The Last Thing (1/1)

Hey guys, while writing this oneshot I had ''Ice Flower" by Ailee on repeat for the whole thing. I really do encourage you to listen while reading because it does help set the mood.www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8oLIVoxx_gAnyways, please enjoy!There were a total of 3 people waiting outside the surgery room, Sunggyu’s parents and Yoomi. Being a cancer patient, Sunggyu had regular hospital visits, but this time everyone seems to be dreading hearing what the doctor may say when he comes out.Yoomi sat by herself in silence, eyes not focused on anything in particular. In fact she seemed to stare into the distance. What exactly was going through her mind was unknown. She had always sat like that, each and every time Sunggyu had to be sent to the hospital. Maybe she thought he would leave right then and there, but to her relief, the doctor would always come out and tell her otherwise. But she could never be too sure, you could never be too sure of cancer. She would know herself; her mother lost the fight against breast cancer.Actually, that was the exact reason why Yoomi had met Sunggyu in the first place. If it wasn’t for her mother and her visits to the hospital, she wouldn’t have been able to make such a wonderful friend. She wouldn’t know how to have fun with her life and would only know how to look on the bad side of things.*Flashback*Sunggyu had found Yoomi crying at one of the benches situated just outside in the hospital garden. Sunggyu figured that since she was in this section of the hospital, he knew that either she was suffering from cancer or one of her relatives were. Seeing how she was in casual clothes he figured that it must have been the latter. He pondered on the thought of comforting her or not, but considering he had nothing else better to do, he slowly made his way over to her.Sunggyu sat down silently while extending his hand outwards offering her a tissue. Yoomi must have been too busy crying, she was totally oblivious to Sunggyu’s existence. Getting slightly annoyed Sunggyu faked a cough, hoping to gain her attention. But even that didn’t work.“Hey, you see that couple over there?” He flicked his head slightly to the couple sitting on a bench not too far away from them. But before Yoomi could answer he spoke again. “I bet the girl is suffering from cancer.”Yoomi had finally lifted her head up. Her eyes swollen and red from crying. She didn’t like people seeing her cry, especially not her mum. But she didn’t seem to be disturbed by Sunggyu’s presence. Looking at what he was wearing, Yoomi could easily figure out that he must have been a cancer patient. She moved her gaze to the couple that was sweetly admiring the stars.“So, who do you think it is?” Sunggyu smiled at Yoomi.Yoomi pointed towards the boy, and pinched her own clothes slightly, signalling that what he was wearing is exactly the same as Sunggyu.“You know pointing is rude, but I guess you win. You are quite observant.” Sunggyu said giving a small wink.Before Sunggyu left he handed Yoomi her ‘present’ for winning.Yoomi watched as Sunggyu’s figure disappeared behind the trees before she opened up the piece of paper that was handed to her. “No matter what it is, there’s no use crying over it. Trust me, it doesn’t help with anything. Whether it is cancer or any other sickness, crying isn’t the healing potion. The only thing you can do is reduce the pain for them. Smile with them. Even if they leave don’t cry, because they will always remain in your heart. You will still be able to see them as they will become a bright shining star that guards you. So now, just remember to SMILE!”-Words from a cancer patient-Yoomi smiled at the last sentence, it was actually a long time since she had. That note gave her comfort and reassurance. She gazed over at the trees that had previously engulfed Sunggyu one last time before retreating back to her mother’s side.The next day Yoomi had decided to visit and hand out presents to the younger cancer patients. She walked into the children’s ward and was bombarded by kids. They were used to her regular visits, but this time it seemed as if someone had bet her. Each and every one of the kids were holding a white rectangular piece of paper. It looked exactly like the one she received last night. She took one out of the child’s hand and read it. “You must be sad right? But why? Because some people left you after they found out about your sickness? Well you know what? That means the people that stayed by your side are the ones that truly care about you, the ones that you should truly care about. You shouldn’t be worried about those that left you, you should be cherishing those around you right this instance. Some survive and some don’t, you never know which path you are going, so make the most of the time you have.”-Words from a cancer patient- It was the same person. Yoomi had asked who had given these notes to them and following the children’s instructions it had led her to Sunggyu’s room. She didn’t know why she was going, but she wanted to thank him. But this one visit, turned into regular visits, every time her mother was admitted to hospital. Yoomi would find comfort from him and soon Yoomi found herself visiting the hospital, even when her mother wasn’t required to be there. *  *  *  *  *After what seemed like hours of waiting, the doors opened and the doctor finally walked out. The worried and uncertain expression on the doctor’s face seemed to tell everyone that things weren’t right. He appeared to be racking his brain for the correct words to make the truth not sound so frightening. Sunggyu’s mum seemed to be able to read his expression too as she began to sob louder.