Chapter 22.  Realities

"We make each other alive; it doesn’t make a difference if it hurts."

 - Ingmar Bergman, from a letter to Liv Ullmann

Joohyun woke up with tears in her eyes. The feeling was so heavy in her chest that it just wanted to burst out. When she was able to sit up, she noticed the nurse arranging her medicines.

“Good morning, you have the perfect timing.”

The older woman smiled so she pushed her tears away with the back of her hand and nodded, “I guess… good morning…”

“Take all of these now so I can help you change.”

“Can I go to Shinwoo later?”

“Sure…”

The nurse replied but Joohyun saw it, the change on her face, like she said something sad. A moment later, she was in Shinwoo’s room. Everything looked strangely familiar already but it still hurt so much being there.

“Hey, silly… good morning, are you getting better in here? There’s something I want to tell you but it’s a secret. I went back… I could go back in time, like a superhero. Can you believe it? Neat huh? I went back to that day… again and again… I tried to stop it…. b-but, Shinwoo, I didn’t, I couldn’t I’m sorry. I want to bring you back, I want to set things right. Shinwoo, I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m getting crazy. I want you back, not like this! But I can’t, please… please tell me what to do… I want to bring you back…”

She brushed her tears aside and smiled as she run a hand on his cold arm. The door opened and Yuri stood by the door way with a small smile.

