It's Cold - Song Ji Eun

Min Yu's POV

All too soon. And just when the seven-minute dream was at its peak, I woke up, just like a movie cut short. I sat up from the hospital bed, leaving my body behind. It felt light and empty all of a sudden. I watched as my body -- the one hooked on life support, that is -- almost shrunk into nothingness on the white mattress. And then I wonder why no one else is allowed inside.

Shouldn't I be mourned over now? Perhaps even six feet underground. Everybody should have gotten rid of me by now. I had been much of a burden for the last nine months. But hey, I was a proof of someone they would never want to be. And if my dead body served a good example in the littlest of ways, they should feel free.

I stood up and watched as a nurse came in to check on the tubes that were stuck under my skin. What would he look like if I went back to my body and become alive again? Nah. That might have been too ambitious, though. The door remained open, and so I walked out. I don't believe that I can pass through walls being a wandering soul. Or maybe I'd test that later on.

Everyone was huddled around the semi-circular bench that occupied most of the outside space. Leeteuk sat on the edge of his seat, his palms together as if in prayer. Heechul was nowhere to be found. Maybe he realized that no prayer was going to save me now. Jongin was there. And Donghae sat in the middle of everyone else in the same waiting room. But what could they possibly wait for?

My gaze quickly shifted to Yesung, who didn't seem to see right through me. He opened his mouth to say something, but I put a finger to my lips to silence him. Advancing towards the empty space, I sat beside Donghae. "What are you waiting for?" I asked. But he remained in the same position, burying his face in his hands and sniffling.

"Get in there and turn the life support off, Donghae," I whispered bleakly. "Let me go." He threw his head back on the headrest and kept his eyes closed. Seeing how everything was a hopeless case, and as I didn't want to use Yesung to communicate with him, I could only keep quiet. They were all intently watching me from a viewing window. What was so entertaining about watching a machine keeping a dead person breathing?

In the end, I walked up towards the glass and watched myself from the outside. "It's because you left too soon," someone muttered from beside me. There was no need to look at his reflection on the window, as we were both under some kind of invisibility phase. I turned and saw an old man. He looked the fatherly kind, the type of grandfather I would have wanted to have.

He wore a white long-sleeved button-down shirt that was tucked neatly in his pants. The man seemed to be in his mid-fifties, but his eyes gleamed the wisdom that came with old age. I snorted. "It's better this way." I spun on the soles of my feet and rested my back against the window, watching everyone stare at the old me, the Min Yu that was cold and dead.

"Did you see me in there?" I asked, turning towards the old man. He nodded, though his gaze was directed to the crowd waiting for a miracle. "There were more tears than blood," he said and heaved a sigh when his eyes fell to the pitiful Donghae, who, in my opinion, wouldn't be that pitiful if only he had signed the divorce papers that were, by now, invalid. I was dead, and there goes the 'until death do us part' thing.

I gestured towards the glass. "How long has it been?" I pressed, getting more and more intrigued. "About two days. Time really flies fast for us, you know," he informed confidently as he shoved his hands inside the pockets of his black slacks. "I've been watching over things for a while..." "How long have you been...?" I cut him off. He let out a laugh that I'm pretty sure sounds familiar.

"How long have I been dead?" he finished my sentence, to which I nodded. He smiled warmly. "Seventeen years." And after his statement, we both grew silent for a while. It must have been hard for him to move on and accept. "Is it that difficult to go on?" I asked softly, seeing how Donghae had begun crying again.

The old man smiled. "Maybe you think I've stayed here for all of those seventeen years," he started, beginning to pace around. "It's just that my family needs looking after once in a while. And I visit my family a lot, especially during Christmas time. Though I yearn to pick out the hibiscus that grow outside in our garden even during winter and give it to my wife, I know things will never be the same."

"Have you seen your son yet?" This time, it was his turn to ask. Even though the topic was out of context, I nodded, and he led me down to the floor below. We walked past anxious fathers and eager nurses, just focused towards the nursery, where all the newborn children were. I feel a certain kind of tingling coming.

The feeling grew more intense even so after I had laid my eyes on the only unnamed baby lying on a small bed. With my emotions taking over, I stormed inside the room and froze on the spot beside him. And I'm sure he was mine. His eyes were the color of a steaming cup of espresso, and his hair was, too. His cheeks and lips were a bright apple red.

And then I knew for sure he was Donghae's. The baby, like his father, was so beautiful that I wanted to cry. Do ghosts produce tears? "Donghae hasn't seen him yet," the old man said from behind me. And I wanted to ask how he knew my husband's name, but he probably heard it from someone in the waiting room. There was a lot of commotion outside, possibly even fainting first-time fathers.

Despite the fact that I was in a state of everything see-through and walk-through, I wanted to hold him and watch him move those small hands and feet that I had willingly paid for with bulging veins, tender bruises, and merciless bleeding. Back then, I figured he will probably be as astounding as having him inside me, but then seeing him now was altogether overwhelming.

My subconscious was deceived and seemed to be as foolish as its owner, who mourns for whatever was left to her capabilities. I was breathing, yet I was not. I could see, yet could not. Could hold him, yet could not. The wheel of contradictions was also a walking entanglement of everything at once and I guess that was what killed me, causing me to slowly shrink to nothingness on the hospital bed.