“I’m sorry to inform you, but the cancer seems to have suddenly spread quite quickly. It’s at a stage where it would be too dangerous to perform surgery and I don’t think it would do any good anyways.” The doctor finally spoke up.“So is this it then? How much longer?” Sunggyu’s father asked trying to sound calm at the same time.“I’m afraid so, my predictions are that he would only be able to keep holding on for a month, it may be longer or shorter.”Sunggyu’s father gave a short sigh before thanking the doctor for all his help. He then turned to Yoomi and suggested that he drove her home. That was the only thing they could do. It was late and Sunggyu wouldn’t be awake yet either.    *  *  *  *  *Yoomi woke up earlier today as she wanted to visit Sunggyu as soon as possible. When she arrived at the hospital his parents were already there. Yoomi gave a slight bow to them before making her way next to Sunggyu who seemed to be busily scribbling down something on paper.“What are you doing?” Yoomi asked, curious.“Bucket list” Sunggyu replied, eyes not leaving the piece of paper.“Bu…bucket list?” Yoomi soon realised that he had already found out, she was grateful in a way, knowing that she wouldn’t have to be the one to tell him.“Of course, I’m going soon. Might as well live life to the fullest.” Sunggyu chuckled.Yoomi inched closer to Sunggyu trying to peek at what he was writing down, but he hugged the piece of paper to himself and told her that he would only reveal it to her when the time was right. Yoomi made a face at Sunggyu, but still obeyed and sat at a chair away from him.After a few minutes the bucket list had been completed.“There’s around twenty things I want to do, so we better start today, considering my health will probably get worse.” Sunggyu announced.“Sounds good to me. What’s first?”“Watch the sunset with the people I love.”“Well we can’t really do that now, we can wait until this evening. Next.” Sunggyu’s mum laughed at his silliness.Sunggyu laughed sheepishly, before revealing that his second thing he had listed was to watch the sunrise. Knowing that it was impossible, as he had already missed it, they went onto the third idea. Which was surprisingly to go around giving free hugs, his parent’s laughed at his childishness and decided it was best if only Yoomi joined in on this one.It was then decided that they would stand around for an hour offering hugs to cancer patients. It sounded stupid at first, but Yoomi felt as if what she was doing, was actually giving strength to all those patients.The hour had actually passed rather quickly. They sat down at the plastic chairs as Yoomi looked at Sunggyu admiringly. She had never seen such a happy cancer patient in her life. She was glad she had met Sunggyu and glad that he had introduced her to so many things.“I told you I would win.”“You didn’t win by a lot anyways. You only got two more hugs than me and plus it’s only because those little boys are perverts.”“Maybe you just aren’t good looking enough.” Yoomi teased.Sunggyu wasn’t pleased by her remark, but soon the two burst into fits of laughter.*  *  *  *  *Weeks past by in a blink of an eye, but in front of Sunggyu none of them dared show a hint of sadness. It was day 20 already and they had managed to successfully tick off 15 things. Today Yoomi had set off with Sunggyu to ride Korea’s longest subway line, Seoul Subway Line 5.Yoomi and Sunggyu hurried onto the subway, trying to score themselves a seat. Luckily both of them were able to find one. The trip began with great amounts of laughter and talking, but about halfway through the trip. Both individuals seem to have no idea what to talk about next.Being the competitive adults they were, they both decided to play a game. There was a line that was drawn from one side of the subway to the other. Yoomi had voted that more people would step over the line with the right foot, while Sunggyu thought the opposite. About 5 minutes into the game, Yoomi had already led by miles.Sunggyu suddenly stopped counting and when Yoomi looked over, Sunggyu had managed to pull a pouty face. Yoomi couldn’t help but chuckle.“You know you always win these bets we have. I actually haven’t won once.” The elder complained.“Then why do you keep betting with me?”“Because, one day I believe I will win.”Yoomi smiled at Sunggyu before she let tiredness take over.*  *  *  *  *It was finally day 30; they hadn’t done much in the past couple of days in case he would suddenly collapse. Everyone was worried that he would leave today. No one dared to leave his side, not even for toilet breaks. According to Sunggyu we had accomplished 18 out of the 20 things he wanted to do. But no matter how hard Yoomi thought, she could only remember doing 17 things with him in total. Yoomi thought that Sunggyu was hiding something from her, but she soon brushed the thought away, because she thought she had just miscounted. Yoomi was quite disheartened by the fact that they couldn’t do everything. But Sunggyu didn’t seem to mind much.Even though it was his last day today, Sunggyu still wouldn’t let Yoomi look at his bucket list.