#LMB is cursed

[zahri-melitor]

Looking at the current covers on iBooks for the Vorkosigan Saga and I’m howling, because while YES these are probably some of the best covers I’ve seen for the series (and actually reflect the book contents) they suffer from the classic LMB issue that the covers are still TERRIBLE.

Like seriously. A Civil Campaign is never, ever, EVER going to get a good cover, ever, is it?

It’s not only a Butterbug it’s THE SPECIAL VORKOSIGAN BUTTERBUG. Look at the maple leaf.

(It’s hilarious, I adore that it’s ROSES with THAT BUG but also I could never ever hand this to anyone while saying ‘actually this is the best book in the series and the cover contains at least 3 solid injokes in tribute to the fact the book is also just concerted references and payoffs to the past 33 years of events in the series’ with a straight face)

[leejenowrld]

heart to heart

word count - 40k words 

genre - smut, fluff, angst, age gap (10 years)

pairing — surgeon!na jaemin x intern! mc 

synopsis — you, fumbling through your first day as an intern, are thrown into chaos the night a baby is left to die on the rooftop. dr. na, world-renowned chief resident and surgeon, is ten years older, impossibly mysterious, stoic and intimidating, his body all sharp muscle under blue scrubs, his face only ever softening when he bends over the tiny beds of his peds patients. you can’t help but be drawn to him, a gravitational pull of brilliance and something darker, desire threading through every glance, every clipped order, every midnight round where your heart stutters. together you orbit this miracle girl, each of you wounded and wanting in your own way; and as the days blur, your attachment to sunshine—and to him—grows fierce, tangled, undeniable. found family is built here in the hush of machines and sleepless nights: you, longing to be chosen; him, haunted and hiding; sunshine, the girl who remakes all your definitions of love. even in all this darkness, her yellow light breaks through, changing everything.

chapter warnings — explicit language, explicit sexual content(18+), explicit themes, early 2000s vibes, power play, dom jaemin/sub mc dynamics, rough sex, intimate sex, explicit language, this fic is deeply inspired by classic medical dramas—think grey’s anatomy—if you know lexie grey, you’ll recognize her in mc’s big heart, wild memory, and relentless optimism. this is an adult story, it explores mental illness, physical illness, trauma, life, death. at the center is a baby girl, fighting for her life with a grave congenital heart condition before she even turns one. the medical scenes are vivid, sometimes harrowing, and should be read with care if you’re sensitive to medical distress, illness, or the specter of child loss. expect medical jargon—lots of it. i don’t skim, i don’t sugarcoat, and while you don’t need to memorize every term, know that everything described is researched and, where possible, based on real knowledge and surgical realities. if you get lost in acronyms or anatomy, that’s okay: the emotional core will always pull you back to center. mc is shy, anxious, and deeply introverted, prone to nervous rambling, overthinking, and loving too much. she’s young, a mid-twenties intern thrown into the deep end, haunted by her need to do right, and defined by a photographic memory that sometimes feels more curse than gift. she attaches easily, cares too hard, and her inexperience is as much her shield as her wound. dr. na jaemin, on the other hand, is nothing like the version readers of back to you or love me back might know. he’s older—mid-thirties—cold, private, outright harsh, he’s not a friend or lover like he was in lmb and bty, he’s a boss, a world-renowned chief resident in pediatric surgery, cloaked in authority, control, and secrets. expect little familiar warmth: expect distance, mystery, and a slow, sometimes brutal thaw. this is a world away from lmb and bty, so it might feel unfamiliar at times but trust me, it will feel so good. crafting a new universe has been a blessing, and i haven’t even finished. also the baby is called ‘sunshine’ for the majority of this part, she won’t have a name … until something happens :)

a note about structure: the fic opens in third person for the first 8k words—deliberately, and for a reason that won’t be clear until you read it. trust the process. after that, you’ll move into second person (y/n), and the story’s true voice will bloom. this is a fic for those who love detail, emotional, medical, atmospheric. you’ll get immersive prose, complex imagery, and a tone that shifts from dreamy lyricism to clinical realism, then back again. this is a slow burn in every sense, with heavy angst and no easy comfort. be patient; everything unfurls in its own time. there’s a lot of world building balanced with action and time jumps. final warning: this fic contains adult relationships, sexual content, power imbalance, and references to trauma, abuse, and addiction. everything is handled with nuance and care, but please read responsibly and protect your peace. if you’re here for found family, desperate hope, messy healing, and the kind of love that feels impossible until it isn’t—welcome. i hope you find yourself in these pages. 

𝐅𝐈𝐂 𝐌𝐋

this is part three in the ‘love and games universe’ but you don’t need to read lmb or bty to understand h2h, it can be read as a standalone, there’s just a lot of easter eggs and connections that readers familiar with all stories will make with will enrich reading experience

listen to 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 whilst reading <3

A mirror the size of a doorway hangs above the cracked porcelain sink, its glass splintered into a thousand tiny panels—each one a fractured home searching for a face to keep. This is where the night begins: in a reflection she barely owns, lashes clumpy like wet feathers, mouth stained the color of bruised petals, eyes already drifting toward a place without pulse. Outside, bass crawls through drywall, slow, predatory, and the ruby blink of a vacancy sign turns the room into a faulty heart. Mildewed air tastes of chlorine and old perfume; last-hour glitter flakes from her thighs like gold dust abandoned on a factory floor. This is routine, climb, kneel, take, leave—so practiced her body moves before thought. A plastic wristband from tonight’s club still circles her arm; the barcode scans pleasure by the hour.

He enters in scrubs that smell faintly of antiseptic, pockets heavy with bills folded to hide serial numbers. When he steps between her knees, he breathes as though he’s trespassing in a sanctuary. His fingertips hover at her jaw, asking, apologising, maybe praying, before settling on her hips. That soft caution marks him as dangerous; everyone else grabs without thinking. She plants her palms on the faucet, metal biting crescents into her skin, while red light flickers like a faulty ECG and varnishes sweat across their bodies. The first sound is a swallowed moan—his, surprised, torn loose when her nails skim the nape of his neck. He tries to stifle the next, fails, presses harder. She feels him shake once, the tremor of someone desperate to pretend this is still anonymous. Her own breath stays measured, practiced, detached. The mirror becomes a shattered proscenium, staging a dance of undoing, her spine arcs like a question the world refuses to answer, his shoulders bending in something too desperate to be worship, two fever-bright shadows strobing in arterial neon. Beneath them, a lace thong curls on the chipped tile like a snakeskin left behind, proof that this body has already shed more names than it can remember.

She’s had him before—after the night spun in fairy-light ribbon and champagne froth, when everyone talked of forever and traded it for rings that felt like handcuffs. He had followed her past catering crates, offered double to stay silent, whispered vows into her hair that weren’t meant for her. Since then he finds her in service corridors, staff elevators, car back seats that still smell of pine freshener. Never a name. Never a future. Only the question in his grasp, the answer in her compliance. Tonight he’s rougher, breath hotter, as if trying to brand something he can’t articulate. She rolls latex down him with steady fingers; he gasps as though the gesture is affection. When release hits he folds over her, spine shuddering, mouth against her throat like penance. A hiss of satin against porcelain, a stifled cry—hers or his, neither knows. She watches it all in the glass: two people superimposed, one already slipping beyond the frame. Money—creased once—lands by the tap like a counterfeit blessing. He lingers, lips parted with words he won’t risk, then leaves. The door soft-latches; the room exhales.

She doesn’t feel the moment the bruise-bright sun beneath her sternum begins to die, only the hush: a slow eclipse unfurling petal by petal through marrow, shadow nibbling light in silent millimetres until a filament snaps somewhere behind her ribs—no siren, just the soft pop of glass blowing out—and at once the corridors of her skull swell with static, voices she’d padlocked in childhood grinding their teeth against splintered doorframes, chanting lullabies backward, offering warmth with forked tongues, so she lifts a sound to smother them, a tremoring hum that once belonged to playground afternoons, and the note tastes of sunflower syrup—bright, sticky, strangely metallic—sweet on the first pass then curdling across her palate like spoiled nectar, the colour of jaundiced petals blooming where light should be, and inside that syrupy hush a seed spins open, small and scorching, a future already feverish and yellow burning its shape into the dark.

He doesn’t know that in the corridor—heart knocking an off-rhythm lullaby against his ribs—he’s already tethered to a life still twinned and unsevered; the sigh he leaves behind drifts like the first hum of a song he will someday murmur beside fluttering monitors. To him this feels like lapse, closure, maybe penance; but in the quiet ledger where futures are inked, it is conception—anointing in a whisper-thin halo of pale, sunflower-soft light. Tonight, a healer of children has, without knowing, kindled the one small heart he will chase through ward after ward, across rooms and hours and cities scattered like bright beads on an endless string—whatever distance it takes to keep that gentle yellow glow alive.

She rinses in a gas-station sink, chlorinated water stinging raw skin, watching diluted red spool toward a rusted drain. Fluorescent tubes flicker like dying stars. Her reflection wavers, split down the middle by a crack she never noticed, and for an instant she’s certain someone else stares back—a stranger with her face but hollowed from the inside. Then the bass of another club swallows the thought, and routine reclaims her. She slips the folded bills into a garter, reapplies lip gloss, and steps into the night—unaware the universe has already separated: on one side, the girl walking away; on the other, a seed of jaundiced sunflower light growing in the dark, and the man orbiting them both without knowing why.

A week slips by before she buys the test, plastic and cheap, wrapped in greasy paper that reeks of salt and fryer oil. Fluorescents in the fast-food bathroom buzz like an angry hive; the floor is sticky, tiles cracked open like hungry mouths. She balances the cup on a toilet-tank lid, watches pale yellow trickle, then lays the strip across the lid of a metal bin. Two lines bloom. Pink. Certain. She laughs—short, sharp, the noise of glass spider-webbing. A woman in the next stall says, “You okay?” She almost answers, Star’s coming, but the words turn to fizz behind her teeth. She drops the test into the toilet bowl, flushes once, twice, listens as it rattles before vanishing.

That night neon fists the walls of the club. Strobes stutter, music slams, sweat hammers. She lets men tuck bills into sweat-damp lace, grinds until her knees bruise, breathes smoke the way other people breathe prayer. Outside on break she lights a cigarette, inhales so deep her lungs scald. Somewhere inside her chest, the beat of the music echoes, not in rhythm, but out of step, as if another heart has started to drum and refuses to find the tempo. When her shift ends, she tells herself the lines were a trick of cheap dye, that someone else flushed them into the city’s veins.

Days yawn into weeks, and her sense of self widens like a crack in plaster. When the voices murmur, she hums to drown them—same half-remembered lullaby, gentle at first, then louder, frantic, as though pitching sugar over rotting meat. On the bus she fingers a stolen pacifier, mint-green plastic in her pocket, soft yellow bulb like infant sunlight. She rolls it between thumb and forefinger, whispering, “For you, Star.” The man across the aisle shifts away, eyes on the floor. Later, in a crowded station, she fishes for the pacifier and finds only lint. Panic spears her throat—she tears through her purse, tips its contents onto the tiles, lipstick clattering, condoms skidding, coins spinning wobbly circles. She shrieks, “Give her back!” to nobody. Security drags her outside, where she folds onto the curb, belly tightening with a cramp she refuses to name.

Sometimes at dawn she is lucid. She pads to a discount store lit like a morgue, trailing aisle to aisle with a shaky tenderness—tiny sunflower-yellow socks cupped in her palms, a carton of formula cradled against her chest. She tells the cashier the socks are for a niece. The cashier calls her “sweetheart,” and for a thimble of time she is. Then the store lights flare too bright—white needles behind her eyes—and the voices return, reminding her that babies are parasites, that light loves rot, that yellow means sickness when it stains the whites of eyes. She leaves the basket under a rack of clearance towels, rushes out chewing the inside of her cheek until iron floods her mouth.

She steps through the stage-door of the club that night—the only place that pretends to miss her when she’s gone—and the air greets her like a familiar haunting: sour cheap perfume, stale beer, bass that burrows into cartilage. Here, she can almost believe she belongs, because the walls don’t ask for a past. Outside there’s nothing: no mother’s number, no emergency contact, just a town where orphan records get misfiled and rent is a curse that comes monthly. The voices started in childhood, small at first, like wind worrying a window, but after her first foster home turned her away, they rooted deeper, grew teeth. Doctors wrote paranoid-type schizophrenia on papers she never saw; caseworkers scribbled noncompliant when she vanished between check-ins. 

