The worst is finally over, everything is going to be okay now. Chaeyoung squeezes her right hand to reassure her parents, smiling at them before turning to her left. Jeongyeon is sitting on her bed, and Nayeon is standing behind her, both wiping away their tears. She holds up her left hand, wanting to hold their hand too. They quickly hold her hand, and she smiles, finally realizing that they might not see her smile with the bulky mask over her nose and lips.

“Sorry for making you guys worried.”

Mrs Yoo shakes her head. “It’s fine, because you are okay now.”

It’s a blur after that, people come and go while she drifts in and out of consciousness. She remembers seeing Dahyun and Tzuyu coming together, Dahyun going on about a new type of martial arts she discovered recently and wanting to learn it with her, while Tzuyu just places an air freshener at her bedside table, which occasionally sprays out jets of strawberry scented mist. Jihyo comes by to pick Dahyun up for her training, patting her on the head gently before leaving.

Sana and Momo nearly pulled the door off its hinges when they burst in, hugging her so hard her wounds might just open. As her condition stabilized, the hospital is lowering her morphine dose, causing her to feel the ache from her wounds. She whines about the pain, and they finally pull away from her sheepishly. Everyone has visited her, except for the one person she has been looking for. The nurse had lied, she’s still not here yet, that one person she wants to see the most.

--

Sachiko flips through the mountain of documents she has in front of her, going through each one of them carefully. She has gotten her PI to dig out everything on Seo Jaekyung, and she has found more dirt on him than she liked. He had tons of reports on ual harassment or assault filed against him, but it was all resolved and closed. Two of his previous personal assistants had left the job crippled, and a few guards had gone missing while working for him. All this information will definitely be useful during his persecution, but it hurt her to know that she was introducing this guy to her own daughter. She was basically sending a lamb straight to the tiger’s den. That is why, she must put this dangerous man in jail, so that he can no longer harm anyone.

Her phone rings again, and she picks it up to see that it’s her PI calling her again. Picking it up swiftly, she addresses him. “Yeah, did you find out more information we can use?”

“It’s about the MMA fighter.” The curt reply of her PI has Sachiko frozen, her pen freezing in place. She had dropped by Chaeyoung’s room a few times while visiting Mina at the hospital, and at that moment while staring at the comatose fighter with all the tubes stuck into her, she had felt a great pang of guilt and gratitude. She thought this girl wasn’t good enough, and introduced a guy she thought was suitable for her daughter instead. But in the end, the girl that was ‘not good enough’ put her life on the line to protect her daughter, and the guy that was ‘suitable for her daughter’ almost ually assaulted her. From that moment onwards, she had been praying for the fighter to pull through, partly because her daughter will be devastated if she didn’t, and partly because she still owed the girl an apology.

“What about her?” Sachiko asks, holding her breath while waiting for the answer.

“She woke up.”

She lets out a sigh of relief. “That’s good.”

“Do you still want me to follow her and Mina?” She had asked her PI to tail them last time, wanting to find out about the nature of their relationship, wanting to find out whether the fighter was suitable for her daughter. But she knows the answer now, and it’s time for her to stop interfering in things that don't need her interference.

“No, leave them be. Just focus on digging out more information on Seo Jaekyung.”

--

Mina runs out of the car even before it stops totally, rushing into the hospital. Of course she has heard of the news of her sunshine waking up from her coma already, but she has exams the whole day today, unable to make her way here until now. She wanted to skip her exams, but Sana and Momo persuaded her against it, and she also knew that going for her exams is the right thing to do. Her friends had visited and updated her on the fighter’s status, reassuring her so that she can take her exams with no worries.

But now that her exams are over, she’s running to Chaeyoung, wanting to see her again, to see her smile at her again. The lift finally opens, and she sprints out to Chaeyoung’s room. She’s at the door when she stops, suddenly having hesitations. What does she say to Chaeyoung first? Nothing seems to be enough to express all of her emotions. Oh god, what if Chaeyoung hates her? She caused her to almost die, it's reasonable even if she hates her.

