Dear DarcyDeVenus, Tasha and Faith forever - you guys are awesome, thanks for leaving reviews. I will be looking forward to more comments from all of you. Thank you for encouragement, I am writing as I have time and inspiration. And have a chapter for you tonight as well. The next one will be coming shortly for sure.
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Calm and precious moments were the ones that stayed with him. A smile, spark in the eyes, a light kiss, a sound of a heartbeat. These were the things that stayed with him. They nurtured him in his loneliness.
. . .
He was surprised to see the frosty eyes of Mrs. Yoo. "And you are?"
"You do not remember me, Omoni?" He bowed deeply.
"Have we met before?" She slid her gaze along his dark and slender figure, slight frown pulling her brows together. "Omoni, is not something a stranger should be calling me."
He was still new to this time travel paradox. He was zealous and full of optimism. He had not realized that the number of Alternative Universes was infinite and that in each of them the history of events surrounding Eun Soo's life varied from slightly to vastly different. Apparently, this Eun Soo has never introduced him to her parents.
"Young man, are you listening, how do you know my daughter?"
"Sorry, I was just recalling something. I am a friend. In fact, I used to be a patient of hers. Has she ever spoken about Choi Young to you?"
"Choi Young? Why does that name sound so familiar?"
The woman flipped the pages of her memories, while his eyes peered through the half shielded by the slotted blinds window into the white room. Eun Soo looked as if she was asleep. Any minute she would open her eyes and call for him.
"There was a patient of hers once that she talked about. It was a complex trauma, some kind of accident on the job. She said he was somebody special to her. But I never got to meet him before…" The woman's frozen eyes glistened with icicles beginning to turn tears. "Are you that man?"
"I'm not sure. Was she ever married or had children? I have not seen her in a while."
"Married? No. She was too busy with her career. Children? With whom? I wish she had a baby, at least somebody to console us."
"What is wrong with her, if I may ask?" Choi Young hitched his breath.
"She is in a coma. There was some kind of electro-magnetic abnormality that occurred. She was running tests on something; we are not sure. Her body was exposed to an electrical surge and she has been like that ever since. We don't know if she will ever wake up. If you want to talk to her, you can. We are encouraging everybody she knew to do that." The woman's bitter tears dried up and she went back to the frosty, lifeless expression.
He was tempted. In his heart he already knew that was not the woman he met. But his eyes beckoned him to get another fill of her image. Once he cautiously stepped inside the hospital room, his senses became flooded with the all too familiar smells and sights. He remembered vividly what it was like for him when he first realized where he was. Disoriented and bedridden, Choi Young could not trust anybody, but the woman with warm gentle hands and kind and sincere voice. She brought him back to life. But this woman, who looked like Eun Soo was as good as dead, merely a paled replica with no substance of once vivacious form.
Choi Young approached the bed and touched her hand. So cold. So unlike his Imja. However, even if she was a stranger, it hurt him to see this lively woman frozen, with tubes stuck in every possible crevice. Imja would not allow this suffering. She would do something. The decision came easily, there were no doubts – he will try, he will try and if this woman awakes then he will take it as a sign that Eun Soo was working through his hands, that they were still connected by an unbreakable bond.
Pulling up a hard plastic chair, Choi Young sat besides the pale patient; he took the woman's hand and placed it between his two palms. The feeling of familiarity pricked his heart and he felt anger boiling. This was not good. Anger was not an emotion to heal someone, but it stirred his KI, fueling the intensity of the charge. He focused. His eyes closed, he imagined his Eun Soo in this bed. If it were Imja, he would give all of his strength to revive her. A lightening crackled and the room suddenly went dark, steady beeping of the monitors stopped and his body was jolted as if he was thrown into the Hwata's gate. Then the lights turned on one after another and the monitor broke into an image, the beeping reinstated.
Startled and woozy, Choi Young took a moment to regain his composure. Suddenly, he felt drained; something inside of him emptied, the charge strong enough to wake the dead, and to his relief, sickly fingers trembled underneath his touch. With a sigh of relief, he looked at her face; it was still motionless. Her ghostly skin under his hot grasp was as cool as before.
He must have imagined everything. Intently he stared at her hand, willing it to move, but nothing transpired. He turned away, flushed and feverish after the enormous effort he put out, all apparently useless.