The clubs didn’t care. They paid cash, and whispered that pretty girls with haunted eyes sell more drinks. So she learned to trade hours of her body for the roof over it, learned that men tip better when you laugh at jokes you don’t hear because static is fizzing in your skull. Every shift she pins on a sunflower-yellow badge that says Haneul—not her name, just a brightness someone thought would lure wallets—and pretends the colour means warmth, not jaundice. Some nights, after the lights die and the voices swell like orchestras beneath her skull, she dances until bone sparks against muscle, because motion is the last receipt that says she still owns this body, not just rents it; yet lately a muted yellow glimmer—sunflower bright and pulsing—flickers behind her sternum, prying at the seams of her mind, coaxing old selves to unpeel and whisper, so with every gyring beat, the seam between bone and spirit frays; the voices she once drowned in pills resurface, injecting the idea that the soft sunflower flare lodged beneath her ribs isn’t light at all but a bright, slow poison, a parasite sipping her hollow.

In the back room of the club, where the walls pulse with subwoofer tremors, she balances a benzodiazepine on her tongue and rolls it against the ridges of her molars, letting powder bleed bitter down her throat. The pill feels alive, a tiny white moon revolving under her teeth. She taps her belly, one-two, like knocking on a coffin lid—and whispers, “it’s for you, star.” In the flicker of the utility light the word star seems to hang in the air, an echo she can’t catch. She isn’t herself; she’s borrowed skin, watching from behind her own eyes while a stranger feeds the thing inside her. She imagines the pill dissolving through tissue, drifting into the amniotic dark where a damp heartbeat quivers, an uncut gemstone glimmering jaundice yellow. The voices croon that the heartbeat isn’t human at all; it’s a moth hammering its wings against the cage of her ribs, desperate to carve a way out with soft dust and frantic light.

Another night she stands barefoot on a fire escape, city steam curling around her ankles. She presses a cigarette ember to her stomach, not hard enough to scar, just enough to feel heat pass skin to the womb. “a little sunrise,” she tells the shape beneath the burn, voice syrup-sweet, eyes wide and glassy. She imagines the heartbeat as a swarm of bees caught in honey—soft buzzing, slow suffocation—and the ember is mercy, a flame to cauterize the hive before it splits her open. Somewhere below, sirens wail; she counts the pulses, hears them echo her own, then hears a third rhythm tucked between, the stubborn flutter she can’t outpace. She hums an off-key lullaby to drown it, each note sticky with nicotine, the sound curdling into a hiss when the wind rips it away.

On the late train she cradles a bottle of cough syrup like holy water, tilts it so the neon carriage lights refract in thick violet swirls. She unscrews the cap, dips a finger, smears a sticky cross over her navel. “for you,” she chants, “for the sun under my skin.” Her pupils blow wide; the carriage tilts. Every overhead bulb blooms a halo the color of sick daylight—sunflower petals gone rancid. Passengers retreat, eyes averted. In the reflection of the window she sees herself split: one half smiling serene, the other chewing her lip raw. For an instant the carriage is a tunnel of jaundiced sun. She feels the baby roll—a slow, deliberate bloom under her navel—and the voices rise in chorus, telling her it’s not a baby, it’s a wasp nest, it’s a tombstone, it’s light that will burn her hollow. She stands, claws at the emergency door, screams for air. A passenger pulls the alarm; the train bucks to a stop. She staggers onto the platform, shaking, palms slapped hard against her ears, humming until the noise buries the voices, until her throat sparks.

Hours before dawn, in a 24-hour laundromat that smells of bleach and burnt lint, she watches a tumble dryer spin someone else’s yellow bedsheets. The motion hypnotizes her—cyclical, inescapable. She palms two prenatal vitamins she lifted from a pharmacy display, grinds them to dust against the machine’s hot metal rim, and blows the powder into the whirring drum. The yellow sheets blur into a storm of pale gold, a miniature star collapsing inward. She presses her ear to the plexiglass door, listening for the heartbeat inside her to sync with the mechanical thud. For a breath it does—and the harmony terrifies her. She jerks away, stumbling, clutching her belly as if it might leap free. “you’re too bright,” she croaks, tears streaking mascara. “Too bright. you’ll burn me hollow.” The lights overhead flicker as if agreeing, and the hum of dryers becomes insect wings scraping bone. She bolts through the sliding doors before the cycle ends, leaving the sheets spinning into dawn, haloed in the dust she offered like ash.

Nights grow stranger. She wakes on city benches, coat draped over her lap, convinced there’s a bird trapped beneath her ribs. She digs fingernails into skin, mumbling, “get out, get out!” while commuters scuttle past. Other times she forgets she’s pregnant at all: dances too hard, drinks too much, flirts with a stranger in a parking lot until dizziness folds her knees. She vomits bile and half-chewed sunflower seeds, smells decay in her sweat, swears something crawls beneath her flesh. In the mirror of a gas-station restroom steam refuses to clear; her reflection swims, double-exposed—one face slack with exhaustion, the other grinning too wide. She slaps the glass. It grins back.

He sends her a dozen voicemails every single night—his gravelly apology strangled by static, each message more desperate than the last. Then the texts follow, pinging in the dark: Hey, call me. We need to talk. I miss you. He shows up outside the club where she’s taken refuge, shadowing her exit like a stray cat that refuses to leave, pressing a folded note into her hand that smells of cheap cologne and broken promises. He doesn’t see the tremor in her glove­-clad fingers or the wild flicker in her eyes—only the once-familiar shape of her silhouette against the yellow street lamps. He stalks into the bar just after last call, the neon sign flickering overhead like a wounded heartbeat. His leather jacket is still stained with last night’s aftershave and regret. He threads through the tables—patrons half-drunk on whiskey and dance-floor haze—until he finds her behind the counter, slipping shots and checking IDs with the weary grace of someone born for this night. He slides onto a stool beside her and jangles his keys, leaning in apologetic. “Just one drink,” he rasps, eyes watering under bar lights. She stiffens, voice lost in the whirl of jazz and clinking glass. From her mitten’s edge, she watches the yellow glow of the overhead lamp pool across the scarred wood—reminding her of the night he scattered his stardust inside her, a single sperm igniting a constellation where a baby star now burns against the dark.

He traces the pendant at his throat before slipping it into her palm: a small silver wasp, its abdomen inked with a honey-gold stripe. She holds it for a breath, feeling the sting of every message echo in her gut. “This isn’t a trap,” he pleads, voice tight with something like fear.

She feels the brood he planted squirm and scratch, testing their prison, and in that moment, half-ghost, half-woman, she hisses, “Get out. You don’t belong here.” She slips off the stool and ducks past the neon-lit mirrors, the bar’s music warping in her ears. voices overlapping voices until she can’t tell which is real. Behind her, he shouts her name, but she’s already swaying in a back-alley shadow, wiping sweat and decay from her skin. Somewhere beneath her ribs a thousand tiny wings beat in rebellion, drowning out the shrill insistence of his apology. She presses her cheek to the brick wall, nodding, “I hear you,” though it’s the chorus in her mind, not his, that demands tribute. The wasp-pendant slips from her fingers, clattering to the grate beneath her boot, and she steps away—each footfall a promise that she will not let him harvest this life. Silence blooms around her like a bruise, and the bar’s warmth recedes, leaving only the hard knowledge that some parasites are born of regret, but she will be the one to claim survival.

He has no idea she’s pregnant. What he thought was a fleeting spark—a match struck for a moment’s warmth—has buried itself deep in the darkness of her womb and blossomed into a roaring inferno. In her mind, he is the unwitting invader, a host who unleashed a brood of mad whispers she once kept caged with pills and late-night study marathons. Before that night, her own voice was the only one in her head—steady, familiar, the sound of herself—no cacophony of demons shouting in technicolor. But now, hormones surge like a tidal wave, peeling back the barriers she built with antipsychotics and self-control, and the voices return after years caged away, ravenous and legion, circling her core self until she can’t locate the person she used to be. She presses trembling fingers to her abdomen, as if she could squeeze those voices back into oblivion, but they writhe louder with every recollection of his touch. every careless word, every unseen betrayal, gnawing at what remains of her fragile identity. 

Back then, in the soft aftermath of their stolen nights, she was whole—no shadows at her back, no whispering phantoms tugging at her mind. The only voice she heard was her own laughter, clear as a bell. But now, with his child growing inside her, the old demons stir with purpose, swarming through her synapses like wasps defending a newly built hive, their buzzing command: “Kill the star.” He can’t see the half-empty pill vials she stashes under her makeup kit, nor the tremor in her fingertips as she counts each hour of darkness in her lonely apartment. All he remembers is the woman who used to belong only to him—bright, unbesieged, unbroken. Yet even unseen, he has become her fortress: a silent sentinel whose steady heartbeat in her dreams rings like a promise, whose arms form an iron rampart against the onslaught in her mind. In the pale light of every dawn, his protection gleams just beyond her sight—a shield forged of devotion and defiance, the only power strong enough to save the constellation he helped ignite.

Nine months blur past in jagged increments, calendar pages lost under ashtrays, shift rosters stained with lipstick prints, rent envelopes traded for nights she can’t remember. Seasons change in the size of tips, not in the swell of her abdomen; the body that should have rounded stays lean, hunger-tight, as if hiding the secret beneath knotted muscle and clenched silence. When mirrors flash her reflection backstage, she sees bruises she earned, glitter she didn’t, but never the curve of impending motherhood. The voices insist nothing grows there, tell her any flutter is indigestion, any tightness merely rent overdue.

Between shifts she drifts through the city like a cracked marionette, joints held together by habit and the thin wires of her routine—club, alley, pawnshop, club—while the voices keep up their low chant: emptiness can’t carry life, hunger can’t cradle hope, move along. Whenever a sudden flutter ripples beneath her ribs she presses two fingers to the spot and murmurs, “Hush, Star,” the name tasting half-sweet, half-suspicious, as though she’s christening a ghost. She tells herself it’s gas, or a muscle twitch, yet still pockets sunflower-yellow trinkets, a plastic ring from a vending machine, a price-slashed cotton ribbon, then throws them away before nightfall because the voices whine that yellow draws parasites. On stage she glides under amber spotlights that paint her skin with sick daylight, imagining a swarm of gnats trapped in her belly, hammering to escape; off stage she stuffs napkins in her bra to muffle the knocking, convincing herself that if she ignores the rhythm long enough it will fade, like rent notices slipped under the door and swept away by morning drafts.

Tonight a velvet booth swallows her and a customer together, red lamps painting halos that look like warnings. He smells of cologne and conquest, darts eager hands beneath her dress while murmuring fantasies she lets glide past. She climbs onto his lap, thighs bracketing him in the flicker of gold light, and rides his rhythm with the mechanical grace the job demands. He groans, tries to guide her hips, but midway she goes rigid. Deep inside, a sudden roll—sharp, deliberate—spider-webs across her gut. For a heartbeat she thinks an elbow has jabbed from the wrong side of her skin. The room tilts.

A second kick, harder, and everything cracks open: the bassline of the club drops away, replaced by insect wings thrumming behind her ribs. The man beneath her whispers praise; she hears him as though he’s speaking through running water. In panic she snatches the half-finished glass of house red, slings the wine across his face. Crimson arcs like arterial spray, beads along his nose, dripping from his tie. He yelps, hands flying up in shock. She strikes his chest with both palms—once, twice—babbling, “Get it out, get it out,” eyes wide enough to white-out the iris.

He scrambles backward, chair legs screeching, but she follows, fists small yet frantic, knuckles catching collarbone, babbling syllables that collapse into static. “Yellow, yellow,” she hisses, clawing at her own stomach now, nails leaving half-moons. “A wasp nest in me—sunlight rotting—buzz, buzz, can’t you hear?” He stammers apologies, thinks maybe she’s on something stronger than champagne. She drags in a ragged breath; the flutter inside twists, a fist of muscle and need, and she slaps her belly as if scolding a disobedient pet. For a fractured second the kicking stops. Her gaze clears, only to fog again when the next movement comes—softer, pleading, a heartbeat tapping SOS against her bones.

Patrons swivel to look; a bouncer lumbers forward. She backs toward the exit, eyes glassy, whispering to the shape she still believes isn’t there: “Stay quiet or we both burn.” Her palm presses tight to her abdomen, as though holding a door shut. The voices surge, hot static filling her skull, parasite, poison, sunflower-bright sickness, and she forces her way through velvet curtains, leaving confusion, a puddle of wine, and a man wiping crimson from his lashes while the echo of unseen wings rattles around the booth like trapped light.

The plate-glass door of the club shivers when she slams it behind her, and the city greets her with a gust that smells of refuse and rain, a breath as sour as a broken promise. Fluorescent bar signs leak along the puddles in arterial streaks, and somewhere a man’s shout ricochets between alley walls, a ricochet she swears spirals straight into her spine. Inside her bloodstream benzodiazepines drift like pale anemones, numbing thought even as the vodka she slugged between sets keeps her heart jack-hammering under skin gone clammy. She can’t remember why her abdomen drags with such leaden weight; she only knows the night is hunting, and she needs velocity. A sedan idles at the corner, door cracked as though the street itself has yawned—welcome or warning, she can’t tell. She slides behind the wheel, fingers slipping on the ignition key, breath fogging the glass in frantic bursts that bloom, then vanish, like spirits locked out of heaven.

