City of Angel (1/2)

You’ll be alright” Kai smiles at the little girl he’s been with for the day. The little girl reaches her hand out for his. The little girl nods and smiles back.

“Come on honey, you have to get up.” The little girl’s mother picks her up and brings her to the car.

The sound of the announcements of the hospital echoing as the little girl is being pulled around a stretcher.

“How is she feeling?” the doctor asks as he pushes the stretcher towards the emergency room.

“She said she saw a man near her bed.” The little girl’s mother replies with her hands clasped together.

The girl looks up at Kai, “Are you cold?” Kai shakes his head in return.

The little girl watches Kai as he stands in the corner of the emergency room. The doctors try to do everything, but it was too late as she closes her eyes. The little girl’s soul then appears beside Kai in the corner and watched as the doctors were hovering around the little girl’s body whilst trying to save her.

“Are you God?” the little girl looks up at Kai in awe.

“No.“ Kai smiles, “my name is Kai.”

“Where are we going?”

“Home.”

“Can mommy come?”

“No” Kai replies, shaking his head.

“She won’t understand.”

“She will.” Kai pauses and let out a sigh, “Someday.”

The two walk through the halls of the hospital, hand in hand.

“Can I ask you something?” Kai breaks the silence.

“Yes.”

“What do you like best?”

“Teddy Bear.” The little girl answers innocently.  =============================================  In Seoul, Kai is one of many angels who watches over humans and protect them in unseen ways. Kai’ main responsibility is to appear to those who are close to death and guide them to the next life. As part of this task, Kai and one of his fellow angels, Suho, like to ask people what their favorite thing in life was. But despite their daily encounters, they appear to have trouble understanding human beings and their ways.

Kai and Suho walk across the beach together, towards where all the angels meet.

“Bella, the little girl, asked me if she could be an angel.” Kai' footsteps marked the sand in the beach.

“They all want wings.” Suho scoffs.

“I never know what to say.”

“Tell her the truth. Angels aren’t humans. We never were.”

“What if I just make her tiny wings out of paper?” Kai said jokingly but he knew that this wasn’t the right thing to say.

“Tell her the truth.”

“I did.”

“And what did she say?” Suho asks, rubbing his chin.

“She said, ‘what good would wings be if she couldn’t feel the wind on her face’.” And there was silence as the celestial music plays at the beach where all the angels meet every day at dawn and only they can hear the music.  ============================================================ Krystal is a 20 year old surgeon who graduated early due to her complex characteristics.  She is the youngest surgeon in the hospital, yet she is the most workaholic between all of them. She was certain about following her Mother’s footsteps, who was a top surgeon in Seoul back in 1998, and now works in Los Angeles as the most top and paid surgeon. She was under pressure.

Every day, the 20 year old would ride her bicycle to work. She rides her bike happily through the traffic as she passes all the cars honking at the construction workers diligently working on a road fault.

As she enters the hospital, her pager beeps multiple times.

“Doctor Krystal, please go to the operating room 321.” The announcement echoes.

Krystal gets herself dressed and walks as quick as she possibly could to the operating room.

“What have we got?” Krystal asks as she enters the room while tying the back of her scrubs.

“A 50 year old male had a huge anterior wall myocardial infarction this morning and collapsed while jogging.” Taemin answered as he showed Krystal the screen where the heart of the man was being monitored. “Paramedics resuscitated him but his EKG is pretty ugly. He’s hypertensive.”

“Come on!” Krystal taps Taemin’s shoulder.

The operation goes well at the beginning. Everything is perfect but suddenly, Kai appears in that one little corner of the operating room once again and the patient becomes unstable.

The alarm goes off.

“Paddles!” Krystal shouts and Taemin passes it to her. “Charging 200.” Krystal rubs the paddles together with electricity conductive gel in order to insure good connection and to minimize electrical resistance, which would burn the patient.

“Clear!” Krystal shouts as she places the paddles on the patient.

