—First life. St. Vincent's Hospital, year 2027—

My head was spinning even long after Jungkook had left. His words kept echoing in my head, sounding like whispers of a curse of misfortune continuously being enchanted to me.

My hands were shaking on my lap, and it felt like there was no stopping them even as I clenched them tightly, not when my heart was pounding so rapidly inside my chest to each time his words resonated in my head. They made me feel cold and hollow. Hopeless. I could do nothing by stayed on my bed, feeling like I was slowly drowning in darkness, as if I was stuck in a bad dream and all I could see was his face, and all I could hear was his voice, telling me all the things I wished I would never hear,

"I never signed the papers. Do you know what that means?"

I closed my eyes, wishing for it to go away. Wishing for it to not be real. But it was. And he did tell me all of those things. And he said it without any emotion or remorse on his face and with a deep, vile tone on his voice. As if he was deliberately saying those things with the sole purpose of punishing me.

"It means you are still my wife. You are still legally mine."

It was as if he was mocking me when he grinned right after the revelation. After he had hit me with the truth that had somehow been held away from me.

"You're lying," I remembered asking him. "Why?"

Why? I kept asking and wondering over and over again because none of this made any sense. Why would he do such a thing after he had promised to let me move on? After he already made it clear that he was willing to let me go?

The look on his face which he gave me after was one I despised the most. It was the look that he would give me each time his stubbornness was winning, the look filled with determination and relentlessness which always told me that he was not going to back down so easily and that he had already made his own plans for him to go through.

"I already told you, I am not going to let you go that easily."

"______!"

I jumped in shock as Hoseok's voice pulled me out of my thoughts. I looked up to find him looming over me, both of his hands were on my shoulders and it took me a while to realise that he had been shaking me when he called my name.

"What's wrong? Is there something wrong? Are you in pain?" Hoseok asked me. His eyes were wide as he searched through me, looking closely at my face before his gaze looked down on my body, as if trying to find something that was wrong with me. "I've been calling your name since I got back but you didn't react to me at all and you have been silent since he left. Is everything okay? God, you're shaking."

My brother kept staring at me with eyes filled with fear and worry that my heart started clenching in pain. I had no idea that I was shaking, but then I noticed how my hands were clutching tightly on the sheets. He pulled my hands gently and held them in his grip, and my body stopped shaking almost instantly.

"Hoseok—"

"Yeah? What did he want? Did he hurt you? Should I call the doctor?"

There were so many things running in my head that I wished to speak to him about, but I couldn't decide where to begin. After I began to feel a bit calmer, I finally started to speak. And I started by telling him everything Jungkook had said to me about the divorce papers — how he admitted to returning it, sending it back to my brother without signing, before I told him about Jungkook's wishes on getting me back, no matter at what cost.

Deep down, I wished that Jungkook was lying to me when he said, "If you don't believe me, then why don't you ask your brother about it?"

Because I trusted Hoseok more than anything in the world and I refused to believe that he would hide it from me if Jungkook had really done it. But as I kept talking and all I could see on Hoseok's face was anger and despair instead of shock, I knew that Jungkook was telling the truth.

Hoseok sat down right beside the bed and sighed deeply. I could feel his hands slowly slipping away from mine but I held on, refusing to let go and give him a chance to avoid answering my curiosity and confirm what Jungkook had told me.

"Hoseok?" I asked him when he grew silent. Then he lifted his face, looking into my eyes with regret filling his gaze. "What did he mean by it? What are you not telling me?"

Hoseok's breath was shaking as he released another deep sigh. He closed his eyes, taking a moment as if he was trying to decide what to say to me. And we still had our hands holding each other for support. When he opened his eyes again, the regret in his eyes deepened, and so did the pain in my chest as he confirmed everything that I had feared.

"Jungkook returned the divorce form without his signature. It was left on my desk and I found it after the New Year's Eve party. I didn't mean to hide it from you. I couldn't say anything to you because I didn't want you to worry, and I was hoping that I could settle it before you ever find out," he began explaining it to me slowly and I took in all that he was telling me, word for word, until everything sank in. "His lawyer called me just last week after I pressed him over signing, telling me that Jungkook is still refusing to give his signature and is now demanding his rights as a lawful husband to have a chance for reconciliation. After he found out about your health condition, he has also added his demands for visitation rights and asked to be given a role as a caregiver."

My breath was caught in my throat before it came out with a sob.

"No," I gasped, shaking my head in denial. What was he trying to do? Why is he doing this? "He can't do that—can he?"

Hoseok's jaw twitched. "Unless he signs—" he said, seething with anger before he exhaled deeply. "Unless the divorce is made official, he is still your husband by law and he can still legally claim his rights to be by your side."

