love, persevering

The hospital parking lot was nearly empty. The lobby was quiet when you walked in, and the front desk woman almost looked shocked when she saw two women with deep circles under their eyes and hair sticking in every direction. Honestly, you couldn’t care less. She was the receptionist at a hospital, if that was the craziest thing she’d seen she was in for a rude awakening when an actual patient came up to her desk.

She quickly directed you to his hotel room, on the 3rd floor, where his supervisor was already waiting. Time seemed to slow down as you rode the elevator. It couldn’t have taken longer than 20 seconds, but it felt like years. What if he was dying? What if he didn’t wake up? What if he was getting worse? Your thoughts kept racing, and you and Jun-ho’s mother couldn’t share a single word between the two of you between all of the panic going on inside your heads.

The floor was so quiet you could hear the squeak of a nurse’s shoes down the hallway. You should’ve run to your husband's bedside, but you couldn’t. You took one step at a time, terrified of what might await you. His supervisor stepped out the door and closed it. He looked at you with tired eyes. “Mrs. Hwang, Mrs. Park, I’m glad you could make it.”

“How’s my husband?” Formalities could wait. Formalities could go to hell.

He sighed, and your heart skipped several beats. “How is he?!” Jun-ho’s mother yelled. 

“He’s okay, he seems to be mostly stable, but I-” He raised his hand and scratched the back of his head, looking away at the ground, “I gotta be honest. He’s not great. He was shot and fell from a high distance into water. He passed out in the water and the doctors think he breathed in water and fell unconscious. They’re not sure of the extent of brain damage because he hasn’t woken up, but the lack of oxygen to his brain likely caused some sort of impact. There’s more, but they would only tell me the basics because I’m not family.”

You couldn’t breathe. You couldn’t think. What if he didn’t wake up? What if he did and he wasn’t the same? Memories of the last night you spent together raced through your head. It had been a long exhausting day, and he somehow knew how terrible it had been. He brought takeout home and made an extra stop to get your favorite dessert from a bakery. He set the food down on the kitchen table and immediately made his way to you on the couch, leaned down, and kissed you until you needed to come up for air. You turned off the tv and sat on the couch for hours, eating and talking and eventually fucking. Right before you went to bed he told you that he was going on the trip tomorrow, and you just smiled and nodded, thinking it was going to be like all the other times.

You pushed past the sergeant and walked into your husband’s room. His bed was separated from an empty one by a curtain. You couldn’t feel your own feet as you walked towards it, and it almost felt like your hand wasn’t moving at all when you pushed past the curtain.

Jun-ho looked like death. There was a tube shoved in his throat and his skin was so pale it looked translucent, the blue of his veins showing through on his arm next to an IV. The circles under his eyes were deep and dark, and he was in a neck brace, with his head bandaged. 

It felt like all the air had been sucked out of your lungs. The second his mother saw him, she collapsed at his side and laid her body over his legs. Her cries were guttural and came from something that must’ve broken inside of her. “My baby, my baby. I lost one son, I’ll die if I lose another.”

You couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t cry. You sunk to a chair at his side and reached out for his hand. He was so cold. His skin felt like he had just been taken out of the ocean minutes before, and his heart rate was so slow it felt like it was second between beats.

You didn’t hear the doctor come into the room until he spoke. Jun-ho’s mother looked up and stared at him like he was an angel, but you couldn’t look away from your husband’s unmoving body.

“Mrs. Hwang, can I talk to you about your husband’s condition?” You didn’t move, his mother had to beg the doctor to continue speaking. “He was shot in his left shoulder, luckily the bullet didn’t hit any vital organs, but because of the time between the injury and his arrival at the hospital, he lost a significant amount of blood. We think he hit the water head-first, and the impact caused his neck to break, luckily, there was no spinal cord damage. We induced him into a coma once he reached the hospital, so unfortunately we aren’t able to tell the extent of the damage unless he wakes.”

Your mother and law stood up “Unless? What do you mean by unless?!” she screamed. “My son is not going to die, do you hear me?!” 

You felt broken, Jun-ho had to wake up, he had to. You didn’t care if he couldn’t walk, or speak, but he had to wake up.

You could hear fists banging against the doctor’s chest, but you didn’t turn around. Just kept staring at your husband’s pale face, and pale hands.

The hospital had apparently received a large grant during COVID to expand, and when the pandemic had died down they became designated only for acute emergency cases and recovery care, and many rooms were kept vacant. The staff let you stay in the other bed in his room, and there was a shower attached to the room, designed for patients in long-term recovery and their family members. The hospital had a small cafeteria that made shockingly delicious Korean food, and they delivered the meals to the room three times a day. Before long, you became used to the tired routine of late-night check-ups and tired smiles from the nurses urging you to go home and rest. You were terrified that if you left the hospital Jun-ho would die before you could get back, but you couldn’t tell the nurses that. You just told the nurses that your house was far away and it was more convenient to stay at the hospital as opposed to making the commute or getting a hotel room.

It was three weeks before Jun-ho moved. In that time, you hadn’t left the hospital once. He squeezed your hand while you were holding it, and at first, you thought you imagined it. You called the doctor, and she said she would keep an eye on it, but not to get your hopes up- apparently twitching was normal in coma patients. Several hours later you felt the squeeze again, and when you looked up, you saw Jun-ho’s eyes open the slightest bit. 