Dashboard lights pulse sunflower-gold, hopeful and sickly at once, bathing her trembling knuckles in a color that feels like a lie. Tires shriek; alley grime spits behind her in a comet tail; a gull rises from a dumpster flap, white wings stark in headlight glare before darkness snaps them away. Sirens appear in the rear-view—blue, red, blue—then melt into spectral ribbons that might be behind her, might be ahead, time folding in on itself. One beat, a second, then a rogue tremor blooms beneath her sternum, bright as a buried sun-shard, drumming its own cadence against the dark. She clamps a palm over the spot, hissing for hush, but the radiance retaliates with a jolt, sunflower-strong, urgent, knocking her balance off its axis and flaring gold behind her eyes. For an instant the street fractures: white lane lines wriggle like earthworms; storefronts bulge and blur; every traffic light blossoms into a jaundiced sun and blinds her with its pity.

The concrete divider rears up from the asphalt with the awful certainty of a guillotine. Steel screams. Metal folds. Her chest slams the wheel so hard she tastes iron as the horn howls and then dies. No airbag blooms to cradle her; glass pebbles shower her lap; the windshield paint-brushes a web of fractured constellations, sky replaced by a cathedral ceiling of broken starlight. Somewhere inside that cathedral a voice she hasn’t heard since childhood whispers her name before dissolving into static. She pushes the bent door with both hands, bone rasping on bone, and spills onto the asphalt barefoot, thigh dripping a thin ribbon that steams in the cold. Engines whine in distant lanes, yet the world feels paused, as if God held down the clutch and forgot to shift.

Hands and knees rasp across the gravel; she plants a palm to her belly for leverage, but the flesh rises again—then again—each thud a fierce, sunflower-bright hammer, pounding in quick succession as though a small fist is trying to tunnel straight through bone. The blows come so relentlessly her skin jumps beneath her fingers, rhythm wild and unyielding, an insurgent heartbeat refusing to be stilled. She mutters that it’s a parasite gnawing her marrow; she calls it a sunbeam set to scorch her hollow. A horn blasts somewhere beyond the divider; headlights sweep past, and for a moment her shadow looms against the barrier, grotesque and pregnant with something she refuses to name. The shadow bends. Collapses. Darkness swallows the outline entirely.

When awareness lurches back she is bathed in strobing neon that leaks through dusty curtains— a motel room whose wallpaper peels like dead petals. In the doorway stands the colleague who lives in the unit directly below, the one who shares her shifts and cigarettes, forearms inked with flowers curling toward decay. She cradles a half-empty bottle against her ribs, and her gaze pools with equal parts dread and awed disbelief. “You screamed for six hours,” she says, voice raw as a rusted hinge. “Cut the cord with kitchen scissors, and you bled all over my towels.” On the carpet by the bed lies a bundle no larger than a grocery loaf, wrapped in a thin towel gone gray at the edges, the fabric already blotched yellow where bile and amniotic fluid soak through. Tiny limbs twitch like pale moth wings; lips bruise toward blue. Her own sunflower sock, pilfered weeks earlier during a momentary bloom of maternal fantasy, lies beside the bundle, its cheerful dye dulled to the color of old parchment.

The girl from downstairs crosses the threadbare carpet, bottle set aside, inked lilies flexing over her forearms as she kneels by the towel-swaddled bundle. “She’s still breathing,” she whispers, voice wobbling on the edge of a prayer. With a gentleness that startles them both, she slides trembling hands beneath the baby’s head and rump, lifting the weightless form as though hoisting a moth from puddled moonlight. “Here—take her, just for a second.” The words fall like petals. Reluctance knots the mother’s shoulders, yet something cracks open; she extends her arms and the infant settles against her chest, a tremor of warmth no bigger than her own heartbeat.

For three fragile breaths the room tilts toward something almost tender. She strokes one paper-thin shoulder, murmuring, “Star—little Star,” the name tasting like honey spiked with rust. Beneath the towel the child is nearly spectral: ribs countable, knees knobbed, skin a translucent frost that shades to dusk around lips and fingernails. Each inhale is a shallow rattle, each exhale a question the lungs barely answer. Yet when the mother’s thumb brushes the hollow of that bluish collarbone, one eyelid flickers, halogen gold iris under dust. and a faint pulse flutters against her palm. The sight stings her eyes, stirring an ache so bright it almost feels like love.

But the voices are never far. They snake through cracked wallpaper and hiss inside her skull: parasite, mistake, devil grub drinking you hollow. Pain sears down her spine, withdrawal clawing marrow, benzo ghosts demanding tithes, and her arms begin to quake. She hears them judge the infant’s silence, insisting those twitching moth-wings should have stilled hours ago. “We craved her death—pleaded for that innocent scrap to stiffen cold and silent—and still you ignored the warning. We begged for her to stiffen into milk-white stillness, prayed for the hush of grave dust over lungs still tasting first air—you were warned.” The chorus rises, sour and metallic, until her ribs ache and bile licks the back of her throat. She clamps her eyes shut, but even the dark blooms sunflower yellow, too bright, too accusing, spreading across her vision like a bruise blossoming in reverse.

The other girl reaches to steady the baby before she slips. Tiny fingers, waxy and trembling, curl around a lock of the mother’s hair, and that fragile grip sparks one last flicker of mercy. She tucks the towel tighter, rasps, “Stay warm, Star,” though her voice sounds borrowed, hollow. Somewhere in the night a soft conviction glows—pale, stubborn, sun-bright—that this child still breathes because she is already loved by hands not yet here, a heartbeat bound to meet another heartbeat on a ward of humming machines. And even as the voices snarl that the light will scorch them all, the infant’s pulse answers with its own faint drum, insisting on survival, promising that yellow dawn is waiting, somewhere beyond the pain, beyond the noise, where a father’s arms will learn the rhythm that keeps her alive.

She stares, waiting for panic, wonder, anything to flicker, yet all she feels is the drugged hush of distance. Sirens hum somewhere beyond the parking lot, a lullaby tuned for someone else. She presses the heel of her hand against her temple, as though by crushing her skull she might quiet the two uneven drums. The neon sign outside flickers SUN and then stutters the next letters into oblivion, leaving only the raw promise of warmth it cannot keep. Shadows tilt; voices swell at the edges of the room, urging her to flee, to silence the moth-wing breaths before the light gulps her dry. She drags herself upright, blood streaking calf to ankle, and the towel-swaddled bundle lets out a thin, warbling cry that sounds like metal bending under too much snow.

Somewhere inside her chest a filament snaps again—another inch of eclipse closing over what little remains—yet for one impossible heartbeat she feels the faintest tug of gravity, as if that sunflower glow tries to anchor her to the earth. The moment flickers, vanishes. She tastes copper and cough syrup on her tongue. The older girl lifts the bottle, offers, “Painkillers?” She shakes her head. Pain is the one proof she has that she still exists. Curtains billow like lungs behind her as she turns toward the door, the bundle’s cry segueing into the room’s leaking toilet hiss, indistinguishable, fading. Somewhere down the corridor fluorescence pulses, and the world tilts anew, every light a jaundiced crown, every shadow a mouth waiting to chew her into nothing. She takes one step forward, then another, feet sticky on linoleum, heart dragging a constellation of bruises behind it—and the night swallows the hotel, the older girl, the crying infant, and all that sunflower light the way a storm swallows a match.

She staggers back through the motel door just before dawn, arms cradling a mess of half-stolen, half-begged supplies: a dented tin of evaporated milk, two diapers plucked from an open hospital laundry cart, a bottle meant for kittens, and a motel ice bucket crammed with crushed sunflower-printed napkins she thought might pass for burp cloths. The older girl helps her spread the haul on the bedspread—eyeing the kitten bottle, the wrong-sized diapers, the can without a proper nipple—and sighs. “It’s something,” she murmurs, though they both see it isn’t enough.

They prop the infant—Star—against a towel rolled like a tiny lifeboat. When the mother tries to guide the bottle to the bluish lips, the rubber tip is too wide; formula dribbles down the baby’s chin, pooling in the hollow of her collarbone like watered paint. Star’s gums work, confused. The mother strips off her own shirt and offers a breast; milk comes thin, tinged almost gray. The baby latches for a breath, coughs, sputters, and wails. a brittle, papery cry that cracks the silence like a match.

The older girl wipes the milk with a napkin, whispers, “She needs a hospital.” The mother flinches at the word hospital; inside her head a scraping chorus answers— they’ll tape your bones hollow, harvest the sunflower glow beating inside you, she shakes her head, humming the lullaby again, but the tune falters, replaced by the hiss: Poison. You’re feeding her poison. She’s already poisoning you.

When the neighbor’s footsteps fade down the stairwell, the room shrinks to two heartbeats and a flickering strip of neon. Determined, she sets to work like it’s a test she might still pass. She warms water in the rust-stained sink, stirs powdered formula with a stolen coffee stir stick, then dribbles a drop on her wrist the way she saw mothers do in soap commercials. Too hot—she blows until her skin prickles. She lines a shoebox with newspaper and the sunflower sock, thinking a makeshift cradle will feel less cruel than towels on nicotine carpet. She even tears off a strip of her favorite stage dress. sequins glittering like trapped daylight, and knots it into a headband, hoping a flash of beauty might coax the baby to feed.

Star will not take the bottle. Her tiny lips purse, shiver, turn away as though rejecting the scent of her skin. Panic flares; she loosens the cap, tries again. Milk dribbles, pools in the notch of a bird-thin collarbone. She pats the baby’s back, gentle, gentler, remembering videos on a stranger’s phone: pat to burp the air out. Nothing but a croak, the color of the mouth deepening from bruise to dusk. She rubs circles harder—too hard—before catching herself, whispering sorrys that skid into gasps.

“See?” she murmurs, voice bright but cracked. “Trying. Trying so hard.” She rummages through the scavenged pile: diaper too big, safety pin bent, washcloth stiff with someone else’s soap. She wipes the baby’s lips; the washcloth smells like bleach and last year’s rain. A whimper rises from the bundle, thin as thread, and the voices rush in to meet it—She tastes the poison on you, she feels you draining her light.

Her thoughts spiral back to solutions: room needs warmth. She positions the shoebox next to the radiator, but the unit only rattles cold air. She lights a half-used match, flicks it out before the scent can sting the newborn lungs, then lays the spent stick beside the baby as if warmth might linger in the char. She hums the fragment of a lullaby. three notes bright as sunflower petals. yet the tune warps halfway, twisting into a minor key as the chorus in her skull counters: Not meant for you. Not your hymn to sing.

Star’s cries stretch thinner, rasp out, fade. The mother bundles the infant against her own chest, rocking on her knees, tracing circles upon the skeletal back—circles that become frantic scribbles when no steady breathing answers. “Want to want you,” she whispers, forehead touching a crown of damp hair that already smells a little like loss. “Want to keep you. See, Star? I found a ribbon for you, I found a box, I—” But the pulse beneath her fingers skips then slows, and the voices rise louder than any lullaby: Give it up. Let the sunflower glow flicker out. Parasite. Ravenous. It will eat the rest of you next. Pain knifes through her abdomen—withdrawal, hunger, grief—making her fold in half. Napkins drift from the upturned ice bucket, snowing over mother and child in frail, white petals that can’t muffle the raw, scraping cries.

Star’s fist opens once, grasping at nothing, and in that gesture the mother glimpses all the things she cannot offer: steady heat, clean sheets, milk that nourishes, silence in her skull. Her tears drop onto the sunflower sock, darkening the yellow to a muddy bruise. She clutches the bundle tighter, but the baby’s head lolls, turning instinctively toward the doorway. as though she aches for a guardian whose heartbeat matches the stubborn rhythm still ticking in her frail chest.

A streetlight beyond the curtains flickers, pouring ragged beams across peeling wallpaper. In their tremor she sees the shadows twist into gaping mouths, waiting. Exhaustion and voices braid together until she can no longer tell which urge rises from her or from the dark. Her arms stiffen, rocking slows, and a hush swallows the room so completely it feels like a held breath—one that might end with mercy, or with something far colder. Only the faintest sunflower glimmer lingers at the edge of her vision, and even that seems to be dimming, pleading for rescue from hands not yet arrived. End her hunger. End the noise. The words scuttle against her skull like beetles. Star hiccups a final time and goes ominously still, breath on pause, skin washing toward porcelain. It jolts the mother upright—fear, fury, instinct tangling—but the voices lunge faster: Do it yourself or she’ll drag you both into the dark.

