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Chapter Text

In the aftermath of the attack in S2 Episode 10, Chae SongHwa, the epitome of logic and reason, the unflappable emotional pillar of the lacking five, the 10th female professor of Neurosurgery who prided in her ability to always put mind over heart , is forced to carry on in a world without him.
Him; her best friend, her personal ray of sunshine, her goofball .. her heart.
It’s a world she no longer recognizes, it's a world where there is no color, no joy .. no reason to wake up to another day.

When she opens her eyes in a world she did recognize once upon a time, one that gives her a second chance to create the future she never had, a chance to change the course of their fate, she is determined to make it work, whatever it takes, whatever the cost ...

Chapter Text

Boccalino at Four Seasons
7.30 PM

There is a comfortable lull in the conversation. Lee IkJun glances at the softly falling snow through the high-rise window he is seated beside. The faded reflections of the soft indoor lighting and the artfully arranged candles on the large glass panes make the ambiance feel almost magical, Christmas-like. He feels relaxed and satiated and after the grueling few weeks he’s had, he could not express in words how much he needed an evening like this.
He lets out a soft sigh of satisfaction and looks across the table at his companion.
Beautiful, polished, smart , independent , ambitious … After a long, long time, Lee IkJun feels a kindling of hope, hope that this could lead to something real.
He really owed that cheapskate Andrea a fine bottle of whiskey for this.

“ Ikjun-ssi, how about…”

His companion is interrupted by the ringing of his phone, IkJun’s jovial mood dampens instantly .. As much as he loves his job, he does not want to leave this relaxing evening or his beautiful companion behind to go back to bury himself elbow deep in someone’s gut. But it is the life he has chosen for himself and he cannot help but utter a soft apology at his companion before he pulls out his phone from the pocket of his jacket.

The caller ID is not what he expected. At all.

His heart skips a beat.
After all this time, his treacherous heart still skips a beat.

How long has it been…

Chapter Text

He knows it is unbecoming to take this call in front of his date, and for a fleeting moment, he contemplates letting the phone ring out and calling back later.
But it was Chae SongHwa, and for all his not unremarkable genius, denying Chae SongHwa was the one skill he has not been able to master in all the years that have passed since that fateful day at freshman orientation.
Perhaps it was just that he wanted to give in, perhaps it was something more.. Lee IkJun succumbs to the nagging feeling in his gut that says this call is important, that he needed to take this call NOW.

“I’m very sorry , I really need to take this call”, his tone apologetic, his eyes conveying the same in sincerity.

“It’s quite alright IkJun-ssi , I could use a moment to visit the powder room as well”

IkJun scans her face for any signs of displeasure, and finds none.. " I really am sorry..”
She shakes off his apology with a delicate wave of her hand as he watches her get up to walk towards the lavatories.

“Chae SongHwa-ssi .. to what do I owe this pl…

“Ikjun-ah”

Something incomprehensible about her tone,
He is immediately on alert.

“‘SongHwa-ya .. gwenchana?”

A beat of silence.

“Mianhae IkJun-ah .. I know you are busy..I’m so sorry for calling you out of the blue, I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.. I….

Any other day Lee IkJun would have been overjoyed to hear the ever so composed miss Chae Sonhwa ramble like this and not miss the chance to tease her until she was red in the cheeks and muttering curses at him under her breath. A privilege, he had learnt long ago (and thoroughly exploited, of course), that was exclusively bestowed upon him, nothing or no one else could reduce the unflappable miss Chae SongHwa to a blushing , cursing mess.
But there was something in her tone this day that keeps him in check..

“SongHwa-ya” he tries to cut through her rambling. “SongHwa .. YAH CHAE SONGHWA!”

Silence. The line goes so silent that he wonders whether the call has disconnected.

“malhaebwa..”

