—First life. St. Vincent's Hospital, year 2026—

"What's your name?"

I have only been sitting there beside him for not more than ten minutes when he spoke. The medications I was getting made me feel a bit sleepy, and I was in the middle of dozing off to sleep. I did not really pay attention to him when I first to the seat next to his, letting the silence accompany us until he finally decided that it would be better to converse rather than sleep.

"You know that my statistic board is facing to your side, don't you? I've noticed that you have been eyeing the board since I started sitting here, so I assumed you've read it already," I told him, keeping my droopy eyes on him.

"Whoops—Guess I've been caught?" He chuckled. "I read them perfectly, but I want to hear them from you. Just so I can know how to pronounce it whenever I need to call you, or perhaps court you if you'd let me." He flicked his eyebrows and gave me a wink, lowering his voice at the end of his words.

I scoffed. "Cheeky. Do you always flirt with new patients?"

He gave me a grin, chuckling at my retort. "Only with the pretty ones. Come on, what's your name?"

I looked away with another scoff before turning back to look at him, and I was welcomed by his playful pout as his way of pleading for me to answer. A sigh came out of me before I finally surrendered. "It's _______. What's yours?"

"You already know my name. Didn't you hear them calling me earlier?"

I raised my brows. "Mochi? That's not your real name though, so what is it?"

"Does it matter?" The look in his eyes changed. Even the mischievous smirk he kept earlier suddenly turned into a pursed smile.

"Does it not?" I only asked him then. "Why do they call you Mochi?"

He released a cynical chuckle, before turning in his seat to face forward and look away from me. "Why do people call anyone with anything? It's a nickname they gave me, and the name I live by."

I gnawed deep into my lower lips, wanting no more than to push my curiosities away. Yet I failed. Even if we had just met, there was something about him which awoken my curiosity. "What's wrong with your real name?"

He fell silent for a brief while, keeping his eyes looking straight forward when he finally answered with a clenched jaw. "That name belongs to the man that is no longer here."

"I gave you my real name, though. That isn't fair," I hummed. I regretted saying those words right after they slipped out of me, but I couldn't help to wonder how I could feel so comfortable with him even on our first meeting. How was it possible for me to be able to say these things to him when I could barely say anything to my own brother or friend.

He turned to look at me, leaning back in his recliner as he sent me a lazy smile. "Earn my trust and I will give you anything you want to know."

"Hmm—tempting," I scoffed. Silently relieved the moment I could see the mischief in his eyes starting to come back again.

He scooted on his seat, keeping his back resting on the pillows as he turned his body to face me. "Are you always this bitter?" He mused at me, and I could feel how his eyes were studying my face when he questioned me.

"What do you mean? Is that your way of telling me that I'm not being friendly enough?"

"Oh—you are indeed have been more friendly than some. If only those eyes can show me that you are being sincere." He kept staring at me, and suddenly, his eyes glared deep into mine, as if he wanted to read the deepest thoughts I was keeping to myself. "Who hurt you? Who carved the pain that is emitting from your pretty eyes, love?"

I nearly cried. How could a man who I have only met and talked to for less than one hour be able to read me so well? Have I been emitting my own pain through my body? Could everyone else see through me as much as he did?

"No one did. It was life. Life hurt me."

He gave me a sad smile. "Hmm—Such a pity. Life got to you too, huh? But then again, that only means we can now make ourselves the perfect ally."

"Why?"

"Because we have the same enemy."

He insisted that I should sit right next to him again when I returned to the ward the next day. I had to undergo another treatment that day, and I gladly took his offer since I knew I would need someone to talk to while I had to get through it. And it was such a coincidence that the other spots were all taken by other patients, leaving the spot next to him the only one left available for me.

I had my own suspicions about it, on whether he had arranged for it to happen in advance, or if perhaps the older patients—who were interestingly seemed to be so deeply fond of him—had helped set me up at my spot for whatever reasons they may have at the time.

Whether it was a good thing or a bad one, I could not really tell at first. I was determined to keep myself distant to anyone around me, knowing that perhaps it was not a good time for me to start any form of relationship, either friends or lovers. With my share of terrible relationships in the past, how I have hurt and disappointed people I cared about, and being disappointed and broken myself, I had decided that I would not find myself falling into the same pattern all over again.

Especially not when I had no idea what my future would be with the battle I was currently having.