Her eyes prowl the dim room, cataloguing ordinary objects as if each were a hush waiting to be used: the pillow slumped against stained headboard, its cotton belly promising silence; the dank bath towel hanging from a nail, long enough to cinch daylight shut; the cracked bathroom door revealing the faint gleam of tap water cold and deep. Even the radiator’s rust-grated vent seems to exhale a lull: this could be quick, this could be kind. Jaundiced streetlight paints the windowpane an ugly halo, the siren outside droning like a funeral hymn already half-sung. The lullaby in her throat withers to a threadbare hum. Gravity tilts the floorboards, funnels every thought to a single, brutal mercy. She draws the bundle closer—arms stiff, not tender—glass-eyed, jaw locking tight, while the chorus in her skull hisses that the surest way to dim the sunflower glow is to snuff it before dawn remembers to rise.

The bundle in her arms weighs less than the guilt rotting her ribs—swaddled in a fraying bath-towel the color of bruised butter, its faded sunflower print glaring up like sallow eyes that judge her every breath. “You’re a lie,” she croaks, throat salted with old screams. “I never carried you.” The denial loops and frays, half-curse, half-confession, while her gaze, fever-bright, hungry, clutches the infant the way a drowning woman grips a stone. Wallpaper droops behind her in strips like wilted wreaths; she studies it once, committing the decay to memory, then slips barefoot into the predawn hush, blood drying in rusty trails down her shin. Neon gutters overhead, casting sick lemon halos. She skirts each puddle of light as though stepped in radiance might brand her skin with proof of the small trespasser pressed to her heart.

The towel slips, and a miniature hand—frost-blue at the fingertips, soft as a flower petal—flutters into view. The motion is heartbreakingly gentle, more plea than protest, and she jerks as if a moth has shattered the pane of her certainty. A breathless “sorry, sorry,” tumbles out; she tucks the tiny limb back beneath worn cotton and knots the sunflower towel tighter, as though she can bind light itself. In her head the voices sneer that this glow is a bright parasite, a wasp hive of yellow wings nibbling her from the inside. but the hand had curled in trust, not threat, and some ancient, trembling instinct draws the bundle closer against her sternum while she slips into streets that taste of rain-rot and exhaust.

She chooses the church first, the same stone nave she used to slip into as a child, clutching stolen hymn sheets and praying she wouldn’t be noticed. Even then she’d felt the architecture disapprove of her, its gothic ribs crowding overhead like a chest too tight for breath. Tonight—or what’s left of night—she pushes through the wooden doors and stands at the threshold, the baby in her arms and a wet trail of blood on her calf. For a moment she simply listens: damp silence, a single organ chord testing the air, the faint stir of a rehearsal choir tucked somewhere behind the chancel. Stepping inside, she watches her footsteps stain the aisle—rust-brown prints that mark her route through a life she was never meant to lead. The nave stretches before her like an unlit furnace: pews in strict rows, votive candles trembling along the walls, and high above, Christ in stained glass. His ruby wounds seem painfully fresh, the blues of His robe so dark they look bruised rather than holy. Even the sunflower yellows in the window, meant to promise mercy, glows too much like the weak pulse fluttering against her collarbone. The echo of that resemblance makes her want to turn away; it feels obscene, as if the window accuses her of dragging corruption into sacred light.

She pauses at the baptismal font, water black as scrying glass. A reflection rises—her own face, pale and frantic, and the towel-swaddled shape clutched high on her shoulder. In her fractured vision the infant’s outline flickers: one moment a baby, next a bundle of writhing larvae haloed in harsh light. She jerks back, sloshing holy water over the marble lip. It spatters the tile, and for a heartbeat she swears the droplets hiss like oil on flame. Somewhere behind her the choir holds a long, piercing note; it scales her spine like talons.

A priest emerges from the side aisle, cassock flaring with each stride. His voice, meant to soothe, falls on her like gravel: “Child, are you in need?” The title detonates shame—child, child—as if she is the one swaddled in desperate cloth. She steps deeper into shadow, tightening the towel until the baby’s cough sputters against her collarbone. The priest approaches anyway, palms raised in benediction; candlelight stains his fingertips crimson. Her eyes latch onto that color, and the voices howl—Blood on his hands, he loves to bleed lambs dry. She recoils, whispering nonsense benedictions of her own, clashing syllables that taste like rusted metal.

“Let me bless the little one,” the priest offers. The phrase sets her teeth on edge. Bless sounds too close to claim, to keep. She pictures the infant laid on the altar, white linen soaking through, parishioners kneeling while the baby’s sunflower glow dims under incense smoke. A low growl coils in her throat. “Not yours,” she manages, a feral liturgy. At that, the priest glimpses the livid bruise blooming down her calf, the bare feet, the fever glossing her eyes. Compassion flickers across his face, but compassion looks like pity, and pity has always snapped her nerves.

She backs toward a row of votive stands, flame tips warping in her periphery. Each candle seems to sprout horns of light, twin licks curving like goat horns—tiny devils dancing on wax. One sputters, guttering into a molten stub; the hiss matches the whisper in her head—Snuff it. Snuff her. Cold is kinder. The baby wheezes, a rattled gasp that carries too far. A boy soprano turns mid-hymn, his mouth a perfect O of alarm. Behind him, glass saints shift: eyes melt, halos sag into barbed crowns, mouths stretch in silent, molten howls.

The air contracts; she tastes ozone and candle soot. The priest steps forward again, and the voices shriek—He’ll bind her with holy ropes, drown the light in sanctified water. Terror snaps her muscles into motion. She pivots, slippering on wax drips, nearly dropping the towel-wrapped child. A lit candle tumbles from its holder, rolling across the flagstones like a glowing eye. She flings open the brass-shod door—hinges wail like trumpets of judgment—and stumbles into rainfall so cold it scalds. The choir’s last chord splits behind her, crashing into dissonance as the door slams shut, booming like stone over a crypt.

Outside, dawn is a bruised limb on the horizon. She presses the bundle closer, panting mist. The hiss in her skull has not subsided, but one phrase edges louder than the rest: Keep moving or lose her. Whether the warning comes from fear or love, she can’t discern; both feel like claws around her throat. She spares the spire a final glance—the cross now skewed against pregnant clouds—and then she runs, barefoot over slick pavement, carrying the fragile sunflower ember away from stained glass angels that watched her with bleeding eyes.

Bare soles slap wet pavement—slap-slap, a frantic metronome—until she stumbles into a pocket of furnace-warm air. The brick façade before her throbs under floodlights, every mortar line glowing ember-red as though the building itself is holding its breath between blazes. Diesel fumes curl in lazy veils, mixing with the metallic tang of scorched steel; somewhere an exhaust vent exhales smoke that dims the dawn beams into rancid butter-yellow streaks. She stands on the concrete apron, baby tight to her chest, towel damp and dark where the infant’s laboured breaths fog the cloth.

For half a heartbeat the fire station seems perfect: cement floor smooth enough to cradle a body, hulking engines like guardians in crimson armour—strong, decisive, nothing like her. She imagines laying the bundle at the threshold, stepping back into the shadows, letting men built of rescue and discipline find the child and decide her fate. A strange mercy flickers. Then klaxons flare. Overhead strobes ignite—red-white-red—branding after-images across her vision. Garage doors rattle upward; an engine yawns forward, headlamps searing like judgment. Sirens coil into the morning air, shredding every thought to ribbons. A firefighter jogs closer, calling out, but the words warp into bestial howls beneath the siren’s pitch. The voices inside her skull answer in kind: Too bright. Too hot. They’ll burn the last glimmer she hoards.

She staggers backward into the glare of the emergency lights. The towel loosens, and a bluish-tipped fist slips out, trembling. The sight forces a ragged breath from her lungs, but no sound follows. Diesel smoke billows from the idling engine and curls around her bare ankles like hot breath. Beside her lies a length of fire-hose, its open end gaping like an iron throat. The thought occurs—thread the baby inside, let the darkness hush the fragile heartbeat. A second, crueler impulse flashes: set the bundle behind a truck tire and walk away, let thirty tons of heroism finish what misery began. But the heat, the roar, the blinking lights, too many watching eyes, drive her back. Tires screech as the truck engines into the street, the whole bay yawning like a furnace door. She lurches sideways, nearly dropping the bundle, the chorus in her head shrilling that she’s seconds from being stripped of the only control she has left. Cradling the child tight, she bolts into a side alley, smoke still clinging to her hair, lungs searing as though she’s inhaled a lit match.

A single street lamp guards the mouth of the alley, its bulb burning a smoky, sulfur-yellow—the color of nursery sunbeams gone bad. Each time the filament flares, it hisses like a match in wind; each time it falters, darkness rushes back, swallowing the walls and her resolve. Three bright flickers, a pause, then three again: a broken heartbeat tattooed in light. She stands beneath the strobe, heart hammering funeral drums, soot-grit rain steaming off the pavement like breath from a dying furnace. The towel in her arms feels heavier now, as though the baby inside has turned to coal. Against her collarbone the infant’s breaths come thin and fading, each one a paper-thin puff of warmth that barely survives the night air. Smoke from the distant firehouse exhaust drifts into the alley, curling around them, staining the last scrap of sunflower glow that lingers in the bundle. She tightens her grip, slipping deeper between the buildings—beyond the reach of sirens, beyond the reach of light—determined to choose, in her own ruinous way, the place where that faltering little sunbeam will gutter out for good.

She walks now—she has no energy for running—each step numbing her soles. The towel dampens; the infant’s breathing rasps, then pauses, then resumes in ragged sips. She mutters fragments of lullaby, lyrics rearranged by the chorus inside her head. A nurse smoking behind the emergency entrance glances up. “Ma’am, do you—” She ducks her gaze, darts past. She can’t let fluorescent corridors swallow her; fluorescent light shows everything. So she loops around to the service stairs, climbs flight after flight until the city wind greets her with exhaust and wet iron. The rooftop garden greets them with threadbare reminders of daylight, sun-starved sunflowers tilt in cracked terracotta, their heads ragged yet defiantly tracking the pale arc of dawn; brittle dandelion clocks tremble on hollow stems, scattering freckles of light with each icy gust; and a strip of calendula flares richest gold, petals tight around their centers as if bracing for frost yet refusing to surrender their flame.

First light edges over the city skyline, and those yellow petals catch it like small mirrors, throwing soft halos across the concrete. She kneels among the planters, bruising her knees on gravelly cement, and unwraps the towel. In that newborn splash of sunlight the baby’s waxen skin glows faintly, ribs etched like the veins of a fragile leaf. A breath quivers in, out. The baby’s eyelids flutter and open just a crack. In that sliver of light, her eyes grab the gleam from the yellow flowers—two tiny suns fighting through clouds. For one sweet moment the rooftop feels soft and warm, as if morning itself has wrapped her up. Her chest lifts, small but stubborn, drawing the light inside like a seed hungry for spring. The wind slips in, shaking the stems and stealing the heat, and the glow around her dims. Still, the little chest rises again—quick, brave, bright—an ember refusing to go out, trying with every breath to grow back into sunshine.

For the first time she truly looks: the delicate fists, the paper nails, the faint tremor that shakes like a caught bird fighting for a sky it hasn’t seen. Something in her splits—not the cruel fissure of voices, but a filament of yearning. “Little Star,” she whispers, stroking a brow no wider than her thumb. “Bright thing.” For a heartbeat she feels a warm surface—thin, risky, real. With clumsy care, she lays the baby down in the midst of the only living patch in the garden—a tangled bed of yellow blooms, sunflowers and marigolds stubbornly shining against the cold. The petals press close, curling around the baby’s towel like a chorus of small suns. Nestled beside the flowers is an old music box left behind by another grieving soul, its painted lid chipped and golden. She opens it and sets the infant atop the faded music sheets tucked inside, their notes ghosted with the memory of lullabies. She turns the key. The music stumbles, notes splintered and off-key, but the melody limps out—a broken cradle song threading through dawn and dew. The baby, surrounded by gold and music, gives a fluttering gasp, chest lifting as if to follow the sun, then falls quiet, lulled by the thready tune. Her own heart stings with the violence of leaving, but exhaustion drags needles through her skull and the chorus returns, acidic: Not yours to save, finish her, dim her light. The baby’s chest stutters; a pause lingers too long; a weak gasp answers. She stares a moment longer as the wind tugs the baby’s towel, scattering marigold petals over her face, and as the tune dies into silence, the girl rises—empty, shivering, stepping back from her brightest, most broken offering, in a bed of yellow meant to hold light until the truest arms arrive.

She forces herself to step back, and the voices surge—snapping, mocking, clawing. “Shut up, shut up!” she screams, palms clamped over her ears. The noise doesn’t fade, so she slams the heel of her hand against her temple—once, twice—hard enough to spark white stars in her vision. “Quiet, it’s me, it’s me,” she gasps, as if she’s talking herself into control. Blood hums behind her eyes; the metal railing bites her spine. She turns to the bundle, breathing ragged. “I won’t hurt you, not here.” Leaning in, she kisses the baby’s cheek, then presses her forehead to the tiny one, squeezing her eyes shut. “Good-bye, little Star,” she whispers, voice breaking. “Find the sun without me.” She straightens, shoulders shaking, and stumbles toward the rooftop door, fists still knotted in her hair as she fights to drag the screaming voices with her and leave the child in fragile peace.

