BETTERSWEET

Ch.17

In the course of your life, during the turbulent and calm times alike, you are aware that you have done a rather worryingly large number of mistakes, just as you are sure a stranger next to you have done. Some of these mistakes of yours are life changing, while some of them are so little, and insignificant that only your pedantic, harsh mind, never anything else, could ever recall what they actually are and torment you for it.

You suppose that is just how it is. Everyone is self-absorbed in a way, a lot harsher to themselves than what could be considered healthy, and as a measure to survive, desperate as they may be, prioritized themselves much more than others, for people could walk in and out of their lives as easy as the elementary count of one, two, and three.

Now, the mistake that you've done, it is something so ordinary, if you are to put a single defining means in place, so mundane that you don't even take more than a second to consider it for what it could possibly be than what is clearly shown on the surface, the full gravity of it.

However, in your defense, it takes hardly a minute out of the usual rush of your work in the emergency room, perhaps even less than that. It is a quick glance at the television placed in the emergency room waiting lobby meant to be used by the patients' next of kin, and then there is that occupied mind of yours, busy with figuring out the puzzles of symptoms thrown at you for possible diagnosis of your patients' ailments, both of them maddening enough as a separate issue, but more troublesome when jumbled messily together, and you know all too well that being distracted by the both of them is never quite a good combination for you especially as you are on the clock.

The television, playing the news, is reporting on the discharge of a few high-profile individuals after they served their imprisoned time. However, the names are unfamiliar to you, just as how they often are, you are not one to keep a close track of criminals of this sort, as more often than not, they are an individual hailed from a powerful family, ones who slipped and were caught from living their corruptive ways - but you should have known better.

You don't think too much off of it initially of course, criminals are released every day after they served their sentences. What difference does one more make when they are pushed back into the society?

But you learn the hard way later that you really should have paid more attention.

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Perhaps you are just too naive. You've grown comfortable. Or maybe it is the results of all the effort that you put to feel comfortable. Somehow you have shaped yourself to be that way after getting a taste of happiness, of being so light you could fly off to the sky and not bother returning. But you are, you are so incredibly naive.

How could you not be?

After your failed proposal, Juyeon's made time for you, and it is a lot by any standards. She has pretty much moved in into your tiny apartment. Half of your closet is filled with her tailored suits and well-fitting shirts, and your kitchen's cupboards and fridge alike are bursting with food, and though both of you know that you would be stuck in what could potentially be a continuous, downright spiral, not moving any further from where both of you stand, you have embraced the chance to be closer to her than ever, living together like how you have been for a month now, and you take it dearly to heart.

Juyeon is babying you almost. Although, you do have to admit that there is nothing for you to complain about at that point. You feel treasured, blessed, and most importantly, safe.

Maybe that's what made you think it is a wise idea.

However, you have also been through it a lot, much more than you would like to experience it again, ever.