But I just wanted to stand there and go on relentlessly about how all the suffering and dying were so worth it for a creature as beautiful and as perfect as him. After a while, the lights were turned off and switched on after some time. "You do realize it's the third day, right?" the old man -- who I didn't know was still there -- spoke, breaking the silence.

Even though I had wished so much as to hold my son just for a while, things were better that way. And so I left, as normally as I could, walking out the door silently, as if anyone could still hear me. We walked back up the stairs without anyone speaking. When we reached the waiting room, familiar voices clouded inside my head and sounded all at the same time.

Out of the blue, the old man leading from in front came to a halt in his tracks and turned to me slowly. I urged him to go ahead and walk further. The voices grew louder and much harder to tune out which is whose. Was amnesia a possible side effect of dying? But I ascended nonetheless, seeing how my feet moved ghostly -- pun intended -- up the stairs.

Donghae was nowhere to be found on the same waiting room. Maybe he had grown tired of watching me stay dead and machine-sustained so he turned to watch airing soccer games, which offered more excitement. Yesung was there and his eyes were glued to where I was, which was probably just plain blank wall to any other person.

I wanted to sit beside him and talk to him, knowing that if he could see me, then he could probably hear what I have to say. But if he did, though, and then he wanted to say something back, I was worried he would look like someone going crazy. Insanity over grief from the death of a loved one? Not really that valid a reason.

I shrugged, dismissing the thought away. Walking up to Yesung with my fists balled up, I sat on the space beside him and gulped. I took a good look of the people surrounding us: the sleeping Eunhyuk, Sungmin, and Ryeowook, and the gaming Kyuhyun. I wanted to shoo them away and tell them to get a life better than just waiting in a room destined for that purpose.

Yesung didn't seem to be so interested with me now, for I had followed his gaze and stared as Donghae held onto the dead Min Yu's hand while he cried. Feeling quite curious, I advanced to the room, wondering why the door was kept open when it was restricted to the medical staff and family members. But I entered nonetheless.

Sitting on the chair laid out for him though he seemed to be so insistent on standing up, I watched him carefully with my eyes, the new ones, that don't seem to be so blind even at night. Being dead somehow had its perks. I wanted to reach up and touch his face, but I had long forgotten that I was walk-through as I did so.

Sighing, I didn't even turn to look at my dead self even if I was tempted so badly to return. But then, who was to say I could? Donghae lifted my hand, the dead one, up to his face. More of his tears fell. Maybe he hated how cold my hand felt like. He smiled, trying to entertain himself with an inside joke, before intertwining our fingers together.

"Remember that day we went to Mokpo..." he started, his voice broken and dead -- and there is more pun intended on that one.”Remember that day you finally learned how to bike? You were so happy that for the next day, you sneaked out on me to go biking while I was asleep." He sniffled silently. "I woke up and you were nowhere to be found."

"And there was also that day when you prodded me awake so early so we could ride the train," he said. "I didn't know where we were going but I agreed anyway. Then we waited for so long for the train, but when it did come, I was helplessly pushed to enter that I didn't get to see where you were." His voice trailed off ever so faintly until I realized he was crying.

"Back then, during that trip to Mokpo and during that train ride, I panicked. I panicked so badly because I worried you'll get lost and then you'll meet people greater than me and you'll be so engrossed in being with them that you won't be able to find your way back," he continued. I nodded after his statement. "There's a way back but I'm still desperately lost," I muttered despite knowing he can't hear me.

"But now," Donghae raked a hand through his hair in agitation, frustration, and grief combined. "Looking back and now, I think I felt afraid not because you'd be the one to get lost." He grasped my hand tighter. "But I'm so lost because you're here yet you're far away," he cried. "I'm here," I told him. "Both the dead one and the new one are here, but you're holding the wrong one."

I bit my lip to fight back tears. Ghosts don't cry, or can they? "But you promised," he whined, almost about to stomp his feet. "You promised me you won't leave," he reminded, though I didn't need any reminding. I never forget. And, possibly catching sight of the wedding ring on his finger and on my dead one, his shoulders shook more violently.

"For richer and for poorer, right?" he stated. And this time, a tear unknowingly escaped from the corner of my overflowing eye. "In sickness and in health," he added faintly. He never forgets, either. "For better or for worse, remember?" It was like he wanted to grab me by the shoulders and force me to come back to life. "Remember?"

Donghae leaned in, pressing his forehead on my dead one. It didn't disgust him to come face to face with a corpse with a pretend tube in the nose that was uselessly keeping me alive. "Even if it's all poorer and sickness and worse, I need you much much more than you need me and it's unfair and I don't deserve it but I need you and I don't know anything else that matters that much."

"So I'm begging you," he shifted on his feet to kneel instead. "Wherever you're going, please take me." He clasped his hands together with my dead hand in between. A nurse on duty walked in on this sight and called for Yesung, who was the only one in the perfect state of mind. "Donghae, let's go wait outside, okay?" Yesung tugged on the younger's wrists, trying to make him stand up.

"Take me with you," Donghae ignored him and went on with his pleading. "Let me go with you," he begged while Kyuhyun dashed in the room and began to pull him away, more forcefully this time, from the cold, dead hand he was holding. "Min Yu, let me go with you," Donghae cried, his hand still reaching out even as he was dragged up from the floor and out of the room, leaving me to only watch.

~Fangirling because of the new poster :"> thank you Haebby13