It was like a month’s worth of fear and pain cascaded over in a heartbeat, and you collapsed on his chest in broken sobs, staring up at your husband. His mother was there, and she leaned over at him, pleading his name. He stared at you for as long as he could, until his eyes closed again, his eyelids twitching like he wanted them to stay open. Once his eyes closed your hand was still holding his in a tight grip, and you reached open to press the button again.

In the next couple of days, he went in and out of consciousness at increasing intervals. The first moment where you felt like you could breathe again came a week after he first squeezed your hand, when you awoke from sleeping laying on his lap while you sat in the chair to the sound of gagging. You heard his heartbeat increase and saw his throat convulse and his eyes flash open as he fought his breathing tube. 

You immediately pressed the call button for the nurse, and when they took too long you went out into the hallway and screamed for a nurse. There were only a couple of patients on his hall, and they could go screw themselves if they thought their sleep was more important than your husband's choking. The nurse and doctor came running and closed the door on you. Within a couple of minutes the nurse opened the door, and let you step inside. The doctor tried to talk to you, but you couldn’t hear anything she was saying as you walked past her toward your husband’s side.

“Baby,” Jun-ho whispered. His voice was hoarse and broken, and you could feel tears streaming down your face.

“Honey, you’re- you’re here.” You cried more and more, and he painfully reached his arm up to you.

“It’s okay (y/n), I was never going anywhere, I’m here.” You tucked your head into his neck and sobbed into his hospital gown. 

He stroked your hair slowly until his hand rested on the back of your head. You looked up to see that he had fallen back asleep, exhausted from the ordeal of choking on his breathing tube. You pressed a kiss to his cheek, wet from a single tear rolling down his face, and tucked your head back down to fall asleep again.

You woke up to a nurse gently shaking you away, informing you that you had to sleep in the other bed to prevent infection. You wanted to fight her for doing her job, but obliged. You fell back asleep quickly, too tired to stay awake because of the crying you had just finished doing.

“(Y/n).” You awoke to a quiet voice, blinking your eyes because of the bright sunlight streaming through the window. You immediately looked over at Jun-ho to see your fiance with his head turned looking at you.

“Jun-ho.” You stood up, stumbling out of bed in the clothes you had to have been wearing for at least a couple of days before now, and went over to kiss him on the lips, the same way he had the last time you had seen him before he went missing. He reciprocated with more force than you thought someone who hadn’t moved any part of his body in a month could.

“I missed you so much honey, I couldn’t breathe for so long.” He smiled and wiped a tear off of your face. 

“I know baby, but I’m here now, I’m here.” He looked at you with so much love and life in his eyes, exactly what you had been missing for the past month.

“I was so scared Jun-ho, first I couldn’t find you, and then once I did I- I wasn’t sure.” You paused, another tear streaming down your face. “I wasn’t sure you would make it.” You whispered.

“I know (y/n), and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“You- you got shot. You fell from really high into the water far out in the ocean. You have no idea how scared I was.”

His brow furrowed painfully before he suddenly pulled his head back and winced. “Jun-ho, Jun-ho? Are you okay?!”

You frantically pushed the call button and within seconds there was a team of doctors and nurses entering the room. They slowed slightly when they saw the scene in front of them, and quickly determined there was no immediate danger, and quickly began examining him and asking you both questions. Once the rest of the group left, Jun-ho’s main doctor sat in a chair to explain the situation to the both of you.

She explained what the team had seen when they had checked Jun-ho over, and explained the need for another set of scans to ensure there was no serious brain injury. “We also will need to call the police back to the hospital, because of the gunshot wound.”

Jun-ho froze, and his back grew stiff. “Baby, what’s wrong?” You rested your hand in his grip, tightening it around his.

“Nothing’s wrong, just nervous about the tests.” He squeezed your hand back and smiled up at you at your position sitting next to him on the bed. His body remained stiff, and your brow furrowed in confusion. He was likely traumatized and in pain, both physically and mentally.

Once the doctor left, you apprehensively asked him “Honey, I know you probably don’t want to talk about it, but… What happened when you were gone, with the fall, and the gunshot wound?”

He looked away from you and glanced out the window. He paused, “I don’t know. I don’t remember what happened.”

You leaned in and squeezed his hand again. “It’s okay if you do, I just want to help you.”

He remained looking out the window, until he looked back at you, something tight across his eyes. “I really don’t know, can we please talk about something else. I’m going to get enough of that from my coworkers later anyways.” He laughed, but the tightness across his face remained the same.

Smiling a similar tight smile, you squeezed his hand back. “Okay. Just, let me know if you remember anything.”

“Now, is there anything I can do to help you?” 

“Jun-ho, I’m not the one who just woke up from a coma, that’s my line!” Jun-ho smiled a real smile, and you copied him, smiling your first genuine smile in weeks.

After the tests, you wheeled Jun-ho in a wheelchair back into his hospital room, where you were greeted by his boss sitting in your usual chair next to his bedside. He stood up to greet you, “Detective! It’s so good to see you awake again!” He bowed to Jun-ho, and your husband nodded his head in return.

“I’m sorry to bother you, but do you think we could do the interview now? Just so we don’t get more in the way of you and your lovely wife.” He smiled, but there was anxiety furrowing his brow. He was clearly using many tactics that you watched Jun-ho explain that the police force used on victims and their families.