Wind snaps her hair as she reaches the stairwell door, and the voices lunge—End it. One push, one drop, one quiet hush. For an awful second she pivots back, palm hovering over the baby’s mouth, fingers ready to pinch the last breath closed. The lavender bends toward her like witnesses, their purple heads trembling. Do it, the chorus hisses, snuff the false sun before it burns you again. She lifts her hand—then, with a ragged roar, turns the violence on herself. Fist meets forehead, once, twice, three times, until skin splits and warm red runs down her temple. The jolt clears the haze; pain floods louder than the voices. She staggers, blood speckling the concrete like fallen petals, and spits through her teeth, “Not today.” Another blow to her own skull, and the chorus recoils, fading to a static whine. She backs away, forearm smeared crimson, breaths knife-sharp, and forces her body through the stairwell door. Metal slams shut, swallowing her silhouette for good—no footsteps, no farewell, only the faint scent of iron fading down the stairwell.

Dawn spills over the roof in ribbons the color of warmed honey, turning the battered garden into a patchwork of soft gold and bruised lilac. Wind brushes the lavender first, coaxing its tired stalks into a hush that sounds like lullaby, then drifts across a ragged row of sunflowers, heads bowed, but still fierce, their petals bright as candle flames that refuse the night’s final breath. In their midst, calendula flares like pocket-sized suns, petals cupped tight against the cold as if guarding what little heat remains in the world. The baby, no heavier than a sigh, rests where those blossoms converge, towel cinched around her like a faded chrysalis. Dew settles on her lashes in perfect beads, tiny crystal lanterns catching each new beam of light. With every fragile inhale, her ribs lift just enough to cast the faintest shadow; with every exhale, a plume of warmth spirals into the crisp morning air and dissolves. One fist escapes the towel and uncurls toward a drooping sunflower petal, brushing its edge as though asking the bloom to stay awake a moment longer.

Above her, the sky blushes from pewter to lemon, then to a soft, translucent yellow, the same tender hue pulsing at her throat where the heartbeat flickers on. She is ringed by guardians no human assigned: the lavender’s scent drapes over her like a quilt; the calendula glare at the wind, daring frost to try; the sunflowers lean inward, forming a ragged crown whose shadows fall upon her brow in broken spokes of warm light. For an instant their shapes merge, and it looks as though the flowers themselves have knitted a cradle of living gold around her, as if they’re praying her towards survival. Somewhere far below, the city lifts into its weekday hum—buses sighing awake, traffic lights snapping through colors, coffee pots hissing behind diner glass—yet none of that commotion breaches this high garden. Here, the only rhythm is her own: a stubborn, staccato thrum that weds itself to the rustle of petals and the slow turning of the sun.

She lies waiting, half-dreaming, as if she already knows another set of arms is stretching across the morning to claim her—arms that will match her pulse, learn its falter and rise, memorize its starlight cadence. Until then, the rooftop holds its breath, the flowers keep watch, and the newborn light pools around her like liquid gold, seeping into the towel’s frayed weave, painting her skin with the promise of all the mornings still to come. She blinks at the world through dew and daylight, as if somewhere deep inside she senses the truest warmth is still on its way. The biggest sunbeam has not yet touched her—the wide, sure shelter that will lift her from these petals, arms bright enough to make her feel safe for the first time, arms that will fit around her like the strongest flower of all. Until then, she curls deeper into the yellow hush, baby fists tangled with marigold stems, her heartbeat counting down to the moment when real sunshine finds her and calls her home.

He arrives before dawn, the hospital’s glass towers still dark slivers against the sky, and the only sound is the hiss of his boots on concrete. His toolbox is strapped tight to his back—rusted latch, a photograph of his son tucked inside the lid, grin bright as a hospital sunrise. He breathes deep, tasting frost and winter air, then taps the scaffold frame twice, a ritual he’s kept since the day his wife slipped away. Every bolt he tightens today carries her memory, and the promise he made to their boy, Haknyeon, that he would keep working, keep breathing, keep building something beautiful out of loss.

He steps off the service elevator into the sterile glare of ‘Hwarang’s’ central atrium and is met by a chorus of voices—“Mr. Cho!”—ringing from every nursing station. He’s the hospital’s go-to handyman, the familiar face they call the moment a boiler cracks or a syringe pump stutters, and in his month-long absence every department noticed. Today he’s back on the rooftop, summoned to recalibrate the solar array that powers the NICU’s incubators—the quiet lifeline under fluorescent skies. Doctors pause in their rounds to lift a grateful nod; nurses press steaming mugs of coffee into his hands without asking. He smiles, the steady pivot of this hospital’s heartbeat, and tucks his tool bag under one arm, ready to bring warmth and light back to its smallest patients.

He climbs the fire escape, heartbeat steady as the elevator’s hum below. On the rooftop, machinery waits: solar panels that will warm NICU incubators, a spray of cables like silver arteries. He tests each connection with the precision of a surgeon, his gloved fingers finding purchase on metal I-beams he knows will hold. A chill snakes up his spine, not from wind but from absence—a loneliness he brushes off with a flick of his collar. He tells himself it’s just morning cold, nothing more. He stops for a moment at the garden’s edge, where frost-bitten dandelions shiver beneath the guardrail. He remembers the day he planted daisies here, before his world fractured. He had imagined Haknyeon running between the blooms, giggling. Now he simply tightens one more bolt, listens to the hiss of compressed air, and resumes. “For you, buddy,” he whispers, wiping sweat that isn’t supposed to form in such cold. He steps back to admire his work—panels aligned, cables secure, the promise of light for tiny bodies stretched below.

He tests the final switch. A soft click, then the low hum of power flowing through the wires—an electric heartbeat for the ward he’s never seen awake. He packs away his tools, shoulder aching, and pauses in the pale half-light. Today feels different, though he can’t name why. His breath clouds before him, each one of his exhales a question he can’t answer. He slings his pack, turns to the fire escape, and that’s when he sees it: a flash of yellow tangled in the weeds, a shape he assumes at first is lost cloth from a patient’s gown. At first he thinks it’s a doll abandoned in the cold. Then the towel shifts. He sees pale skin, hears the faint rasp of breath that shouldn’t belong to stone. 

Curiosity propels him forward. He kneels, heart tensing as he parts the crumpled towel to reveal the smallest face he’s ever seen, eyelashes tipped with dew. The baby lies coiled in a shallow nest of crushed calendula and frost-bitten dandelions, the only yellow flowers brave enough to survive winter. She’s nestled into a small music box, its gears clicking out the last fragments of a lullaby into the chill, each broken note caught and scattered by a restless wind like a heartbeat slipping off its rhythm. Dew clings to her lashes like sunlight frozen mid-blink, and her tiny fists twitch against her chest as if in search of a mother’s pulse that has gone strangely still. Under the rising sun, her body seems to glow—not with warmth, but because the flowers around her believe she deserves one last trace of light. She is swaddled in a yellow towel, soft from age and frayed at the seams like an old promise; it smells faintly of smoke and holds her like a memory already slipping away.

The world tilts—his son’s laugh, his wife’s lullaby, their last promise—all converging in a single, ragged breath. He lifts the bundle with trembling reverence, surprised at its weight and warmth, the soft gasp that cracks through the cold. In the silent shimmer of yellow petals and broken lullaby, he understands: today, he will do more than mend wires—today, he’ll dare to hold a life back from the edge of forever, today is the day he will save a life, one he never knew he carried into this world. He lifts her, surprised at how feather-light she is, how fragile and nearly lifeless. He presses the baby’s head gently against his chest, each fragile breath a plea for life he refuses to ignore. Clutching her like a flickering candle shielded from the wind, he bolts down the first flight of stairs, determination burning behind his eyes. Four flights become a blur of concrete and railing as he races toward the lobby, a single thought driving him: keep her alive.

Panic detonates in his chest before he even reaches the lobby doors—a wildfire of fear that ignites every nerve beneath his skin. He crashes through the glass double-doors, boots scraping tile as he staggers into the fluorescent glare of the atrium. His breath comes in ragged shards, each exhale sending little clouds over the marble floor, the yellow towel-wrapped bundle held out like a desperate offering. “Someone—please—help her!” he roars, voice cracking the silence like a thunderclap, echoing down corridors meant for hushed footfalls and measured whispers. He clamps a trembling hand to his side, as if to staunch the fracture in his ribs, but it only pulses harder, a frantic alarm that won’t be silenced.

He sees the pallor of her skin, the faint flutter of her nostrils, and his voice breaks, raw with pleading: “Please, please, she’s just a baby. She’s just a baby, I don’t know what else to do.” Over and over he repeats the prayer, each time louder, each time more helpless, until the lobby teems with startled staff rushing forward—an outpouring of hands and murmured urgency to cradle the fragile spark he clutches like hope itself.

Immediately, the hospital convulses. A nurse’s stethoscope tumbles from her neck with a clatter; a doctor vaults off a stool, coat flaring in his wake. Phones spring to life in a chorus of ring—ring—ring—as receptionists snatch them up, muffled voices crackling orders into headsets. The night security guard snaps his flashlight on, its beam darting over white coats and stray charts, carving the chaos into sharp relief. Monitors in the hallway flicker awake, their beeps staccato like a premature heartbeat demanding attention. A cart laden with supplies screeches to a halt, its wheels protesting against the sudden uproar. Every eye snaps to the intruder and the fragile cargo in his arms, and for the smallest fraction of time, the hospital holds its breath.

“Someone take her and help me! Don’t just fucking stare at me!” The builder’s voice cracks the sterile air like a detonator. He thrusts the yellow bundle toward a nearby nurse, panic flooding every word. The towel’s sunflower hue is grim with smoke and old blood, its edges ragged as if it might tear itself apart. The nurse snaps her eyes to the stretcher she’s just set up, hands already clipping on oxygen tubing and flicking through pages on her tablet. Without missing a beat she shakes her head. “I’m prepping the warmer and paging the on-call peds resident,” she says, voice taut with urgency. She glances over your way, scanning the lobby’s swirl of white coats and badge-clad silhouettes. “Give the baby to her—she’s the only doctor here.”

You stand rooted to the spot, scrubs the soft blue of a dawn sky still half-lost in night, badge dangling like a distant star you can’t quite reach. Your heart thunders in your ears, an eclipse of nerves darkening every thought. You’ve never felt time stretch this thin—no coffee yet, no chart opened, not even a chance to sober your hands. This is your first day and now a baby rests in your arms, a living flicker against your chest, and your limbs betray you with tremors you can’t quite silence. When the towel slides into your grasp, you realize you don’t even know how to hold a child, but your arms fold around her anyway. She weighs nothing, yet feels too alive: a cradle of warmth that threatens to melt your knuckles. You lean in, breath hitching at the sharp scent of smoke and the faint trace of antiseptic that lingers on her skin. You can almost taste the promise of sunrise in her every shallow breath, as if she carries her own constellation within.

Your mind scrambles for protocols—airway, breathing, circulation—but the moment her cheek brushes your scrub top, a galaxy of instinct blossoms in your chest. The yellow towel’s threadbare softness presses against your sternum like a dying sunbeam desperate to flare back to life. Your hands remember lullabies you’ve never sung, memories whispered from every mother you’ve ever met, echoing beneath ribs that ache to protect. All around you, the lobby erupts into motion. A crash of metal carts, the hiss of regulators, nurses lunging for blankets, techs dashing for monitors. Lights flicker overhead like warning flares. The baby wheezes—a single cracked note that twists itself into your bones. You swallow against the tide of panic, arms tightening as if to shield her from the storm.

The infant in your arms is icily still—her breath a ghost you can’t catch, her fragile body wrapped in a yellow towel that feels too small for her sorrow. All you hear is your own blood roaring in your ears like a siren, drowning out the sterile hum of the corridor lights and the distant echoes of life beyond these walls. You want to cry out for help, to shatter the hush with a plea for mercy, but terror has locked your tongue. Time stretches thin around you, and in that frozen moment, you realize you’re holding hope itself on the brink of snuffing out.

That moment catapults you into your true arc with poetic brutality. You arrived here chasing ivory-tower dreams of perfect diagnoses and tidy case studies, only to have the universe fling its most abandoned bloom—an angel wrapped in a rooftop’s yellow towel—into the soil of your life. She is a wounded sunflower, petals scorched by midnight winds, a silent ballerina whose first pirouette was a gasp for breath. Cradling her fragile form feels like holding sunlight in your palms just as it threatens to flicker out. Your chest tightens at the tremor of her heartbeat, a single petal trembling against the taut wire of life. 

