Hello hello hello! Merry Christmas everyone!!

I hope this chapter won’t disappoint your expectation of this story. I’m so sorry if it does.

Ho ho ho…?

*

He woke up into a soft voice humming.

With a little struggle, Joonmyun opened his eyes, finding a young girl in her eighteen is sitting next to the hospital bed he has been laying on. A petite girl, with bright milky white skin, long dark brown hair hanging loosely around her shoulders as her brown orbs concentrates on the book she’s reading. The sunlight that creeps through the curtain only made her shines more. And there’s this first person that he’d think about if he sees someone so angelic-looking like that.

Saehyun?

However, as if she has some kind of sixth sense, she looks up from her book and meets his eyes. Soon enough she breaks into a wide smile.

“Good morning, Daddy!” she chirps at him.

With that, Joonmyun’s heart softened. It’s his daughter. “Good morning, Princess.” he said warmly.

Kim Yijoon grinned at her father. “Wait a minute,” she immediately put the book on the table next to her and stood up from her seat, “I want to show you something.”

Joonmyun’s eyes followed the girl’s movement. He watched as she yanked the curtain open, and it was bright at first, but soon enough he could see what she’s trying to make him see.

“It’s snowing!” she said brightly. “And Christmas is just in few days. I’m so excited, seriously!”

He remembered how Saehyun loves it when the snow falls on her. But he knows that the whiteness also brings back a lot of painful memories for her. He remembered how she would be smiling like a possessed girl when the pavements are covered in white – then she’d scoop a handful of snow and throw it happily at him –, but then she would smile bitterly as she stares over the skies.

‘What’s wrong?’ he remembered he had asked that to her, so many years ago.

Back then, Saehyun looked up at him. She grinned. ‘Snow is beautiful, right? But it reminds me of things I don’t want to think about.’

How he wished he had understood more that time.

He then heard the door creaked open. “Yijoon-ah, I brought some – oh, Dad, good morning!”

Squinting his eyes, he finally recognized the newcomer in casual outfit. It’s his second son Hyunjoon. “Don’t you have classes today, son?”

“Uh, Dad, it’s Sunday…?” Hyunjoon said before he laughed whole-heartedly. “Seriously Dad, you’ve been stuck in here for too long already; you’re starting to be forgetful.”

Joonmyun just snorted at the young man – like mother like son urgh – as he sighs. “Where is Saejoon?”

“Probably he’s in the office.”

“But it’s Sunday you said.”

Yijoon rolled her eyeballs – like mother like daughter oh God – before she chuckled. “Daddy, you know how Saejoon oppa is a workaholic.”

Now that is ‘like father like son’, Joonmyun laughed inside.

“But he’ll be here by eleven, or maybe twelve. We’re having lunch here today.” Hyunjoon said before plopped on the couch.

“Really?” Yijoon asked as she sits next to her brother, being immediately pulled into the latter’s arm. “With Insoo eonni and the kids too?”

Joonmyun heard his daughter in law’s name, and then he suddenly thought of his in laws – maybe Jongin and Soojung are still in California. And then he also thought about his best friend slash the most annoying man in the world. How is that billionaire Chinese Tony Stark doing? The last time he checked, the man was in Hawaii only with his beloved wife – ‘I can’t even watch my son’s latest concert because he kept bringing me around the world, Joonmyun! – . Well, he doesn’t really want to know. Although he kind of misses him.

While Yijoon, being the devoted aunt, squeals over how her twin nephews will be in the room by lunch.

“Your mother…?” Joonmyun asked.

Hyunjoon blinked at his father before he glanced at his sister. “Yijoon-ah, you didn’t come with Mom?”

“Mommy said she needs to take care of some business things before she gets here.” Yijoon explained. “She said Daddy told her to do that yesterday.”

“Ah, right.” Joonmyun muttered before he tried to sit. As much as how fit his fifty seven years old body is, he’s still sick, so he finds it a bit hard to finally sit properly on the bed. When he realized his surroundings again, his children are already by his sides.

Joonmyun frowned. “You guys probably think I’m an old hag, but no, your father still capable of sitting on the bed his self.”

Yijoon went on ranting about how he has to rest well and stuffs, while Hyunjoon just stared at them. He secretly smiled. Yijoon apparently inherited the easily worried self from him, while Hyunjoon was given the difficulty of speaking out his feelings by his mother.