Jun-ho smiled back, “of course.” He looked up at you and smiled a similar tight smile towards you. “Honey, do you think you could go and get some coffee from downstairs for us?” 

You nodded, unsure of what to do as you could clearly tell that the coffee run was just an excuse to get you out of the room. “Of course.” There wasn’t anything you could do about it, and confronting your husband about something he is clearly not ready to talk about would certainly not be a solution. “Officer, would you like me to get you anything?”

He waved you off and you hesitantly exited the room to go downstairs.

Due to the emptiness of the hospital, it didn’t take you long to go down to the cafeteria, pick up some coffee for you and Jun-ho, and come back upstairs. When you reached the floor that the room was on, you hesitated, noticing that the door was cracked and the sounds of him and his boss were still quietly filtering out into the hallway.

You debated for a second staying and eavesdropping, but your moral compass won out in the end. Whatever it was, Jun-ho was clearly not ready to tell you. You didn’t want to betray his trust, and eventually, he would share it with you. The two of you had no secrets between you. If there ever was a night when Jun-ho would have to stay later at work, or was suddenly asked to hang out by his friends, he would call you immediately and tell you what was going on and when he would probably be home. Not that you necessarily needed him to, you trusted him, but he insisted that he never wanted you to worry after him. You did the same in turn, even though your job was far less demanding than his and plans came up far less sporadically for you than they did for him.

As you walked away, you heard a sliver of the conversation “hundreds… shot.” It made you pause in your step. You must’ve misheard. Maybe he had said something else. Maybe you were too sleep-deprived and stressed to think clearly. Still, you turned those words around in your head as you sat in a chair in the hallway next to the nurse’s station.

If you hadn’t misheard- if; what would it mean? Did Jun-ho have a brain injury that didn’t turn up on scans that makes him misremember what happened? Or- or was he telling the truth? Your husband wasn’t a liar, he was the perfect detective because of his strict moral compass, so that must mean… That must mean that if there was no brain injury, and if you didn’t mishear, wherever Jun-ho was he had watched hundreds of people die.

You heard a knock on the doorframe, “Mrs. Hwang, we’re done with the interview.” 

You stood up and walked toward the door when the other detective put his hand on your shoulder while his face grimaced. “I hope everything works out well for the two of you, I really do.” With that foreboding line of encouragement, he walked past you and towards the elevator.

When you entered the room, Jun-ho smiled at you. “(Y/n).” You walked towards him and kissed his forehead, handing him the cup of coffee.

Kissing his forehead, you asked, “How did it go? Are you alright?”

Jun-ho’s brow creased, but he smiled back at you still. “It went well, I just told him that I didn’t know anything.”

That didn’t make sense. You had to have been gone for at least 20 minutes, there was no way those 15 minutes were filled with the other detective asking questions that your husband kept saying no to.

“I’ll have to go into the station later on after I’m discharged and give a longer more formal statement, but for now they’ll leave us alone.”

“Great, I’m glad to have you all to myself.” You leaned over and kissed him on the lips again. You trusted him, and whatever it was that he wasn’t telling you, he would open up about soon. 

He didn’t. After another 2 weeks, the hospital was completely sure there were no long-standing effects. Besides having to regularly come in for check-ups and to carefully not hurt the shoulder where he was shot, miraculously there were no other serious effects.

You had finally gone back into the apartment after he woke up, although you weren’t happy about going back when it was lifeless due to Jun-ho’s absence. By the time he was discharged, the apartment was dust-free, and you made sure that everything was the same as it had been when he had first gone missing.

In the past couple of weeks, Jun-ho had been too calm. He was casual about just about everything. He was smiling, and making jokes, like nothing had ever happened. But, underneath it all, you could tell something was different. When you’ve been with someone for so long, had exchanged wedding vows, and slept in the same bed for years, you just knew them. You knew your husband, and something was off about him. He refused to go to sleep in the hospital room with the door open, and every time you came or went he would make you close the door behind you. He insisted that you spent the night in the hotel room with him (not that you were complaining) even when he was far out of the danger zone. On the car ride home from the hospital he would check the mirrors every time he thought you weren’t looking.

There was something completely off about him, he seemed paranoid, and for the first time in your relationship besides his brother’s disappearance- scared. But every time you would ask him what was wrong, he would just smile and say “I’m alright, just adjusting.”

You carried all of your stuff to the apartment, insisting on doing so even though your stubborn husband wanted to carry luggage even with a bullet recently being removed from his shoulder. But, when you left the elevator and were about to go into the apartment, he stopped you by putting his hand out.

“Baby, I just want to get inside. This is heavy.” You complained.

“I know, just- just give me a minute. I want to check something.” He silently turned the key to your small apartment, took off both his shoes, and stepped inside. He pulled up his pant leg slightly and took out a gun that you didn’t even notice was there.

“Jun-ho!”

He turned back to you and put his finger to his lips, shushing you. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

He closed the door behind him, and you stood there shocked. You knew something was wrong, but you didn’t expect him to take out a gun and search your home.

In a couple of minutes, he came back out. “What the hell Jun-ho? What was that!” 

“It was nothing, I’m sorry.” He put the gun back away.

“Why would you search our house? You’ve never done that before. Seriously Jun-ho, what’s going on?” You shouted, exasperated by him saying one thing and acting in a completely opposite way.