Choi Young tried to get up, but his knees shook and even his muscles refused to contract. He grabbed a water glass on a tray and dunked it. His lips were still burning and his mouth awfully dry. He searched for a water jug and poured another cup and then another, downing it in haste, then tried to get up one more time; his legs still felt like cotton, but at least he was able to stand.
One last look at this Eun Soo's face.
As he exited, Mrs. Yoo was nowhere in the vicinity. It was probably for the best. He might have to wait a few days till his KI recharged for travel. A hospital might be the safest place to remain inconspicuously. A nurse charged past him, then a group of serious-faced doctors, all talking over each other with excitement, then another nurse with a note pad behind them, jotting something down. Frowning, he turned to see what was the commotion about. They all crowded into Eun Soo's room.
A tall man stopped in the middle of the impersonal hallway, waiting in anticipation for what he had thought was impossible – maybe, he helped after all. He contemplated whether to return and see for himself, but looking at her prostrated under the covers body was not something he could handle again. It was difficult enough the first time around. That woman looked so much like Eun Soo!
The same nurse came outside, making a phone call. As she neared him, the man grabbed her arm, and she stalled surprised, the phone still to the ear.
"Excuse me, that patient, is she better?"
"I'm on the phone," she grumbled and tried to free her hand, but the man's grip was strong and his stare was determined.
"Please."
"Are you a relative?"
"Yes." It was not a lie. He had no relationship to this particular person, but somewhere in an alternative dimension he was the closest person to her.
She seemed to believe the honesty in his eyes and the fact that he did not stumble. She looked at him with sympathy and touched his arm with warmth. "It is too early to say, but her vitals became erratic, as if something is changing. She has not woken up yet. His mother informed us that somebody visited just before."
"It was me."
"Then you should try and visit again soon. Maybe, your presence triggered something. With coma victims very often how they wake up is a mystery."
"Do you want me to see her again?" That was an unexpected turn. Without planning on it, he started a chain of events that affected this woman. He was responsible now. Since he had to stay at the hospital, anyway...
. . .
"You are here? Great," the woman beckoned him to approach, waving her hand in the same manner Eun Soo used to, bringing up to the surface an unwanted memory and tightening his chest. He sighed deeply and lifted his head, taking firm strides toward the room where a sick woman was laying in bed, still attached to the tubes and machines that helped her breathe and allowed her heart to beat properly.
"I am here. It appears that your daughter's condition is more hopeful. That's what I was told," he heard his own hoarse voice in the crispness of the sterilized hospital air.
"Please, I don't know how to ask of you, but can you, please, do whatever you did last time?"
A fleeting fear ran across his face, his eyes turning away in anxiety.
"Maybe, it was something you said, or maybe, you touched her hand. I'm not sure. But something caused her vitals to change. They said that there was a spike in brain activity. Prior, she was practically…" the woman choked on tears, which squirted onto her aging skin; and suddenly gasped for air, grabbing onto Choi Young's arm, "a vegetable. So horrible!"
He stared at her, silent, at loss for words on how to comfort her. How can a person be a vegetable escaped him, but he considered the meaning of the metaphor… alive, yet not sentient.
The tears stopped abruptly, just like the last time when she cried, as if she had only a small reserve left for special occasions, when it was allowed for her to have a mini-break in her self-control.
"I will talk to her again, but not like the last time." He did not have much time to recuperate; the night, he had spent dosing off at the bottom of the stairwell with a borrowed from a kind nurse pillow and a blanket, was full of noises and shadows plaguing his dreams. There was no rest for him, no respite, no opportunity to escape even temporarily.
"I would really appreciate it." She smiled awkwardly, embarrassed to smile in such situation. Choi Young stretched his mouth to respond in likeness, also quite awkwardly. Without realizing it, he was already bonding with this strange woman from this strange world and was diverting his energy from his mission to find the right world with the right person in it.
He held the patient's hand with resignation and allowed his KI to flow freely through her skin as a conduit. He did not target her with a powerful charge or focused his healing energy into her. He just allowed his life force to find its way into the body of a person who was more dead than alive and invade her with his damaged, but still more alive energy than hers. He felt relaxed and meditative. His heart warmed up to this lonely ghostly person, whose hand he was holding.
