Chapter Text
No, this couldn’t be happening. Not her. Not her .
“Hyun, please…listen to me.”
He wouldn’t, he couldn’t . Listening meant it was all too real. If he didn’t listen, maybe it wouldn’t happen. If he blocked it out, gave in to the piercing peal in his ear, then perhaps he would never have to face the stinging reality that was right before him. He could live his life believing that everything was always as it had been, and it would stay that way. That he still had his sister, and her daughter still had her mother.
“Hyun…please.”
“Don’t go.”
“Hyun…”
“Please! Please, just…this is just like a cold to you, right? You’re a Ryu! No illness can bring us down! You’ll just recover like last time and we can go back to how things were.”
“I’m sorry.”
He clung onto her tighter, his face streaming with the tears that started to soak the woman’s hospital gown. She was the only blood-relative that Zen called family, the only one he loved. She would shield him against the cruelness that their mother shot his way, and took the hit for him more times than he could count. She would hold him as he cried through the night, and now he was holding her as he cried with her one last time, “What about Gi, huh? She’s going to need her mother!”
“Please…take care of her for me.”
“What? Mi Sun I-I can’t I’m not qualified for that—“
“You love that child as if she was your own. I’ve witnessed it myself, the way you hold her like she’s made of china, how she can’t stop herself from giggling when you all you do is smile at her. There is nobody on earth more qualified than you. I trust you.”
He knew at least the first part was true. Gi had only been in this world for two months but she was the world to Hyun, and the 20 year old couldn’t stand to lose a sister and a child in one night, “I’d do anything for her.”
The now pale woman chuckled warmly, despite the chill that started to crawl through her bloodstream, “I love you, Hyun.”
“Don’t say that,” he snapped.
“Why?”
He hesitated, his eyes fixed on hers as if he was desperately grasping on to any sign of life behind them, “Because it sounds like a goodbye.”
“It’s not goodbye, sweetheart. You’ll see me again. It may take a while, but you will. And I’ll keep an eye on you, just like I always have. You’re not losing me, you just have to look for me in the right places,” she wheezed, acknowledging that their time was running out, “Thank you, Hyun.”
“No.”
“I love you.”
“NO!”
He wailed and clutched her close to his chest, rocking her back and forth as he weeped into her shoulder. A sob racked his body as the last remnants of hope starting to leak through the cracks of his splitting heart. Releasing her slightly to cradle her more gently, he filled his lungs and pressed his cheek against hers. “I love you too,” he finally whispered into her ear, his voice coarse from his screams.
Then, at last, she fell heavy in his arms, a faint prolonged ringing in the background. Laying her tenderly back onto the bed, he placed a shaky kiss on her temple, his whole body trembling as tears dripped from the tip of his nose. He stepped back, giving in to that which he couldn’t escape, “Goodbye, Mi Sun. Thank you…for everything.”
The nurses began covering the still form and offering their condolences to the broken man in front of them. Hyun dismissed their efforts, turning away and lifting the resting baby out of her cot. He tucked her into his embrace as he slid down the wall to collapse onto the cold hospital floor, his legs no longer strong enough to hold him up. The girl had been sleeping despite the screaming and crying from only moments before, but as her eyes cracked open, a small giggle bubbled out of her mouth as she tried to grab her uncle’s nose. He chuckled with her, his face still dripping and his vision blurry as the remaining pieces of his heart ran away with the tears, “Guess it’s just you and me now, huh squirt?”
Mustering enough strength to stand once again, he held Gi closer to him and dragged himself out of the room, walking away from his worst nightmare and praying for a better day dream.