He hears her long steadying breaths and forces himself to be patient till she is ready to say whatever it was that had her so uncharacteristically worked up . With his heart pounding against his eardrums with increasing intensity, his skin begins to prickle with an inexplicable need to move .. to rush to her and,

“IkJun-ah.. Can I … Can I see you tonight? .. I want to...no, I need to see you. Mianhae IkJun-ah .. can I please see you one more time?”

If he found her word choice strange, it's forgotten in the way her voice breaks towards the end and in the way his heart clenches upon hearing the pain in her voice. Was she crying?! Gods, what has happened .. his whole being vibrates with the need to run to her.

“Of course.. Of course, you needn’t ask .. is everything alright ? Are you alright ? SongHwa-ya, are you safe?”

He almost misses her too quiet “Eo” before he lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

“Where are you? I'll come to you right now”

It takes her one more moment to respond and he wills his pounding heart to calm the fuck down to not miss her voice that is getting quieter and softer with each passing syllable.

“Ani .. I’ll ..I’ll come to your place.”

For all he prided himself in being able to read Chae SongHwa like the dog-eared pages of the sheet music to his favorite song, he could not decipher the emotion in her voice, and that it unsettles him in a manner he was not capable of comprehending at that moment.. He needed to see her.

“Okay .. Okay ..Keep your phone with you at all times okay .. I’m on my way”

In his rush to run to her, he almost misses her soft “Ikjun-ah .. gomawo”

And with that, Lee IkJun, the same Lee IkJun who was disheartened to hear the ringing of his phone signaling a potential end to the lovely evening he was having in the company of a beautiful woman, rushes out with no thoughts to spare on anything else or anyone else save for the woman who had his heart in a chokehold since he was nineteen years and seven months old.

Chapter Text

Chae SongHwa grew up in a devout catholic household. From never missing a Sunday mass to mandatory bible school to nightly prayers, she grew up learning to find solace in God and has always considered herself a religious woman. However, as she matured and set on her path to becoming a medical doctor, especially during the early days of her career when she was still very new to death, disease and destruction, there had been an extended period of time she had struggled with her faith; how could a God she believed to be benevolent allow such things to happen?! *

Ironically, what brought her back into her faith was an incident that occurred towards the latter part of her residency that bore remarkable similarities to the incident in her first year of residency that drove her away from it.

A young woman with small fraternal twins was brought into the ER after losing consciousness during playtime with her children. SongHwa had been paged as she had treated the woman just weeks prior, one of the first procedures SongHwa performed as a lead surgeon in fact, and was soon pronounced brain dead.
This had sent SongHwa into a near frenzy for hours upon hours, reviewing and re-reviewing the patient's file, reassessing her medical decisions to try and identify what she may have missed or what she else could have done to foresee this, to prevent this seemingly arbitrary death that ruined a beautiful young family, until she received another page about the patient’s husband’s request to speak with her.
SongHwa had taken a few moments to compose herself and to shove the rapidly rising panic down for surely the patient’s guardian was about to scream at her and accuse her of malpractice; to say she was discombobulated to hear what the patient’s guardian actually wanted was an understatement.
He had decided to donate his wife’s key organs and wanted to ask SongHwa if she would mind accompanying his wife in the theater while the procedure was being done just so his wife was not alone throughout the ordeal. He went on to say how his wife had greatly admired and respected SongHwa when she was being treated by her and tearfully asked if she could please be there with his wife when he could not.
SongHwa had of course readily agreed and it was during the hours she spent observing the procedure she had never been a part of before, that she had felt a sense of deep peace and calmness settle in. While her patient’s death was undeniably tragic, in her death she had given the gift of life to more than five other patients who were within weeks, if not days of death themselves. A phrase her aged pastor had gently uttered to her when she was grappling with grief over the death of her patient all those years ago floated back to the forefront of her mind, “when God closes one door, he opens another”*.

The Sunday following that, SongHwa had returned to her church after almost four years.

Though as a woman of science she still had moments of uncertainty and times she struggled to reconcile her faith in the unseen, after all death and disease still affected all medical professionals no matter how many years of experience they had under their belt, SongHwa had remained steadfast in her faith. "God does not burden us with more than what we can bear, and when he closes one door, he opens another"* had become the mantra that took her through all her life’s trials with calmness and grace.

