You & i | lee hyun woo

iii

Clink. Clink. Clink. Cli—

"Mother of—" I bit down hard on my tongue to restrain myself from cursing. I laid my hammer aside, and lightly squeezed my pinkie finger, to cease the throbbing. However, once I released my finger, the pain returned.

I squeezed my finger harder, and watched as ruby red bead of blood appeared. It grew bigger and bigger, yet all I did was watch as the blood flowed down my finger and onto the wooden table, forever staining it. I finally got up and decided to get a bandaid, when the sight in front of me caused me to halt my steps.

I saw this everyday, yet it always caused me to stop again, to feel again, to remember again. To remember that it was all my fault, and that there would never be any redemption, not even if my plan succeeded.

...

I laid my head on the mattress, leaning against the stiff arm for support. As I always did, I gently put my hand over Hyun Woo's chest, to ensure that it was still beating, and allowed myself exhale when I felt that it was.

"Don't worry Hyun Woo," I spoke aloud to him. "Remember that project I was telling you about?" I asked him. I was answered with silence, but that didn't bother me. Though the first year was quite lonely, over the past two years, I'd grown accustomed to not being answered.

It was hard at first, but I'd eventually gotten used to the silence. Besides, it wasn't even his fault anyway, how could it be? I swirled my finger along Hyun Woo's wrist, and sighed. "You've lost so much weight." I remarked sadly.

Then I got up, to get to back to work.

...

As I continued tinkering, a piece stubbornly refused to fit onto the other one. I hit it again, and ended up missing, hitting the table. "Ugh!" I screamed out in absolute annoyance. In frustration, I hurled the dang piece of metal at the ground, causing a loud clank! when it fell.

"Why won't it fit?" I shrieked, annoyedly. Then I kneeled onto the ground, to pick it back up. I gently left it on the table again, and leaned back in my chair. "Maybe I should just get some sleep." I said to myself, and laughed at the mere idea.

"Sleep." I repeated the word, and marveled at how foreign it sounded to me. "Don't be kidding yourself, Lee Ji Eun. There's no possible way you could fall asleep, and besides, even if you could, you don't deserve it." I spat at myself harshly, again reminding myself how much at fault I was to Hyun Woo.

How deep in debt I was with him right now. That no matter how hard I tried, I would never be able to pay it off, not even waking him up would be enough. How much I owed Hyun Woo right now was unthinkable. It didn't matter if I really did save him, nothing could ever undo what I'd done.

That it was all my fault, that I could never ever erase that one mistake. I would never be able to able to undo what I'd done, that there really was no going back. And that was one of the reasons why I was so desperately trying to complete the time machine.

It was because I needed to fix what I'd  done. I needed to stop that one accident from having ever happened. I needed to make sure that Hyun Woo wouldn't sacrifice himself for me again. I knew that it still wouldn't erase the true facts, what truly had happened, but at least he wouldn't have to go through the same pain over and over again.

A/N: happy holidays everyone （╹◡╹）♡