If he were to revive her, if it was even conceivable, then what will become of her when he leaves? There is only one Eun Soo for him in the universe and he can only be responsible for her. He cannot give any of his heart to other women, even if they were in her likeness. He could not afford to split any further his already wounded from separation and butchered by disappointments soul. Not even a small piece of him should be shared with another version of Eun Soo to cause confusion and havoc in her life.
His mind has drifted to a memory:
Eun Soo was asleep on the bed, not unlike this one. She had to work late and he came to the hospital to accompany her home. He found her dropped over a narrow cot, in her white doctor's robe, a pen stuck in her hair to hold a messy bun. Her breathing rushed, a faint snoring with a cute swoosh indicated that she was tired and not comfortable. This very real and day-to-day beauty of her humanity revealed was stunning to him. This magical creation was snoring, exhausted after a long shift. He bended over her, carefully repositioning her head and chest, elevating her onto the pillow and arranging her limbs more comfortably. She did not even respond, deeply in slumber. He sat and watched her. Maybe, for hours or just for a few minutes.
Peacefully existing beside Eun Soo was one of those precious moments he treasured now. Just watching her was a gift he cherished even then, and now that night became a part of the treasured memory collection he carried with him through many worlds and times.
"Young-ah," she called when waking up, feeling his spirit nearby, and her hand reached out to intertwine with his fingers, firmly clasping. He leaned to place a kiss on her forehead and then on her lips and she pulled him closer, earning for an embrace.
That was a wonderful night which they spent loving each other on the small hospital bed.
He closed his eyes, inhaling the scent of the memory when he felt a wisp of a touch.His hand trembled from the sudden sensation and he heard a faint call, "Young-ah?"
The woman has woken. Her eyes were glossed over and wildly circling the room, fear and confusion overwhelming her dulled by the coma senses. So Choi Young firmly held her pale and weak fingers and answered, "I'm here. Don't worry."
"I dreamt about you," she said, leaking her dry lips and taking her time with each word.
He was paralyzed by extreme guilt and horrible pain in the depths within him. Her voice, her words hurt him tremendously. To have her call his name, to allow her even for a second to believe that he was the man she longed for was beyond cruel, it was unforgivable. But he did not have the heart to pull away from her, instead the care he felt poured on his features, bathing her in warmth.
"Am I dead?" She asked calmly, still not understanding her condition.
"No, you were sick and now you are better," he responded, swallowing so hard, his Adam's apple bobbed violently. "I have to tell your mother and the doctor," undoing his fingers, he freed himself, unable to look her in the eye. Him taking his hand away must have been more painful for her than to wake up in a hospital bed and believe she had died. It would have been for his Eun Soo.
Quickly, he sprung to his feet and not looking back, rushed out of the room, calling the first nurse he saw, "She woke up." Then he proceeded to walk along the long hallway, breathing stopped and heart breaking from what he was about to do. The elevator opened up with a ding and he stepped inside, not leaving a trace of his presence.
"Excuse me." He froze as the doors began to shut close, a hand inserted in the narrow gap pushed them back open. "Excuse me, are you leaving? At least let me thank you." The woman was crying without restraint.
"Omoni?" he could only exhale, dropping his head. His escape was swarted. There was no way to explain to the mother why he needed to leave immediately, for his daughter's sake mostly. And for his as well.
"I'm sorry to have troubled you," she continued, almost apologetically. "But don't you want to speak with my daughter?"
"Please wish her a speedy recovery on my behalf and tell her this, it is very important that you say this." She nodded attentively. "Tell her that I'm not the person she thought I am. The man she is looking for will come back, I'm sure of it. I'm just not that person." The woman blinked a few times, trying to comprehend this strange riddle. "I have someone I call Imja, who is still waiting for me. Please, I rely on you," he said, following by a deep bow. The elevator door began to close and the woman mumbling, "Thank you" and "I will" watched a tall bizarre man disappear behind the metal after a loud ding.
. . .
After that trip, he became more careful. He continued to search, but avoided direct contact with the women if possible, learning about them first, trying to assess whether there was a chance each particular Eun Soo was the one he needed. Such distance was always draining and frustrating. His memories of her and their son became hazier; and soon he did not really know whether he imagined that he had a child at all or it was his wishful thinking. The memory book in his head started to fade, its pages losing luster and clarity, crumbling at the touch. He knew that the gate was not only taking away his energy, it was also erasing the most precious recollections as it did something damaging to his brain, as if wiping it clean.