Hoseok stopped for a brief moment but kept his eyes on me. I had mentioned about what Jungkook had told me regarding my relationship with Jimin. He claimed, or rather, insisted that I only wanted a divorce because of another man. And now that he knew I was ill, he would have enough power to prove to the court and to convince them that I was not right in the mind to have demanded it now was I in the right condition of making such a decision.

Now that Hoseok insinuated that Jungkook had sent the papers back on New Year's Eve, it made me think that perhaps last night was not the first time he caught me with Jimin. Though he hinted that he saw me on that New Year's Eve party, Hoseok's words only confirmed that he was really there.

I had thought that I could finally move on, which was the reason why I had agreed to start things with Jimin. But this would change everything. And Hoseok confirmed it when he said, "He will also have a probable cause of suing you for infidelities if he truly wishes."

Anger and disbelief ran through me. "But he was the one cheating on me! He had no right!"

My tears started falling both out of pain and out of anger. How could he? Why am I the one being punished after everything he had put me through?

Once again, my body started shaking, and Hoseok was quick to leap out of his seat to take me in his arms. Cupping my face, he forced me to look at him and stopped me from losing myself in my rage and getting lost in my mind.

"And we will remind the court about his own infidelities, and everything he had done to tarnish your marriage, if he ever takes us there," he told me then as he looked deep into my eyes. Every word he said to me held his promises and I could see the rage in his eyes, the same anger I was feeling, and I knew he meant every word. "I'm trying to make a deal with him and his legal team so it'll never get to that stage. Not with your condition."

As he held me tight, Hoseok kept whispering to me, soothing me and reminding me to breathe in and out slowly, before the stress would once again take over me and ruined whatever progress I was having even if it only had been a few days.

"What are we supposed to do?" I whispered as I cried to his chest. I felt him rubbing my back, helping me to get it all out as I sobbed and wept for all the unfortunate events I had to go through. "He's never going to let me go easily without a fight, is he?"

Hoseok tightened his arm around me. "He's in denial because you're finally fighting against him. He's doing all of this out of spite, because he knows that you have found ways to move on without him and he is using your condition as his way to get you into thinking that you would need him by your side and that you wouldn't be able to live without him."

Just like he did years ago, I wondered silently as I recalled the way he did all he could to redeem himself after the accident I went through back in college. The accident which had cost me everything.

My college life, my best friend, my family. Our baby.

I closed my eyes and my tears slowly began to dry, replaced with more anger as I remembered everything that had happened then. How he stayed by my side during my recovery until I began to feel like he was the reason why I was still breathing and living, when he managed to make me fall in love with him again and made me feel as if he was the only one who could heal my heart and soul after he had broken them into pieces.

"Once he realises that he is only going to give you more stress that will only interfere with your healing process instead of helping you, he might finally come to his senses and forget about whatever vendetta he is planning against you," I heard Hoseok speak carefully, although it sounded more like he was trying to convince both me and himself and to give us some hope in getting through this.

I clenched my brother's shirt tightly in my hands when I finally realised that this was exactly what Jungkook after for coming back with his threats. To once again slip his way back into my life while I was at my weakest. And it pained me the most to think that after years of wishing and hoping that he would fight harder for our marriage, he was only doing it now, once everything was far too late and we were far too broken to fix.

But not this time.

This time, I would be ready to stand my own ground when I had decided to live my life the way I wanted to. When I already knew where to find my own happiness, even if it would be my last chance to have it. And I was not about to give that up, not for him.

If I could not have it, if he would not let me to finally be truly happy and to heal from the pain he had inflicted on me for years, then I was not going to let him win anything at all. I would never give him a chance to take it away from me.

"Then maybe I could do it sooner," I said to Hoseok as I pulled myself away from his embrace. I looked up to him, returning his frown and his curious gaze with clear, determined look on mine when I told him what I had in mind.

"I can show him that I will not allow him to use my state of weakness as a weapon to get his way. Perhaps I should stop taking medications until he gives me what I want, and let him watch me suffer the more he refuses to give up my freedom."

Hoseok did all he could to talk me out of it and change my mind.

But he forgot how headstrong I could be. It was our family trait, after all, and I was not backing down no matter how much he tried, no matter how much he chastised me for what I said to him and how he spent hours of trying to prove to me how wrong it would be to make that move.

I could not care less because I had nothing else to lose anyway, when the only thing I had wished for was a chance to feel some sort of happiness, no matter how small it would be or how short the time that would be given to me to relish it.

For some reason, I was not even afraid of making this decision.