Kai stands by the corner of the room and watches Krystal. Krystal impresses him by the vigorous efforts she puts in to save the ill-fated man's life. Kai was heartbroken because he knew that this patient wasn’t going to make it and that’s why he waits. He waits to collect him. He waits till he dies and sends him to where all souls go, the next life.

“And clear!” Krystal places the defibrillator on the patient’s chest once again. Then, there it was, the flat line. It wasn’t the first time Krystal saw it this week. She was desperate to revive this patient and she still tries. “Charging 300!” She shouts again. Kai looks at her with sympathetic eyes as the patient’s soul stands beside him.

“What’s going on?” the patient’s soul asks.

“I’m here to bring you to the next life.” Kai replies, almost half-heartedly.

“Start compression” Krystal tells Taemin. “Wait.”

“We’re going to have to open him up!” Krystal grabs a scalpel and opens the person’s chest. “Internal paddles. Charge 20.”

“Still nothing.”

“Charge 30.” Krystal demands.

“No response.”

“Come on!” Krystal cries desperately as she starts to press the patient’s heart with her bare hands.

“He’s going.” Taemin tells Krystal as she stares at the monitor.

“He’s not going anywhere.” There was a split second when Krystal meets Kai' eyes as she looks at the monitor. Although Krystal sees nothing, she continues to stare and so does Kai. Krystal looks away and focuses on the patient but Kai still has his eyes focused on her.

Krystal was then pulled away by the other surgeon and tells her, “It’s over.”

Krystal walks out of the operating room. The worse part of it all, it was now her job to tell the family that the patient didn’t make it.

“Mrs Kim?” Krystal calls out as she walks into the room where the patient’s wife and children sat in.

“Where’s the doctor?” Mrs Kim asks, looking a little bit confused.

“I’m the doctor.” Krystal replies with half a smile.

“Oh I’m sorry; it’s just that you look a little young to be a doctor.”

“I was the one that operated on your husband.”

“How is he?”

Krystal gulps and takes a deep breath. “He didn’t survive. “

“What?”

“We were able to restore blood flow to the heart with the operation but he developed a lethal arrhythmia and we we’re unable to resuscitate him.”

“B-but umm- excuse me I’m sorry- Oh my god.” Mrs Kim and her children cries in front of Krystal. This causes a pain, almost like a knife stabbed into her stomach, which causes her to feel sick. She walks out of the room slowly and as she got out, she runs to the emergency exit and sits by the staircase.

Krystal cries. Kai watches her. He sits in front of her and watches the tears trickle down on her white porcelain like cheeks. Kai tries to place his palm against Krystal’s cheek yet he feels nothing, but Krystal does. She looks up as she feels something touch her face. She looks around, confused because she knows that she’s alone. She lets this go and wipes the tears off her cheeks. Kai is confused and just watches as Krystal walks out of the emergency exit.

“Why was she crying?” Kai asks, as Suho appeared next to him in the emergency exit.

“I don’t know. Maybe she was just upset because she couldn’t save her latest patient.” Suho looks at Kai, who was still looking down at the spot to where Krystal was sitting.

“But she doesn’t know him.” Kai whispers softly. He was bothered by this because every time Krystal couldn’t save a patient, she would feel burdened. He could see it in her eyes. He could see the trouble inside Krystal’s eyes. He hated this and it was an unexplainable feeling for her because he barely knew Krystal as well. He wonders to himself, but why do I care?

“We will never understand humans.” Suho says as he walks away from Kai. ============================================== “Have you ever been seen Suho?” Kai asks as they walk through the aisles of a supermarket which is about to be robbed.

Angels have the ability to tell the future.

“You’re looking at me aren’t you?” Suho sniggers and gives Kai a slight push.

“I mean by a human.”

“In a diner once. A blind woman turned to me all of a sudden and asked me to pass over the mustard.”

“But she’s blind.”

“Yes but she could feel my presence.”

“That doctor, in the operating room looked directly at me.”