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

Dr. Kim, or Seokjin, had proven to be a good friend.

His pep talk stayed with me through the night and it surprised even Hoseok that the kind doctor was able to talk to me and change my mind rather easily. If he had any jealousy of having someone else convincing me out of my mistakes, he was not showing it. The only thing he did show me was the relief he felt that I was able to look past the anger and focus on what mattered the most.

The only thing that was bothering me was that the other person who I had thought would come to visit had yet to make any appearance even until a couple of days had passed. He did not come even when I waited for him to be there or call me and text me back whenever I tried to reach him, since I was not allowed to leave my room.

I knew that even Hoseok had reached out to him at the same time he did to Dr. Kim. Out of all the people who could talk me out of it, Jimin was the one I expected to be able to make me sway. Yet he had yet to come and visit after that night.

His absence led me to question things. It made me worried about him and had me seething at Jungkook for his reaction the night he came to find me with Jimin, blaming him for ruining things when everything between me and Jimin had been doing so well.

As days passed and still no word from Jimin, I could not help but wonder if something was wrong. Each time someone would walk past the door, I would instantly raise my head, expecting to see him walking in with his warm smile on his face. Then whenever I was disappointed to find that he was still not showing up, my mind would wander off, trying to figure out what would have happened and where he might have been.

Did Jungkook scare him off? Or did I scare him off?

Was he badly hurt? Because I could still hear the sound of Jungkook's fist landing on Jimin's cheek. I still remembered the sight of blood dripping from Jimin's lips. I still had a few drops of it marking one of my nightshirts from when he held me tight after Jungkook had ripped his lips, when he was trying to convince me that he was alright before Hoseok finally brought him back to his room.

Or could it be that he had decided to give up and stay away because of all the baggage I carried?

That last thought was the one that hurt me the most. The thought of losing him turned my chest inside and out and I had no idea what I would do if that should ever happen.

After days of worrying, crying over his absence, and asking about him to the nurses coming into my room only to find no answers of his wellbeing, Jimin finally walked through the door and entered my room at one afternoon.

He had a slight limp on his footsteps and I could tell how he was slouching his shoulders as he made his way to the side of the bed. He didn't even bother to wait until Yoongi — who had his turn to watch over me that day — was completely out of the room to collect me from the bed and pulled me into his chest. As I was finally back in his arms again, I felt all the knots inside my chest loosening, while at the same time, felt him exhaling a deep sigh of relief, as if I was not the only one in loss and in pain when we were apart.

"Where have you been?" I cried to his chest. "I thought you hated me or you were mad at me and you have decided to not come to see me again."

To my surprise, I heard him chuckling into my hair. "That is probably the dumbest thing I've ever heard coming from you," he said, yet I nearly missed his words when my mind was distracted by the movement of his hand circling on my back and his warm breath that was falling on my neck.

The moment I managed to process what he just said to me, I pushed back against him. "Are you calling me dumb?"

Jimin grinned. "No, you are certainly not. But saying that I am angry at you or that I am capable of hating you is," he said. His gaze softened when he looked at my face, while mine only widened. Now that I was staring at him from up close, I could finally see them more clearly — the swollen bags under his eyes, his misty gaze that held unspoken words, the blue-ish mark on his cheek, and the faint, drying wound at the corner of his lips.

I opened my mouth to apologise for his wounds, for all the pain that had been inflicted by my raging ex-husband, but he stopped me by pressing his lips on mine. The moment our lips touched, it felt like all of my worries were lifted almost instantly. I felt calm, content, and completed. Like he was the missing piece that I needed and for the past few days when he was not here, I was not truly living.

The kiss lingered until my heartbeat was pacing so fast and so hard that I felt my chest was clenching in pain. Through my palms that were pressed on his chest, I could feel that he was feeling the same way, except that his breath fell short and he had to pull away so he could breathe.

For a moment, neither of us spoke as we revelled in each other's presence and warmth.

"I could never hate you, love," he whispered to me as he rested his forehead on mine. "I'm sorry I haven't been around."

"What happened?" I asked him. I pulled back slightly only so I could look at him in the eye, so I could demand an answer. "Where were you?"

He held my hand as he began to tell me everything. "Well, first, I got scolded after I returned from your room that night. The nurse chastised me while she was cleaning up the wound on my ripped lips and tried her best to make sure I wouldn't be waking up with a headache or with my pretty face all swollen," he told me with a smile, before his gaze was filled with sadness when he continued, "But things still turned to the worst when I woke up the next morning. I didn't only get the headaches, but I also got a high fever, nausea, the whole thing you get when your body is rebelling against you."

The revelation made me gasped. Tears came welling in my eyes as I was filled with guilt. Guilt that came from not knowing. Guilt for not being able to be there for him.

