Loving the stars. ~ Jhope

34.The beginning.

~It wasn't the end, but the beginning. The beginning of a new life that he gave me.~

Knowing everything about him, how he was struggling with his disease. How he was churning up like a ball inside with that pain yet he didn't let it expose on his face.

"Yoonhaya," he said one day while resting on the hospital bed. "I want to ask you something."

"Where would you continue your studies? I mean what are your future plans?"

"Plans? what plans? I will go back to Gwangju to my family. I need them." I answered.

"Don't talk nonsense. You have to study in Seoul University."

"That University? Such a joke. I didn't even apply for it. I even don't know who applied for me instead."

"It was me."

"What? You? It was always your dream Jhope. You worked so hard for that."

"It was all for you, because I wanted you to study there. I wanted you to achieve that place, to secure your future. The place that I wouldn't be able to achieve."

Before my mood could get any worse, before my tear glands could excrete water, he turned the entire conversation to an other end.

"Yoonhaya, read me a book would you?"

"Which one though?"

"The one I loved the most."

"The sunset? It's the most distressing and sad story I've ever read, with a sad ending." I said being uninterested.

"It has a sad ending for one character, but the happiest ending for another."

"Ah! Jhope, you're just so difficult at some times, but I'm gonna read it to you."

Before starting the book, my eyes glanced outside the window, only to see few last colours of the sun. The sun was about to drown and meet the land. Though it was only the sunset yet I felt an uneasiness. The sky was beautiful out there with a shimmer of gold  orange, but the fact that all the colours had to wither away and the darkness will take it's share.

"Yoonhaya. Where are you lost?"
A sentence through which I was being brought back to the room. Giving a faint smile at him, I started reading the book.

Pages after pages, I flipped. Reading it all to him. It was his favourite book after all. It took me half an hour to reach to the climax of the book. The end was near. The end that always scared me. Hesitating to read more, till the end; my eyes about exploring went to Jhope. He had slept peacefully. Wondering, I thought he must have had been tired that's why he sunk into a sleep.
I looked at him with a tenderness. A little satisfied I was that I didn't get a chance to read the tearing ending.

Jolting up my look, again to the sky, my spirit got sad. There were no colours, no orange, no gold, no yellow. Only dark, gloomy colours. The sun had completely dissappeared, only few little beaming stars were to be seen.

Keeping the book, on the table, I noticed a screen. A screen that was being attached to him since the day he was admitted here. The fact that caught up my mind entirely was that this screen always had lines. Few moving lines but now the line wasn't motioning at all. It was still and static.

Pondering more, a conversation came to my mind. The Doctor was always pointing to this very screen, telling something to that nurse. Why?

SHIT. IT WAS HIS HEARTBEAT.

"JHOPE? JHOPE?" I rubbed his cheeks a couple of time, even sprinkled water yet he didn't open his eyes.
"Jhope, I'm sorry. I didn't finish your story. But please open up your eyes. I'll finish it now. I know you're teasing me. Jhope??"

Trembling and feeling my heart thumping against my chest, I called for the Doctor. By the time Doctor and some few nurses rushed in, I was already a crying mess. I wanted to throw that very screen on the floor and to throw harshly all the things on the ground. I was going insane.

The Doctor checked Jhope's heartbeat with a stethoscope and checked his pulse rate. The entire time I was watching Jhope and praying that at some point he might wake up, he might open up his eyes and say,   'Yoonhaya, you idiot. I was Joking. I was teasing you.'   And despite of the fact that he scared me to death, I would hug him and forgive him.

My eyes were glued to the Doctor and I was dying for him to say something, to tell me that I was all wrong and nothing happened to him. He was just sleeping.

But I wasn't that lucky. The Doctor's words echoed in my head as I stood there numbly. The intensity of the pain was difficult to know, because nothing could be felt at that time. Only his words as he said.

"I'm sorry. He's..."

Sorry, A word that always set things right, A word that always connects two hearts. A word that always gives you inner satisfaction, gives you a little joy, now gave sadness, unhappiness, dissatisfaction.
A word that turned all my world upside down. The earth below my feet, started shaking, my knees trembling and my hands sweating. A state that I had never experienced before. A sensation crept through me making me almost impossible to move.

Uttering those heavy words at me, The Doctor covered Jhope in sheets entirely, even not his face was to be seen.

With quivering state, I removed the cover off his face, only to meet the innocence on his face. The face that always had thousands of emotions to portray, those eyes that always talked were now silent. I examined his face as tears dropped on it. Before a while, his face and the sky outisde, both were cheerful, both had beautiful colours to show, both had light. But now both portrayed darkness.

The only thing that surfaced now in my head were the promises he took from me, last night. The promise that I won't cry, the promise that I won't run away from my fears, the promise that how hard the situation would be, I would always be strong.
The promises echoed in my head, as I said,

I am strong Jhope. Though you left me, but your essence would never. Though you left, but the elements you settled in me would never leave me. It would be a part of me now, forever and I shall carry it with me.

I kissed his forehead for the last time with tears flowing one by one. The very last kiss, to feel his touch, to feel how beautiful he still was. Before holding his hand for the last time. I caressed his cheek, the touch that will be a part of me now.

I wasn't yelling, nor shouting or blaming the Doctors for his death. Death? The wrong word. It was just the beginning. Somewhere the courage played its part. It was a loss. I had lost. But somewhere within my heart, I wasn't able to accept the fact that I lost, that I lost a person.

It wasn't a loss. It was a win. It was the day when I found myself. The darkness from me completely eliminated. I wasn't afraid of anything now. Jhope did not leave the world, but became a star that would always light up my world. Though it was the decline of the Sun but an another star was born that night.
 

《It's not the end, but the beginning.》

~~~~

So here I am with the END. To be honest guys, I've never cried while writing any of the chapters of this book, but this drowned me in tears.
*sits at a corner and cries wildlY* :"(

The next chapter would be an epilogue to prove that endings can be beautiful too. :")

THANKYOU SO MUCH TO EVERYONE WHO READ THIS BOOK.♡♡