“You know, I will just look at it when you go.”“But then I won’t be there to face the embarrassment that lies ahead.”“So you’d rather die than to embarrass yourself in front of me? It’s not like you haven’t done that a million times already.”“Just no, you don’t understand. It’s different this time.”Yoomi gave in and soon night fell. Sunggyu and his parent’s had already fallen asleep. Yoomi gazed at Sunggyu’s sleeping figure and couldn’t believe that one day he would stay like that forever. Yoomi didn’t want to, but soon, she too, was soundly asleep next to him.*  *  *  *  *Yoomi jolted up the next morning and to her relief, Sunggyu was still alive. Sunggyu smiled at her worried expression.“Look, just because the doctor predicted that I would leave then, it doesn’t necessarily mean I will go then.” Sunggyu teased, while emphasising the word ‘predicted’.Yoomi blew on her bangs and didn’t reply. There was silence for a while before Sunggyu decided to break it.“Hey, let’s make one more bet before I leave.” Sunggyu suggested“Don’t say that”“We all know it’s going to happen sooner or later, I don’t get why you are so sensitive on the topic. Here, I’ll start, I reckon in another 11 days, including today, so that would be the 41st day since the prediction of my death.”Yoomi shot Sunggyu a glare before answering herself. “Personally, I would like to say not until years after, but I don’t like losing to you. So I’m guessing in another month?”“Honestly, I think you are going to lose this one. I mean, you are doubling what the doctor had previously predicted.”“I don’t know if it’s because I want you to live longer or that I just believe that you are strong enough to survive for that long.” Yoomi explained. “But, you know, out of all the other bets I had with you, I really didn’t mind losing or winning. Honestly I had actually guessed a ridiculous amount before, but I guess luck was on my side. I hope it’s still like that, because this is one bet I don’t want to lose.”“Well too bad because I think you will be, so prepare your little heart.” Sunggyu teased while wriggling his eyebrows.“So it’s final yeah? Another 11 days for you and another month for me?”“Yep!”*  *  *  *  *It was day 40 and Yoomi knew she had lost the bet. Sunggyu was as sick and tired as ever. He had been extremely drowsy lately and reluctant to move around or even talk. Everyone knew it was soon. It was getting later into the night, but everyone refused to sleep. Sunggyu had finally gathered enough energy to speak.“I know it’s soon, but please don’t be sad when I leave. I’ll always be in your hearts right?” Sunggyu whispered.Everyone nodded with tear-filled eyes. Sunggyu then fixed his vision on Yoomi.“I told you it would be the 41st day.” Sunggyu looked at the clock hanging across on the wall. “It’s 11:58, 2 more minutes and I win.” Sunggyu gave a weak smile.“I know, you win, you finally won. But I wish you didn’t.”As if right on cue, the clock struck 12 am and the beeping sound that emitted through the room suddenly turned into the dreaded continuous long beep. His hands that were holding on to Yoomi's and his mother's dropped and for the next few hours, they all knew it would be filled with tears.*  *  *  *  *After Sunggyu’s funeral, Yoomi decided to visit the hospital that Sunggyu had stayed in to re-visit some memories and also to thank the doctor. What she didn’t expect was to be handed Sunggyu’s bucket list and also a stack of small cards, which Yoomi recognised as the cards that she received when they first met. In other words, it was the cards he had been handing out to patients since the first day he had been admitted to the hospital. Those small encouragement cards that did wonders. Yoomi placed the cards in her bag, as she had decided to uphold Sunggyu's tradition to hand them out to patients. He had left belongings in the the drawers and the cleaners had found it. Yoomi was thankful that the cleaners found it, because now she would finally know if Sunggyu was hiding something or if she really did miscount. Yoomi placed herself on the oh-so-familiar plastic chairs and opened the piece of paper. She read each and every one of them, thinking back to the memories she had made.Her eyes continued down. ‘Beat Yoomi in a bet’ was messily scrawled down. No wonder he kept making bets with me no matter what. Yoomi had thought back to the day they sat on the subway. I guess I can tick that off for you.She continued reading and her eyes widened in shock. ‘Fall In love’ was one of the ones that were ticked. It was the second to last thing he wanted to do. That was what he was hiding all this time. Who had he fallen in love with? But the next thing she read answered her question. ‘Tell Yoomi I love her’ was the last thing to be written. Yoomi’s tears were falling uncontrollably now.“Was this way you were embarrassed? You were embarrassed because you fell in love with me? You are so stupid Kim Sunggyu.” She said to no one in particular.It was the only thing that wasn’t ticked. The last thing.“Why didn’t you tell me? You know I would have loved to hear it, because you know what Kim Sunggyu? I have fallen in love with you too….but it’s too late now.”Author's NoteThanks for reading guys! I hope it wasn't too much of a disappointment.Remember to comment and subscribe, please. :D