Mew-Star-Mew: the larynx IS the vocal box :D


"Are you sure about this?" Chelsea asked with a worried expression on her face. "You've been there for quite some time…"

"Exactly," Reine replied. "You told me you need a change, too, right?"

Chelsea sighed. "That's true… but, still…"

They changed their clothes to scrubs as they talked. Reine fixed her hair into her signature bun at the top of her head. Afterwards, she poked it, making sure it was tight enough. "Moving, yes—he's helping me with the transfer papers," she replied. "Getting you to replace me? Planning to."

Chelsea tied the bandanna behind her head. "What do you think will happen?"

Reine shrugged. "As long as you know your stuff, he's not gonna bite you," she said. "Seriously, Chels, you know him longer than I do!"

"Not as intimately," she quipped, this time with a teasing glint in her eyes. Reine blushed, but she managed to roll her eyes. "Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for you guys!"

"Yeah, thanks…"

"And it's not like it's totally unexpected."

"Whatever," Reine said amusedly.


The beeping sound of the machine that kept his mother alive was his only companion. He held her cold hand, rubbing his thumb gently over her wrinkled, yellowed palm.

Two months ago, Mrs Schinelli's condition had taken a turn for the worse. She almost didn't make it. He was so desperate then that he ran to the ER and begged Reine to help him out. Ever since Reine was formally instated as the Emergency Physician-in-Charge, his mother had been under the care of another doctor. However, he wasn't in office when that happened and Rod could only think of Reine then, hoping that someone Reine, too, was a Hand of Asclepius.

She did it. She saved his mother. But, Reine had warned him that the next time, he might not be so lucky. It was then Rod decided to start sharing the story of his life with his mother, just in case. Actually, he wanted to wait until she was awake, until he could see into her eyes, but perhaps he should start now.

He did it in every free time that he managed to have, and Leighton had been most understanding about that by not bothering him. He went about it chronologically. He began from the time she left him. He told her of all the Sports Day she missed: his first touchdown, first broken leg (it was the worst, too), and the first trophy he had managed to clench in the junior varsity.

Today's topic was something that he wouldn't usually share. However, she was his mother and he wanted to tell her… basically, everything. Besides, it had been so many years ago and he had moved on.

Rod took a deep breath. "Mom, you know Reine? She was your doctor," he began. "I know you probably never see her face, but perhaps you felt her touch? In any case, she was my college friend."

"She has always been one of a kind—she's the youngest in the class, but she didn't seem to be bothered by it. She mingled well with others. She had that gift to connect with others. Believe me, Mom, she is… simply amazing."

"She is smart but humble. She is kind and warm. She told me that she liked my cheerfulness, but I guess she had plenty of it herself," he continued. Rod took a deep breath, and for a moment he remembered Reine, a decade younger, grinning at him. "The night before our graduation, she called me and told me that she couldn't stay."

"I asked her where she was going. She told me she was going to her mother's place," he said. "I knew her mother had passed away when she was young—she told me that—so I was so afraid she… planned to commit suicide. She's not a scaredy cat, Mom, she'd do what she said she would."

"She disappeared right after graduation, and we talked after the ceremony. She told me she didn't mean suicide by what she told me, but she couldn't say anything more. We didn't keep in touch after that… so imagine how shocked I was when I found her here, as a doctor!" Rod took a deep breath. "Well, she changed… and didn't at the same time. She's still the warm and friendly Reine I knew—and since she handled some of my clients, we became friends again pretty quickly. But, there's something in her… like… she's hardened. I've always wanted to ask her, but I guess I shouldn't. Women love their secrets… I learned that much for sure."

Rod smiled tenderly at the memories, and his mother. "I knew I loved her for those four years… and I was such a coward for never having the courage to ask her out."


Leighton froze at her spot. She didn't mean to eavesdrop, but when she was about to call Rod she realized that he had been talking about Reine Kreiss. She knew they were friends—they told her that much. She knew they were close, too, from their interactions every time they passed each other in the hospital.

She should have sensed that Rod's feelings for Reine was more than that. She remembered Rod referred to Reine as "like the sun"—she should've picked up the signs.

Leighton looked helplessly at Rod's back profile, now sitting in silence next to his mother's bed.

How could she compare to her?


The white folder was already there when she reached her desk. Smiling, Reine took it and opened it. There was a new Post-It pasted on it with an URL address written on it.

SoundCloud?

Curious, Reine immediately typed in the address she was given into her browser. The song was exactly four minutes long, and the title read: "The Script-Never Seen Anything (Quite Like You) cover (24th December)".

So… a four-minute song for the fourth day of Christmas, huh?

Reine plugged in her earphones and the smooth piano sound guided her into the ballad. She held her breath when she heard his voice softly singing: "I think I want you more than want, and no I need you more than need…"

She closed her eyes and let herself to be swept away by the song. She felt her heart racing when she listened to the lyrics closely:

Well I've seen you in jeans, with no make-up on

And I stood there in awe as your date for the prom

I'm blessed as a man to have seen you in white

But I've never seen anything quite like you tonight

There was a long piano solo after the second refrain, and if she hadn't know that he did play piano, she thought he was singing this with the accompany of some karaoke instrumental version of this song.

Reine held her breath:

And your eyes are in your eyes

And my heart's in our hearts

Sometimes words just ain't enough

For this love that's more than love


Although she often listened to her iPod while coming into and out from work, she rarely did that when she was on duty—even when she was doing clerical work. However, this time, Neil noticed that she was listening to a song while typing in front of her computer.

Neil approached the internist and, after making sure that no one was around, he took one of the earphones and put it into his ear. He immediately blushed when he realized what she had been listening to.

Reine, who was looking up at him the whole time, giggled when she saw his cheeks turned noticeably red.

"Can you not… do this?" he asked.

Reine stopped the song and took off the earphone completely. "Why not? It's a nice song."

"Er… what if others listen?"

"They have ears," Reine replied. "You're not half-bad, Neil."

"That's not what I meant…"

Reine smiled. "I know. It's just so fun teasing you," she said. "By the way, you do realize that the 'white' in the refrain doesn't refer to this—" she grabbed her coat. "—white, right?"

"Yeah," he said. "But that's white, too—and I've seen you in that so many times."

"Well, job description," Reine replied.

"As for the other white…" he trailed off. "…perhaps someday."

Her heart skipped a beat at that statement. "What?!" This time, it was her turn to blush furiously. "H-hey… you're teasing me back or what?"

Neil shrugged her off and walked to his own office. He closed the door behind him and reached for a small royal blue box in his coat.

He opened the box and uncovered a ring. It was white golden, mounted with an arrangement of diamonds in varying sizes, with the smaller ones at the ends and the bigger ones moving towards the centre. There were three diamonds on each side. The central gemstones consisted of five teardrop-shaped deep red rubies, arranged carefully to resemble flower petals surrounding another diamond. The central diamond was smaller that the smallest ones at the side, but it was much brighter. In total, there were twelve gemstones mounted on the ring.

He remembered what Nanna told him back then. "Your grandfather gave this to me decades ago. This is his second best gift to me… after the sixty years we shared together."

That time, he asked why she suddenly showed him her engagement ring. She pushed the box towards him and said: "Give this to the girl you want to spend the rest of your life with… just like how your grandfather had done it."


A ring...?!

Stay tuned for the next update!

Thanks for reading! Please rate and review! ^^

A/N: the song featured is actually shorter than 4 minutes, that's why Neil made it up to 4 minutes with the solo piano piece just before the bridge. It's a very sweet song, by the way! ^^ And of course, it's not mine HAHAHA