But when I heard him hissing softly not long after I sat down on my recliner, I could not help but worry about him and was left wondering what was wrong.

"Are you alright?" I turned to face him right after the nurse who had been tending me left us alone.

Well, probably not completely alone. But as we sat there in the corner with the other patients already started dozing off to sleep or busy with their day, it felt like we were left in our own personal bubble. Just the two of us.

It took some time before he finally responded. But from the faint sound of his shallow breaths and light groans coming from him, I knew that he wanted to wait until he could endure his pain before turning to face me. His face was terribly pale when he looked my way. And judging from how swollen his lips looked, I knew he probably had been throwing up, probably before I had gotten there. I could only guess it because I had been warned by the doctors and nurses that I might experience that one day.

I had prepared myself to mask my expression, not wanting him to misread my concern with pity. Yet the moment our eyes met, his lips easily curled into a small smirk and his teary eyes gave me a warm gaze.

"Are you worried about me? I'm glad," he said with croaked voice.

"Well, now that I see you are back with your little wits and flirty smile, I'm pretty sure that you are doing okay."

I was for a fact still felt extremely worried about him. But I didn't know him that well yet—unable to tell much about him yet after only spending eight hours conversing together the day before—so I did my best to hide my true feelings. Even when there was something about him that left me wanting to know more, to see deeper into him.

He gave me a soft chuckle. "That's okay, love. I've had worse days before, so I can deal with this one easily," he said, turning his gaze away.

It was not hard to see how he was trying to put his poker face on to hide things from me, to appear stronger. But his eyes showed me every unspeakable part that was going through his mind. Yet it was the words he said afterwards that had me feeling disappointed and left out.

"I don't want you to waste your time and energy to worry about me. I don't really have a place in your mind or thoughts anyway."

I scoffed. "Don't flatter yourself, Mochi. I'm only being nice because you still have a debt to pay and there's nobody else here but me."

"A debt?" He glanced at me with knitted brows, before his eyes widened. "Ah—Are you still curious to know my name? Or is it that you are curious to know about the man that was forgotten and left heartbroken by life?"

"What if I told you that I want to know both of them?"

He smirked. The light in his eyes might have vanished. But as I looked deep into his eyes, I was pretty sure that those eyes were able to emit the sun and stars once in the past, their glorious time which had people falling in love with them before they faded away by his pain. He also seemed so frail and exhausted, but he still had a glint of mischief subtly showing as he answered me with, "I always admire a woman who knows what she wants."

I rolled my eyes and looked away as I felt warmth appearing on my face the minute I heard his flattering words. There was not a doubt in mind that my cheeks may have been blushing. Too bad, he had a chance of seeing them before I had a chance to hide them from him.

"You look really cute when you are blushing like that."

I coughed out of embarrassment from his words alone. "I shouldn't look cute. Because you and I both know, cuteness and these pyjamas, and with these tubes hanging over me, they do not belong together."

He lightly laughed, looking amused at my answer. And it made me feel relieved and proud to know that I was able to make him laugh. For some reason, I had unknowingly made it my mission to make him smile, to make him forget about his pain. The little pride that came to me after knowing that I had succeeded only made me want to do more.

"Alright then—" he said, already looking more relaxed as he lied there on his recliner. "What are you going to offer me as a tribute to earn my trust?"

"I don't know," I said, pursing my lips. "Is there anything you want?"

"You."

I scoffed and rolled my eyes. "Alright, you need to stop that—"

"I know. You are off-limits anyway," he said, nodding his head to point at my ring finger that was already left bare. "I don't know if you had given the ring back to him or you're only keeping it away while enduring these treatments, but I know there is someone who you still long for since you keep brushing your finger above the ring mark."

I instantly looked down on the bare finger, letting out a sigh at the sight of the ring mark that was visible on my skin before turning my glance back at him. From how he was giving me such a sad smile, I could easily guess that I was mirroring that smile myself.

I sunk my teeth into my lower lip, completely lost for words on how he was able to keep reading me.

"Are you surprised?" He taunted. "Very well—Then, why don't we trade? Every page of your story for every page of mine. Ending the part of my story with my real name and your story with whatever you choose to share me. You can even talk about him if you want. What do you say?"