“It’s nothing.” He sighed, “I’m sorry (y/n), I’m just scared. It’s been a while since I’ve been out of the hospital, so I’m nervous.” He leaned in and gave you a hug, which you reciprocated. But still, that wasn’t the whole truth.

“I think you should see someone Jun-ho, this isn’t normal.” You said into your husband’s chest.

“(Y/n), I’m fine. I promise.” You leaned your head up and kissed him again.

The first week back was difficult. Jun-ho seemed terrified of just about everything around him. The both of you barely left the house, and when you did his hand held yours in a tight grip.

Your job had given you an extended leave to take care of Jun-ho, but your leave was ending in a few weeks once the two-month mark passed. 

You were laying in bed one night, Jun-ho tracing circles on your shoulder as you spooned after making love. “Jun-ho, I’m worried about you.”

He kissed your shoulder, “what about?” He said casually.

You rolled over to face him. “About everything, you’ve been so scared and stressed. I don’t know what’s going to happen once I go back to work.” 

He propped his head on his hand as he laid on his side, “I know, I’m sorry. I’m starting to feel better. I’m sorry I’ve been so paranoid lately.”

You sighed, “I want you to see someone Jun-ho. I don’t want this to fester and fester.”

He sighed, “I know (y/n), I promise it’ll get better soon. I talked to the chief today, I’ll go back to work next week.”

You shot up in bed, “two weeks? Babe, that isn’t nearly enough time. You still can’t lift anything heavier than a paper clip with your left arm.”

Jun-ho reached back towards you and stroked your arm. “Well good thing I’m right-handed.” He smirked.

Tilting your head, you just looked back at your husband anxiously. “Jun-ho this is serious. You aren’t ready to go back to work.”

“(Y/n), please trust me. This will all be over soon, okay?” He looked at you pleadingly. He didn’t want you to drop it or ignore it, he wanted you to- trust him? There was a secret, but he clearly didn’t want you to know it, and just to wait.

Sighing, you said, “Okay, I’ll wait.” You didn’t know what else to say. You couldn’t make him tell you the truth, and he wanted you to not push it. There was nothing to do. “But I really want you to talk to someone.”

He leaned in to kiss you, and right before he touched your lips, he said “Okay, I will; for you.” Then he closed the distance and kissed you until you needed to come up for air.

Your house was quieter after you both went back to work. When Jun-ho came home from work he would make his way next to you on the couch, lay down, and put his head on your lap. It was nice at first, after so much stress you could simply relax and enjoy each other's company.

Soon after getting home, he would get tired. Sometimes falling asleep on your lap.

After a month of him getting back to work, you were exhausted from the silence. It became oppressive. You grew tired of the same routine, and how your husband never quite grew less paranoid. He became better at hiding it, attaching cameras and extra locks around your house under the guise of burglaries in the building that you had never heard of. He would stand up from his crouch install the locks and wrap his arms around you, kissing you and telling you that he just wanted you to be safe.

Before his accident, he would wake up every morning and make breakfast for the both of you, insisting that it was the most important meal of the day. After the accident, he started to make lunch as well, and whenever you suggested that you go out for dinner, he smiled and told you that he enjoyed your cooking so much more.

Then, after 3 months, he came home completely exhausted. It was later than usual, and you stayed up late to greet him, completely concerned by his lack of response to any of your texts. “Jun-ho, where the hell were you? Are you okay?!” You ran up to him as soon as he opened the door, looking him up and down for any injuries.

“No, I’m fine.” He smiled a lopsided and insincere smile at you. He smelled like alcohol.

“Were you drinking?” You demanded.

“Me and my coworkers went out for a couple of bottles of soju after work, nothing much.” He shook off his shoes and went to hug you.

You pulled away, “why didn’t you tell me? We always tell each other these things.” 

“Baby, I had a long, long day, let’s not do this right now.”

“No, we have to do this right now, what happened? You’ve been so strange lately, and you never went to talk to someone like you said you would.” You paused, tears beginning to well up in your eyes, “I’m really concerned for you. I want you to get tested for PTSD.”

He stepped closer to you, “I don’t have PTSD, I just had a long day.” You didn’t move. He sighed, “(Y/n), please, I’m exhausted. Can we do this tomorrow?”

You didn’t say anything but didn’t move when he closed the distance between you to pull you into a tight hug. You finally reciprocated, pulling him closer, when you heard silent sniffling from next to your ear. In a heartbeat, you felt a drop of wetness on your shoulder. 

The next day, Jun-ho quit being a detective. After he started crying, he pretended like nothing had happened, got silent, and took a shower before going to bed. You barely spoke another word the rest of the night, but after he thought you went to sleep you could feel him trace circles on your shoulder.

He told you as soon as he got home that being a detective was too much work for him after the accident, and he tired more easily, but you didn’t buy it for a second.

“Jun-ho, you love your job, why would you quit? Do you want to go back on leave?” You pleaded at your husband.

He smiled back at you, “Of course I love my job, it’s only temporary.” And he leaned in to kiss you on the lips.

Temporary. Although your better judgment told you otherwise, you put all your faith in that one little word. Temporary, this, like everything else making your husband act so different, would pass.

Jun-ho came home late the next day. Then the next. The first you waited up for him, sitting at the dinner table, your food growing cold. When your husband came in, he didn’t smell like alcohol, he simply kissed you on the forehead and sat down across from you, not confronting his tardiness. You cried yourself to sleep that night, with your husband laying stiff as a board next to you, unsure of what to do.

