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“You know, sometimes, I do pity for you”
Heeseung looked up to Hana, staring at him directly. The girl was sitting on the hospital bench drinking out o a soda can.
“You're pathetic, Heeseung” she said.
“I know..”
Heeseung still was not able to process the fact that Yujin had agreed to undergo the surgery, after everything. But even after confessing his love for her, why had she not been able to recover ? Was his love not true to her ?
All this worried the young boy.
“Heeseung, you're an idiot”
“I know”
…
“For god's sake, are you just going to say that ?”
“I don't know…what should I do now ?” he sighed, “she'll forget me, Hana, Jinie will forget me”
“Heeseung, how did you never realise this? How could you be so naive? How could you tell her you like me?”
“So my feelings don't reciprocate ?”
Hana didn't answer; she did not have an answer. Or rather, she could not bring herself to answer. Amidst all the times they'd spent together, there were moments when this boy gave her butterflies, made her summer days warmer, her spring bloom.
“It's not that Heeseung, I do like you”
Now the boy looked up, staring right at the girl on his left who stared out of the hospital window. It was almost evening and the sparrows chirping outside faded as they returned home. Home. To their loved ones.
“But, what you feel for me is to fill the void in your heart for Yujin.”
“She never told me she liked me..”
“Did she ? Did she never show signs, Heeseung ? or were you just too ignorant of it all” this time, the voice was no longer soft, it was loud, and it echoed through the empty corridor; the voice no longer mingled with the breeze, it seemed to have announced a war with it,
“Think about it —all the times she was always with you, in your ups and down; all the times she waited for you; all the times she missed classes to visit your games; the seats she saved for you in the bus; everything was a sign. But you…were just ignorant of it all”
No one spoke for the next ten minutes —but this silence didn't feel awkward, this silence felt home, reminded of awareness. The dire awareness of not realising love when it came. The stern warning of a missed love signal.
_
And an hour passed by just like that. No words. No movements. No water breaks. Just blankly staring into the void. And then the night fell silently. The stars in the sky were hidden by the clouds.
The operation was over.
Hana and Heeseung stood hand in hand.
Everything was over.
The love was gone.
The love that had bloomed over the past few years was gone.
The loved ones were gone.
In the hospital room lay an empty bed, a bedside table, a jar of water, and chrysanthemums in a vase.
–
(yes there will be a next part as the ending to this book)