At least, it was, until Lee IkJun was taken from her.

SongHwa has almost no recollection of the days following other than the insurmountable pain from the gaping hole in her chest that consumed her whole being for days and nights alike, the pain of loss, despair, and regret so deep she had completely given in and allowed for it to pull her away from reality.
A few snippets here and there of Jeong-won carrying her unresponsive form down a flight of stairs, Seok-hyoeng sitting by her bedside murmuring words she could not comprehend, or Jun-wan’s yelling voice through what sounded like a phone speaker.., finding herself in places she had created memories with her best friend, her first love , her last love… with no recollection of ever getting to those places,

Of days or nights (she wasn’t sure which was which) she spent clutching to IkJun’s white coat burying her face into the fabric to get a whiff of his unique scent .. the one that, in her youth, had driven her to make multiple trips to men’s fragrance sections of department stores in search of, only to later learn that IkJun never wore fragrance, the one that she had had to train herself to not lean in for a sniff every time he was within close proximity.

The day she realized that the coat no longer smelled of IkJun was the day one of the boys, she could not recall which one as it seemed they had come to take turns checking in on her, had to sedate her. The day after, she stepped out of her apartment , barely noticing the sleeping figure of one of the boys on her couch, with the decision to follow IkJun to wherever that idiot had gone off to.

Chapter Text

SongHwa is startled awake from the burning of her retinas, an abrupt flaring pain as if she had looked directly into the mid-day sun. There are spots in her vision and she feels disoriented and nauseated as if she had fallen down from a great height.

While she awaits for the spots in her vision to pass, she starts noticing an assortment of aches and pains throughout her body and most notably a sharp stabbing pain on the right side of her head. SongHwa absent mindedly muses if she has already reached the age for hypnic headaches... ‘ No’ , she corrects herself, ‘ more likely to be a primary stabbing than a hypnic’ as she observes the pain move from front of her head to the back and dissipate after a few seconds. She then starts to notice the urgent pressure on her bladder and decides to roll off the bed in search of the toilet - only to end up jamming her knees into a solid wall.

Startled, SongHwa rolls on to her back and starts to take stock of her surroundings.

It looked like her bedroom, but also not, in a way she couldn't immediately pin point. The bed was pushed against the wall whereas she certainly remembered her bed being placed in the middle of the wall with two night stands instead of one. The bed also felt a bit smaller? and firmer? than she she recalled. Could the boys have moved her to the guest bedroom? But then again her guest bedroom had pale green walls as opposed to the stark white of her bedroom.. Confused, she sits up on her bed and glances at the alarm clock on the nightstand. 

4:45 AM. 

She reaches for her phone and immediately blinks to clear her eyes when she notices the lock screen wallpaper, one she was certain she has not had for years and years. That is also when she notices how different the phone looks and feels on her hand, this is decidedly not her beloved S22! Confused yet intrigued, she unlocks the phone by muscle memory, and again taken aback by what's displayed on the home screen. 

Friday, 23rd of January 2013.

Igo mwoya?!

She darts her eyes around the room. Now that she has a reference, the room surely resembles her bedroom back in 2013, uncanningly so. 

Was she dreaming? Was she experiencing lucid dreaming? She feels a wave of excitement washing over her, ever the scientist, SongHwa decides to experiment.. she wills herself to float over to her desk on the other side of her room.  Nothing. Undeterred, she wills for her favorite song to play in the background. Still nothing. She decides to get up from the bed to continue her experiment but is knocked out of breath by how badly her neck hurts from that abrupt movement. 

Hmm, not dreaming then . 

Even though there were some rare cases of dreamed pain that were reported incidentally in experiments on the effects of somatosensory stimulation administered during REM sleep, she just knows what she is experiencing was not that. 

Was she hallucinating?  