There was something about him that lured me in, pulling me to keep getting closer and to give way for him to enter. Something about him that made it so hard for me to refuse his presence. SoI agreed to his offer.

And that was when everything started. The day when we started to open not only our masks for each other, but every single one of our wounds that we had sealed so recklessly only to stop them from revealing themselves to the world.

I lied sideways on my recliner, sharing bits of my early life in exchange for his. I kept my deepest darkest secrets to myself, waiting for the right moment to open those pages to him, but I shared the others as a beginning step of our trade. I told him stories of my childhood, my uneventful teenage years, and my youthful dreams between a few times of dozing off due to the effect of the medicines running through my blood, while he listened to me patiently with droopy eyelids and a few light yawns.

"Wait—you went to that university?" He asked me with his sleepy voice, forcing his eyes to stay open the moment I told him where I went to college.

"Yeah, I did," I chuckled. "Didn't really have the fondest memories of it though, but it was a great school. I met some great people, made some good memories, and—" I stopped just when Jungkook's face appeared in my head, and when the years of attending that college came flooding through my mind. I had never before let those memories of my college days come back to me.

Because it was the place where everything started. Where my life began to spiral down the hill. And every time they came back to, they carried along all the pain I had with them only to remind me how miserable my life was.

He released a sigh. "I was so close to becoming a graduate from that university, you know."

"What?" I chuckled. "Wait—are you serious?"

He looked at me with such a hollow smile—another one of his expressions which I couldn't decipher—and the kind of gaze that was filled with wonders and questions. "I flew to the city right away after I got the acceptance letter, moved in as a dorm resident and stayed there for a year."

"You got accepted and attended courses there?" I gasped and I couldn't help but amazed at the fact that we were much closer than we had thought we were. "But—what changed? Why did you change your mind?"

He smacked his lips, turning his gaze away from me to look up at the ceiling as his mind wandered to the past. "It was my dream to learn music, but dancing was another passion I couldn't let go of. During the first week of my arrival in the city, I met some of my old friends who loved to dance on the streets. After a while, I decided to join them and realised that I had so much fun doing it with them. I did it only on my spare time at first, and I only took a few classes in university so I can have more dancing afterwards," he said, his eyes were filled with wonders as he reminisced his youth. "I thought I could juggle both lives together, between studying and dancing. But then, came the day when someone came up to me with an offer to dance professionally, telling me that if I wanted to go far from dancing alone, I had to let go of my study."

I pursed my lips. I could only watch how his face changed to sorrow as he lied there in silence.

"You chose to dance."

"That I did," he nodded. "I figured I could dance as much as I wanted to and gain enough money from it. School was hard and I felt like I was wasting my time there. I thought that once I've gone far with dancing, I could go back to study at an art academy with the money I had collected."

"That's too bad. We could've met back then and become college mates." I playfully tutted, earning his light chuckle—which he gave without turning to look at me. "Did it work out? How far did you go with your dancing life?"

He opened his lips to answer, yet he stopped himself before telling me what he wanted to say. He fell silent for a brief moment before turning to glance at me with a smirk on his face. "Let me just say that dancing got me far enough with the girls. 

In short, young Mochi was a fuckboy.

The professional dancer turned into a professional lover by fame.

I sat next to him again the next day. After having to end the conversation we had the day before when we both fell asleep before reaching to the good parts. Began unfolding every single escapade he had gotten into as he kept moving around to city to perform with his dance crew.

My day started with a high fever that I could barely open my eyes. The drugs were finally starting to take effects on my body and I woke up in the morning feeling like my whole body was burning from within. With the addition of a huge stress from finding flocks of hair fallen at the sides of my pillow and an insane pain inside my head, let me just say that I did not have the best of mornings to start with.

He knew how terrible I felt just by looking at my face as I was being strolled into the ward. So I guess that was the reason why he had decided that it would be the best time humour me with the most grimacing stories he had from his wild flings.

And apparently, it worked.

I was already shedding tears from laughing too much when he got to his fourth story.

