“We’re getting closer.”

She almost gasped when he suddenly said that.

For a split second, Shinwoo turned to her with an assuring smile and she smiled back despite the loud throbbing in her chest.

What could go wrong with him beside her?

What could go wrong?

They both looked ahead again, too late to realize the roadblock. The sign before that left unnoticed the moment they were looking at each other. It was too fast that it was hard to remember how it all happened as the car flew and flipped over.

Then something hurt. Then something felt terribly painful.

SHINWOO!!!!

It happened.

Joohyun managed to turn her head towards him.

Shinwoo looked at her and said something.

She couldn’t make out what it was but she knew he said something.

Shinwoo said something and she couldn’t…

Silence gripped her by the neck.

Time stood still.

The world lost its color.

Chapter 19. Equilibrium

"Normality is a paved road:

It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it."

— Vincent van Gogh

Her body ached. Her head throbbed. Air almost got kidnapped from her.

Her eyes opened slowly—painfully and slowly.

She woke up staring at the now familiar ceiling of her hospital room. Drenched in sweat, she searched for anyone whom she could share the sudden fear. Joohyun raised herself up gently to reach the phone by her bedside and sent a message to her sister but she withdrew. Yuri had already been through a lot for her and she didn’t want to burden her any more than she should.

Joohyun spent the rest of the day thinking of that weird dream until her unnie came before lunchtime to check on her before her shift started. Yuri was telling her about her impending release from the hospital and the other things they must look through for her full recovery but she stopped when she noticed her sister’s faraway look. “Joohyun? You look distracted. Do you want to talk?”

She nodded, she just wanted it out of her chest. “I had a dream— a weird dream.”

“What was it about?” Yuri sat beside her on the bed.

“The day before the accident… I dreamed of that day like I was there again. Everything happened the way it did.”

“Awww baby…” Yuri cupped her sister’s cheek, “Maybe it is part of your recovery. Your mind is remembering some of those things you couldn’t after the accident.”

“Hmmm… you’re probably right. It felt so real.”

“Then maybe it was real, it was more of your memory than a dream.”

Joohyun stared at her sister. Perhaps that was really it was all about. Despite the strangeness of it all, it made sense. It was something that she could hold on to just to keep being sane. But then she remembered her prayer in the chapel—

“So… we only had a theory of what happened. Do you want to tell me?”

Joohyun stared at her sister as her mind got distracted off the thought. What happened that day? She could retell it because it felt that she had been there again. Snippets of it flashed in her mind— the moment the car turned.

The torturous screeching sound and the silence that followed it.

She remembered the sudden fear she felt when she realized the moment the car flipped over. Then the pain somewhere in her head. Then the blood flowing down Shinwoo’s temple. She shut her eyes tight and shook her head, “Perhaps… but not now…”

“Okay… that’s okay.” Yuri smiled brushing her head with her fingers, “Let’s talk about it when you’re ready.”

“I’m sorry, Unnie.”

“What for?” She raised a brow playfully then cupped her cheek and kissed her temple, “There’s nothing to be sorry about. Whatever happened, I’m thankful that you are here beside me, okay?”

Yuri helped her sister get dressed. She remembered her conversation with Eunji the other night when he told her that there was really no hope left for Shinwoo. They tried everything. The extensive damage from the crash injured the nerve cells in his brain. Because it was a microscopic injury and it didn’t appear in the CT scans, it took them a long time to locate it.

His family knew of this but his grandmother asked for more time since she found a specialist from the United States who was scheduled to arrive two days later. Although Eunji himself was trained for this situation, he and the hospital management agreed and respected this wish of the family. Yuri just decided not to tell any of these facts to her sister.

“Unnie…” Joohyun called her sister’s attention when she noticed the wilting flowers on the table across them.

The flowers.

“Hmmm?” Yuri turned.

“Have you seen Yonghwa Oppa?”

“Not today, not yet…” she set the used sheets on the side and walked back to where her sister was sitting, “The nurse said he was with you last night?”

“Hmmm… yeah, I fell asleep and—“

“And?”

“And I don’t really remember if he went out before I fell asleep.”

All she could remember was the way he held her tight.

~~~

Yonghwa bowed gently as their audience gave them a booming applause then handed his brother’s guitar to the band’s manager waiting on the side. He smiled when the familiar face raised her glass at him. “Hi… fancy seeing you here.”

“I’m no longer a minor, Yonghwa-ya.”

He laughed. “And now I’m ‘Yonghwa’. What happened to ‘Yonghwa Oppa’. And the worst thing about it is that I got the ‘ya’ instead. Is this an upgrade to our relationship?”

“Huh? You want an upgrade when you were the one who ditched me and the gang?”

“Ya… you know why…”

“I know why and it hurts, you know? Just because of that, you turned into a stranger and pretended that we didn’t even know you?”

“I’m sorry…”

“So much for that,” Sooyoung laughed took a small sip from her glass and looked seriously at her friend, “I heard you formally met her.”

“I did,” Yonghwa took her glass and gulped down its content frowning after, “Mojito? Not too hard, huh?”

“Who are you to say?” She rolled her eyes then elbowed her friend gesturing towards the manager of the bar, “So, did you tell them?”

“Yes. At first they got confused and I had to apologize. Now they’re asking me to replace him.”

“Will you?”

“There’s no replacing Shinwoo. I’m just filling his spot now that he’s…” he looked back at her trying to sound normal, “He better wake up soon.”

“Hmmm… yeah… I dropped by yesterday then went to Joohyun. She told me she’ll be discharged soon.”

“She would have been discharged earlier if not for her sister. Nuna wants to keep her there a little longer.”

“Yeah, it’s better that way. I can’t imagine the trauma—“ she stopped mid-sentence when she noticed Yonghwa flinched, “Anyway, do you still visit her?”

“I try not to…”

“Why?”

“It’s probably hard for her seeing me.”

Sooyoung studied his reflection from the bar’s mirror in front of them, “I understand but who knows you are just what she needs right now.”

“We know who she really needs right now and it isn’t me. She needs Shinwoo.”

“You’re maybe right but an extra friend won’t hurt, huh?” she smiled hoping he would do the same.

“That makes sense.”

“Of course it does!” The girl laughed and elbowed him playfully, “Now that you know each other, are you going to tell her that it was you that day on the pa—“

He shook his head, “No… and still no for future reference, Sooyoung.”

“You must.”

“What difference does it make?”

“That’s why you are  always mistaken for Shinwoo.”

It was his turn to laugh, “What? Isn’t that too obvious to you yet?”

“Pabooya… you’re both stupid stubborn jerks.”

“Thanks for the kind words, exactly what I need right now.” Yonghwa snickered as finally he took the glass reserved for him.

She laughed herself and raised her glass, “Let’s drink to that.”