What could possibly have triggered this for she certainly did not have a history of or susceptibility to them. She tries to recall the happenings of the previous day .. and just like that everything and every moment comes gushing back to her mind SongHwa nearly doubles over from the sheer intensity of the pain and overwhelm inside her.

Is this the… afterlife?

Her musings are interrupted by the ringing of her phone and it’s Ha Yoon-kyung, the NS resident on night duty, she recalls, and answers the call without second thought. 

“ Good Morning Chae seonsaeng-nim, I'm so sorry to call you so early in the morning but Professor Seo’s Skull base tumor surgery has been moved to 6AM and  he is asking if you could scrub in ....” 

This is familiar territory for SongHwa and she unconsciously switches to auto-pilot.  “Ah jamkkanman” she quickly pulls up her schedule and is relieved to see that she had no scheduled surgery or appointments for the day. 

“On my way” she tells the resident and rushes out of her bed to get ready for the day.

It is when she returns home 13 hours and one successful skull base tumor removal later with only the thoughts of a hot shower before bed that she notices a frame she had knocked over when she was rushing to get out of the bed that morning. SongHwa reluctantly bends down to see what it was and finds herself frozen on her feet when she glances at the text on the frame.

When God closes one door, He opens another.

What is this ? What is the deal with this strange day? All her thoughts from that morning before she received the call from the resident rushes back again and SongHwa feels  her throat tightening and darkness closing in on her when the realization of what had occurred that day hits her full on.

She had received a second chance to re-live a day in her past and she had just wasted that whole day away conducting surgery. All the things she could have done to change her past with IkJun, all the hours and minutes she could have spent changing the course of her fate and she has given all that up in favor of work.

Chapter Text

“Ani .. I’ll ,, I’ll come to your place..”

For all he prided himself in being able to read Che SongHwa like the dog-eared pages of the sheet music for his favorite song, he could not decipher the emotion in her voice, and that it unsettles him in a manner he cannot comprehend at that moment.. He needed to see her.

“Okay .. Okay ..Keep your phone with you at all times okay .. I’m on my way”

In his rush to run to her, he almost misses her soft  “Ikjun-ah .. gomawo”

And with that, Lee Ikjun, the same Lee Ikjun who was disheartened to hear the ringing of his phone signaling the potential end of the lovely evening he was having in the company of a beautiful woman, rushes out with no thoughts to spare on anything else or anyone else save for the woman who had his heart in a chokehold since he was nineteen years and seven months old

---------------------------

But of course life doesn’t work that way and it is another 20 minutes before he could leave the restaurant after waiting for his date to return to the table, explaining  that a personal emergency requires his immediate presence and settling the bill. Between the 45 minutes he spends stuck in Friday night traffic to make what would otherwise have been a  less than twenty-minute drive back to his apartment and his multiple failed attempts at contacting SongHwa, by the time he finally reaches his apartment, with his heart hammering in his chest and thoughts and worry  brimming close to explosion in his head, later, much later Lee IkJun thinks it's a wonder that he was able to make that trip safely in one piece.

---

‘Chae SongHwa...yah what’s wrong with your phone ?! Why are you waiting outside?? You know the d-

… he is saying more, she knows he is asking her a question but from the moment Lee IkJun materializes from the corner of the corridor, the whole of SongHwa’s being narrows down to the sight in front of her.

Here he is.

Here he is.. living, breathing, moving. SongHwa feels her breath catch. 

Here he is, her Lee IkJun, the man she has loved every moment of every day.  The presence she has craved every single day since she was twenty years old,  the man who gave and gave and gave endlessly, even after she had hurt him so badly…her soul, her world .. her universe, standing in flesh , breathing .. living .. 

Her breathing gets laborious

Vision blurs

She wants to run to him

Hug him

Breathe in his scent

Trace every single feature of him

Share his warmth

Feel him breathing, to hear his heart beating.

Yet SongHwa finds herself rooted to the spot, unable to take a step toward him, unable to reach out..unable to utter a syllable. Heartbeat thundering in her ears, she feels the darkness start to close around her blurred vision .. just one touch, one embrace and she could live with the memory of it, she could..

