The Time When Our Path Someday Cross Again

Chapter 1

"Why?" The voice trembled, its hoarseness and weakness resonated in the silence of the hospital ward at night, clear as crystal. Ryu Sunjae stood silently behind the open door, lips tight with emotion he could not conveyed. Each syllable felt like a sharp knife, piercing and shattering him to pieces. Even then, he absorbed every word she said. "Why did you save me?"

The words, like the vase thrown moments ago that now shattered to pieces, were meant for him.

The girl then cried. She cried so hard; it had taken Sunjae off-guard. His eyelid could not hold his own tears any longer, they rolled down his face uncontrollably. His chest felt heavy, it was so heavy that it made his heart ache. The ache was unlike anything he'd felt before. He wondered if there was a cure for such pain.

In the hospital, countless people plead to be saved. But to the girl across the room, if the options were to be saved or to be dead, she would choose the later without looking back. To live while the half of her lower body became paralyzed is not the option that she would want to choose.

Suddenly, Sunjae woke up in shock. Sweat dripping down his forehead, his heart racing rapidly. It felt like he almost choked by his own breath. His hands trembled violently, feeling suffocated by the weight of it all.

It was that nightmare, again.

In the dimly lit room, he noticed someone sleeping peacefully in the bed nearby. Relieved no one had seen him, he counted slowly to ten, a ritual taught by his psychologist to maintain his sanity during these haunting nightmares. This method, among all others, was his lifeline—a fragile thread keeping him survive for fifteen years.

-

It was almost 11 pm, but the ICU room of Wooshin University Hospital is not seemed to be anytime stopping. Not when there was a huge traffic accident nearby the intersection that involved one truck and three cars three hours ago. Patients had stopped coming, but their family and relatives had not. Their cries, conversations, and occasional scolding blended with the persistent beeping of heart rate monitors, refusing to relent even as the critical period had passed.

The accident claimed one life: the truck driver himself. Tests revealed he had been driving under the influence, with a blood alcohol level of nearly 0.08%. Ryu Sunjae sat beside the motionless body, a man of his father's age. In that kind of alcohol-level in his blood, Sunjae guessed it should be difficult for him to hop on his truck, let alone driving in a rainy day like this. If only the accident had occurred just hours later, it could have been far more catastrophic. There are schools nearby the intersection.

Despite the nurse's efforts to contact the truck driver's family, they had yet to arrive. Sunjae pondered whether the man had any family at all. As far as he knew, the call had connected to a distant relative with no close ties. Realizing the likelihood that the body might not be visited by relatives anytime soon, Sunjae decided the chair beside the lifeless body was his resort—a place to collect himself after a tense night shift. What a scene during his duty.

He resent all the irresponsible driver without exception, whatever their excuses are. Life being taken away is not the only tragedy that could have happen. It could ruin someone's life, it could ruin families. It could take parents away from their children, it could take children away from their parents. It could take dreams, it could take a whole world away from someone. He would never taken DUI cases lightly. Especially when he had witnessed someone's life changed in an instant in front of his eyes.

The accident had sparred her life. But it sure had stolen countless opportunities that lies ahead. She was a bright woman in her nineteen. The accident had taken the spark in her eyes. It had robbed the beautiful smiles that used to never fades.

Sunjae couldn't help but to recall all the possibilities, the chances, and the moments that she had missed after the accident. Her last school uniform had been her summer one. She missed her high school graduation in winter, unable to take photos with classmates or bid them farewell. She could have gone to so many beautiful places, she could have gone to concerts and movies. She could have gone to the university of her choice, studying to become a movie director as she always dreamt for. She could have experience freedom as women in her twenties. Wear beautiful shoes, go out with her friends, ride bicycle beside the Han river.

But she didn't.

In one single tragedy, it put invincible walls in every corners of her future. She even had not live half of her life yet, her wings were clipped before they could fully unfurl.

Thoughts of her haunted him, especially in times like these. Lately, memories of her seemed to return more frequently. Was it because of the accident? Or was it because it had been fifteen years since the last time he saw her? Was it because he just missed her tremendously now, like the other day, more than ever?

Since she moved away from their neighbourhood, Sunjae hadn't seen her again. Sunjae knew it must be difficult for her family to keep living in their old home, an old building with no elevator. It was not wheelchair friendly. Once in a while, he witnessed her mother had to carried her in her back. Sunjae wanted to help, but something always held him back.

He couldn't face her, couldn't meet her eyes. He didn't have the audacity to meet her, to be frank. He was not ready with the pain he must confront whenever he listened to her cries and frustration.

So, for fifteen years, her new address was tucked inside his wallet, even until now. The address he never visited.

Baek Inyuk said it was absurd to feel such guilt to this extent. Though Sunjae was thankful that she was alive, but he could not help but to blame himself. The thought of 'something could've been done' always lingered in his mind. He could have done something when he saved her so she wouldn't have to be injured in vital points on her leg. There must be some way, some method he could have done, as a former swimming athlete, to save her without being badly injured.

The accident had completely changed her life. It had changed every lives of the members in her family. But after all, she might not know that there is one more person whose life is completely changed because of that accident.

It was his.

Sunjae gaze fell to the white robe he was wearing, with blood stained every here and there. People no longer call his a former swimming athlete. They also no longer call him a short fin tuna. The swimming pool was not his second home anymore. This place, has become his second home. A place that he visit more often than his father's or even his own home. In this place, in this hospital, they called him doctor Ryu Sunjae.

The extreme path he had taken had shocked everyone. He was in preparation to become an athlete in Olympic level, and now, fifteen years later, he miraculously became a doctor in a university hospital. Nobody believed him when he said he want to study medicine. Everyone knew that he was not studious, his grade had not even passed the minimum grade for a student-athlete level. He didn't believe himself either, actually. But he had one thing in his mind; nobody should experienced such tragedy just like what happened to Im Sol.

His first love that he will unlikely to forget for all his live. With her stolen bright smile that Sunjae could not forget even after he dies

The barging sounds from the ICU door startled Sunjae. His trained radar could sense there will be an incoming patient. Accidents tend to happen during rainy days like this. Sunjae got up from the chair, he brushed off the curtain in front of him, walked toward the patient who laid in the rolling bed. Behind the nurses that surrounded the patient, Sunjae can see the long black hair that falls apart. Though she was motionless, she was still breathing.

" A women in her thirties, involved in a traffic accident. She was on wheelchair, lower body is paralyzed. There is an injury in her head. BP is 60/40." The ambulance nurse informed Sunjae about the condition of the patient. Strangely, her body felt familiar.

When Sunjae's eyes meet the face of the patient, the truth struck him like a lightning bolt.

It was Im Sol.