orbits

the prologue

sure enough, mihi's eyes were closed and her breathing was slowing down. seonghwa's pinky was intertwined with her pinky, which was supposed to mimic how mihi would be there for seonghwa the same way wooyoung was. 

seonghwa watched the way her chest was barely pushing out or inhaling in air. a low beep on the monitor indicated that she was below her normal oxygen saturation level and the continous beeping showed that her heart rate was slowing down drastically. he could hear jongho- his junior yell at someone to take the ventilator out but seonghwa knew he was watching mihi make one of her last breaths. she was on the dnr list and her last breath would be her final. 

"jongho."

"seonghwa-ssi she needs to be put on a ventilator!"

"let her die peacefully. she's on the dnr. its been three years and i can't watch you shove a pipe down her throat now. not when she is finally asleep when she's drifting off." seonghwa's tears fell down like a stream on his scrubs and he made no move to wipe them off. 

"i promise we'll meet when we were beautiful." seonghwa whispered against their pinkies and sealed it with a kiss, his eyes closing in defeat when he heard the monitor go off. 

kim mihi was dead. kim mihi died in room number ten and seonghwa felt another part of himself drift away with her. the part which continued to compare mihi to who hayoon was. the part which longed to carry mihi in his arms and take away all the pain like he had done with hayoon. he had left hayoon without a single goodbye and he knew that the scales were being tipped back in favour with mihi leaving without as much of a word of farewell to seonghwa.

seonghwa unplugged and removed everything, knowing there's no one to wheel her to the mortuary as usual. nothing had changed since the last three years but seonghwa was determined to make mihi the last body he would carry to the mortuary. it will all come back like a circle and end in it's right place. kim mihi was his first patient when he had been accepted into the hospital and after he had given the body to the mortuary, seonghwa took out the resignation letter out of his pocket he had been carrying for the entire week. 

it was time he moved out of the country to experience more. life for seonghwa was like the warm rains during spring. seonghwa's heart fluctuates more everyday but the water of fresh beginnings engulfs it and helps it calm down. so he reaches out towards the sea so he could wash away the lingering regrets of his chapters and turn over the page for a new chapter, except his book only ever had a single name for all his chapters.

bittersweet.