The town was in utter chaos. Civilians scattered from the source of the explosion, some hid and cowered in corners, few tried to help the injured. Emergency vehicle sirens filled the air, emergency personnel tried their best to handle the situation, but they weren’t prepared for the anarchy. HeeJin still lay unconscious as her bodyguard tried to make sure she was not injured. HyunJin reached for her radio by her hip and flipped a switch, activating an emergency beacon. She reached up pressed on her earpiece and called out for backup, briefly stating the situation.

Right after the call, she felt some movement from under her. The bodyguard turned her attention back to HeeJin.

“HeeJin!...HeeJin!”

“Are you ok? HeeJin!”

HyunJin let out a sigh of relief as she was finally stirring awake. She tried her best to keep her hand from trembling as she brushed and wiped the dirt and grime from HeeJin’s cheeks. The unconscious girl finally came to, and there were immediate fear and confusion in her eyes.

Trying to keep her breath steady, it was unbelievably difficult for HyunJin not to wince and cry in pain from all her injuries. She didn’t want to worry HeeJin, but her efforts were useless once HeeJin looked her up and down. There was no way to hide any of her severe wounds, her warm blood pooled around her and HeeJin, her leg started to burn from the metal shrapnel in her leg, and her head throbs with immense pain. She felt her consciousness beginning to fade, but tried to stay alert until back up arrives.

HeeJin cried out to HyunJin; tears were streaming down her face looking at her severely injured girlfriend. She felt like it was her fault HyunJin was in this state. If they hadn’t left her bed today, everything could have been normal. Maybe if HeeJin weren’t wearing HyunJin’s bulletproof blazer, she would be in better condition. If she weren’t her bodyguard, she wouldn’t be in any danger, to begin with.

“Why aren’t you leaving?! You can’t die because of me!”

HyunJin tried to muster up a smile as she wiped the tears falling from the girl's eyes. “I’ll protect your life until my last breath.” She placed her finger under HeeJin’s chin so that she could look her in the eyes. “As long as you live, I won’t die.”

“I don’t want that! I don’t want you to be in danger again, HyunJin.” The crying girl clutched HyunJin’s shirt. “I can’t lose you.”

“The same goes for me, Heekki,” she gently cupped her face with one hand. “Now that I know danger is after you. There’s no possible way I am going to sit on the sidelines.”

Ms.Wong (head of security for Blockberry) and several bodyguards arrived at the scene and immediately spotted the two on the ground. They all rush to them, prepared with first aid kits and a stretcher. 

Now HyunJin started to sway back and forth, at this point she couldn't stay up, as she was about to collapse, HeeJin caught her and carefully placed her head on her lap. With HyunJin’s last bit of remaining energy, she mouthed the words.

I love you.

HeeJin cradled her head as tears fell, she desperately cried out. “I love you too, HyunJin, so please don’t leave me, you’ll be alright.”

Ms. Wong knelt down and tried to peel HeeJin from HyunJin as the other guards readied the stretcher for the wounded bodyguard. HeeJin reluctantly let go of HyunJin’s hand after struggling with Ms. Wong.

Ms. Wong tried to speak to the distressed girl calmly. “HeeJin, she needs to go to the hospital ASAP. We will take you home-”

“No, Kahei! I’m going to the hospital too.” HeeJin snapped. Kahei sighed, knowing HeeJin was too stubborn and allowed her to come with them.

~ ~ ~

Tense air filled the waiting room. It’s been hours since HyunJin went into the operating room, and all HeeJin could do was hope and pray that her girlfriend would pull through. Jaden held his daughter's hand doing the best he could to comfort her as they waited.

Jaden knew that their relationship was more than just friendship, they didn’t exactly hide it, but he was okay with it. If anything, he couldn’t help but smile when he saw how happy HeeJin was. But to see her in her current, perhaps Jaden didn’t think this all the way through. Maybe it would have been better for HeeJin to have a bodyguard to whom she wouldn’t get close to because seeing her suffer now caused him much pain in his heart. 