“Are you ready to go home?”

~~~

It has been three days since Joohyun was discharged from the hospital but every day she was required to go back for her therapies and it was also her time to visit Shinwoo. After her usual routine of meeting her doctor and checking on Shinwoo, she would drop by the chapel and stay there for a few minutes.

This time, she was about to leave when she found a familiar face sitting a few benches away from her. Yonghwa stood and walked beside her.

“Hello.”

“Hi…” she smiled, “On your way out?”

“No… I just arrived and saw you here, figured I say ‘hi’ first,” Yonghwa put his hands on his pockets, “Anyway, do you have time for coffee?”

“Yeah, sure…”

They found a spot on the small park within the hospital grounds. Yonghwa handed her a cold can of coffee from the vending machine and sat beside her.

“It’s been a long time,” Joohyun started while she opened her can and took a small sip.

 “Yeah, I’m sorry… I was going to give you a welcome-back-home gift after you were discharged but I got taken.”

“Taken?”

“Uhm… yeah… someone from Japan.” Yonghwa held the can between his palms as if warming it up then returned her gaze, “A friend, actually, came.”

“Friend? Girlfriend?” She blurted out but stopped for a second before continuing rather softly, “You have a girlfriend?”

Yonghwa raised a brow playfully at the way she was looking at him. “Why are you so surprised? Do you think I’m a loner?” He laughed when she only gave her another tight-lipped smile then he shook his head, “Kidding aside, she isn’t a girlfriend… not yet, at least.”

Yet. Joohyun’s gaze darted at the open street, “Ahh… because Shinwoo said you weren’t seeing anyone so I didn’t…”

“He talked about me?”

“Just in passing.” She took another gulp. The coffee was too sweet for her taste and she wanted to excuse herself to get some water—she wanted to leave. But she sighed, “Hmmm… tell me about her, do you like her?”

“Hmmm, yes, I like her…”

Joohyun looked away, “When is she going to be your girlfriend?”

“Someday?” Yonghwa smiled noticing how she seemed to be avoiding his gaze but, finally, she looked back at him with a playful grin.

“Ahhh, is it a one-sided love?”

He chuckled, “Not like that. She’s a family friend. My grandmother and her grandfather used to date when they were younger. Romantic, huh?”

“It is… maybe.” Joohyun nodded remembering what Shinwoo told her about arranged marriages in their family. Probably, that girl was Yonghwa’s pair. “So, where is she now?”

“At home, I suppose?” Yonghwa looked at her by the corner of his eyes while he took a sip. He was feeling weird with all the questions about another girl.

“You don’t know?”

“Do you want me to call her and ask?”

“Just wondering, she’s your, uhm… friend after all.”

He laughed but nudged her gently when he noticed the way she was blushing, “Yeah, I guess we are not that so intimate, you know? Maybe not like you and my brother.”

“Hmmm… will you introduce me to her?”

“Do you want to meet her?”

“I guess? I’m curious.”

“Why are you curious?”

“No, nevermind,” Joohyun shook her head. Maybe she was just trying to have a conversation with him, she justified to herself. It didn’t concern her, she knew but she couldn’t help it and it might have sounded weird for him so she went on, “You have to spend more time with her.”

“How come you know that I’m not spending more time with her?”

“You aren’t?”

Yes, because I’m, spending more time with you. Yonghwa brushed those thoughts aside and grinned, “I was joking, Joohyuna… but yeah, we don’t really have a chance. She’s based in Japan and I will be joining her after I graduate.”

“Then you must spend time with her now that she’s here,” Joohyun mumbled as her gaze darted away from him.

“Are you shooing me away again?”

“It’s not that.”

“That was another joke. But don’t worry, she’s too busy meeting her friends right now.”

“Ahhh, when you weren’t around, you were with her?”

“Most of the time, yes,” Yonghwa lied.

She looked away again, “Hmmm… good…”

They were quiet for a moment. He drained his can and let the after taste settle in his tongue while Joohyun stayed pensively staring at something ahead of them. Yonghwa cleared his throat, “Uhm, have you been going back?”

“No…” She got reminded again of her failure that one time she wasn’t able to change things. After going home, she seemed to have lost that ability and she wondered if it has ended. She shook her head getting back on track of the conversation, “I don’t know how I did it before. I don’t know how to do it again.”

“If that’s the case, don’t you think you were just imagining it?”

“I thought of that—I thought of so many possible reasons why I did that before, but I always end up on a dead-end. It’s driving me crazy.” Joohyun met his silent gaze. There was something in the way he would look at her—piercing, not in the bad sense of the word but more of something deep and igniting. “Do you really believe that I can do it?”

“I believe you.”

Yonghwa answered without hesitations and she couldn’t understand why it gave her chills. He was the only one who knew what was happening in her mind. “Do you really? Or you’re just saying that just because it could comfort me?”

“I believe you,” he replied matter-of-factly and when he noticed the tinge of doubt in her voice, he continued, “Because I know there’s no reason for you to lie to me.”

“If… if you could go back in time yourself, what would you do? Would you change something?”

An image of her in the park that afternoon played in his mind. The beautiful stranger standing there with the soft breeze blowing her hair and dress ever so gently. He could remember the secret smile she gave him the moment their eyes met for the first time. “I would, if that’s possible… I would change something… that’s human nature, I guess…” It made him smile and he carelessly responded but he shook his head when he realized that there was Shinwoo now, “I take that back… I’d rather not change anything.”

“Why is that?”

“Because…” Joohyun was looking at him expectantly so he sighed, “Because what if things would still fall the same way? Do I have to make myself suffer over and over again?”

“You’re just scared that things would fall the same way.”

“Aren’t you?”

“No… somehow I’m not scared, I have to be… not scared, you know? Because that’s the only thing that keeps me hanging on…”

That’s the only thing that keeps me hanging on…

The words hang in his head.

~~~

Joohyun let him drove her home when they decided to part ways and Yonghwa went back to the hospital to drop off some documents and visit his brother as planned. On his way out of the ICU, he met Yuri by the hallway and walked with her.

A few days ago, she and other doctors talked to him about Shinwoo’s condition. Even the doctor who flew from abroad agreed to their initial prognosis and he was tasked to gently break the news to his family.

“So, did you talk to them?” Yuri started.

“Yeah, only to my parents, though. The younger ones and halmeoni are probably not ready to know what you all told me.”

“What did your parents say?”