“‘SongHwa ..SongHwa-ya .. breathe .. I’m here . you are safe.. SongHwa, sweetheart, breathe.. Breathe with me..” He is closer now, she feels one hand grip her shoulder and another cradling her face.

So close, he was so close she could not utter a word, move a single muscle .. the darkness-.

---

As a surgeon, IkJun is adept at managing crises with a level head. Even before he has had any medical training, IkJun has always prided in his ability to remain calm when everyone is losing their minds, assess the situation with a cool head and come up with an action plan at the blink of an eye.. but none of those crises had been Chae SongHwa in the state she is in in front of him. For a moment he thinks she may pass out, the state of distress she seems to be in, he does not know how to, or what to do to reach through her panic to bring her back to the present.  

She is immovable, frozen. Tears pouring down her face, looking at him like she had been lost afloat in the limitless space for a thousand years and had finally found her sun.

Her expression feels like someone has ripped his chest apart to squeeze his heart in an iron fist. How he has longed to be looked at like that. The love he had given up to regret every single day, the love he yearned to win back for a decade and more but did not know how to. His friend, his best friend, his first and only love, his heart..

‘SongHwa-ya … you are scaring me, sweetheart. Tell me what's wrong and I’ll fix it okay .. I’ll fix it no matter what.. Please sweetheart, breathe with me. Come back to me”

Hearing the familiar words, SongHwa crashes into him. Hugging him fiercely , clinging to him as if her life depended on it .. it did. She borrows her head into his chest , filling her lungs with his scent, feeling the rise and fall of his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart.

His tentative arms circle around her, his body acting on its own volition at having this woman in his arms at long last. The knowledge that come what may he would never again let go of this woman in his arms settles deep within him. Pulling her closer, he caresses the back of her head in gentle strokes and buries his face on the crown of her head.

‘ SongHwa.. My cheonsa.. Talk to me”

”... lost.. Can’t .. here.. You .here .don’t.. go." Her mumbled words are muffled against his chest and almost incoherent , yet he is relieved to see her slowly pulling herself back to the present.

“I’m right here, SongHwa-ya, I'm not going anywhere .. but let's get you inside ok baby ..”

Her arms tightens around him momentarily, yet she nods against his chest and lets go of him.

Once inside SongHwa doesn’t try to touch him again. She is looking down, her posture screaming defeat. IkJun is barely able to restrain himself from pulling her back into his arms, but he knows instinctively that SongHwa needs space.

“Mianhae .. I didn’t mean to do that .. I’m sorry if i made you uncomfortable..I don’t know what came over me-

‘ hey .. hey.. Look at me” he takes her by her shoulders.

At his touch, at his close proximity, SongHwa is lost again. Her slight body begins to shake and IkJun does not think she hears him anymore.

“ I’m sorry .. I.. You are here ,, I lost ,, I can’t.. IkJun-ah .. 

His palms reach upwards to cup her tear-soaked face  ‘SongHwa-ya .. sweetheart .. Please look at me. I’m right here .. I'm right here. I’m not going anywhere. please look at me”

Her eyes flutter upwards, drinking in his face. Tears streaming down,  tracing all his features with her eyes. The way she is looking at her, his heart clenches and burns and swells .. she is looking at him like he is her sun and the moon and her most precious.

SongHwa is silent for a few long moments before she lifts her hand up to gently  trace his features with a featherlight touch .. as if he is a mirage that would disappear at the slightest touch, as if she is tracing an imagination, as if she could not believe he is in front of her.

“ I lost you .. in.. in my dream .. in my dream I lost you. .. IkJun-ah .. “ she cradles his face in her palms,  ‘ I lost you and I couldn’t breathe and you wouldn’t take me with you and you are here .. in my arms .. I ..” 

The way she is looking at him, lost , desperate, in unfathomable pain , so so lost in the deepest trenches of despair , words are lost to Lee IkJun.

