The day that Myungsoo was afraid of came and Krystal was wheeled to the operating room. She was a picture of hope as she was smiling brightly until the OR doors closed. The surgery went on for hours and every ticking on the clock made Myungsoo more nervous. Thankfully, Tiffany, his older sister, was there to hold his sanity intact. Ten hours had passed and finally the head surgeon emerged from the doors with a bright smile on his face.

            “The surgery was a success. We successfully removed the tumor,” he told him. “However, she would be on a 48-hour observation. We did our best so let’s put the rest to God.” And being said that, the doctor disappeared on the hospital corridors leaving Myungsoo in a roller coaster of emotions. For one, he’s happy. The operation was successful. But he can’t go into celebratory mood yet not when she hasn’t woken up. If he has to be honest with himself, he didn’t actually feel happy. The sense of fear in his system had increased and with the memory of the promise he left for his wife replaying in his head, he continued to be restless.

            When the 48-hour observation was over, Krystal was still not awake and the doctors had no other choice but to declare her in a state of coma. Upon hearing the news, Myungsoo had no idea what to do. He just    stood there on the intensive care unit, a few feet away from Krystal. He was void of emotions as the doctors rambled on about the probabilities and a lot more numerical figures which he couldn’t care less.

            Eighty-four weeks had passed since the operation, roughly two years, and now he had to make good of the promise he made to Krystal; and, he still had no idea what to do. Lately, he had been searching for answers in the Holy Scripture and in the writings of famous philosophers he could find. Occasionally he would find a striking passage, but nothing more than that; he would close the cover of the book and find himself staring out the window, his thoughts blank, as if hoping to find the solution somewhere in the sky.

            He seldom drove straight home from the hospital. Instead, he would drive for hours and find himself in Busan beaches. He would slip off his shoes, listening as the waves crashed along the shore. He knew he had been worrying everyone with his distant self for the past two years. His mother would always drop by their apartment and occasionally, would spend the night over though Tiffany had been practically living with him since the doctors had told him that Krystal might never wake up.

            Myungsoo had always been thankful to his older sister. Tiffany would always talk to him, their conversations filled with their usual banter but it was somehow stilted at the same time. Despite her sometimes flippant remarks and her occasional teasing, he knew she had been reassuring him that everything will be alright, that she and others were worried about him. To head off her assurances, he’d always say that he was doing fine, even when he wasn’t, for the truth was something he knew she didn’t want to hear: that not only did he doubt he’d ever be fine again, but he wasn’t even sure he ever wanted to be.

            On days he visited Krystal, he would always sit beside her