“They both said that they’re ready for what would happen but as long as Shinwoo would keep on fighting then, we are all going to fight for him. Umma still wants to talk to Dr. Kim but Appa doesn’t want her to since her blood pressure has been very irregular.”

“Really? Did she see a doctor?” Yuri opened the door to her office and motioned for Yonghwa to get inside and take his seat as she took her own, “Why don’t you bring her to me? I can check on her and probably we could talk.”

“I will tell Umma,” Yonghwa watched Yuri silently leafed through some documents and write notes on them. “How about her? Do you think she’s ready.”

Yuri abruptly stopped scribbling and focused on the young man in front of her, “She will never be ready.”

“Are you going to have this kind of conversation with her?”

“I’m scared.” Yuri admitted.

“Do you want me to talk to her?” Yonghwa forced his voice gently and waited for a second before Yuri smiled sadly. Even if the latter would say yes, he knew it would be a tough job for him talking to Joohyun about the possibilities.

“No, probably not.” Yuri shook her head, “She will not accept it. Let’s just wait and see. Miracles do happen.”

He sighed, “I won’t get tired of waiting for that to happen.”

~~~

That’s the only thing that keeps me hanging on…

Her words were clear to him even the next day as Yonghwa watched her back silently inside the ICU. She didn’t seem to notice that he was standing behind her or it might be the stable beeps of the monitors attached to Shinwoo that muted the sound of the door when he came in.

Yonghwa was about to turn away and leave to give her time for herself when Joohyun took notice of his presence.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t notice you,” Joohyun wiped her cheek and took a step forward aiming for the door as he made his way closer to the bed.

“It’s alright, I didn’t notice you were here too and I was about to leave.”

“Please stay, I’ll be on my way. I just dropped by.”

“Okay, why don’t we go together? Do you still need to be somewhere else?”

“No, I talked to Unnie before coming here. I’m going home.”

“That’s settled then…” Yonghwa smiled when Joohyun walked back closer to the bed.

“I talked to Oppa— to Doctor Kim, he told me there’s no change in the past days…”

“So I’ve been told.”

“I’ve been thinking about it…”

“Hmmm?”

“Since I’ve been discharged, I couldn’t do it anymore.”

“What good does it do to you to be back there?”

“I don’t know… I don’t know yet… I want to find out how I could change things.”

“If you could change things, this moment… this ‘now’ that you are standing beside me won’t happen anymore?”

Joohyun stared at him as if realization swept over her, “I want him back… not this way.”

“Joohyun… look, stop it. You said it yourself, you came back several times but nothing happened. Just stop… accept things… accept this…”

“What? You want me to accept seeing Shinwoo this way?”

“I want you to move on.”

“Move on? To where? The only way is the road back… and I will retrace my way back there.”

“You’re not going anywhere and you know it!”

“How did you know? What did you know about all these when you don’t even believe it!”

“What? Do you still doubt that I believe every single word you said?”

“You will never understand! Nobody will ever understand!”

“Because you’re closing your eyes to reality! This…” he pointed at Shinwoo, “This is reality! Face it!”

“No! No… not ever—”

The sudden eerily shifting of the sounds of the monitors shook them back to where they were. They looked at each other alarmed especially when nurses and doctors came rushing inside and ushered them out of the room.

The moment the door was shut tight on their faces, Yonghwa didn’t even move an inch but watched helplessly the silhouettes inside and tried to make something out of the muffled voices barking orders and somewhat speaking a language severely unfamiliar to him. A rush of cold air swallowed him and his heartbeat was so loud he could almost hear it.

Consequently, Yonghwa turned around when he remembered Joohyun and found her just in front of him resting her back on a wall almost panting and breathing so rapidly like she just ran a mile.

He moved to where she was and gasped when he noticed her almost bloodshot eyes—reflecting fear and confusion.

“Oh, Hyun…”

Yonghwa was about to touch her face but she moved her head to the side and mumbled, “Don’t…”

He walked back near the door, shut his eyes tight and prayed.