 “I love you .. I love you so much .. I was so used to buying my feelings for the past twenty two years I did not know how to let you in,  I was terrified I’d end up losing you if I tried that I couldn't tell you that I loved you, that I have loved you every single moment of every single day since I was twenty years old“ her voice breaks at the end, breathing out of control.  

The way she caresses his face , her tear streaked eyes .. her beautiful brown eyes lost so deep in some unimaginable dream ..her eyes , her fingers ,, her touch .. worshipful.. reverent .. Lee IkJun’s heart expands and clenches and shatters to a million pieces at the words he longed to hear for all his life .. at the pain pouring down from the eyes of the woman he was so deeply in love with,

“ If I wake up again and if I have failed .. I will come to you.. Please don’t be mad at me IkJun-ah. I cannot .. there is no place in this world for Chae SongHwa without her Lee IkJun..let me come to you , hmm ?”

---

SongHwa refuses to fall asleep that night.

She would watch him .. she would not take her eyes off of him.. She will not , she cannot.. 

She refuses to wake up to a world without Lee IkJun.

Chapter Text

Songhwa wakes to an incessant beeping in her ear. She opens and immediately closes her eyes as the intensity of the bright white light burns though her retina for the second consecutive time. As she takes stock with her eyes closed, the incessant beeping continues, there is discomfort in her right forearm but surprisingly, unlike the last time she woke up in this manner, the aches and pains in the body are non-existent. In fact, her body almost feels well rested as if she had slept a full night of uninterrupted sleep. Songhwa slowly opens her eyes to observe the surroundings. White ceiling devoid of design, light blue drapes closed around her bed, a Halter monitor and an IV attached to her arm.
Why the hell was she in an ER?!

The beeping picks up her elevated heart rate and before she attempts to reach to mute the monitor, the drapes peel open to reveal a nurse in maroon scrubs and a bright smile who immediately starts fluttering around the room setting up for her routine examination of Songhwa.
“Ah hwanja-bun, you are finally awake! Let me quickly page gyosu-nim and fellow Seonsaeng-nim.. How are you feeling?”

“Er.. fine I suppose.. What happened?

The nurse, nurse Kim as the tag reads, stops taking Songhwa’s vitals in surprise.

“You don’t remember ?! .. ah geulae, you might not remember .. you were brought into the ER unresponsive by the fellow Seonsaeng-nim. You didn’t respond to any stimuli but none of the tests showed any anomalies, caused quite the ruckus when we realized that you were in a deep sleep. Gyosu-nim will discuss the specifics when he comes down any moment now, but since your pulse and respiration were fine, we ran an IV and mainly kept you under observation”

The neurosurgeon in Songhwa is intrigued and itching to review her file, but wait..

“ You said a fellow brought me in ? Who?”

“Ne! Lee IkJun Seonsaeng-nim.. Hwanja-bun please follow my finger with your eyes and without moving your head” Songhwa follows the instructions of the nurse while her mind is roaring.. How is IkJun here? Hokshi..

“What date is it today ?”

“Monday, 26th .. Hwanja-bun, you slept for almost 3 days!”

It couldn’t be..

“What year?”

“Hwanja-bun” the nurse begins with a barely hidden alarm in her voice.. “What is the last thing you remember?”

.

.

.

26th January of 2013.
Chase Songhwa is in the ER of Asan medical center where Lee IkJun , her best friend from SNU, was currently doing his fellowship at. She has been under observation since IkJun brought her in three days ago, who has hardly left her bedside since.

Songhwa gets an intense feeling of Deja vu, a flitting memory of herself holding vigil at IkJun’s hospital bed, a black coffin being lowered to the ground in pouring rain , a woman looking remarkably similar to herself curled up in a dark room staring into space..the same woman staring down at the streets below before falling fo… it all comes crashing down on her like a suckerpunch to the chest and Songhwa doubles over, struggling to breath, reconcile .. what was happening to her! How is this 2013 and IIkJun is here when she remembers the worst moments of her life so vividly!

not unless-

..but that’s!