At your side, the nurse’s voice cuts through the haze like a scalpel: “Warm her—now! Why are you just staring at her? You think staring will save a life?” Your chest jams with ice, and for a heartbeat you can’t move. Your scrubs are as light-blue as first breath, a hue born of dawn’s quiet promise and the soft hush of wings folded against night. Under the hospital’s relentless neon, they gleam like a sacred pledge, an unspoken pact of care drawn across your shoulders. And pressed against your chest, the yellow towel, threadbare as heirloom lace, hovers between you and the infant, its frayed strands whispering of bloodlines and lullabies, a golden umbilicus tying you to a family you have yet to meet.

Your legs tremble as the nurse’s voice cracks like a whip: “Doctor, move! We need to get her onto the warmer now!” Another shouts, “Get the oxygen hooked up—why are you just standing there?” Their commands ricochet off the blue-tiled walls, each syllable a jolt demanding action. But you’re frozen, caught between the light-blue promise of your scrubs, soft as a dawn-tinted sky, and the fierce gold of the towel wrapped around the child’s ribs. Your breath hitches, and for a moment the world narrows to the glint in the infant’s dew-beaded lashes. You feel every thread of that yellow cloth pressing questions against your own heart: Can you save her? Do you know what life demands? The corridor pulses with urgency, nurses and doctors rushing past, stethoscopes flying to necks, hands outstretched, but you can’t step forward. Your feet are anchors, your mind a haze of protocols you’ve only ever practiced on oranges.

You’re poised to step forward, gloves half-donned, mind racing through every textbook procedure you’ve memorized: neonatal resuscitation, airway management, thermoregulation protocols but before you can move, he crashes into the bay, steps forward like a storm, coat tails flicking as he towers over the incubator’s glow. His jaw is set, collar undone just enough to reveal the pale hollow of his throat, and when he raises one sculpted eyebrow, the fluorescent light catches the gold flecks in his gaze. burning impatience and a fierce focus only the smallest patients ever earn. The air crackles as he murmurs to her, soft, urgent, entirely separate from the iron edge in his voice when he turns to you: “Move.” His command is a heated blade through the tension, and you feel every molecule of the room shift toward his magnetic intensity. Without a word, he strips the yellow towel from your trembling arms and transfers the baby to his sternum, his fingers deft as a pianist’s. 

He snaps on the thermal mattress, its surface hissing to life, then clips pulse-ox probes to each tiny fingertip as if tuning a fragile instrument. With a surgeon’s precision, he pinches an oral airway into place, then leans in close to flick open the ventilator’s valve and watch her chest lift under warm, measured breaths. “Warm fluids, two hundred milliliters—now!” he bellows, voice sharp enough to carve through your hesitation. He slaps a saline lock into the vein at her wrist, the line flooding with gold-tinted fluid, and slams the lab orders: blood cultures, ABG, CBC, lactate—stat. All the while, his gaze flicks back to you, disbelief curling in the corners of his mouth. “You just stood there,” he hisses, “frozen, while she was on the edge of nothing. Do you have any idea what you almost lost?” His every movement is a masterclass in emergency care, each command a reminder of how life-and-death hinges on action, not hesitation.

He leans in as he murmurs his running critique—pathetic, frozen, useless—and you feel the heat of his presence, a charged current between you. Your heart staggers; the monitors bleat in protest at her mounting fragility. You see the doubt in his eyes and taste it on the antiseptic breeze. All at once you remember the long nights you spent mastering intubations on mannequins, the surgical workshops, the dean’s list, the scholarships won. But none of that keeps your feet from quaking. In the hush that follows his scorn, you realize you’re not just fighting for her life—you’re fighting to prove you deserve this place at all.

𝐅𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐒 𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐄𝐑

You wake in the half-blue hush before dawn, the world beyond your window still folded in sleep, yet your heart pounds like a tiny drum in your chest. There is no blaring alarm, your body rises at precisely 5:00 AM because it knows this hour is sacred. Your feet click on the hardwood floor, each step deliberate, as though you’re crossing an invisible threshold from starlight into purpose. In this fragile pre-dawn light, the air tastes cool and new, and every breath you take feels like an invitation to honor the dream you’ve carried since infancy.

Light seeps along the edge of your bed, illuminating the corner where your immaculate white lab coat hangs on a smooth wooden hanger. Your hospital ID is already clipped to the belt of your rolling bag, standing ready before you are. On the counter, a single nutrition bar rests beside the kettle—m, fuel portioned and packed, its wrapper folded with mathematical precision. On the fridge door, a checklist in three bands of ink, black for logistics, blue for gear, red for “don’t forget to breathe”—serves as your guiding star. Your handwriting is small and precise; the final red box gleams like a tiny victory, the last promise you’ll keep today.

You tap your phone and the first notes of soft piano drift through the room, not to soothe, but to sharpen. This exact soundtrack carried you through pediatric finals, each arpeggio anchoring your frayed nerves to one clear thought: remember how to save them. As the chords weave through the air, without thinking, you recite the entire abstract of last month’s ‘Pediatric Critical Care Review,’ every statistic on neonatal hypothermia, every margin note you penciled at 2 AM when the world was dark and your desk lamp burned like a beacon. You can still see the graph of glucose curves etched on page 37 as clearly as the sunrise outside your window. Your fingers trace the invisible text in midair, recalling exact phrasing—“Maintain core temperature above 36.5 °C to reduce morbidity”—while you pack your bag. Each line you’ve studied in the early mornings, each protocol you’ve annotated in the margins, lives in your mind like a living document, ready to be summoned the instant a monitor alarms.

Finally, you don your scrubs, buttoning the left sleeve first, always left, then right, as though you’re donning armor. The pale-blue fabric settles over your shoulders like second skin, echoing the dawn’s first light. You smooth each crease with the careful touch of someone who understands that precision matters. When you clip your badge over your heart, the weight of every life you’ve vowed to protect settles on your chest. Today, you step into the hospital not as a student, but as a doctor, every movement calibrated, every breath an affirmation: I am ready.

You lace up your shoes and whisper the names of children you’ve yet to meet, each syllable a vow. Even in this quiet moment, you imagine their fragile pulses, their tiny chests quivering with first breaths. Every child who crosses these hospital thresholds becomes your responsibility before you even set foot in the lobby, your mind already dancing through protocols for hypothermia, IV access, neonatal resuscitation. Your bag waits by the door like a silent partner in your promise. You pack trauma shears with the precision of a surgeon sizing scalpels, stash glucose tablets for the hypoglycaemic shocks you know will come, and tuck in two pens—black and blue—because you’ve learned the hard way that someone will always “borrow” a pen and never return it. Beneath these practical tools lies an old Polaroid: you as a toddler swaddled in a hospital blanket, your aunt in pink scrubs cradling you. You trace her smiling face, remembering the warmth of those arms, the first promise of healing you ever felt.

Your own story begins under fluorescent warmth and humming machines. You came screaming into the world six weeks before your time, so tiny that the nurses whispered you might not make it, and for six long weeks your body lived inside an incubator’s glass cradle while your mother teetered on the edge of death. That first fight for breath isn’t just a story you tell, it’s a drumbeat in your blood, a reminder that survival is your inheritance. You tell people you chose medicine, but late at night, when your hands tremble from fatigue and the memory of that incubator’s hum floods your mind, you wonder if medicine chose you, whether your destiny was written in those first fragile gasps you fought so fiercely to draw.

You grew up above a corner pharmacy, where your father’s night-shift rotas overlapped with your mother’s frantic mornings. She braided your hair with strips of medical tape when she ran late, and the apartment smelled of iodine and printer paper, lingering behind everything else. Vitamin chews clinked in your lunchbox alongside your carefully folded anatomy flashcards. That was your world: a tapestry of care, urgency, and the quiet hum of possibility. At six, you sat in the back of Sunday school and taught yourself the names of every bone in the human body. By nine, you’d copied your aunt’s anatomy textbook in gel pens, color-coded and margin-annotated. At thirteen, you watched a friend’s brother die because the ambulance arrived too late, his small body still as broken glass. You vowed then you’d never freeze in the face of panic. That memory sits behind your eyes whenever you hear a code pink.

High school found you in the library stacks, head buried in journals on pediatric trauma, your fingers tracing graphs of survival rates. In undergrad, you lived in labs, pipetting DNA sequences and charting cell cultures. In medical school, you balanced on the razor’s edge between obsession and burnout, refusing to quit, refusing to lose. You weren’t the top scorer, but you were the most relentless: the kind who redid an entire cardiac physiology paper at 3 AM because you spotted a miscalculation in your own footnote. Now, standing in your apartment’s pale dawn, you feel the weight of every textbook you’ve memorized, every protocol you’ve rehearsed until muscle memory turns to instinct. You carry the echo of incubator alarms in your marrow and a photographic library of neonatal charts in your mind. You know the curve of a glucose tolerance graph as intimately as the back of your own hand.

You moved through the med school like a specter in lecture halls, your pen a metronome across slides of metabolic pathways and embryonic layers. While classmates whispered study tips, you traced the Krebs cycle in the margins of your notebook until you could recite each enzyme without a second’s hesitation. Professors nicknamed you “the shadow” because you spoke only when your insight upended a diagnosis, like noting that a “benign” rash matched the pattern of early neonatal lupus, yet your silence held the heft of every nuance you’d catalogued. In the simulation lab, you learned to wield theory as a scalpel. Mannequins exhaled preprogrammed distress, and your fingers danced through ACLS algorithms: airway first, then breathing, then circulation. You navigated high-fidelity code blues so many times that the crash cart felt like home. When you finally watched a real thoracotomy—your first true encounter with surgery’s raw geometry—your vision swam and the cool scrub sink rushed up to meet you. You fainted against the porcelain witness. You cried. By sunrise, you were back, describing every step of the posterolateral approach in flawless detail, your attending’s praise was a quiet redemption of last night’s tremor.

On clinical rotations, you discovered that medicine lives between theory and human connection. You found yourself leaning close to frail patients—your palm a bridge between stethoscope and story—learning that it isn’t a perfect chart or a flawless procedure they remember, but the way you met their gaze when fear trembled in their eyes. You practiced explaining CPAP pressure settings in plain language, watching relief bloom on anxious faces more vividly than any pharmacologic promise. In your pediatric clerkship, the line between textbook and tragedy blurred irrevocably. You watched a fragile preemie slip away despite surfactant, fluids, and dopamine—the resident’s hands moving faster than your heart could catch up. You didn’t perform the procedures, but you felt each failure as though you’d held the ambu bag yourself. For an entire week you spoke only in data points, until you scrawled his name on a tiny Post-it in your phone: Lin, 28 weeks. Not punishment, but a covenant: every protocol memorized, every simulation repeated, every sunrise you’d welcomed would be in his honor—and in honor of every life you refused to let slip through the seam of preparedness and compassion.

The ride into the city feels shorter than it should—five stops of the elevated train, steel wheels screeching like a tuning fork whose pitch only your nerves can hear. You step onto the platform just as sunrise ignites the skyline, and there it is: Hwarang Medical Center, a cascade of glass and brushed titanium that gleams like a freshly autoclaved scalpel. You’ve dreamed of this façade since childhood, since evenings when your aunt returned from night duty still smelling faintly of isopropyl and lavender hand soap, telling stories about miracle codes and impossible saves. Even then, you memorized the hospital’s silhouette the way other children memorize constellations, certain that one day you would trace those lines from the inside.

Crossing the plaza, you step past a bank of security turnstiles, your badge swiping against the scanner’s soft green glow before a quiet click grants you passage. Uniformed officers stand sentinel in glassed alcoves. shoulders squared, eyes flicking between screens that cascade live feeds from cameras tucked into every corner. Doors hum shut behind you, their magnetic seals snapping like vault gates, and you realize every corridor is a secured zone, every elevator ride tracked by log-ins and time stamps. It feels less like a hospital and more like a citadel of care, where the most precious cargo, human life, moves under watchful guard, shielded from chaos by this silent network of vigilance.

The main entrance rises in tiers of transparent panels, each etched with microscopic text. quotes from pioneers of medicine in six languages, so that morning light fractures into prismatic lines across the marble. A brass plaque by the revolving door lists accolades like battle honors: Ranked #1 in trauma outcomes eight consecutive years; first in the nation to perform whole-organ 3-D–printed tracheal transplants; Level-I pediatric burn center with a ninety-eight percent survival rate. Your pulse skitters in your throat. This is the arena that minted Huang Renjun, the cardiothoracic prodigy whose single-incision valve repairs rewrote surgical textbooks. It’s the same place your aunt once led RRTs as charge nurse, her quiet efficiency now woven into the corridors’ muscle memory. It’s also home to Kim Jungwoo, director of neurovascular surgery, whose fingertip-precise bypasses rescued strokes once deemed untreatable; Sim Jaeyun, head of pediatric oncology, who pioneered immunotherapy protocols that turned childhood leukemias from death sentences into chronic manageable diseases; and Park Sunghoon, the trauma bay’s iron-nerved architect, whose mastery of damage-control surgery has pushed survival rates in multi-system trauma beyond anything the country thought possible. Each name is a legend here, each specialty a testament to the brilliance you’re about to join.

