For the remaining amount of lifespan that she currently has, she never thought about walking these same hallways or seeing these blank white walls ever again. She never thought about smelling the same scent of sterilization and mixed chemicals in the air or hearing the familiar sound of ringing telephones and the squeaking of hospital bed wheels in sync with the rushing footsteps and doctors barking urgent medical orders. It's a complete recipe for insanity as she tries to pay no mind, constantly reminding herself that she's in there for the sake of her job and the future she's yet to behold. It's quite inconsiderate of her, she always thought. Barging in situations she's not meant to be in and writing about experiences that she didn't go through. Despite the fame she's continuously gaining from her books of symbolism and overflowing metaphors, she couldn't help but confess to herself that she's just this variable in other people's lives, hiding in the background like a well-bred journalist and waiting for the next dramatic ending so that she could write it down on her little notebook and expand it into a full-length novel. That's how it has always been.
But if there's one thing she's so passionate about expressing, it's her dislike for change. She doesn't like it when people call her by a nickname. She doesn't like it when her sister organizes her files. She doesn't like it when her co-authors suddenly shift from writing the normal way to writing in cursive. She's a formula of a uniformly-built world. It might sound immature of her, but she's too busy to pay any attention to what other people could possibly think of it. If there's a need for change, she wants it to be progressive, not all of a sudden. For seven years, she has always believed that a sudden wave of metanoia is impossible. She believed that you can't be sad one minute then happy the next; you can't be an alcoholic yesterday then suddenly stop drinking the next day; you can't be a loveless person this second and be a loving one in the next. She believes that everything undergoes a process, has a logical explanation and is meant to exist because of a definite purpose.
That's how it has always been.
Even as she's walking down the familiar hallways where she spent her youth in, clad in a professional-looking attire and blood red heels, seeing hands clasped in prayer, tears falling on the polished floor and eyes closed with ragged breaths, she believes the same.
"Noona," Yook Sung Jae's familiar voice makes her footsteps halt, as she turns to face the familiar features that she has grown to adore in the years that they've been growing up. He's dressed in his work clothes-a lab coat in replacement for the conventional everyday business coat as she hides the pride she feels at the height of what her childhood friend has achieved. She lets a small smile slip, just because she hasn't seen him in a long time. "Still writing, I see," he says, taking note of the novel that she brought for him to read since she was told that he wasn't able to buy one because the books got sold out as soon as they hit the shelves.
She extends her arm to give him the book, keeping her face neutral and void of any emotion despite the fact that this person knows her so well. "I brought it for you to read. It's dedicated to you," Sung Jae smiles at her, taking hold of the book and looking for the page where the dedication's stated in fine print.
For Yook Sung Jae,
We made it.
Sung Jae makes a soft cooing sound as he looks up again at her and opens his arms to offer a hug. This time, she smiles a big one and steps into his arms, missing the warm feeling of them wrapped around her as she lets go of the professional front that she always has, hiding who she was before. It makes her miss a lot of things. It makes her miss the sound of her mom's humming and the kitchen tools colliding as she prepares dinner. It makes her miss her sister Joy, as she sneakily goes in her room to sleep next to her when she was six because she's scared of the monster under her bed. It makes her miss the smell of the kimchi his dad makes on Sundays when he's not working in the office. It makes her miss a lot of things and to a certain extent, it hurts her. It hurts her even more when the source of that warmth decided to unwrap his arms around her so that he could look at her. "I've contacted the patient you've been looking for," he says, straightening up to his original height. "I'll take you to him." Bo Young nods as she follows inside his office where he retrieves his keys and shrugs off his lab coat. She takes note of its minimalist interior-white walls, plants in black marble pots and a glass wall that overlooks a massive portion of Seoul as she thinks of how her friend didn't change at all. He always had a knack for the simplest things. "Let's go," Sung Jae says as they both leave the office while she continues to think about something that she never thought would come into her mind.