Shaking her head to clear away such thoughts, she pushed the door open with bated breath, expecting to see her sunshine sitting up on her bed, smiling at her with her dimples. But the girl is just lying motionless on the bed, as if she’s still in a coma. Mina doesn’t know if she should be glad that Chaeyoung has fallen asleep again, giving her more time to compose herself, or upset that she still has to wait to see her sunshine. Making her way to the chair by Chaeyoung’s bed quietly, she sits down gently, taking her sunshine’s hand in her own. She’s just sleeping, like what she has been doing for the past few weeks, but why does it seem different now? She uses her other hand to fix Chaeyoung’s hair, wanting to look at her more carefully. But when she removes her hand, she sees the fighter’s eyes fluttering open, before zeroing in on her. She freezes, everything that she wanted to say all forgotten. She can only focus on her sunshine, on how she’s blinking as if she can’t believe what she’s seeing.

Chaeyoung stops blinking, smile growing on her face, the familiar dimple peeking out on her cheek. After almost a whole month of looking at a comatose Chaeyoung who was unresponsive no matter what anyone said or did, it seems as if she was going to be in that state forever, or even worse, lose in this fight for her life. But her sunshine did it, she pulled through, and Mina feels immense relief flood through her, so much so that she starts to tear up, bowing her head down, not wanting to make Chaeyoung worried.

But of course Chaeyoung realizes and panics. She tries to sit up, wanting to comfort the medical student, but she hisses when she starts to feel the pain in her abdomen. Mina stands to push Chaeyoung back down on the bed, not wanting her to move and aggravate her wounds any more than she already did. “Stop moving, you idiot.” Mina chides, but doesn’t sound intimidating at all with her shaky voice.

Chaeyoung compiles, not moving anymore. But she reaches for the remote that can adjust her bed on her side, pushing a button so that the top part of her bed starts to rise, helping her to sit up. She can’t sit up by herself, but she can do so with the help of the bed. The bed finally clicks in place and Chaeyoung pats the space beside her. When Mina finally sits, Chaeyoung pulls her into her embrace, running her fingers through the former’s hair. She waits till Mina calms down before speaking.

“I’m sorry.” For making you worried. “But I’m okay now, alright? Don’t cry.”

There’s so many things Mina wants to say that she doesn’t know where to start. She wants to scold Chaeyoung for being so reckless, for risking her life just to save her. (But she also knows that if it’s her in Chaeyoung’s position, she would protect the fighter at all cost too.) She wants to say sorry, for causing her to almost die. She wants to say thank you, for saving her and for fighting hard to stay alive, for pulling through even though she was at the doorstep of death.

“I love you.” In the end, Mina didn’t say any of those things, but those three words held the meaning of those things all the same.

Chaeyoung’s hands freeze halfway through Mina’s hair. She’s still afraid of course, Mrs Myoui’s threat still at the forefront of her mind even though her brain is still in a post coma haze, but having been so close to death gives people a type of courage they usually don’t have. At the brink of death, you will realize that you will regret the things you didn’t do more than the things you did. And that is why, she’s going to do everything her heart desires, and nothing can stop her. Not parents who object of their relationship, not those people who don’t understand and refuse to understand their type of relationship. Nothing and no one is going to stop her from loving her favourite girl in the world from now on. She continues to run her fingers through Mina’s hair, hoping she didn’t make the latter wait for too long.

“You already know it, but I love you too. Always have, always will.”

Her sunshine hasn’t said anything sweet to her ever since the day they returned from their last date in Chuncheon, and Mina senses that something has changed, that her sunshine isn’t going to run away, to ignore their feelings anymore. But she still wants to confirm.

“I’m not going to let you go this time.” Mina pulls away to look at her, still sniffing. A fair warning to the fighter, to let her know that if they are doing this again, she’s not allowed to give up so easily like the previous time.

Chaeyoung smiles, understanding the underlying meaning in Mina's words. She wipes away the tears on Mina's face, reassuring her favourite girl in the world, "And I'm not going anywhere this time."

--

a/n: sorry this took longer than usual i was in a slump

please understand that as much as you guys are excited to read this, i'm excited to write and share it with you guys too. i update whenever i'm done with a chapter, but this takes time because i want to make sure the chapter is polished and ready. i don't want to upload something that i'm not satisfied with, and i'm sure you guys don't want to read subpar material too. therefore, i appreciate it if you guys can understand if i take longer than usual when updating. also, constructive comments, suggestions or even criticism about the story itself will be much more useful in helping me write. the faster i write, the faster i can update for you guys, so please leave more of those rather than just "update please". 

anyway, back to the story. next chapter will probably really be the last, so stay tuned for it. 

also, do support my new story here: https://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/1426670/as-long-as-you-love-me