..and what had she done to Lee IkJun! If whatever the fuck that’s going on is what she thinks it is.. How could she have dropped in on his life like that an disrupted his life like-

Songhwa is again yanked out of her thoughts when the curtains slide open to reveal a harried looking Lee IkJun.

“Songhwa-ya!”
Yet again Songhwa is rendered motionless as she takes in the sight before her..looking just the same as she remembered him but with an unfamiliar air of.. lightness than she is used to in the recent years,, unencumbered by the hardships and pain of the days that have not passed but radiating that same warmth and comfort and gazing at her with that same soft, tender gaze.. ..Oh!

Songhwa snaps out of her trance feeling the tight grip IkJun has on her shoulder and she unconsciously leans into the palm that slides up to cradle her face “--there?”

“hmm?”

“You spaced out.. Songhwa-ya, how are you feeling?” Songhwa struggles to tear her eyes away from his tender gaze filled with relief and fear and .. she takes a deep breath to gather her thoughts.

“‘I’m feeling fine, quite good actually, rested - ” Songhwa’s cheeks heat up as the loud gurgle from her stomach interrupts her sentence “.. and hungry, I suppose”

IkJun scoffs out a laugh and his demeanour brightens considerably,
“Of course you are! Yah you had me worried for a minute there!”
He reaches to grab Songhwa’s patient chart as he continues, “I need to go check in my post op patient in a minute.. You are discharged so I’ll treat you to a meal before I take you home .. aigoo I don’t understand how it was possible for the Chae Songhwa to sleep though seven meals let alone..-

“IkJun-ah” her voice soft and hesitant, and IkJun lifts his head up from her chart to look at her.

“Mianhae..” Songhwa pulls at an invincible thread on her blanket to keep from facing him. “I don’t know what came over me that night, I had no right to unload on you like that and it was unfair to you.. I’m sorry”

“Songhwa-ya..look at me”
but she could not, Songhwa feels like she is teetering at the edge of a panic attack.

“Mianhae .. I know you are seeing someone and I had no right to disrespect-

A warm hand comes up to still her fiddling fingers, “Songhwa ya..” her eyes flits up to his at the soft pleading in his voice and she is captivated by the swirl of emotions in this irises “did you mean it ? Did you mean what you said to me?”

Songhwa feels her throat closing up at the vulnerability in his voice and the vulnerability she feels consumed with .. this is the precipice, is it not. The point of no return for all that never was and never will be. One fleeting moment, one worded answer, the sheer magnitude of this moment overwhelms her.

“Yes” she allows herself to get lost in the swirling storm of emotion in his eyes with that one whispered word..”Yes I did.. But that’s my burden to bear IkJun-ah I-

IkJun’s phone starts ringing. She hears him give instructions to whomever is on the other side and end the call with a promise of getting there soon.

“Mianhae, I need to go,my post-op is transferred to the ICU” the way he lingers, his thumb is absentmindedly caressing the hand he was still holding, with a forlorn look Songhwa is unable to decipher. Songhwa feels a profound sense of disolation settle into her chest, were they always meant to orbit each other , pass by, collide yet never unite..

IkJun gets up with a heavy sigh. “Songhwa-ya .. I need to go, we need to talk, but..” IkJun looks down boring into her eyes with his damp gaze and pull the hand he was holding to his chest and ..
“.. there is no one else. Never has been ..Its-

The phone starts ringing again and Lee IkJun leaves SongHwa with a promise to be back soonest he could and a whisper of a kiss on the back of her fingers that burns and tingles and ignites a gentle stirring of hope she doesn’t dare look headfirst yet.

Chapter Text

The moment Songhwa's apartment door closes behind them, she is engulfed in Ikjun’s arms so tightly that only her tiptoes touch the ground.
Both his arms wrapped tightly around her, dwarfing her in his solid frame, so tight she barely has any space to move, IkJun buries his face in her neck and breathes her in for a few moments.

