you clearly weren't aware you made me miserable.

"How are you today? Is your leg feeling any less... broken?" 

"I'm good," I respond dryly, thinking of her. Not Sunwoo, but her. Whoever she was. Whoever would be able to give me another chance in redeeming love that'll remind me well of Sunwoo. She and Sunwoo were odd parallels, in which it may have been "right person, wrong time." However, does that include a carbon copy of you? Does that include you, but not you?

Have I been switched into a different world after I fell from my grandmother's roof, splashing into an alternative universe? The past? The future in which she's still alive? I don't think I am. Someone pinch me.

"It seems like you're busy thinking about something," The doctor clicks her suggestively annoying pen, writing something down on the strikingly brown clipboard. "What are you pondering about in that colorful, detailed brain of yours? Something itching the back of it?"

"The reason you wanted me to stay here..." I trail off, looking down at my encased leg wrapped in a cast. I point out to the window as if she'd knowing precisely what I'm talking about, which she did. It was raining today, which I enjoyed. Taking a glance up at the female who's been taking care of me, I eye her. "Was to meet her, right?"

I don't even let her breathe before I was back to questioning, causing her to smile awkwardly. "That girl in a wheelchair clung to her IV... you wanted me to see her, right?" I question, leaning forward. "Who is she? Why do you...?"

"Her name is Liu Rena, a long-term patient under our hospital," Liu Rena. She has a pretty name. Liu Rena. Kim Sunwoo. They're very different, though. "She has pancreatic cancer. Even she... is quite surprised how she's lived this long. Along with that, she suffers from hemiplegia, or paralysis, which is mostly in her left leg, now her right."

"She's quite the fighter, it seems."

"Certainly," The doctor smiles, clasping the clipboard closer to her clothed chest. "She doesn't fear death. At all. She embraces it... in the many times she's been near death."

She seems helpless if she's been near-death multiple times. How has one even lived this long? If I was in her position, I'd give up on the spot. There's no need to push forward, no need to strengthen your heart... when it would just fail you. "Her family is very lenient in funding our hospital as long as she stays alive and well," The doctor explains, chuckling. "While you're here, maybe you should get to know her."

I wince, almost narrowing my eyes. "Why's that?"

"You never know, maybe you could learn a little something from her. She's quite smart, and she has the same views as you," The doctor nods, looking at her watch. "If you want, she's in the main lobby right about now. She does her daily rounds talking to the little kids."

"I see, thanks," I say, causing her to smile back in response. She turns around with her heels, tapping against the pearl marble floor as she grabs the door handle. "Wait!"

"Hm?" Turning her head, the door is halfway open, only to close again. "What is it?"

"Does she go to school?"

"...No, she doesn't. She teaches things to herself," The doctor replies, clearing her throat. "Self-taught for almost everything. Enjoy asking her about these things, of course, if you decide to give her a chance."

I don't pursue the questions further. Maybe she's busy. So, she gives me one last grin, reassuring me that my questions might just be answered if I go downstairs and see her. 

At the moment that I'm stuck between making my way to the lobby or staying in this room, I find this feeling to often be a sense between premonition or complete cataclysm. Premonition in the sense that I know that I'll make a mistake meeting her- that I know her in all of her beauty will be a risk to my health.

But the complete cataclysm in which the gods have given me another chance, I know that it'll be a delightful disaster redeeming myself. After all, Sunwoo would want me to move on, right?

Right?

So, I take my crutches, clutching them tightly in the fear that I may just fall. Opening the door with my trembling hands, I see the chaos that erupts outside of this room. The fallen people, the ones who hold their heads in punishment, the ones who have just lost a loved one. They all have a common similarity:

Grief.

Grief for different reasons, but the same feeling.

Everyone grieves differently, so it's hard to understand the difference between grieving and anger.

I continue to stumble across the hallway to the main lobby, clearing my throat as I see all the worried looks from parents and kids. They don't look at me,  just the ones who have severe, lethal injuries that seem to be doing just fine. 

I look around, hoping I would see her- see Sunwoo, a carbon copy of her. I'm almost worried that I've missed her appearance thanks to my hesitation... but it ends shortly after when I hear the soft rolling. It gets closer, and I turn around.

I hear the rolling wheels across the earl gray pavement. It causes me to look down, to see the charming, coffee-colored hair that reminded me well of Sunwoo. It was wavy, almost completely straight if not for the genes her parents had given her. She doesn't look towards me, and instead, continues to pass by.

I gulp. What should I say? How should I say hello? How do we talk? How do we meet? How do I-

"Rena!" I exclaim, causing her hands to take a rest. Her hands settle themselves across the wheels, turning herself around as she raises an eyebrow. I slightly tremble forward, setting my foot down.

She inspects me, instantly getting the hint. "Oh," Her voice. It's just like Sunwoo's. The only thing that's different from Sunwoo is the mole that was under Sunwoo's eye. Now, on Rena, there is one under her lip. "It's you. The boy who cried."

"I- I am that boy," I laugh awkwardly, itching the back of my head. However, things turn serious within seconds. I look down and gulp once more, trying to keep words to myself. I slowly stick my hand out, from where it hung beside me- halfway up and towards her. She keeps eye contact with me even as she sits patiently, waiting for a reply. "Let's... be friends."

Her eyes flicker, and for a moment, I thought I would've buckled my knees, hid, and cried in front of her. Every feature, almost every feature, described Sunwoo. She smiles, slowly blinking as she reaches out with her right hand. Connecting with mine, we shake lightly, even as her smile falls.

"I couldn't catch your name. What is it?"

"Oh... Yang Jungwon."

"I see, Yang Jungwon..." She trails off slowly, retracting her hand. "It's quite the privilege to meet you, Jungwon- but I forbid that you befriend me. No person will ever relate and attract to the same end they share on a magnet."

I see her sad smile, almost as if the light faded from her face. "Don't take it personally, however, because it's that no walking man wants to befriend a person who is paralyzed, who is unable to move."

She turns her wheelchair around again, fixing her IV. Before she rolls off, I see the left side of her face turn towards me. "No man, Jungwon..."

She clears her throat, looking down at the marble floors. She soon smiles, however, a sad smile that keeps me waiting for an answer. "Wants to depend on a girl who's inevitably going to die, anyway."

And her tired hands wheel her away, taking my spirit and hopes with her.

Liu Rena...

Who are you?

And why...

are you like Sunwoo?