Inside, the lobby dwarfs every lecture hall you’ve ever occupied. Twin atria vault six stories high, latticed with sky bridges that float like glass arteries, moving white coats in continuous circulation. Beneath your shoes, Italian travertine gleams warm and bone-smooth, inlaid with brass lines that guide patient flow the way conduction fibers guide an impulse through the myocardium. Ahead, a cylindrical elevator bank rises like a transparent column of light, capsules zipping up to specialized wings: Burn & Reconstructive (5), Transplant ICU (6), Neurointervention Suites (7), Robotic OR Theater (9-11), and the crown—SkyGarden Pediatric Pavilion (roof), where therapy dogs and botanists coax children toward photosynthesis.

You pause near an interactive directory whose screen blossoms at your approach, offering a topographic map of the hospital’s sixteen clinical floors. There is an entire wing devoted to hybrid endovascular labs; another to regenerative medicine where scaffold bioprinters hum day and night. The trauma bay boasts negative-pressure resus rooms lined with high-speed CT gantries; the helipad above is floodlit with amber LEDs, capable of receiving rotorcraft in zero-visibility snow. A scrolling sidebar lists more than a dozen Centers of Excellence, from the Hwarang Fetal Surgery Institute to the Comprehensive Craniofacial Program, each a citadel of expertise you once outlined on index cards now yellowed with time.

A security badge check later, you enter the staff concourse: vaulted ceiling, acoustic panels shaped like DNA helices, and a living moss wall irrigated by recycled condensate. The smell hits you—clean vinyl, hand sanitizer sharp as gin, and something faintly floral that the environmental services team diffuses to keep visitor cortisol low. Every few steps, touchscreens bloom with patient metrics, lab values updating in real time like stock tickers, and digital wayfinding arrows shift to account for foot-traffic density. You glimpse a cluster of white coats around a stainless-steel coffee kiosk; at its center stands Dr. Huang himself, unmistakable even from behind: spine ruler-straight, silver-lined temples, discussing mitral valve chordae as casually as weekend weather.

You find the bank of elevators reserved for trainees, color-coded blue the shade of pre-dawn scrubs. and scan your provisional badge. As the doors close, you catch your reflection: wide eyes, pulse bobbing at your throat, yet posture squared by years of 3 AM anatomy sessions and cadaver labs that smelled of formalin and determination. You recall how, during med school, professors called you quiet but with good instincts, first to flag a silent anastomotic leak during rounds. Those same nights you’d fallen asleep propped against library stacks, cardiology atlases open like wings. All of that has brought you here, into a lift that hums like a tuning fork, carrying you toward the intern locker room on ‘Level 3 Graduate Medical Flood.’

The doors part onto a corridor paneled in light-oak veneer. Digital plaques list each residency track: Surgery, Trauma & Critical Care, Neuroscience and Pediatric Surgery—yours. Your palms prickle with sweat that smells faintly of latex gloves, and you think of your aunt again, her mantra echoing: Chart with your ears, treat with your heart, cut with your mind. You run through your mental library: neonatal sepsis pathways, pediatric burn fluid formulas, the Parkland equation singing in the back of your skull. Each fact unspools in perfect order, ready to bear the weight of real blood, real time limits. Before you push open the locker-room door, you glance through a side window at the main corridor. Nurses glide in teal uniforms, residents in jewel-toned caps flash past, and a transport team wheels a bassinet with an ECMO pump rhythmic as a lullaby. Your breath catches: this is the heartbeat you have followed since childhood, siphoned through bedtime stories of miracle codes. Today, at last, you aren’t an eavesdropper outside the ICU glass—you’re part of the rhythm. You square your shoulders, tug the strap of your bag, and let the door swing wide into the noise of possibility.

The operating room feels charged, as if every light, every tray of polished instruments, is holding its breath in anticipation. Beneath the constellation of overhead lamps, you and twenty of your new colleagues, six of you women, stand in a rough semicircle around the steel altar. You were chosen from over half a million hopefuls; the plan was to take twenty, but the board, including Dr. Baekhyun himself, couldn’t resist adding one more exceptional applicant. Today, you carry not only your own hopes but the gratitude of every life that might depend on your hands. Dr. Byun Baekhyun enters without fanfare, his crisp coat billowing behind him like a banner. He pauses in the center, scanning each face with eyes that have borne witness to miracles and heartbreak in equal measure. The click of his shoes on tile is steady as a metronome, measuring out the seconds before he speaks.

Dr. Byun Baekhyun, the undisputed titan of Hwarang Medical Center’s surgical wing, needs no introduction—yet here it is. A general surgeon by training, he spearheaded the first single-incision pancreaticoduodenectomy in the country, slashing average recovery times in half and rewriting textbooks in the process. He holds dual fellowships in trauma and transplant surgery, has published over two hundred peer-reviewed articles, and lectures annually at the World Surgical Congress. Twice awarded the National Medal for Clinical Innovation, he’s saved lives on every continent, from disaster zones in Southeast Asia to conflict hospitals in Eastern Europe. His name is spoken in reverent tones by nurses and whispered with awe by residents. “Each of you comes here hopeful,” he begins, voice measured but carrying to the furthest corner of the room. “A month ago, you were med students—learning how to suture, how to soothe, how to stand in the wings.” He lifts a scalpel, letting the blade catch the light. “Today, you are the surgeons. You’re here because, from over five hundred thousand applicants, only twenty-one were deemed worthy. You carry the board’s vote of confidence, an extra slot granted only because one of you simply couldn’t be left behind.”

He paces slowly, gloved fingertips brushing retractors as if greeting old friends. “This hospital is not a place for comfort,” he continues, “but it is a place for transformation. We are a teaching hospital—where even the greatest among us learned to bend and break before we found our edge. You will be pushed beyond anything you’ve imagined: through fatigue, through fear, through days when you wonder if you can take another step. But you will not walk these corridors alone.” He stops, gaze locking on each of you in turn. “Look to your left, then to your right. These are your surgical family. Eight of you will switch to easier specialties, five of you will crack under the pressure, two of you will be asked to leave. And the rest—if you endure—will become the doctors who save lives, who teach others in turn, who carry forward the legacy of this place.”

He lowers the scalpel and folds his arms. “Patients don’t remember your fatigue. Families don’t remember your doubts. They remember results—and they remember how you met their gaze when their world was falling apart. Your job is to learn—quietly, precisely, relentlessly. When you are the ones bleeding in the OR, your team will be the reason you stand.” His voice softens just enough to hint at the kinship he expects you to forge. “This is your crucible, yes, but also your community. Here, brilliance meets humanity. Here, mentors carve champions from raw potential. Here, you will laugh when relief arrives, and you will weep beside one another when it does not.” He steps back, the fluorescent glow catching the fine lines at the corners of his eyes. “This is day one of the best—and worst—seven years of your life. This is your arena. How well you play is up to you. Dismissed.” In the sudden stillness that follows, you feel every fiber of the room resonate with possibility, and with the unspoken promise that you will carry each other through whatever comes next.

Dr. Byun lowers his gaze, sweeping the circle of interns one last time. The humming lights catch the silver in his eyes as he delivers the final decree: “All interns, report to the Commons on Level 3. Wait there until your resident calls your name, don’t wander off.” His voice, cool and unwavering, hangs in the antiseptic air like a benediction. And with that, the surgical cathedral falls silent, your directive sealed beneath that final, unyielding command.

You step through the swinging doors into a gentle hush, the polished floors and sheer glass walls dissolving the world behind you until it feels bathed in quiet light—like crossing into a sanctuary built of careful hands and whispered prayers. Yet before you’ve fully taken in the brightness, something stirs at the edge of your awareness: the soft glide of a nurse passing by, her hair coiled into a halo of midnight, and for a moment you’re elsewhere—in your aunt’s old ward, where fluorescent lamps hummed lullabies and your small hand curled around her scrub pocket for a hidden peppermint. The faint tang of antiseptic lingers in the air, edged with lemon and memory, and without conscious thought your feet drift toward that phantom corridor you haven’t walked in years, drawn by the echo of every step you once took under kinder lights.

You inhale that scent like a prayer, letting it carry you back to afternoons when you dawdled behind your aunt in those very halls—her laughter soft and knowing as she steered you away from the bleak corners, her fingers brushing yours to steady you when the overhead lights felt too bright. You remember her voice, calm as warm broth, reading your scraped knee like it was the most important case in the world. You remember how she’d press a cool gauze pad to your tears, whispering, “Bravery doesn’t mean you don’t cry; it means you keep going.”

In your mind’s eye, she stands at the nurses’ station, sleeves rolled up, her badge catching the fluorescent gleam. You’d perch on a stool beside her, entranced by the rhythm of her rounds—the soft shush of charts, the rustle of stock orders, the gentle hum of equipment—each sound a note in the melody that taught you medicine was both precision and grace. She’d show you how to fold bandages into neat little packets, how to say “hello” to a frightened child so they might believe the hospital was a place of healing, not harm.

You drift, chest tightening with that curious ache of wonder you’ve always carried. In childhood, large supermarkets were your secret palaces, aisles echoing with the music of overhead piped-in pianos and rows of oranges glowing like miniature suns. Back then, you’d weave between carts, fingertips grazing fruit, unafraid and marveling at unexpected miracles tucked into every corner. Now, that same instinct pulls you away from the clustered interns, drawing you toward the soft murmur of a distant HVAC grate, toward the invisible pulse of this hospital’s heart. You press your palm flat against the cool wall because you have to listen, you have to feel. The concrete hums beneath your fingertips, a private lullaby of ventilators and IV pumps, each beat a reminder that you belong to something far larger than the rigid schedules and locked-down protocols.

By the time you blink free of the memory, the Commons is empty. The high-backed stools stand forlorn around the central table. Dr. Byun’s voice has faded to a distant echo, replaced by the slow drip of a broken faucet somewhere down the hall and the soft whirr of an unattended air vent. Panic flares across your collarbones. You spin on the balls of your feet: no fellow interns to guide you back, no whisper of a displaced co-worker. You are entirely, achingly alone in the labyrinth. Your heart hammers as you realize your error, but there’s no shame in the twitch of relief when you catch a sliver of yellow light from the emergency wing ahead, a hint of what pulled you here in the first place. You step toward it, each footfall echoing down the corridor like footsteps in an empty cathedral. And though the Commons called your name for orientation, this pulse — this luminous thrum beneath your palm, this radiant promise of small life waiting in the shadows — has claimed you instead.

You straighten your spine and breathe deep, tasting the hospital’s electric charge on your tongue. It’s not lostness; it’s a summons. Every nerve in your body hums with the recognition that this is where you’re meant to be — even if it means straying from the path you thought was laid for you. As the yellow beacon ahead shifts into view, you realize you’ve already begun your true orientation. Welcome to the pulse of Hwarang.

You stand beneath the fluorescent hum as thunder mutters through the hospital’s steel spine, a low rumble that shakes the windows like distant drums. Outside, rain lashes the glass façade in staccato sheets, each droplet a metallic tattoo against the building’s skin. Inside, the air tastes of sharpened antiseptic and cooling vents, tremoring in your chest like the hush before the tide breaks. A flicker of the lights ripples overhead—once, twice—casting the corridor into momentary darkness before they blaze back to life, revealing walls that gleam like pillars in a storm-forged cathedral. Your hand tightens on your badge, its weight suddenly thunderous against your palm, and you breathe in the electric charge that threads between the lights. Somewhere beyond these doors, a wave of chaos gathers—an unseen tide of alarms and footsteps soon to crash through this quiet. For a heartbeat, you stand poised at the eye of it all, every nerve alive with the anticipation of disaster, every breath a promise that you’ll meet the coming storm.

The peace fractures in an instant. A heavy thud echoes from beyond the frosted doors—a single, urgent heartbeat in the corridor’s quiet. You pivot, heart hammering, as the light ahead shivers and warps, a yellow beacon bending into a warning. In the slit of vision beneath the door, a figure bursts through: a construction worker, rain still pooling on his shoulders, face creased with desperation. Clutched to his chest is something small, so still that for a moment you think it’s a kit of instruments. Then the yellow towel shifts, and your breath stutters.

“Please—someone help her! Don’t just stand there!” His voice splinters the air, raw and ragged as a wounded bird’s cry. You step forward, adrenaline uncoiling in your veins, but your feet lock as the hallway snaps into hyperdrive. Monitors scream to life in adjacent rooms, a metal cart screeches around the corner, and the crisp click of a stethoscope being snatched by a nurse falls like thunder. She’s already two steps ahead, gloved fingers tracing the baby’s lines, prepping the portable warmer with an efficiency born of countless nights just like this. You watch her rhythm—warm fluid, oxygen mask, suction device—each motion precise as a surgeon’s, each breath a direction in a frantic ballet.