The next night, when he was late, you didn’t bother to wake up. You left his food in the fridge and went to bed early, tears streaming down your face. You were still awake when he came into bed but pretended to be asleep. You could feel the bed shaking from his silent sobs.

The next month went on in the same way, with the only escape from the monotony of your miserable silence being Jun-ho’s one day off. On that one day, you would pretend that you didn’t have any problems, that you were a normal couple who would go walking through the cherry trees and go out drinking together late at night. You went on a double date with one of your coworkers and her husband and sat awkwardly through one of their arguments. It wasn’t the same, but having some bit of refuge away from your stress was a lifesaver.

But even that changed. One day, you decided to go kayaking out in the bay, and while you were out in the water, Jun-ho stopped for a minute. There was a gap in your conversation, and during it, your husband stopped paddling.

“Babe, are you alright?”

He looked up at you as if startled. “Yeah, I’m alright.” He paused, “Would it be okay if we went back, I need to do something important.”

“Um, yeah sure. What is it?” You hesitantly asked.

“It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.” Your face sank. Every question you asked your husband ended with him saying ‘It’s nothing,’ no matter how big of a deal it likely was.

A couple of days later, when your husband came home late again, he told you that he would be busy on his day off and that a friend of his needed help on his boat. You just smiled and nodded, because what else could you really do?

Then he was busy the next weekend, and then the next, and the next. You only really saw your husband for a couple of minutes in the morning, and a couple of minutes in the night. Sometimes, you were able to make time. Sometimes, you would go out for a nice dinner, or go out to a friend’s party for the holidays. On your birthday he took the whole day off work and planned every single thing you would do all day. He made breakfast, took you shopping in the morning, went out to a nice lunch, took you out to the countryside to the ocean, and bought you lunch in your favorite tiny spot next to the shore. It was like for just 24 hours you had your husband back.

But other than that, it was like living with a ghost. He got more and more stressed over time. He smiled the same amount, but even with taking a demotion to a regular cop, he was getting worse and worse over time. He felt tenser, and more on edge than he had ever been before.

Every night you would fall asleep crying, you became used to waking up with a wet pillow or having to look at your puffy eyes when you wiped the condensation off the mirror after crying in the shower. Whenever Jun-ho saw the tears, whether you were laying in bed or cooking dinner on one of the rare nights that he came home early would wrap you in a hug from behind, and say, “I’m so sorry honey, I promise this will pass.” 

And you would plead, “Please honey, please, just tell me what’s happening, please be here more.”

And he would press his head into your back and whisper, “I can’t, I’m sorry. I love you.”

Your hopes would drop all over again, “I love you too.”

It was three years before anything changed. You would constantly beg him to do anything, to see someone, to talk to you, to do anything. Your friends asked you if he was cheating, but you knew he wasn’t. You knew, somehow that whatever was happening, was big, and important. And that it was eating you and your husband alive.

You didn’t see him for three days. He answered all of your texts with “Just something for work, I’ll be home soon. I love you.” Nothing else. No explanation for anything.

You slept on the couch and stayed there when you were awake, racked with anxiety. When he finally came home you sat there staring straight ahead. He didn’t speak.

You had pictured a fight, a confrontation. You had begged and pleaded, with tears in your eyes before. But nothing had happened. And after almost four years, you didn’t have any energy left.

“I want a divorce.” You surprised yourself with the words.

You looked up at him, and he stood there, his expression unreadable. 

“If you can’t tell me what the hell is going on, tomorrow I’m going to a lawyer.” 

He stumbled toward you and dropped to his knees in front of you, “(Y/n), please. You just have to trust me. This, this’ll all be over soon. I know I’ve said it before, but this time I mean it, soon it’ll be just like before.”

You looked into your husband’s eyes which were beginning to fill with tears. “I don’t believe you.”

“Baby, please. I can’t tell you, I really can’t.” His head dropped, breaking eye contact as you saw a tear fall down to reach the floor. He whispered, “If- if you know the truth, I don’t know what’ll happen to you. And I can’t risk that. I- I’ve risked everything else. But I can’t risk you.”

You couldn’t cry, your tears were all dried up. You should be shocked by what he was saying, but your mind went back to what you heard him say from outside that hospital room years ago “Hundreds… Shot.”

“I know, I’ve known. I know that you remember, and I know that it’s related to when you went missing. I just need you to trust me. I can’t do this anymore.”

He looks up at you, grabbing your hands and wrapping his around yours. “I know, I’m so sorry, but I need you to just wait a little bit longer-”

You stood up. “I think you should leave.” 

“(Y/n), please.”

You walked away from him, towards your bedroom. “(Y/n), I love you.”

“I love you.” And then you heard the door shut.

As you lay in bed, you couldn’t help but feel empty, like your heart had been torn out of your chest. The brutal calm you had been through was over, but storm had just begun.

He saw you in a cafe near the bridge where they had tortured you both, bouncing your knee and eating pistachio and chocolate ice cream.

You were still wearing your school uniform, but you had an unzipped brown sweatshirt over your uniform. Niragi could see that the side of your neck where the bully had touched you was red and almost bleeding, your right hand was shaking, and Niragi could tell that you had tried to scratch the feeling of him off of your body, he was all too familiar with the long red lines and the bloody trails left by his own fingernails.