Jimin smiled to me as he reached out to wipe the tear that managed to slip out. His softly spoke to me, calming me down with his thumbs circling on my wrists. "This time, they told me to stay in my room and I was forbidden from moving around and be active. I was put in an extreme observation which left me completely immobile that they had to call my cousin to come and help watch over me. I had no choice but to stay and wait until I recover."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Jimin raised my hand to place a kiss on my wrist. "Your brother came to visit me the day the fever happened. I believe he left your room when your husband came to see you and he had nowhere to go. He came again the next day to talk and though I never exactly told him about my condition, he did find out that I was not allowed to leave the room for a few days, but we agreed not to tell you anything so you wouldn't worry too much. You were also recovering from the tests and all the stress you were having, so I decided to give us both some time to recover separately before we could see each other again."

"But that was not your decision to make, was it? I should have had a chance to say something so I could be there, so we could recover together," I protested, to which he only sighed.

"I know. I'm sorry. I just didn't want to put too much pressure on you," he said to me, and I had no other choice but to accept it. It was far too late to change anything anyway. But he was here with me now and that mattered more.

"So—" I started to speak after taking a few deep breaths. "What—what was wrong? Why were you in pain? Did the doctor tell you anything?"

Then, once again, my mind wandered and I began to imagine all the worst-case scenario of what might have happened to him. Could it be that he was getting worse? Once again, the fear of losing him came over me. But then I studied his face closely, looking at the marks on his skin and quickly remembered—

"Was it because of Jungkook? Was it because he hurt you that night?" I asked him while pulling his hands to my lap. Our fingers were still entangled to one another, as if both of us needed the contact and the bond to make us both feel better. When I remembered about that night when Jungkook came in, when Jimin confronted him with his words, I tightened my grip as I demanded more answers, "Why did you have to poke him that way? You could've just pushed him away instead of talking back to him and provoke him into punching you. You didn't have to get hurt because of me."

Instead of regretting it, Jimin only chuckled at the memory. "I honestly have no idea why I kept taunting him that way. I just got angry at him for barging into your room, acting like he owned the place, or as if he owned you. And I really hated seeing that look on his face when it seemed like he was hurt for seeing us together, for seeing me there, holding you, when he was the one who has been hurting you."

I could feel the creases on my brows deepening as I scowled at him. I was ready to scold him further, yet he stopped me, using his finger this time as he pressed it against my lips to shut me up.

"Hey, I did tell you that I'm not a good person," he said, catching my chin in his hand to make me look into his eyes. He was smiling at me when our eyes met, but I could sense the sadness that he was trying to hide when he continued to speak, "And no, it wasn't just because of that night. I'm having one of those moments again, when my body is growing tired of the treatments and the meds I was taking. I guess the fight and the anger of seeing him had triggered it to happen rather quickly this time, but I can handle it. I promise. They're putting me off of them for a bit until I am ready for more, letting my body rest before it figures out a way to be immune from the medications they are giving me."

I felt completely helpless at his conviction. Nothing he was telling me could ease my mind. It did nothing to stop me from worrying even more, to imagine that even after spending weeks and months being stuck in this place, he was still not getting any better.

Cupping his face with me palms, I could only whisper weakly, "I don't want to lose you. I can't lose you, Jimin."

Placing his hands on my waist, Jimin lowered himself and kissed the tip of my nose gently as he promised me, "I'm not going anywhere."

His lips met mine in a gentle kiss when he leaned forward again, but I only let myself drown in his kiss for a brief moment, when my guilt came to me stronger the moment I remembered my last conversation with Jungkook. I pulled back, cutting the kiss almost abruptly that he opened his eyes with a curious look.

I swallowed hard before I finally spoke, "But it wouldn't be fair to you if you stay with me either."

"What do you mean?"

It was hard for me to reveal what was troubling me the most, and he made me scoot over so he could climb on the bed. The bed that was given to me in that room was big enough for us to lie side by side, as long as I was tucked in his embrace. I rested my head on his shoulder as I recalled everything, letting him know all the things that were revealed through my last conversation with Jungkook.

Jimin had already heard about the matter of the unresolved divorce papers from Hoseok's visits to his room, yet he stilled for a moment when I told him all about the possibility of Jungkook taking the infidelity matters into court if I insisted to go on with the divorce and to continue this relationship.

To my surprise, Jimin stayed calm as he took everything in, when I had expected to see him leaping out of the bed and started running. Instead, the moment I looked up to him, he gave an encouraging smile while he kept his arm around my shoulders. "Well then, that just gave me even more reason to stay," he said to me while planting a kiss on the top of my head.

"Aren't you worried?" I asked him, trying to make sure if he actually still wanted to be a part of all of this. Of all the mess that was about to come into my life on behalf of my ex. "He would stop at nothing to make my life harder than it is, and he is going to take you down with me doing it."

"I no longer care about anything like that, really," he simply told me, shrugging. "He is just jealous, since he wasn't expecting to see you moving on so soon, and he's also probably bitter that he had been kept out of the loop while you are dealing with such a big thing as cancer growing inside you."

I kept my eyes on him, still unable to believe that I still had him here, lying down on my bed to support me. While my gaze held hope — hope for the better, hope for a chance to make it through no matter what kind of hardship Jungkook was throwing at me, Jimin's gaze held love and determination as he promised me,

"He doesn't scare me and I will not let him scare me off, as long as you'll have me. I will fight for you with everything I have left. I have nothing more to lose anyway, and I sure as hell will make sure that I will not lose you to him."