Apologies | Sinrin [HIATUS]

Apologies: Chapter 17

Yerin's POV

"Fudge!" the expletive unconsciously fell down my mouth as I retracted my hand from the hot liquid, and it might be a little too loud, it reached people a couple of meters away from me.

Just like reflex, I bowed down a bit and mouthed a frail "sorry" accompanied with an awkward smile.

Just how dumb I could get? I know I'm zoning out most of the time, but it never reached this state, that it feels like I am entirely altered from reality and was brought to another dimension which is her─ her dimension.

A dimension where only the most bizarre thoughts, chimeras and phantasms of her exist. There lives all the words I badly wanted to tell her but never did. Literally.. just every possible things to go off and out of me.

The last time I saw her was back when she scorted me to the bus stop. I must admit, it was by far the most romantic we've ever done, just next to the times that saved me of course. It was also that time when I saw the brightest smile ever flashed in this world. I hope she would never stop outshining everyone with that.

It's just been a few days but,

I miss her..

so badly, it tears my normalcy down to crumbs.

More now that we've been advised and told that she's suffering from a sickness. They told us not to worry much for it's just a common flu, but still, it counts as a sickness, then that means she's in pain which extensively strains my whole definitive being.

And no matter what they told us, it won't changed my worried heart.

I don't even know why I worry so much about her nor when I started to think a lot about her. To ponder about it, I am never as much as just an exchange doctor working in her hospital, a relationship without anything special and without anything that justifies all my bottled up emotions for her.

And why the fuck of all person, do I have to find my hope on living again from a person like her.

Everything from her.. it was all new and foreign to me. A bulk of question that augments the circling enigmatic feeling within me.

But on anything, I am not complaining. If I may just add, though I'm completely clueless of her entire soul, I still like it.

. . .

My grievous agitation was finally cut to an end, when we were told that Dr. Hwang would be officially returning today.

This heart of mine wished to jump out of my rib cage due to unwavering bliss that was creeping in. At this point on, I only knew one thing; I, with all my capabilities, should see her in no time.

A few moments after I did my morning surveillance of the patients, a pale looking kid clad in a dark heavy layer of jacket caught my attention, sauntering her way around in an unplanned almost affrighted manner.

Her presence was so weak that if you don't put extra effort you'll lose track of her, it was as if she's all but invisible to the eyes of many.

A debilitated presence that majority of us failed to notice, but the time one had laid their gaze into her, it was then that they truly won't be able to defy knowing more about.

Moments flying by, and I found myself ambling close to her and her unannounced existence.

"Hello!" I greeted with wide smile, "Why are you here? Are you lost? Where are your parents?"

She was more of scared than surprised by my intrusion. She didn't said nor did anything but just continue to camouflage with the people roaming by like I was nothing to her.

"Hey sweetie. Look, I am a doctor here." I tried mollifying her once more, and showed the embroidered name on my lab coat as a proof, "I'm Dr. Jung. You can tell me whatever your concern is, I'll try to help."

I guess it's working a bit. Her eyes sparkled with gentle recollection as she spout out her very first words as for our discourse today, "I ahm.. l-looking for my m..mom."

"Ahhh~ so you're lost. Don't worry I'll go with you to the information hall, and maybe we can do something there yeah?"

The little girl hummed and adjusted the strap of her knapsack that ridiculously eaten up 70 percent of her body volume.

"Isn't your bag too big? Want me to carry it up for you?"

"It's alright.. Doc. I'm just okay with this."

"Ah yeah, if you say so..?"

The kid was taken aback when the unsolicited question passed by. Yerin felt the little girl's clasp on her pinky finger tensed and thought that she might have said something off.

"A-akane..."

It came out as a soft whisper and almost too inaudible so I had to respond with a curious tone. "Hmm?"

"Akane.. that's the.. that's my name."

"What a beautiful name." I'm pretty sure that it's of a Japanese origin, but I just cannot exactly recall the meaning. The name itself was incredibly flamboyant, a total contradiction to the owner's languid presence.

We continued to traverse the scene, and slowly.. I was brought to memory lane as I inconstantly switched my gaze here and there; a fluctuating site of different places of the hospital.

Before my actual transfer at this hospital, I only thought that my day to day basis would be just nearly the same except for the anticipated increase on work load.

It never crossed even my wildest dreams, that I would really stumble in a true menacing situations; be facing with an outraged patient with a flailing metal pole, a patient with a gun, a prankster toddler and so much more it requires a toil to remember.

If our lives is a story, I swore that this was the most anticlimactic thing I would ever be doing to continue the progress of my not so good past life events.

And so...

All that is waiting is the grandiose plot twist.

Stars and galaxies might have conspired to crash Earth down on the pits of the ever ending spacetime just to reveal the most beautiful human being I laid my eyes into─Hwang Eunbi.

Time stopped.

There she was.

It was as if she's taking my breath away just by existing alone.

"...I miss you" that locution was staggering nonstop inside me and no matter how I terribly wanted to tell her that, the words just never scaped my mouth.

After this time passes by, will I be able to finally tell her those words that are hiding in the depths of my trembling heart?

After this time passes by, will I be able to tell her that she, in the middle of this dark, dreadful and obnoxious world, has became my dazzling ray of hope?

Will I?

A graceful smile was drawn on her face, a scene not everyone has a privilege to even witness.

Like a dumb crooked, all over for her, I smiled back.

She must be the one they are referring whenever they say something as; 'a beautiful disaster'.

Everything she is flaunting is worthwhile beautiful and gorgeous, but the repercussions are the uninvited disasters.

How she, with something just as that, can make my heart go drumming erratically, my limbs soggy, and my mind crazy.

"Hello, Dr. Hwa--"

Was everything I was able to say before I felt the disappearance of the little girl standing just right beside me earlier.

And with a blink an eye, Akane was already gushing in towards Eunbi as she discharged the booming confession, "I MISS YOU EOMMA!!"

And before I knew it, my jaw replied by going slack and slip.

..

At that moment, a sure turning point took place.

Might be one of those things that, as Yerin so called it; a grandiose plot twist or an uninvited disaster.