~~~~

Nine Blooms was a hole in the wall kind of little flower shop found in a rather dainty street corner where restaurants, coffee and tea shops and clothes shops were usually found. He discovered it by accident and after that day, the shop took a special place in his heart and memory.

Lee Nayeon, the owner, was about to close when she spotted the familiar form entering her shop so she smiled and welcomed him the moment the bells attached to the door clinked.

“Good evening. Are you closing?”

“About to, but who says no to additional income?”

“Of course…” Yonghwa smiled when the woman moved inside her shop and came out again placing the usual arrangement he would order on the counter. He liked her— the owner of the shop. She must be in her late twenties but the way she smiles and talks to her patrons makes her look and sound younger.

“It seems that you can finally give your flowers to her.”

“Huh?”

Nayeon plucked a misplaced leaf from the assortment and spoke calmly but with hidden enthusiasm, “I remembered the first day you came here. You asked me to make the most beautiful arrangement I could ever make in my life. I asked if it was for your girlfriend but you said ‘soon’. You came back around this time when I was about to close too and returned the flowers because you didn’t find her. I was meaning to ask you if you already found her. I have been making the same arrangement for the past weeks now.”

“I did… I found her. Only that—“ he stopped with a sad smile and shook his head, “It’s not the same…”

“Well, I hope things turn out better. This agassi, I hope she will see your heart through these flowers.”

He shook his head, “No… not anymore now.”

“Aigoo, this young man. Don’t say that…” Nayeon pushed the basket gently, “Not this time instead?”

Yonghwa nodded and smiled, finally, “Not this time… probably, and thank you.”

“No… thank you, thank you for trusting me with these delicate words of your heart. Nothing could ever mean more. I hope she’d see that… one day, yes?”

“Yes, one day…” With that, he bid her goodbye and promised to return the next day.

Yonghwa was reminded again of that afternoon at the park— the fateful meeting, the day he dismissed the thought that love at first sight isn’t real. That day, it happened to him and he could almost believe that she felt it too. It was one of the greatest regrets he would carry in his life— of not staying there to find out her name.

He only got his senses back when he passed by the flower shop. Yonghwa was drawn to that place like gravity. He went inside and asked the woman for flowers to give the girl at the park but when he went back she wasn’t there anymore.

From then on he started to look for her in every place; he would picture that meeting again in his head. He went back to that place and time over and over again just to get her in his life. But he knew that nothing could come out of it no matter how many times he tried.

Then one day, out of his ordinary day, his eyes fell into that familiar recognition. She was there on the other end of the street. The remembrance he knew. That day Sooyoung was with him. And she was as surprised as he had been.

“That girl— it’s her!” His heart exclaimed.

Sooyoung’s gaze fell towards where he was looking. “Seo Joohyun? That girl in blue? But she is— Shinwoo…”

Her voice faded probably because of the look he was wearing. She didn’t need to continue.

Seo Joohyun.

She was Seo Joohyun. Just how many people share the same name?

Right there and then, he realized that the girl in the park was Shinwoo’s Seo Joohyun.

That day, Sooyoung promised that she didn’t know anything. That day too, Yonghwa tried to forget and ignore.

He arrived at the hospital about a few minutes before it closes for visitors. Yonghwa dropped the flowers in her room first expecting to find her asleep but only the nurse welcomed him.

“Ahhh, finally, fresh flowers… uri agassi didn’t want me to throw away these old ones,” she raised the basket of withered flowers with a playful grin. “And these curtains she didn’t want any of us to touch.”

Yonghwa just smiled and turned his attention to the empty bed. “Where’s Joohyun-ssi?”

“She’s at the chapel. She asked me to leave her for a while and take her back after thirty minutes and it’s about time...”

“I will take her,” the nurse nodded and he excused himself.

He decided it was okay for him to see her this time so he went to the chapel and found her seated on the bench. Her wheelchair was beside her on the aisle. Yonghwa quietly sat beside her and smiled the moment she looked up to see who it was, “Annyeong…”

“Hi… you came…”

“Yeah, had to be somewhere today. But I brought you flowers. How was your day?”

“The same…”

“Hmmm… are you feeling better? Since last—“

“Yes, and thank you… for…”

“No problem. Ahhh… your attendant said it’s time for you to go back to your room.”

Joohyun nodded. She looked the same, despite what she said— worn out and lifeless. Yonghwa could swear that the withered flowers in her room seemed to be in a better condition than her. “Did you see him today?”

“Yes… but I want to see him again before I go back to my room. Is that okay?”

“Of course, Hyun…” Yonghwa nodded but he knew it would have been better if she didn’t.

........................................................................................

Thanks for the comments!!!!! <3