"Thank you." You looked up from your ice cream to look at Niragi. Your eyes were beautiful, the sclera (the white part) of your eye was milky, which deeply contrasted with the deep darkness of your dilated pupil. Overall, you were very, very, pretty.

"Um, you're welcome." You blinked several times and looked away with a slight twinge.

Niragi sat down, and you began a somewhat awkward conversation. Niragi spoke with a slight stutter, and he acted flustered as he ordered his ice cream.

"Uh, do you want a piece of candy?" You asked as he waited for his ice cream.

"Um, sure."

He popped the candy out of the green wrapper into his mouth, and his face puckered up. "Sorry, it's a little bit sour."

It was sour, but still, a little bit sweet "It's okay, I like it."

You both laughed, and he fell in love with the eyes that had a special glint in them when you laughed.

In that moment Niragi found himself comfortable with you. His stutter all but faded, and he smiled when you smiled.

From that point onwards, it was the Niragi and (y/n) show.

Niragi started to change with you. He would sit on the bleachers with you on his lap, he punched his bullies back, he took off his glasses. He even got a nose piercing. All you did was support him, but whenever you talked about the state he was in when you met he would kiss your neck and say that it was "all thanks to you."

Over the last two years of high school the two of you became no longer the nerdy couple, it became a Grease situation. The bad boy with the girl. Yes, Niragi was intimidating as hell, but he never beat up anyone innocent. He still got plenty of nosebleeds from getting into a fight with ex-bullies, but you didn't mind.

It took several incidents like your first meeting for him to get confident, so you had no remorse for whatever Niragi did to them. He was a good guy, that's the overlying clause.

After high school, you enrolled in a private college. You got your tuition covered and had to pay all living expenses, Niragi got a full scholarship (plus a little bit of extra), once he started growing his hair out and getting piercings people started underestimating his intelligence, but make no mistake, Niragi is one of the smartest people you'll ever meet.

You were living in an apartment 7 minutes away from campus that the school supplied for Niragi, it was pretty small, there was only one room and a bathroom, you ate and slept and studied in the same room, but you didn't mind.

Niragi had begun to recover from the trauma he had experienced for years in middle and high school, Niragi didn't cry, but sometimes he would look out the window for hours.

You were always there for him, and he was always there for you, in his weird Niragi way.

One day when he was coming home he was you were sitting at the kitchen table staring off into space. He didn't see you in one of your classes that day, and he had tried to call you and you didn't pick up.

"Baby are you okay." You didn't respond, you just sat there and your hands were clutched very tightly together in front of you. "Honey, are you okay, I need to know that you were okay."

You don't say anything, and instead, a tear ran down your face, "I- I went to the doctor today."

He knelt down in front of you and wiped the tear off of your face, "are- are you sick. I promise you're gonna be oka-"

You shake your head and he looks puzzled, "are- are you worried about money, don't worry baby I'll pay it, I'll pay all of it."

You turn to face him again and you're still silently blinking as tears stream down your face.

Niragi notices that the reason your hands are so clasped is because you are holding something in a death grip. He gently grabs your hand and pries it open with a little effort.

There's a crumpled piece of paper resting in your palm, and as he reaches for it your hand flinches when he grabs it.

Once it's in his hand you avoid his gaze and turn to look out the window again.

He smoothes out the crumpled piece of paper and is shocked to find what it is; an ultrasound.

Niragi doesn't say anything for a moment and you're expecting him to punch you, throw you off the chair and scream at you, but he doesn't do any of those things.

You're still holding your breath when you feel a hand on your lower abdomen. "A baby." He whispers.

You turn to look at him, and he's crying. You've never seen him cry before, so you don't know how to react.

"Are- are those good or bad tears?" You whisper, as he still stares at your belly.

"Bad tears, baby, my baby is having my baby, of course it's happy tears!" He smiles and laughs as he turns you in the chair to face him and he kisses your belly.

"But what about school? What about money? We live in a-" You begin to start ranting but Niragi is still in his own little world.

"We'll figure all of that out later, but right now that doesn't matter," he looks up from your stomach to meet your eyes, and whispers "because we're going to be parents."

In that moment your sad tears became happy ones, and you started laughing. Niragi was laughing too, not his laugh when he's proving to his bullies how strong he is, the pure unadulterated laugh he gets when you're watching a movie with cheesy gore together, or when he watches your face pucker up when you're eating sour candy. He would never admit it, but his laugh is a giggle.

He kisses up from the top of your thigh, lingering on your stomach but putting his rather large hand in its place when he travels up to your sternum and above.

You're both laughing out of joy when he reaches your neck, and you can feel his chuckles vibrate through your veins.

You spend the rest of the evening dance around the kitchen, giggling, eating candy, and researching apartments that could accommodate your family of 3.