"So we went to this college event and got invited to a frat party happening later that night," he said, holding back his laughter that he sounded as if he was losing breath between each word. "We got there around midnight, which was already late so the house was packed. The rooms were jam-packed with people and the music was so loud you could barely hear yourself think. Drinks were handed around and it never stopped. The girls that were invited to the party were hot, and—most of them were pretty wild. I danced in the crowd with my crew when suddenly, this hot chick slipped between us and started grinding on me. I was terribly drunk and so hyped, so I just let everything happened. But I wasn't drunk enough to forget how she pulled me upstairs to find an empty room. We couldn't find any and all I did was let her drag me around until she pushed me into this small room, I guess it was a bathroom. I didn't see the whip-cream can in her hand until then—"

I gasped. After listening to the previous story, I could tell how this one would end. "Oh, no—"

"I completely lost it when she opened her lips and sprayed the cream inside her mouth—"

I covered my mouth with my palms. I couldn't help but cringe even before he continued, "—I couldn't say anything, but I couldn't stop thinking about was how hot it was."

"Of course you did," I scoffed and rolled my eyes while he kept talking.

"And then she reached down and pulled my pants off—"

"No—"

"—started spraying the cream on my—," he stopped to clear his throat. His eyes were filled with mirth when he continued, while twirling his finger over his crotch, "—you know."

"Oh, God—"

"Then she started licking them clean with her tongue—"

I screeched. Literally. All while covering my face that was undoubtedly blushing with my palms and I could not stop laughing when the image came to mind so vividly, even if I tried not to imagine it.

"—really messy, and weird, but that tongue was made of heaven. I have never—"

I screeched to cover his words with my own voice. "Oh, my God—That's it, stop!"

"—best fucking blowjob ever." He grinned widely and laughed. "And then she left me in that bathroom with my pants down and I stood there feeling all sticky and dirty. I remember sobering up a little while I was trying to catch my breath. Meanwhile, she walked out without waiting for me to follow her while spraying the cream into her mouth and said nothing to me. Literally, nothing, and then she was gone."

I couldn't stop laughing in disbelief. "Oh my God—but okay, I have to admit that this one is pretty hot."

His grin widened, then he carried on to join my giggling fits. "So I guess that one finally turns you on?"

I tutted, before I picked up the small cushion on my lap to swing it at him, earning his delightful laughs. A soft deep chuckle interrupted our giggles, and we turned our heads to the man that was sleeping across to Mochi. He seemed to have been awakened by our ruckus, yet he only looked at us with a fond smile on his face.

"Oh, Mr. Ahn—did we wake you?" Mochi shifted in his seat and smiled sheepishly at the man, while I had to bite my lips to hide the grin that refused to disappear as I kept picturing the image of Mochi from the last story he told me. "I'm sorry if we're being too loud," Mochi apologized to the man with an embarrassed bow from his own seat.

The old man only chuckled and raised his weak hand to wave us off. "It's fine. It makes me happy when I see people relaxing and having fun. Seeing your young souls smiling always give me hope," he said in a raspy voice, his whole body seemed so frail and he looked as if he could fall asleep anytime. But his kind words made me smile.

I leaned back on my recliner to try and rest, keeping my eyes on the man as he fell back to sleep with a wide smile.

I was asleep when the nurses took Mochi away to his room. But my fever was gone when I woke up.

And it came back with a vengeance the next morning.

My body was reacting at the medications really badly, kicking back at it without failing to give me pain and nausea as soon as I woke up that morning. I was scheduled to come home that day if only my body was able to fight it. But apparently, the fight between the chemicals that were running through my blood against the poisonous cells inside me was starting at an early stage than expected, and I felt as if I was already losing the battle.

"The reaction is showing pretty early, but I think your body is rejecting it instead of conforming to its effect. We will give you some vitamins to help you feel better and to strengthen your body while we observe your progress closely," Dr. Kim told me when he came to my room to examine my condition.

My body was heating up, and the fever made me feel weaker than ever. All I gave as an answer was a slight nod before I fought off my ragged breaths to say, "Yes, Doctor. Just tell me what to do."

For the whole day, I was held back in my treatment room for observation. Which only meant that for the first time since I had started my treatments in this hospital, I would not be spending my time in the chemotherapy ward as I usually did and would not be able to see Mochi. For the first time, I would be left in my room all alone. And it terrified me. The nurses were right when they said how resting in the chemotherapy ward would help, because being surrounded by others who understood the struggles I had to endure and those who knew how to support me helped me forget about the pain for a while, and forget about the reason why I was there.