Because finally, for the very first time in my life, I was thinking for myself and I was not doing it for the sake of somebody else's happiness and their lives. I was doing this all for my own sake and my own happiness. And for me to get a chance of love. The kind of love I felt when I was with Jimin, the love which allowed me to breathe more easily, that had not made me feel like I was a broken, damaged good.

Hoseok was so distressed that I was not surprised when he ran out to get help.

So it was not completely surprising when I woke up from my long nap right before nightfall to find Dr. Kim sitting right beside the bed, sans the white coat and while carrying only his warm smile with him.

"Dr. Kim, what—what are you doing here?" I stretched out and tried to sit up while clearing my dry throat, neither act ever succeeded until he leaned to press a button on the bed which raised it upward and handed me a glass of water to drink. "Thank you, Doc. But you didn't have to do this."

He took the glass away from my hand once I was done. "First of all," he started, "It's Seokjin. No coat, remember? It's off working hours."

I could not resist the urge to roll my eyes as I laughed. "Okay, fine," I said to him. "Alright then, Seokjin. Mind telling me why you were watching me sleep? Since you were off duty and it's not your schedule to check up on me."

Seokjin released a deep sigh and leaned back in his seat. He had a troubled look on his face when he looked up at me, and he stayed that way while keeping his hands on his lap, fingers entangled, as if he could not decide where to start. I could only guess what he was up to, but I chose to wait until he spoke.

"Your brother came to see me earlier when he went down to sign off your medicines for today," he said, confirming my thoughts.

I knew that he would be one of the first people Hoseok came running to for advice, or to help him convince me not to take any desperate measures that may harm me in order to fight against Jungkook.

That was all his words. Not mine.

"You're not surprised," he said, tilting his head. Seokjin crossed his arms over his chest as he studied me closely.

"I kind of made a list of people he would go visit after our last conversation," I told him. "Go on. What did he say?"

Seokjin sighed. "He told me the ordeal you are having—with your husband and the divorce process. I'm guessing he's making things hard for you, hmm?"

I scoffed. "That is an understatement of the year," I said. "He seems to have a mission on making my life miserable. He always decides what he wants and makes sure he gets it, no matter at what cost, or whose life he would be putting in vain for him to win."

As I looked over to him, the young doctor was rubbing a hand over his face, though it did not erase the frown he was having. "So there's no possible reconciliation, I suppose?" he asked me, only to have me stubbornly shaking my head.

"Never. I'm done with him," I told him firmly. "I know what I want now and he is not a part of it. He had never once let me be a part of his ordeals, he never shared what was going on in his mind and he had always chosen to run away from every single problem we were having, only to create more problem until it was too late for any of us to fix it."

I was shaking my head when I was telling him this and my determination kept going stronger the more I shared what I was feeling.

"Even before our marriage, it would always seem like I was the one to fix up all the mess he made, to find any solution he needed to get through them. But when the problem and the mess involved me, our marriage, our future, he was never willing to do anything to make it better or fight for it and had chosen to look away, as if the more he ignores it, the less it becomes real. He had never fought for me before, but now—" I looked up to the doctor as I continued, "Now, when I have nothing more to offer, when I have no more will to be with him, he is fighting to have me back as if everything would be like it was the moment I return to him."

Seokjin smiled at me as if he understood. "And is Jimin one of the reasons why you are not going back together with him?"

At the mention of Jimin's name, I simply couldn't help but smile. There was something about Jimin, not only his presence but simply the thought of him, that brought warmth inside my chest, something that was enough to allow me to hope.

"He is a part of it," I admitted, and Seokjin smiled with me. "But most of it was just me taking my life back, even if it would be too late for me to savour it. It's just me taking back everything I had to sacrifice and let go of when I had chosen him over everything else."

"You just want to be happy."

"Yes, that is all I want," I told him, relieved that he would understand. "Is it really too much to ask?"

Seokjin leaned forward and grabbed my hand. "I understand, _____. I really do," he said to me softly. "And I know that everything you promised your brother you would do was only to threaten your husband, to punish him if he is still forcing you to go along with his ways. But is it worth it? I understand your decision of punishing him, but that doesn't mean you should be punishing yourself for it."

"I don't know what else to do."

"Focus on your treatments and your healing. Show him that you will do much better on your own, that he will only hold you back from getting any better," he said. "He will have no choice but to admit that he has no place in your life once you show him that."

"He is a stubborn man."

"So am I," he said, grinning as he admitted this. "And I will not let my favourite patient harm herself after months of effort she has made and after all the positive progress I have helped her go through. Do you hear me?"

"Yeah," I said to him. "I hear you."

"Good," he said. "Then let's do our best to get better."