The Afterlife

43) I'll Shine Upon You

(oh wow... wow... we are here, the final chapter of the whole thing
i mean, i mean we do have taehyun's book after but like yeah, this is the last of yeonjun and sihyeon's story? ohhhhhh wow.
yeah im numb let's just start and i'll have updates about upcoming works in the end-notes)

Something blurred out all the noises forbye Sihyeon's breathing, and it was not the wings of the helicopter that was slowly dying down, nor the sound of the sirens and multiple panicking voices running from around her.

Sihyeon's hearing was clouded ever since she boarded the plane, when she ran to Yeonjun to make sure he was breathing, when she looked at Hyejin to see her in her father's embrace, and when she saw the rest of her team checking on one another after they had nearly lost their lives.

Even when they were asked to dismount, Sihyeon was dizzy, and it became worse when she could not see clearly as well. She was aware that her husband and Hyejin were taken on stretchers, and she also knew that someone was calling her name ever since she walked down the steps of the plane.

Sihyeon pushed her steps to where the faint noises totally disappeared, and as soon as she had clear hearing, the loudest of all was still her breathing; it was quick and heavy and thick with all the repetitive coughing.

With wide eyes that seized air and breath where they can find them, Sihyeon stared at her own feet, limping and wandering off the road until she fell to her knees and the heels of both her hands fell over the asphalt; no matter how much she turned around her, there was no one, and perhaps that was the most reason she let herself break.

Sihyeon felt it all - anger, sadness, grief, fear, pain, regret, guilt, disgust. She was furious at herself and at the world, and she was suffering the pain of having to live the way she did, and when she looked down at herself, it was a living proof, a terrible reminder of what kind of life she had been leading.

Sihyeon scratched at her bare arm and the sleeve of the other until it tore; she scratched at the hem of her shirt and the collar down to her chest. She threw away the vest and tore at the clothes that felt like they were there to suffocate her, matted with all the blood of those she could not remember the names of for how endless they were.

Panting, bleeding, sweating, and heavily breathing, Sihyeon used her nails to rip the bandages and feel the stinging of her wounds. It was as if she was being chased by the scent of the blood, but no matter how much she rubbed at it, the smell and sight were there. The sounds of begging and crying and screaming were there and Sihyeon's last resolution was to point her own gun to her head.

Her hands were shaking and the tears she had not cried for years stationed in her eyes. She was looking ahead to avoid the sight of blood on her hands and chest and dark clothes, and her fist clenched over the trigger that she barely managed to press before a voice came up from behind her.

"Stop," Sihyeon recognised the voice without a problem; she had no idea how it came here or why it was speaking to her, but it made her stop, and it made her eyes go wider, breath caught in her throat at what could have happened if the voice came only a second later, "stop, Sihyeon, please."

Sihyeon did not turn around, she did not have to. It was only going to make her rethink what she finally had the courage to do, what she waited eighteen years to fulfill. She did not turn around, and the person speaking seemed to have no courage to move as well, fearing that if the air was to shift, everything would change.

"Let go of it and look at me, please?" Naeun said in the lowest voice she could; she did not want to risk startling the younger girl or pushing her beyond the limits she had already reached. She only stood, and Sihyeon was still in her place. "Talk to me. I am your friend, Sihyeon, no? The person you have saved and lived by for so long."