Everything.

“Goodbye, Jongin.”

I woke up in the hospital bed about almost a week later. They told me that it was a miracle I survived, with just a couple minor scratches and no broken bones.

After that day though, I never saw Sull-Hee again.

It was like she disappeared straight into thin air.

“Jongin, it’s time for your medicine.” A nurse smiled warmly as she came in, carrying a tray with a glass of water and some tablets on it.

“Don’t call me –“ I paused.

The nurse cocked her head. “Yes?”

I thought for a moment then let out a long sigh. “Never mind.”

“You’ll be released soon, Jongin,” the nurse said, setting the tray down on my bedside table. “The check-up tests are almost all done.”

I didn’t reply and continued looking out of the window.

There was hardly any snow left outside, only a few specks of white here and there waiting to disappear with spring just around the corner.

The door opened again and I turned to see who it was.

The nurse bowed. “Good morning, Mr Kim, how do you do?”

“Fine thank you,” he quickly replied. He turned to me.

“Would you like me to go outside?” the nurse asked.

“There’s no need.” He gave me the same disapproving look he always did. “Stop causing me any more trouble. This will be the last time I’ll ever do anything like this for you.”

I mentally scoffed at myself, stupidly hoping that when I woke up, everything would’ve been better or that everything would’ve worked out just fine. Dad and I would be on better terms, Mum and I would start talking again and Jungmin and I would start being brothers again.

Somewhere deep in my mind, that’s what I had hoped.

He left without looking back and closed the door behind him. The nurse quickly did what she had to and left the awkward room, leaving me in silence yet again.

A part of me also hoped that I didn’t wake up. If I didn’t open my eyes, I wouldn’t have to deal with all these things again. It just seemed so much easier to give up at the time than to keep on moving forward in life where everything was so much harder to handle.

Then I thought about it. Why didn’t I just stay asleep? Why didn’t that car just kill me on the spot?

Why am I still alive?

Sull-Hee’s face flashed through my mind.

“There’ll come a time when your real wish appears, Master. When that time comes, I’ll use everything in my power to grant you that wish.”

I sighed. That stupid snowflake never decided to leave me alone even until the very end did she?

After a couple more minutes of contemplating to myself I got up and out of bed, deciding to go outside and away from the suffocating air of the hospital room.

❄

The weather was beginning to get warmer but a chilly breeze would still sweep pass every now and then. I quietly strolled through the garden of the hospital by myself, while the other patients carried on walking around with their family and friends.

I’ve never been admitted to a hospital for more than a day before so I never really got to explore their courts and gardens. It was a peaceful area. I think it was one of the first times I ever heard birds chirp so clearly.

I continued to walk down the path when something white caught my eye. Bobbing down to take a closer look at the small strange thing, I reached out a hand and poked its snow white bulb. It hung in a droopy manner like a pendulum from the stem and was showered in tiny dews from last night’s rain. It had a smell that was sort of like honey.

“They’re called snowdrops,”

I turned around to see an old woman, in her seventies to eighties, smiling gently at me. She was wrapped in a blue blanket and was sitting on a wheelchair, rolling herself closer to examine the flower next to me. “The nurses told me that it’s a new plant they decided to grow here, since it’s one of the first to bloom during this time. They had it imported straight from Europe.”

“Young man, do you know why they decided on the snowdrop?” she asked me after a minute of silence.

I shook my head. “No, I don’t.”

“They represent hope. Hope for the cold winter to end and the warmth of the new season to enter our lives.” She smiled. “They’re strong little fellas. Grows straight through the snow. By the looks of it, they’ll start to open up soon.”

“Do you like them?” I decided to ask her.

“I can’t really say,” she laughed. “Rather than ‘like’, it just holds a lot of meaning for me.”

I looked up at her again, puzzled.

“They symbolise hope and new beginnings but since they grow close to the ground and are often around cemeteries, they also represent death.” I watched her as she gazed down at the small bell-like plant, as if smiling warmly at them. “It’s a mixed but very significant symbolism of the snowdrop. It sums up our life.”

I slowly stood up and met her eyes, eyes that were as soft as Hana’s mum’s.

“Humans cannot simply live through their lives without hoping for something in order to keep living but life is also about our own individual journey towards the end. That is when death is there to greet us. More than it being an unfortunate event, take it as a time when you are finally old enough to able to have things to look back upon. Humans all live to die and that is correct but if you look at it a certain way, death, also represents new beginnings, does it not? For both you and others.”

She cupped her hands around my face and smiled at me, looking straight into my eyes, as if she saw all the things that were weighing me down, as if she understood just exactly what I was feeling for the past few months.

“You are still young, little one. The world may not understand you and you may not have fully understood the world yet. But since you are young, you shouldn't spend your time delving into the past. That’s for old people like me to do.” Slowly, she turned my head around until I faced a path, lined with a billion unopened snowdrops on both sides of the path. “The direction you should be facing is forwards. You may not have a lot of things to look back on but you do have a lot to look forward to.”

She smiled again, making me feel as if I had known this woman my whole entire life.

“Be a kid. Live this life which was given to you, to the fullest.”

After a while of letting the words of the woman sink into my brain, I smiled at her. The first honest smile that I actually meant in a long time. But the smile wasn’t just for her.

It was also for Hana, who gave me so much to remember.

It was also for Hana’s mum, who continued to treat me like her own child ever since young.

And it was also for Sull-Hee, who gave me a second chance at living.

“Thank you.”

❄

14th March

There’s a lot of things that 'will eventually' happen.

There will be a time when I can’t grant wishes anymore.

There will be a time when I can’t see Master anymore.

They will be a time when I disappear forever.

If I look on the bright side, 'will' also sounds like ‘we’ll’.

We’ll eventually get through all of this.

We’ll eventually stop crying.

We’ll eventually feel the warmth of spring.

And we’ll eventually meet again.