The breeze was soft but biting, like it had traveled a long way just to remind her she was alive.
Kang Hana sat quietly in a wheelchair on the hospital’s rooftop terrace, wrapped in a thick hospital blanket. The city lights below blinked like distant stars, unaware of the war she’d just waged to keep one of their own breathing. The faint hum of monitors and the soft creak of her wheelchair were the only things grounding her to the present.
But inside her, it still felt like she hadn't left the Between.
Her fingers curled weakly into her lap.
She had done it.
She had survived.
Soonyoung had survived.
And yet, she felt like a stranger to her own body—like her soul hadn’t fully caught up. Her muscles ached. Her thoughts swirled in messy spirals. Her heart kept glancing over its shoulder, waiting for Havoc to leap out of the shadows again.
“I’m still here,” she whispered to herself, voice almost lost to the wind. “He’s still here.”
A soft footstep sounded behind her.
She didn’t have to turn to know.
Death always arrived silently, like a shadow that had always been there.
“You’re healing,” he said, stepping up beside her. His voice carried no chill, no finality—just quiet observation.
Hana kept her gaze on the skyline. “You never said it would feel like this.”
“No one ever truly returns unchanged,” Death replied.
There was a pause. Then she asked softly, “It’s really over, isn’t it?”
Death didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, he joined her gaze, looking out over the city.
“You did what most wouldn’t have had the strength to attempt,” he finally said. “You walked through every memory meant to break you. You faced Havoc. And when he offered you peace, you still chose the pain—because it was real.”
She bit the inside of her cheek. “He nearly convinced me to stay. He made it all feel so easy. My mother was happy. Soonyoung was okay. Even the boys were all there, laughing. Safe.”
Death nodded. “He’s always been good at that. Crafting the lies you’re too tired to resist.”
Silence stretched between them.
Then Hana turned her head slightly. “Do you remember it? The day I first met you?”
Death didn’t speak, but something in the air shifted—he remembered.
She swallowed. “It was at Soonyoung’s funeral.”
Her fingers gripped the armrest tightly.
“I didn’t even really know him. Not back then. I just... I’d seen him around. I thought he was brilliant onstage, but we’d never spoken. I only went to the funeral because... because no one else really did.”
Her voice shook, bitterness slipping in.
“No one from school came. Not a single classmate. It didn’t matter how bright they were onstage, how hard they practiced, how beautiful their performance was. No one liked them. Not really. They just tolerated them.”
Her throat closed, remembering the empty rows, the way only the SEVENTEEN members sat around Soonyoung’s framed photo, trembling and quiet.
“I remember thinking, ‘He deserved more than this.’”
She looked down at her lap, her eyes glistening.
“I was sitting alone at the back. And then you appeared.”
Death nodded slowly. “You asked me if this was it. If that was all there was to a person’s life. A burst of brilliance, then silence.”
“I was angry,” she said. “Angry that no one saw him until it was too late. Angry that people could be so blind to pain if it wasn’t loud enough. I didn’t want that to be the end.”
“You said you wished you could’ve done something,” Death recalled gently.
Hana gave a humorless laugh. “And then suddenly… I was falling. Falling into the past. Back into hallways I didn’t belong in. Around people who didn’t know me yet. And somehow, I was supposed to change everything.”
Death stepped in front of her now, his silhouette haloed by the moonlight.
“And you did.”
Tears slipped down her cheeks, but she didn’t brush them away. “I still don’t know why me. Why you let me go back.”
Death didn’t answer right away. He gazed at her, his expression unreadable.
“You were the one who stayed,” he said softly. “The one who mourned when no one else would. The one who understood the quiet struggle, the pain too many people ignored. You were already fighting for him, even before you knew how much you had to lose.”
She pressed a trembling hand to her chest, feeling the lingering weight of the past and the present pressing against her ribs.
“I didn’t want him to die. I wanted him to have a chance, the chance no one gave him.” Her voice cracked. “And I... I didn’t know how to help him, how to make it better. I couldn’t save him then, not in the future I came from. But now... now I’ve gotten a second chance. I... I don’t know how to feel about that.”
“You feel because you’re alive,” Death answered, voice gentle. “You feel because you remember the pain that comes with love. And that’s what gives you the strength to save him. Because, in the end, what mattered most was that you were willing to fight for something real.”
