I run through the hallway with my knees giving in, my ankles rolling and my shoes tearing apart at the soles, only to see Baekhyun with his face weighing down with distress. As if he had sensed my presence, his head perks up, his eyes like striking bullets. His fists ball by his sides and he grits his teeth together, at the sight of his frustration, I dig my heels into the floor.

  If he’s not in tears, then Chanyeol must be alive.

  Baekhyun storms over, his quiet steps transforming into thundering leaps. I cower my head and every inch that he comes closer, his face reddens. Just one step away from me, he relaxes his posture and takes in a deep sigh.

  “Are you ok-” I begin to ask, but my words were cut off with his shout.

  “WHAT DID YOU DO?”

  My legs quiver, “I saved a woman’s life…”

  Baekhyun massages his temples with his fingers and gnaws on his lip, probably to refrain himself from striking me. “Are you even aware of what the consequences are?” I don’t reply, only because I clearly know. I hang my head and he pulls at his hair. “Your brother is in his room and he can barely breathe. He had that one chance at a normal life and guess who took that chance from him? His own sister.” Baekhyun lifts his head to the ceiling and whispers, “traitor…”

  “Hey!” I grab his elbow and he stares down at me with daggers. “Could you live with yourself knowing that some stranger gave their life up and you were the one allowing them to die? I don’t want me nor Chanyeol to be the reason an innocent lady died. Do you think Chanyeol could possibly accept that either?”

  “I thought you wanted a future with your brother.”

  “Not at the cost of another life, Baekhyun. Let me go see him.”

  I take a lunge to the door, but Baekhyun has his grip on the crook of my elbow, he tightens and I feel a jolt of tension. I turn back at him, our eyes meeting, but his eyes have lost all colour, all emotion, all the life that was the first thing I noticed in him. He’s a changed person, he seems worse than me. Baekhyun grasps at my other elbow, shaking his head furiously while mumbling incoherent words that only he can hear. I poke at his forehead, trying to get him to acknowledge me, but when he does, he flings me away like a smudge of lint.

  “I won’t let you see him, I can’t. I know what it’s like to walk in a room, hoping that things would be as good as the day earlier, but it’s not. When you see the person you love with an appearance which is not far off as a corpse, all that little bit of joy you once had is torn out. You,” he points his finger at my face, “You don’t deserve to see that.”

  The hallways seem paler, life seems duller, everything has twisted to grey.

  “Is… Is he really that bad?”

  All Baekhyun does is nod, and he doesn’t attempt to lift his head.

  The only words echoing in my head are:

  “It’s all your fault, Jennifer.”

  “Baekhyun.”

  He gradually looks up with tears already streaming, he’s already let loose a waterfall, and I haven’t shed a single tear. He waits for me to continue.

  “If you could go back in time, would you have done anything for your mother? Would you have given up your life in hopes of restoring hers?”

  He furrows his eyebrows, narrowing his eyes, “What are you-”

  “Would you?” I ask defiantly.

  “Well, yeah… but-”

  “And what Chanyeol is going through in his final breaths, reminds you vividly of what your mother had experienced? Like, every time you look at my brother, you see the wavering reflection of your mother and there is that undeniable burst of remorse. Don’t you think that somehow… Chanyeol is your second chance?” Insane thoughts are sprinting through my head and I can’t grasp any of them, new emotions bud and old ones grow.

  “You need to take a moment,” he grabs my shoulders, and with a strength I did not know I had, I shrug him off.

  “Chanyeol doesn’t have a moment.”

  “I thought you said were ready! You said you understood it was inevitable, why are you so different from the person you were a few days ago?” He tries to shake me back to reality, but I’m trapped in my small world of insanity.

  I tilt my head upwards and glare, straight into his soul, “Would you or would you not do anything for Chanyeol? Would you or would you not fulfill your second chance?”

  Baekhyun gulps, shudders and trembles, “I would.”

  “Then you have to promise me that you will do a favour for me with the knowledge that there is no turning back.”

  I wait motionless in the waiting room, watching patients leaving and going, the sun gently fading and the noise dying away. I stare at the operation rooms every now and then, praying that the doctor will soon enter the waiting room. It’s not until everyone has dispersed, leaving me as the lone figure in the room, until someone finally beckons me over to the help desk. I stare at the doctor who waits for my request and I count the beads of sweat that fall from his head.

  There’s around 20.

  Now let’s say that one bead of sweat is one hour in Chanyeol’s life. We’ve got 20 hours. That’s less than a day to secure his future.

  “Patient’s name is Park Chanyeol.” I whisper to the doctor, who fiercely types my brother’s name into the computer.

  The doctor arches his eyebrows and snorts, “Sorry but we do not have an operation or surgery for that patient.”

  I shake my head and smile, “No, I’d like to have an immediate surgery. A transplant. A lung transplant.”

  The doctor freezes, his fingers stop typing and it is as though he has also stopped breathing. Another bead of sweat forms. 21 hours. “We do not have any lung donors pending so we can’t perform a surgery. I apologise.”

  With the thought of Baekhyun in my head, I mutter, “No, we do.”

~

  The operation room is cold, eerie, like the first breath of winter or the first flake of snow. Goosebumps form on my arm as miniature mountains and my eyes dance along all the equipment. The surgeon repeats the same rules and procedures as he did about three times prior, but I listen anyways. I need a distraction for what’s about to come. The lights glisten overhead the operation table and silence seeps in.

  “You ready?”

  I pat my hands on the patient robe and imagine myself on the operation table. At first, all I feel is fear. A deep fear that makes me want to turn back and run off to Chanyeol and apologise for being a coward; but I’ve already let him down once, what good of a sister would do that again? This must be what it feels like to be a patient. Wearing a thin sheet of an almost translucent plastic, and creating that image of yourself being operated on. This must be what Chanyeol has experienced too many times.

  He is one boy, who faced hundreds of surgeries.

  I remember the surgeon who is waiting for my response and I smile, wrapping my arms around to conceal my chest. “I’m ready.” I walk around to that other side of the glass, small steps close to the operating table. I’m used to watching, not the other way around. What I see now, is not myself on the table, but rather Chanyeol. The reason I’m here. I imagine him, lying beside Baekhyun on the grass, weaving daisies together to make a long and strong chain, like the future he will finally have.

  I imagine him, smiling, breathing, living.

  And though I won’t be there to see him live like a normal person, we will both breathe in that freedom at the same time, together.

  I climb onto the operating table, lying on my back, and glimpsing at the ceiling lights.

  I sure hope Baekhyun manages to keep his promise for a long time. I hope he stays by Chanyeol and I hope the two will form a bond stronger than any bond I had with my brother. I hope he ensures a future for Chanyeol and that he can help Chanyeol forget who I am. I never want him to utter a word of what must happen today. I never want my brother to think that I gave up everything for him, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to live with that. I’d rather him forget than remember.

  Chanyeol taught me all that I needed to know about life - the small minutes of bliss, the burden of stress, and how easily life can disappear in a heartbeat. Just because there is one moment of smiles doesn’t mean there will always be those moments. My brother, the one who made me pull at my hairs and scream at my face, didn’t retaliate, because he knew that life is too short for constant fighting. He is the proof that ‘after a storm comes a rainbow’, except, he was never the storm, it was me all along. Chanyeol already made my life complete, and I won’t be able to live without him. But Chanyeol, he has Baekhyun, the person who treats him a thousand times better than I ever have, the person who can guide him.

  I’ve learnt everything I needed, so now it’s his turn.

  I close my eyes.

  Just remember, Chanyeol.

  I whisper as the anaesthetic is injected,

  There is no such thing as goodbye.

-END-