‘ I thought I lost you..’ she hears him mumble into her neck. With no way to move the way she is surrounded by IkJun,-his solid persense, his scent, the warmth , Songhwa leans her head on his chest and breathes him in, giving him the respite he needs to find his words.

‘When I realized you weren't waking up, just lying there unresponsive, hours in the ER without knowing what's going on, the last three days waiting for you to wake up.. Songhwa ya.. ” his voice breaks and it isn't until she feels wetness against her skin that she pulls back.
Ikjun immediately drops his arms to his sides but doesn't move away. His warm breath fans over her face and Songhwa feels lost in his scent, the heat of his skin permeating her through many layers of clothing setting her abuzz, before she knows her hands reach up to brush the wetness under his eyes.

“I’m right here” her voice is a whisper, as an errant tear cascades down her cheek.
Time and space seem to slow down around them as he quietly observes her, his eyes flicker from her one eye to the other, before his hands come up to cup her jaw, tilting her head up and lowering his own to brush against her lips. Or maybe it was she who reached to close the gap between them. She is lost to the warm tangle of lips and his scent is full of coffee and cigarette smoke and something uniquely Lee IkJun as he tugged at her lips and opened his mouth.
Songhwa is set ablaze and weightless and lost in him in a way her frenzied mind is scrambling to decipher.. it is coming home and starting a new adventure altogether. It is falling up to the stars*, it is finally taking a breath that fills her lungs, it is finally finding her soul, it is finally giving in to what her heart has yearned for for all her life . Songhwa is so lost in all of it she barely has time to hold on to him before he pulls back.

Ikjun touches his nose against hers, lingering. “We need to talk …”

His eyes full of restrained energy, almost as if he is in pain, flitting down to her lips. She feels breathless as she falters to gather her thoughts. Of course they needed to talk, she knew that.. But for once Songhwa is impatient to wait for the correct logical order of things to happen. He was finally hers to hold, she was certain of it, just as she was his to have as he wanted, the talking could wait. “ we will..later...” is a whispered promise against his lips before she wraps her arms around Ikjun’s neck to pull him down to her lips.

A split second passes before she is pressed into a wall, his lips on her demanding, bruising, desperate, reverent. Their breaths mix, tongues brush and the air around them is a teetering supernova. He brings a hand down her hips to lift her up, her legs wrap around his waist, hands and lips desperate to feel and taste as they stumble into her bed and she straddles his lap gasping and biting and grinding and tearing at their clothes and .. their eyes meet.

IkJun halts their movements before he brushes an errant hair away from her eyes and cradles her face and tugs at her lower lip with a calloused thumb. His eyes so full of love and longing Songhwa feels her vision blurr with the overwhelm of emotions bubbling inside her.
“I love you..” She does not know whose lips the words first fall from before it becomes a litany of prayer between their kisses, before he flips them over and she is surrounded by his weight and his scent and the hear of his skin. Pleasure explodes in her being as he slides into her, kissing ,nipping, rocking, and tangled in each other so tightly her whole world begins and ends in him.The moment she feels him begin to shake, she shatters..blind and deaf, twitching and gasping. She is not sure how long it takes to come back down to earth, but when she does, he’s panting against her collar bone and his wet lips are brushing against her skin.

IkJun pulls out but not away, pressing her flush against him, she revels in the feel of him. His heart beats against hers, slowing, sated and with each breath they share, the time begins to resume around them. Ikjun lowers his forehead to rest on hers, observing her face with an awe that sets her aflame. “I love you so much..”
Heart full of happiness, peace and the sheer depth of what she feels for this man , she slides her hands in his hair , gently tugging his head back so she could place a whisper of a kiss on the tip of his nose, one eyelid, the other..one eyebrow, the other, before she presses a gentle peck on his kiss swollen lips. “I love you too Lee IkJun, there has never been a moment my heart hasn’t belonged to you..”

Chapter Text

Wednesday, March 13, 2019
Yulje Medical Center