Hana closed her eyes for a moment, thinking of Soonyoung. Of all the moments they'd shared, all the laughter, all the warmth. The rooftop, the rehearsals, the talks late into the night. The quiet, steady presence he had been in her life—how much he meant, even before she understood it herself.
“I think…” she began, voice barely a whisper, “I’m just scared. I know what I’ve lost. But I still have so much left to lose. Soonyoung’s future... everything he’s going to be, everything he’s still got ahead of him. What if I can’t protect him from it?”
Death’s face softened slightly, though his gaze remained as timeless as ever.
“You’ve already done more than most could ever dream of. You’ve given him something many never have—the chance to fight for his own future. And that’s what makes the difference. You’re not here to stop all the pain. You’re here to make sure he knows he doesn’t have to carry it alone.”
A long silence followed. Death stayed beside her, his presence like a weight that was neither heavy nor light—just a reminder of the way things were meant to be, the way they could be changed.
“Do you ever get tired?” Hana asked quietly.
“Sometimes,” he replied, voice tinged with something almost human. “But you learn to rest when you need to, and keep moving when it matters most.”
She let out a soft breath, one that felt like it carried away some of the weight she had been carrying.
“I don’t want to fail him. Not again. Not after everything.”
“You won’t,” Death said, his voice firm now. “You’ve already chosen the hard path. And in that, you’ve already proven that you won’t fail him. Not as long as you keep fighting.”
Hana looked up at him, feeling a little less alone in the silence.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
For a moment, she thought she saw something like a smile flicker in his eyes, but it vanished as quickly as it came.
She swallowed the lump rising in her throat. “So that’s it, then?”
Death looked at her a long moment. “You lived through seventeen impossible days. You carried pain that wasn’t yours to begin with. You held your own heart together in order to keep his from breaking.”
He paused.
“You did more than anyone ever asked of you. And you won.”
That word. Won. It didn’t feel triumphant. It felt like standing at the end of a war and staring at the ruins, wondering what part of you could ever rebuild.
“…Then why do I feel so empty?” Hana whispered.
Death didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, he stepped beside her, resting his hand gently on the back of the wheelchair.
“Because even victory costs something,” he murmured. “You lost time. You lost memories that now only belong to you. And above all—”
His eyes flicked toward her. “You loved him. Which means even in saving him, you feared losing him every step of the way.”
She looked down at her lap, at the bandages on her arms and the bruises still shadowing her skin.
“I didn’t even say goodbye to Jiyoon,” Hana said.
“She wouldn’t have wanted one.”
She blinked. “Why?”
Death gave a small, almost sad smile. “Because she didn’t see it as goodbye. She saw it as passing the torch. You are her second chance. You gave her peace.”
Her heart squeezed.
They both stood in silence for a while, the sun sinking lower behind the buildings. Then she asked the one thing she's been afraid to.
“…Will I remember you?”
Death raised an eyebrow. “Do you want to?”
She didn’t speak right away.
Then: “Yes.”
He nodded, slow and solemn. “Then you will. Not always clearly. Not every moment. But in the quietest parts of your heart—you’ll know.”
“And you?” she asked. “What happens to you now?”
He turned toward the railing, staring out over the city. “I return. To what I’ve always done.”
“Alone?”
He smiled faintly. “Always.”
She wanted to say something else, but she couldn’t find the words. So she just sat there, watching the wind move through the trees and rooftops below.
He stepped back.
“This is your life again, Hana. Fully yours.”
Hana nodded, tears slipping down her face without resistance.
“I’ll see you again someday, won’t I?”
Death’s smile didn’t reach his eyes.
“Hopefully not for a long, long time.”
And with that—
He was gone.
The wind rustled once more.
And she was alone on the terrace.
But for the first time in a long while… she didn’t feel lost.
Kang Hana had finally managed to save Kwon Soonyoung..in 17 Days.
YOU ARE READING
17 DAYS TO GO | KWON SOONYOUNG
Фанфикшн- 𝘼 𝙁𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝘽𝙀𝙏𝙒𝙀𝙀𝙉 𝙊𝙧 𝙁𝙊𝙍 𝙏𝙞𝙢𝙚 - Kang Hana, finds herself propelled back in time to prevent her classmate, Kwon Soonyoung from taking a fatal decision. Of all the odds she could have faced, she couldn't believe that she was stan...