Niragi pins the ultrasound to the fridge with magnets.

~~~

When Niragi wakes up you're not next to him. He's not too worried, as he just realized that the reason that you've been sick every day when you wake up is because of morning sickness.

He gets up and ties back his long hair into a bun, "baby" he tries to flip on the light in the bathroom but it's not working, but even with the light off he can clearly see that you are not hunched over and puking. He goes to check the kitchen for a not or something, but there's nothing on the fridge or table.

He smiles when he sees the ultrasound photo on the fridge. Niragi tries to call your phone, as you might've gone out for food and forgotten to tell him, but his phone isn't working. He quickly puts on his jacket and begins to panic.

He tries to charge his phone but quickly realizes that the reason it's not working is not because it's not charged. He still shoves it in his pocket and exits the apartment to try and find you in your favorite cafe, but not before writing you a note and putting it next to the ultrasound photo, where he's sure you'll see it when you get back.

The elevator isn't working, so Niragi has to go down the stairs. The automatic doors out of the lobby aren't working, and there's no one around either, even though the convenience store looks open, even if there are no luminescent lights. Niragi reasons that there was a power outage or some sort of disaster so everyone is hiding or trying to fix things.

But he doesn't care about the danger, he just has to find you. He figures that if there is a disaster no one will care if he throws a potted plant out of the window to escape. Once he gets into the street it looks like a normal day, the birds are chirping, it's sunny, but there is no one anywhere in sight. He runs down the street to find all of the shops open but without power and without people.

The cafe you often frequent is empty as well.

Niragi runs around Tokyo for about 3 hours and finds nothing. Cars abandoned, stores empty, and not a single soul in sight.

He finally goes back to his apartment and plans to go to bed early and hope that this was all a bad dream. As he's beginning to go to bed the lights turn on. His phone does as well, the screen reads one thing: game at Tokoyo Center Mall.

Without any other leads Niragi begins his journey, he grabs a kitchen knife, his glasses (in case he loses his contacts), and just before he leaves your ultrasound photo as well.

He put on the fancy dress shirt that you bought him for his birthday a few months prior. He threw his hair into a bun and adjusted his contact lenses, and set foot out of his apartment for what he opened wouldn't be the last time.

To Niragi's shock, there were about 8 people in the lobby of the Mall, he picked up a phone off the table as instructed. The only thing on the screen was "lobby closes in 4 minutes."

No one spoke, and about 4 more people joined, leaving about a dozen in the mall.

One of the women tried to leave, and a laser shot through the ceiling and killed her. A few people started screaming, and a few acted completely unfazed, one even muttered underneath their breath "less competition."

Niragi was in the middle, screaming and sobbing on the inside, but unaffected from the outside. Now there were only 12.

"GAME: 9 OF HEARTS." Murmurs lit up around the room "LAST ONE STANDING. TIME LIMIT: INDEFINITE." The people who came together looked at each other with suspicion and shock, but Niragi did not yet know why.

A store lit up across the lobby, a pretzel shop, and there was a giant board of weapons lit up.

Niragi realized what this was, he had to kill everyone else to survive. Niragi and 7 people ran to the board of weapons, and 4 people ran away.

If he was ever going to see you again he had to make a plan. He already saw this game kill one person today. As he was running he saw a woman beside him trip a man, and he just barely avoided her foot. He grabbed a machete and a pistol and ran, if there was no time limit he had plenty of time to make a plan.

He heard a squelching and screaming sound behind him, but Niragi didn't turn around.

"Player eliminated. 11 Players remaining." A voice exclaimed from a loudspeaker.

Niragi was running through the mall, he stopped when he was an empty storefront that ready "Baby Duckies," a baby store. Niragi stepped inside and noticed that there was a trail of blood coming from his shoes. Fuck. He'll figure that out later.

He tried to keep running but he couldn't. He was stopped at the store. Niragi sighed when he realized that there was no way he was moving away.

He stepped inside the store and slumped down against the wall. He pulled out the ultrasound photo from his pocket. His baby. He was having a baby and right now you were somewhere and you thought that you left him and the baby.

Niragi was terrified of being a dad, he was a college student, he had no bit of stability in his life, he didn't know how to show affection to anyone but his girlfriend. Oh my god his girlfriend, she was pregnant. The love of his life was pregnant with his baby and he couldn't hold her. He couldn't rub your back when you were vomiting or scold you for drinking coffee.

He didn't have any aspect of hope to ever hold his baby.

Niragi had to survive. He had to hold your hand while you were giving birth, and he had to teach his kid how to say "dada." He had to be there, and the only way he could be there was by killing all these innocent people. But if he had to, he would. He would do anything for you and his baby.

"Player eliminated, 7 players, remaining." Niragi realized that he had missed 4 more deaths in his inner monologue.

He heard a squelching sound past the mouth of the storefront, and Niragi quickly shoved the ultrasound photo back into his pocket, tucked the machete into his belt, and picked up the gun, pointing it at the shadowy figure.

"Hello, hello?" It was a woman's voice. Niragi carefully stood up and started walking towards her. At first, Niragi was planning on asking her for help, or information or something, and letting someone else kill her later, but once he was her his mindset immediately changed.

She was covered in blood, head to toe. In any other situation, Niragi would run to her and help her, but he couldn't now. It wasn't her blood. She was the one who tried to trip him earlier, and he realized that the only way she was still alive was that she had killed everyone in her path.

"I- I'm really scared, I-" Before Niragi knew what he was doing he had raised the gun and the next thing he knew was that there was a bullet between her eyes. He killed her. He killed a woman. He didn't even know how he knew how to pull the trigger, he had held a gun once at a field trip in high school to a farm out in an American Style Dude ranch in the country, but he had never shot anyone. And he had certainly never killed anyone.

There was no going back. He could never go back. He knew what he had to do.

3 and a half hours later Niragi was soaked in blood and sitting outside of the mall. He had the broken stump of the machete handle from beating the final person surviving to death with it.

In reality, he was the only person after the first woman he killed, because Niragi watched him assault the second to last-survivor before he could reach her and he murdered he after he tried to fight back. Niragi killed him.

He hopes you could forgive him. You hoped that after this game someone would pick him up and it turned out to be a game show or an escape room or virtual reality, or something, literally anything else. He hoped that a car would come and pick him up to bring him to you, or that this was all a bad dream and he would wake up spooning you the next time he blinking.

Anything was better than the reality. He was stuck in this hell world and in the past 4 hours, he had killed two people.

But he did, he did realize that. Niragi was smart. He knew that there was no way to survive if he remained who he was before, he had to be ruthless.

He turned to look at the playing card in his other hand. A nine of hearts. Just what the voice and the phone had said just 5 hours before.

"Hey, what the fuck happened to Ekibyo and Nyujaki?" He didn't even realize what was happening, but a man with long hair and sunglasses on was hanging out the window of a car.

This was the moment where Niragi had to implement his strategy. Being nice never kept anyone alive. "I gutted them like fucking fish." Niragi stood up and yelling. He saw a man call the woman he watched getting attacked Nyujaki, and he cringed. He didn't want to do this, but the need to get back to you was important.

The man pauses for a second and then exits the car. He sees that he's shirtless and wearing a colorful robe and red boxers. A bald man exits the car next to him, and they both walk toward Niragi.

"What the shit do you want." Niragi stands up defiantly in front of them.

"I like him, do you like him? Because I like him." The hippie turns to the man next to him and the bald guy responds with a roll of his eyes.

He liked the bald guy way more than the hippie.

"I'm Aguni and this is Hatter." He extends his hand, and Niragi moves to shake it before he realizes the playing card is still in his hand.

'Hatter' gasps "the nine of hearts? You won the nine of hearts?" He gleefully laughs and snatches it from his hand, the more he thinks about it the more he wishes that he hid it from the man and told him that he threw it away.

"You are coming with us." The bald guy exclaims, grabbing Niragi's shoulder.

Niragi figures that they wouldn't hurt him if they thought he was that valuable, so he sees no reason why not to go with them. "Fine, but don't pull any fast shit."

He gets into the racecar and drives away with them, wondering why this car is running but no others are. But that isn't important right now.

They get to a dock and when they get out of the car Niragi sees a massive cruise ship, "What is this place?" He asks.

Hatter places his hand on Niragi's shoulder, "this, my friend, is The Beach."