Now that I was left alone, I felt so lonely that even with the occasional visits from the nurses could not help ease my loneliness at all. At the end of the day, as the drugs started to work its way to help me feel better, I closed my eyes only to imagine myself lying down on my bed with Mochi sitting next to me. The thought of his voice and his smile helped me calm myself down until I finally fell asleep.

They allowed me to return to the ward once my fever came down the next day.

They had to delay the last schedule for my induced chemotherapy until they were sure I have recovered enough, but they decided that it was better for me to rest there as I had to undergo my vitamins infusion before they would let me go home.

I was only away for one day.

And when I was strolled into the ward, everything felt so different. It was quiet and the air somehow felt a bit cold. The atmosphere was grim, not even the small smiles everyone was giving me enough to make it feel better.

I sat next to Mochi who was lying on his recliner with his back facing my side. When I figured he was probably resting, I started looking around and noticed that the recliner seat across from us was empty.

"Where is Mr. Ahn? Is he not having his treatment today?"

Everyone was silent. But then I turned to see how Mrs. Yoo, who had always seated next to Mr. Ahn and right across from me, was giving me a sad smile. She padded lightly on the headrest of the empty recliner beside her while answering, "His journey here has ended. It was time for him to continue his new journey towards the Kingdom of Gods."

"Oh no—"

I could not say anything to respond, and only watched in silence when one of the elderly across the room lifted his glass of vegetable smoothie to cheer towards Mr. Ahn's seat by saying, "He had fought his battle bravely. He is a free man now."

I had only spent my time with the other patients and had only gotten to know the man for a few short days. Yet the emptiness in the room that was created by the absence of one man, how everyone kept glancing towards the empty recliner during the day, and how they even made their way to pat the empty seat before they left the ward—every single gesture they did make my chest tightened with despair.

I could only sit there, watching everything unfold and realising that every part of it was real. I felt as if I was being slapped by reality to remind me of where I was, what I was going through and to look at everything with a clear mind.

Mochi was silent for most of the day, but I understood that he was perhaps feeling the same way as I did. He only sat there in silence with his eyes staring straight at Mr. Ahn's seat with a blank expression. I wanted to console him, but I didn't know how. So all I did was take his hand in mine every time his eyes looked down and looked so empty.

I finally spoke to him to break the silence, right before I had to leave. "Today is my last day. I'll be heading home tonight."

He finally turned to look at me. I saw his eyebrows knitted together for a brief moment before his face relaxed. He asked me with a gentle smile, "When is your next treatment scheduled?"

I shrugged. "Two weeks from now. Unless it takes me longer to recover then it'll be—"

"Three weeks, give or take," he cut me off. I looked at him and he gave me a knowing smile.

He had been experiencing the same thing. Which was obvious, except I just didn't know yet for how long.

"What's your demon?" He asked me, leaning his head back in his seat. "What is the demon you are fighting against?"

I pursed my lips before giving him an answer. "Bone cancer. They will be feeding off my spine pretty soon before they start spreading everywhere they want to go." And right when I let those words left my lips, right after I spoke them out loud, I felt shivers running through my body.

The whole thing that happened that day was overwhelming—the news about Mr. Ahn, the sadness that filled the room, and then suddenly, I had to reveal the truth about my own battle. My demons.

Everything was real. Everything was actually happening. And for the first time ever since the day I found out about my illness, I felt so afraid. I felt as if every feeling and every dreadful thought that I had suppressed inside me came flowing out right away and I was trembling in fear.

I was scared for my life.

He must have felt the change of emotions that came flooding inside me. Because as I was drowning in my fear, as I was lost in my own thoughts, he pulled me back by taking my trembling hand in his hold.

"Don't give up," he said, gripping my hand gently while giving me a smile that had more warmth than mischief. "Don't you dare give up. I won't let you."

I felt my tears brimming at the corner of my eyes at his words, and I could only nod since I knew I would end up sobbing if I had said anything.

He pulled my hand to his again right when I was about to leave my seat. "Park Jimin," he said. "That's my real name. Don't ever forget about me, alright?"

I nodded at him and smiled, gripping his hand tightly with my trembling fingers once more as if he would disappear once I let go. "Will I see you again next time?"

He chuckled. Letting me feel slightly relieved even though I could still sense his sadness and worries emitting behind his warm smile. Yet as always, he managed to cover them up the moment he playfully said,

"Oh—Don't worry. I will always be right here waiting for you, love."