Our children are amazing, right, Saehyun?

____________

“Your condition is actually improving, Joonmyun.” Miinho – alias the famous cardiologist Dr. Choi – said with a warm smile. “If your progress keeps showing a satisfying improvement like this, you will be able to go home in three weeks.”

Joonmyun frowned. “Three weeks??”

“But,” Minho ignored his patient’s whimper, “it’s if your health keeps on improving. You know the massive car crash you were involved in caused a lot of damage inside your body.”

He could’ve denied that he’s damaged if only he didn’t feel the stinging feeling inside his body all the time. He was involved in a car accident, and thankfully none of his body part was broken. But he had a dangerous internal bleeding; therefore he has been taken under a special care. Especially when they examined that the whole ordeal caused a dangerous state for his heart too.

Which made Joonmyun actually thankful that he still has the chance to breath until now.

“Does my wife know about my current state?” Joonmyun asked.

Minho nodded. “I already talked to her before I came in here.”

Joonmyun replied the nod. “Thank you so much, Minho, for everything you did for me these past weeks. You’re really a great doctor.”

The doctor chuckled. “You talked like you won’t see me again, while you’re still going to deal with me for the next weeks.” Smiling warmly, Minho patted his good friend’s shoulder. “You were the first to tell me that I’ll be a great doctor back then.”

“Huh? I did?”

Minho chuckled once more. “I should call your wife right now. She’s still in the laboratory to get your health examination result.”

Before he closed the door, Minho turned back to face Joonmyun once again. “She would’ve been sticking herself to me just so she could get me to tell her everything I examined on you. That little brat.”

Joonmyun feels like he knows who his friend is talking about, but he asked nonetheless. “Who?”

“Saehyun.” Minho said. “One of the unforgettable ones.”

With that, Minho closed the door of the VVIP room, leaving Joonmyun to stare down at the blanket that covered his body. He felt a bitter smile creeps on his lips.

The most unforgettable one.

“What did you told him?”

With a sigh, Minho settles himself down the chair in front of the laboratory. “I told him that he has been improving, and there’s a hope that he could go home soon.”

The lady nodded slowly. “I hope that gives him strength.”

Minho glanced at the lady with a wave of sympathy washes his heart. The graceful and breathtakingly beautiful lady, despite the aging looks. She really loves Joonmyun with all her heart, she loves him so much that it comes to the stage where it seems like Joonmyun doesn’t worth it. He knows his friend is not a heartless and selfish person, and he realizes that maybe that’s what they said as ‘love cannot be forced’. Because even after all these years, there’s only one person and there will be only one person in his friend’s heart. And that person goes by the name of ‘Saehyun’.

“Seulgi,” he says softly, “I’m sorry that I had to break a bad news to you.”

Baek Seulgi – or Kim Seulgi, technically – flashes this warm, yet tired smile at him. “I should thank you a lot, Minho-ssi.”

They fell into a silence before Seulgi speaks again. “Is it wrong, Minho-ssi?” she whispered. “To hide the thing from him?”

Despite his sympathy towards the woman, he nodded. “You should tell him the truth. It’s about his own body after all.”

“But it will break his heart if I tell him.” Seulgi looks down on her laps. “I mean, he still has a lot of things that he wants to do. Like being there in Hyunjoon’s wedding, or sending Yijoon over the altar. He said he wants to be surrounded by a lot of grandchildren, but there are only Saejoon’s twins yet.”

It only took three seconds for Minho to see that Seulgi’s eyes are tearing up. “But Seulgi, he has the rights to know.”

Slowly, Seulgi nodded while she tried to wipe the pooling tears on her eyes. “I’ve talked to Saejoon. He told me the same.”

“Then go and tell Joonmyun.” Minho said gently. “He needs to know.”

Hyunjoon and Yijoon look at each other as they stayed calm in front of the door to the patient room where their father has been hospitalized.

They shared this same confused and terrified gaze as the faint sound of their parents talking could be heard clearly enough if they don’t move too much. They could hear their step mother’s soft yet trembling voice, and the calm tone their father used.

“Oppa,” Yijoon whispered, her eyes are starting to get wet, “does that – does it mean that Daddy will… die?”

Gathering all of his strength inside, he shook his head at his little sister. “No, Kim Yijoon. Our father is a strong man. Maybe his health is worsening too soon, but he’l