Sweetheart, you look a little tired
When did you last eat?
Come in and make yourself right at home

Stay as long as you need
Tell me, is something wrong?
If something's wrong, you can count on me
You know I'll take my heart clean apart if it helps yours beat

-Two, Sleeping at Last

It was time to get discharged. Kim Doyoung’s money and fame could not stop me from leaving and he knew that. I told him that I was leaving, Kim Doyoung telling me to get into his car. In the end, I was one year a junior and he wanted me to take care of me. But I knew it was more than that—it was pity and it was empathy. I didn’t need it but I told him where I stayed, awkwardly sitting in the front seat of his car as he drove me back home.

We passed buildings and gray walls. He seemed to know where he was going and finally stopped where I told him to. We were back in Seoul, N-city—a place we had grown up in. A street between the 127 Mall and SM university… a street down from Exodus high school where we all studied in.

I got off from the car, bowing down halfway towards Doyoung who came out of the car. His black suit still pressed from all the moving he had been through and I wondered how it was possible. I smiled at him, thanking him for handling the hospital bills for me. With his help, it was a weight off my back.

“You’re welcome,” Doyoung replied and I gave him a smile. “Do you usually sleep at this time?”

“No,” I told him, shaking my head. “I usually sleep a few hours from now.”

Doyoung nodded, not saying anything, his eyes behind me at the rooms. I tilted my head at him, wondering why he just standing there. It was beginning to get awkward and all he did was stand there, hands behind his back while he waited for me to talk when I found myself blurting words I didn’t expect would come out.

“You in a mood for tea?” I asked and Doyoung looked at me, his face unreadable before he nodded slowly. “I have chrysanthemum tea. It’s a yellow flower. Sweet and refreshing.”

I had to grab this chance. Not every day would I get to talk to the Kim Doyoung—I had to interview him. Make up a small story in my hand and write down a beautiful tale with Kim Doyoung as the male lead. I motioned him to follow me, my hands fumbling for my keys in my backpack before I inserted it in and turned it, pushing the door open.

Kim Doyoung followed me carefully, his uplifted eyes looking around my apartment in curiosity. I told him to sit and he did, folding his hands in front of him formally. I moved around the kitchen, brewing the tea for a good two minutes before I placed it in front of him. Doyoung eyed the tea carefully, lifting it up to his lips to taste it. I grabbed my notebook, flipping through it carefully before going to a fresh page.

“Can I ask you a few questions?” I asked, Doyoung nodded. “Is that why you’re here? Because you want to humor a dying woman?”

“Mostly.” Doyoung paused. “And also, because I was curious as to how a dying woman lived.”

“Is it like you expected?” I asked, Doyoung running his eyes over the cabinets in my small kitchen.

“I expected something different,” he told me honestly. “I don’t know what I expected but I didn’t expect it to be so… normal.”

“There are two types of people in the world, Kim Doyoung.” I smiled at him. “The dead and the living. And if you’re living, you’re just like everyone else.”

“That’s a good way to put it. Is that why you’re so adamant to write a story about me? Because you believe you’re just like everyone else and you don’t deserve a story of your own?” he asked, leaning forward on one arm.

“No one wants a story with a sad ending,” I told him.

“It doesn’t have to be,” he told me, sipping the tea. “It’s fiction, isn’t it? You wanted to pair me up with a rich girl.”

“Seems the most plausible that would happen when I die,” I told him. “If it has to be fiction, I want it to be as close to the truth as possible.”

Kim Doyoung was silent and I gripped the pen. What should I ask him? What would be his character profile? Oh, right. The basic.

“Three words to describe yourself,” I said to Doyoung answered without missing a beat.

“Determined, careful, and meticulous.”

“Life motto?”

“Do today what you can do tomorrow.”

“Outlook on friendships?”

“As you grow older, we no longer need to maintain it.”

“Does that mean you don’t have friends?”

“I do. I just don’t see them as often anymore.”

“Relationships?”

“Never had one.”

I froze, my pen hovering above the paper.

“Zero? Nada?”

“I have spoken to women but I don’t think we were dating. We were just testing the waters.”

“Why did you not date them?”

“Work.”

“And you don’t regret it?”

Doyoung frowned. “I didn’t like them enough to care even if they didn’t understand what my ideals were anyway.”

I blinked. Well, he was a different breed. Married to his career, focused on his duties and obligations, Kim Doyoung screamed professionalism and emotional distance on a different level.

“How about you?” he asked and I lifted an eyebrow. “What would you want to do if you weren’t dying?”

No one has ever asked me that before.

I haven’t even thought about it before.

I knew I was dying and even if I accepted it, I woke up every day reminding myself that I had very little time left.

“I guess I would do whatever normal people do,” I said, leaning back. “I would have dated back in university, have one of those campus relationships. Maybe go to the movies with him.”

The images flashed before my eyes and I found myself smiling.

“I would date him for a few years, maybe. I might even get my heartbroken. Cry at three a.m because the guy I love doesn’t love me back.” I told him. “Maybe experiment for a while. Drink and party like a typical teenager finding their way in life.”

Doyoung listened to me, his eyes not leaving my face.

“I might finally know how it feels like to go on a roller coaster. Is it that scary? Why do they scream so much?” I smiled to myself. “I might pick up a few friends along the way and finally maintain relationships because I’d no longer be afraid of keeping them close. Maybe a few years down, I’d think of having a family.”

“A family?”

I nodded, sighing as I fiddled with the pencil.

“I’d finally celebrate birthdays because it would actually be a celebration that I would be one year older. I would have a child and I would wonder on some days why I even gave birth to this little rascal but I would love her anyway.”

“Her?”

“I want a daughter,” I told him, blinking away the desires that were making me a little bit too emotional as I pressed my lips together. “Yeah. But life, am I right?”

Doyoung shifted, his eyes dropping onto the table.

“I don’t think going on a roller coaster would be good for you,” he mumbled to himself and I blinked. What was he talking about? He looked up and for a moment, our eyes connected.

He smiled.

“Simonsays, you have a story to write.”

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I lay in bed, looking at the notebook that Doyoung had scribbled on. It had both his and my signature, the words written out in contract form. I reread it again, muttering to myself.

I, Kim Doyoung, will take part in providing realistic events as an inspiration for the writing of Simonsay’s last story in her series. No transactions will be made throughout the creative process.

I had looked up to him, Kim Doyoung giving me the pencil to sign my name.

“I can’t pay you for your time,” I told him, Kim Doyoung shaking his head.

“Pay me with your happiness,” he had said.

I placed the contract by the bed.

I guess I had memories to make and things to do to make sure Kim Doyoung’s story would be special.

Since it would be the last.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I woke up from a ding on my phone. Grabbing it, I squinted at the screen to see that it was a text from Kim Doyoung. We had exchanged numbers the night before and when I saw his text, my eyes flew open.

Kim Doyoung: Sushi or sandwiches?

I frowned. What was he talking about? It was a weird