Jieun was beyond annoyed. 

She glared at the group of students who had barged into the ward one morning like it was the most natural thing to do, some of them shooting her and Jonghwan looks of contempt and disgust, others a sad attempt at showing pity.

She didn't need all of that. She just wanted them to get out.

"It must be miserable being sick, isn't it?" One of them looked down at her and stared at her beanie, and she rolled her eyes. What did he know?

"If it wasn't for the fact that I needed a service-learning project in my resume, I would never come down here. My goodness, the smell of illness and death," a boy said in a low voice to a girl next to him, who was nodding away furiously.

Jieun had enough.

"GET OUT!" She tossed a pillow at the student nearest to her, threatening to kill all of them if she had to. "We don't need a pity party here, and you can go find someone else to disturb for your perfect resume! Get the heck out of here!"

She felt burning as she suppressed the urge to vomit, her whole being burning with rage. Who did they think they were, to judge her and Jonghwan for being sick? Did they think they were gods sent down from heaven to save their pitiful existence?

The students squirmed, a few girls squealing at her outburst. She heard of the guys murmuring 'insane' under his breath, and she knew she had already lost it. Her mind whirred furiously; she could hear Jonghwan telling her to calm down, the students whispering their judgments of her, and a tiny voice at the back of her head telling her that he loved her. She took in the sight of the students scrambling to get out of the ward, the teacher shuffling towards them to ask what had happened. 

It was then that Jieun paused and realized how heavy and irregular her breathing was. She was still alive, she could feel it.

Problem was, now she wasn't so sure whether she was glad to feel and be alive.

Luhan frowned at the sight of the students loitering outside Jieun's ward. From their hushed and heated whisperings, he could already guess what had happened. He had seen it happen way too many times in the other wards, and he couldn't believe that it was happening once again. He made a mental note to try and get the chance to talk to the doctors about stopping students like them from coming to the hospital and disturbing the patients.

With big strides, he walked up to the door, ignoring the blatant stares and looks of admiration thrown at him.

"Get out of here. Jieun and Jonghwan don't need people who don't sincerely care for and love them for who they are, and not what illness they have."

He took a deep breath in and shut the door firmly behind him, his heart heavier than ever before as he caught sight of Jieun's tear-stained face beneath the pillow that she attempted to hide her tears with.

He wanted to be her warrior, to protect her from the cruel realities that lay beyond the ward, to stop the pourings of pity and uncalled-for judgments of her illness, but there was just so much he could do.

And it made him feel useless, so useless.

Jonghwan pretended to eat an apple as he watched Jieun smile through the tears from a corner of his eye when Luhan fed her slices of pear. 

It wasn't envy that he was feeling right then, but he couldn't explain it. It tugged at him to see the human nature in such a pure and selfless form, it was something that he thought only appeared in children storybooks. 

He knew that Jieun hurt a lot inside, and that she was growing a lot more ill and weaker than she realized, but Luhan always made it a lot better for her. He knew, he had seen her toss and turn and squirm in the middle of the night, the discomfort clearly too much for her to take. However, as compared to he who was incapable of making things any easier for Jieun, Luhan seemed to have the 'magical' power to heal her slowly and gradually, even if it was only temporary.

It was amazing, and he truly respected that. 

He had sometimes envisaged them as a beautiful white rose blooming in the darkest of nights, and that gave him slightly more hope to live on to watch how their story will turn out, even though he knew - of course he knew - that flowers would eventually wilt.

But that didn't stop roses from growing, and he was grateful to be able to witness one. Yes, Jieun had taught him to be grateful for the smallest things in life, and he would be, for her. Even if the flower hadn't bloomed for him, he would still appreciate its delicate beauty.

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” ― Oscar Wilde