~~~

It's been 68 days since Niragi arrived in this New World that was deemed Borderland.

Today had been the worst day by far. He had to attack a woman, he was never going to rape her. Never. He would never do anything bad he didn't have to. He knew for a fact that there was no way a rock climber couldn't fend of limited restraints while all other 4 people were distracted, and he also let go of her legs and turned completely around on purpose. After this was all done he would apologize to her and explain, but for now he had to keep up appearances.

Yes, Niragi killed people, but he also knew that they would probably die in way worse ways if Niragi didn't tie them up and let the laser do it, or shoot them quickly in the skull. He was smart. He knew that people wouldn't fuck with people they thought were sociopaths, and he was right. No one fucks with someone they've seen murder their friends.

Every day he would go to sleep feeling guilty. And part of him knew that it was wrong, but the other part of him knew that he had no choice. He had to meet his baby.

Every night he would dream of you and your baby. At this point you were probably a month or so into your second trimester, you probably had a cute little baby bump and could feel little butterfly kicks inside your tummy. He missed all of that stuff.

But mostly, and he would never admit it, but he was scared. Today Chishiya had burned him, badly. He luckily fell into the swimming pool, and the burns were bad, but he knew that if he treated them he would survive. Thank god for the advanced chemistry and biology class he was taking. Niragi decided to study to be a doctor when he gets out of Borderland, to try and make up for all the sins he committed while in here.

No one besides Aguni knew he survived. Earlier that night, when Niragi wasn't sure he could keep on going with the dozens of people he had killed, he told Aguni that if he didn't make it out to find you and take care of you and the baby.

So, when he drove Niragi into the fire, he knew that he wasn't in fact killing you, but saving you instead. If people knew he survived the fall of the beach there is no doubt that he would be publicly executed for all the people he killed, and Niragi couldn't have that. His kid needed him.

After he and Aguni had parted ways, Niragi found himself sitting at the Nurse's station in an abandoned hospital panting, after rubbing burn cream and stitching himself up as best as he could.

Niragi was scared for you and the baby to see him, all burned and scarred, especially since he couldn't get skin grafts and it would probably heal very, very badly, but that didn't matter. He was going to be a dad, even if he had to wear a mask every time he looked at you and your child. Niragi also knew that you would love him no matter what he looked like. That was one of his favorite things about you, you loved him as he is.

He saw, out of the corner of his eye, a piece of green sour candy, just like what you had given to him on the day you met. He dug through his pockets quickly, and to his relief, the ultrasound photo was somehow completely untouched by the flames that had scarred his body.

He pops the piece of hand and his face scrunches up due to the sourness in his mouth as he stares at the photo of his baby. Nothing else matter. He would do anything to get back to you.

He was going to find his way back to his family, no matter what.

~

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