The red light above the operating room doors shut off. HeeJin stood up, gripping her own hands in anticipation. The doctor swung the doors of the operating room open with a stoic face. HeeJin tried to read the expression on his face to see if she needed to brace herself for bad news or not, but she didn’t find any success. 

“There’s good news and bad news.” The doctor stated.

HeeJin clenched her hand tighter against her chest, revealing white knuckles, as her nails dug into her palm. She couldn’t stop her mind from running through hundreds of different scenarios of what the news could be. Jaden put his arm around his daughter’s shoulders, bracing her for whatever news was to come.

“The good news is, the operation was a success.” There was a small sigh of relief in the room but became tense again to hear the latter. “But the patient has suffered from severe head trauma, which poised a lot of difficulty during the operation. Because of her injury, we had no choice but to put her in an induced coma.”

HeeJin’s knees buckled in. If it wasn’t for Jaden, she would have collapsed on the floor.

Jaden tried to ask the doctor for his daughter, reassuringly. “But that just means you put her in a coma temporarily correct?”

The doctor nodded his head. “Yes, this is so that her brain can have time to heal properly. She will be asleep for two weeks, which should be ample time to heal for her trauma. Of course, we will monitor her recovery daily.”

The father looked at his daughter, who looked slightly better about the situation.

“Can we see her?” HeeJin sounded a bit desperate, but anyone would be in this kind of situation.

“Of course, once we get the room ready and get her situated, we will come to get you. But since it is very late, it will have to be brief. You can come again tomorrow during visiting hours.” The doctor tried to show some sympathy before he briskly left onto his next patient.

While they waited, HeeJin’s finger hovered over Junguen’s contact info on her phone. Earlier that day, HeeJin was able to exchange numbers with all of her new friends, but she truly wished that her first call to them wouldn’t have been this.

After taking a few deep breaths, she finally pressed the call button. Each ring made her more anxious. The ringing ended, and there was a slight groan on the other side of the line. Jungeun must’ve been asleep already, considering it was pretty late at night. Words were stuck in HeeJin’s throat as she tried to break the bad news.

“HeeJin?” Jungen croaked out. Her voice was dry.

There was still no response on the other side. “HeeJin, is everything ok?”

“I’m so sorry, Jungeun.” The voice on the other side was shaky. Jungeun sat up from her bed, confused why the girl was apologizing to her so suddenly.

Jungen could hear HeeJin take a few deep breaths and finally spoke again, her voice still trembled and was hoarse, it was strange not to hear her smooth velvety voice. “I’m sure you have heard about the explosion on the news earlier today-” 

Her chest tightened, her pulse started to increase as soon as HeeJin mentioned the major incident that occurred earlier that evening. It was on every news channel, and social media was buzzing frantically from it as well unless you lived in a rock, everyone in the whole country knew about it.

As HeeJin continued to tell the roommate the bad news, her voice started to sound more like a whimper. “HyunJin...HyunJin’s in the hospital-”

Before HeeJin could finish, Jungeun knew something terrible happened to her best friend by the quiver in HeeJin’s voice. “We will be right there. The other girls are here at my apartment.”

It didn’t take long for HyunJin’s friends to get to the hospital. They arrived at the room where HyunJin was recovering, and they found HeeJin already by her bedside, holding her hand. They took a look at the sleeping HyunJin, she lay unconscious, her head was thickly wrapped with bandages, she had small cuts and bruises across her arms, and her skin was sickly pale. 

HeeJin looked up at the group of friends, her eyes glossed over. “I’m so sorry, everyone. This happened because of me.” She then went over what happened that evening. How HyunJin protected her by taking a bullet for her and shielding her from the explosion. Now she was critically injured and was induced into a coma.

The girls crowded around HeeJin, they knew it wasn’t her fault, and she shouldn’t blame herself for what