“Prepare the portable warmer. Page pediatrics—now!” Her voice is tight, a taut wire cutting through panic. You feel her rigor lock the chaos into a grid of purpose. Then she fixes you with a glare sharper than any scalpel. “Give her to the doctor!” she commands, pointing at you with a force that leaves no room for doubt. The world tilts; you’re the only one in doctor scrubs, you’re barely sixty minutes into your first shift, but every eye snaps to you as though your very name is written across your chest.

In that breath-held instant, her chest lifts—a tremor so slight it could be mistaken for a ghost’s whisper—yet to you it blazes like the heart of a lone sunflower straining up through midnight soil, petals of life unfurling against the weight of oblivion. You feel her fragile warmth press into your sternum, a single ray of molten gold caught in human form, and every fiber of your being fractures between awe and terror. Your arms tremble as though they hold the last sliver of sunrise, every heartbeat in her tiny wrist echoing your own, begging you not to drop that sliver into darkness. Protocol screams in your mind—call for help, clamp the line, secure the airway—but your bones remember a simpler truth, older than manuals: hold her close, shield her from the dying light. And so you stand frozen, soul caught between the dying day and the promise of dawn, cradling a single spark that refuses to be snuffed.

Behind you, the nurse’s steps recede as she rounds up the team, residents, orderlies, respiratory techs, while you stand at the epicenter of this trembling moment, heart echoing in your ears like a cymbal crash. You glance down at her, at the tiny curve of her hairline, the faint crease where the towel presses, the drop of condensation on her eyelash shimmering gold in the glare. “You’re okay,” you murmur, voice trembling with awe and fear, “you’re okay.” And in that whisper, the corridor holds its breath, the hospital’s pulse slows to match yours, and you realize you’ve just become the keeper of her light.

Time dilates around you, the corridor’s fluorescent hum stretching into a low, relentless drone as the baby’s feeble heartbeat flickers against the soft yellow blanket in your arms like a dying neon sign in a rainstorm. You clutch her closer, weight and warmth fused into a single, trembling beam of light. sunflower-gold in your memory, yet you cannot move. Your muscles have locked into a statue’s stillness, every command you ever learned buried beneath the tidal pulse of terror that surges through your veins. Somewhere behind you, distant alarms begin to pound like warning drums, but you remain motionless, locked in the gravity of her need. It’s only when a voice splits the haze—sharp as a scalpel’s edge—that the moment fractures and you remember how to breathe.

You stand rooted to the spot, breath lodged in your throat, as if the world has tilted on its axis and left you dangling between heartbeat and collapse. The baby in your arms murmurs a single, tentative sigh, a sunflower seed cracking open in winter, and you realize you’ve been holding her too tightly, as though you could squeeze life back into her. Your mind races through every neonatal protocol you’ve memorized, but your body remains a statue of shock and awe. “Give her to me! Why are you just standing there?” The command cuts through the corridor’s drone like a thunderbolt. You flinch, clutching the yellow blanket as though it might shield you from both his rage and the hospital lights. It takes a moment—two, maybe three heartbeats—before your limbs remember their purpose. You step back, paling, and hold out the baby like an offering.

When his hands close around her, it’s not the fierce snap of authority you expect but a gentle cradle, as if her fragility has carved tenderness into his fingertips. You glance up, and there he is: Dr. Na Jaemin, the name you’ve only ever seen etched in journal mastheads, now carved in living flesh before you. His hair is streaked with silver at the temples, as though lightning once struck a single promise into him; his cheekbones catch the harsh lights in angled planes of shadow and steel. His gaze, storm-wracked and luminous, sweeps you once, the flicker of recognition in his eyes softening them for a heartbeat, before it contracts back into the command of a man who has known hunger, fear, and hope in equal measure. You watch, breath returning in uneven gusts, as he settles the baby onto your shared station: a counter of stainless steel that glints like a mirror catching sunbeams. He checks her pulse, two fingers pressed to the curve of her wrist, reading the rhythm as if it were a sunlit sonnet carved in Morse code. He leans in, eyes narrowing, and you see the faintest tremor in his jaw—something you’ve never seen in journals or at conferences—a tether of vulnerability when a life so delicate demands his full attention.

“Clear trauma bay,” he mutters under his breath, not loud enough for staff outside the sliding doors to hear, but as precise as any vital sign. “Get me warm NS at forty.” The nurse scurries at his side, syringe and tubing in perfect sync. Yet even in the ballet of urgency, he pauses, fingers brushing back a stray curl from the infant’s forehead in a movement as reverent as a benediction. It is a gesture you will replay in your mind for nights to come, a single sunbeam in a sky of surgical steel.

As monitors begin their urgent chorus, you take a trembling step back, hands still empty of her weight but full of tremulous relief. The baby’s chest rises again, a single petal unfolding in dawn’s first light. He catches your eye then, just for a flicker, and you are no longer the rookie who froze—you are the keeper of her spark. In that moment, amid the rush of alarms and whispered hierarchies, you understand the gravity of trust: he needed those long, pale arms to move. And though neither of you knows it yet, that shared heartbeat beneath the hum of fluorescent halo will bind you in ways no protocol ever could.

“If you’d hung like that for another second, she would’ve died.” His words strike like shards of ice, and you lift your gaze to him—his presence at once promise and warning, every line of his face etched by battles with life and death. Dr. Na Jaemin, renowned chief resident and pediatric surgeon, stands before you, his reputation whispered in reverent tones through every corridor. His features are a map of obsession and precision—high cheekbones angled like razor blades, eyes the color of storm-wracked skies, mouth set in a vow of steel. He moves with the fluid economy of someone who has saved lives by the count of hundreds, yet tonight he is two steps away, stretching out long-fingered hands that seem designed to cradle rather than cut. You’d read his CV: summa cum laude, fellowship in neonatal cardiac surgery, inaugural surgeon in the country to repair a hypoplastic heart via a single thoracotomy. You’d only ever seen him in blurred action shots on medical journals, an apparition in half-glove and surgical cap. And now, here he is—real, urgent, scolding you for a hesitation that almost cost her everything.

His voice is still a blade of authority: “Move her to the warmer. Now.” You stumble, cheeks flushing under stark lights that feel too bright, too public. As he works—tenting her fragile chest with warm hands, unleashing catheters and cameras, barking precise numerical orders, you shrink into yourself, remembering every cautious step you took to become a doctor, only to freeze at the moment that mattered most. Yet even as embarrassment chokes you, you’re vaguely aware of relief stirring: he’s here, the best healer of little babies in the entire country, and under the arc of his command, this tiny life might endure. In that pulse of shared focus—his surgical calm meeting your frantic need to atone—you glimpse the first shaky thread of a bond that will bind you together in ways you cannot yet imagine.

“Scrub in with me, now,” he snaps, voice sharp as steel. “There’s no one else around, and I don’t have time to wait for doctors to answer their pagers.” Your feet move before your mind can protest, carrying you into the storm at his heels as the corridor dissolves into a blur of urgency and light. The fluorescent world contracts into a narrow, lightning-bright path straight to the OR. He doesn’t wait to see if you follow. His focus fixes on the bundle cradled against his chest, on the frail clockwork pulse beating a countdown beneath the yellow towel. You catch only a glimpse of his profile—jaw set like carved steel, eyes narrowed into twin coals of urgency—and then you’re running, soles slapping vinyl, breath tearing raw lines down your throat.

Nurse Yuha arrives at your side with the precision of a metronome, her silver braid swinging against her scrub collar. She doesn’t pause for explanation. “Hold that door,” she instructs, keying the release on the magnetic latch. “We’ll transfer her under a blanket only. skip the overhead warmer, she can’t tolerate the heat spike. Set oxygen at twenty-five percent on the T-piece and have a self-inflating bag ready in case her saturation dips below eighty-five.” In the span of a heartbeat, she has armed an entire crash cart with suction tubing, endotracheal tubes, and emergency epinephrine, her every motion a lesson in crisis-born certainty, while your own hands still tremble with textbook promise.

The corridor transfigures into a warpath. Cabinets unlatch with a clatter as orderlies fling open drawers, metal carts thunder to life behind you, and overhead lights strobe in urgent crescendos. A voice crackles from the intercom: “Surgical team, egress to OR three—code neonatal!” Red-badged technicians materialize at your flanks, guiding backstanders out of the way with brisk nods. Jaemin runs, the corridor’s neon haze stretching before him, but his gaze stays welded to the fragile sunbeam cradled against his chest—a living shard of dawn he refuses to let slip away. His legs pump like pistons, heart thrumming in time with the baby’s faint pulse, every muscle coiled to shield that trembling light from the encroaching dark. In that instant, he becomes her living eclipse, channeling all his brilliance and fury into a single vow: he will save her, and he will keep her flame alive.

Inside the scrub bay, time dilates and pressure coagulates. You step before the sink—stainless steel reflecting your pale reflection—and bring your hands beneath the surgical soap, feeling the antiseptic burn like absolution. Mint-scented foam catches under your nails as you count your scrubs’ layered lather, each rotation a vow to shade fear with action. The dryer bellows above, gusting sterile warmth over your wrists until they still. Never again, you promise your trembling palms. Never again will you let hesitation eclipse a life. When your gloves snap on, Yuha stands sentinel at the door. Her gaze softens with hard-won kindness as she checks your doubled knots and tucked cap. “This is your first neonatal crunch,” she says quietly, voice steady as a mother’s heartbeat. “Don’t blink, breathe with her rhythm, ensure your reactions are quick. I’ll scrub in behind you.” She steps back into the blur of the corridor’s chaos, leaving only the echo of her calm to guide you.

The OR door slides open on a pneumatic sigh, white light flooding the threshold like judgement and mercy entwined. There, at the center of that brilliant glare, stands Dr. Na, silhouetted against the beam, clothed in the conviction of someone who has cut open sorrow and stitched it back together. In his arms, the sleeping infant trembles beneath the yellow blanket, her fragile life balanced on the precipice of steel and skill. As you cross into that cathedral of urgency, your heartbeat finds its counterpoint in the monitor’s beeps, and you feel the vow in your blood answer the call: you will not let her light extinguish tonight.

The overhead lights flicker to life, folding the operating room into a blinding cathedral of white. Instruments gleam on a stainless-steel tray like mirrors catching sunbeams—cold, clinical, and unforgiving. Dr. Na lays the infant on the warm drape of the surgical table with hands gentler than a prayer but firmer than any lullaby, positioning her as though she is the axis upon which the world must turn. You stand at the edge of the table, scrub-clad and heart pounding, watching the fragile curve of her ribs under the thin blanket, the ghost of a bruise pressed into her lip, and knowing this is the moment her story will be rewritten.

His voice cracks the hush: “Vitals.” You see the anesthetist lean in, listening to the faint flutter of her heartbeat, fingers poised on the pulse oximeter. Jaemin’s tone drops to a razor’s edge: “Clamp ready.” He doesn’t wait for confirmation, only the soft click of clamps sliding into position. “Suction prepped.” The scrub nurse moves with preternatural calm, her hands tracing the tubing like a practiced ballet. Then Dr. Na turns to you with a single, precise question: “Tell me what we know.”

Nurse Yuha’s voice comes steady, factual as a ledger: “Jane Doe. Newborn, female. Estimated three to four days old. No identifying tags, no maternal notation. Found by construction personnel in the rooftop garden less than an hour ago. Social Services is on line two.” The words hang in the air like thunder before the storm, each syllable a testament to abandonment and desperation.

Dr. Na pauses, his eyes sweeping the infant’s pale skin as if reading a secret map. Her chest barely moves, each inhalation a battle. He dips two fingers to her ribs, pressing gently, and murmurs, almost to himself, “Miracle she’s still breathing.” His lips quirk in a shadow of bitter irony. “What kind of person leaves a child to die like this?” 

A nurse offers a soft counterpoint: “Perhaps they thought it was mercy.” He doesn’t answer; a single tic flickers at the corner of his jaw, and then, almost tenderly, he brushes a stray lock of hair from the baby’s forehead as though shielding a single sunbeam from the void.

Your voice quivers but holds as you begin the presentation, your eyes fixed on the bundle of yellow cloth and cyanotic skin. “Jane Doe, estimated three to four days old,” you recite, fighting to keep your tone clinical. “Presentation: cyanosis of lips and fingers, tachypnea at sixty breaths per minute, core temperature thirty-four point six, systolic pressure in the forties. Weight one point eight kilograms. Uneven tone, intermittent tremors, possible neonatal abstinence. Priority is resuscitation, then stabilization.”

Dr. Na nods once, expression carved from granite sorrow. He stands at the head of the table, gloved hands already spanning the infant’s skull and shoulders with impossible tenderness. A bead of sweat slips past his temple and vanishes into his mask. You continue, flipping the stat sheet with trembling fingers. “Labs on arrival: glucose twenty, oxygen saturation sixty-eight, arterial pH seven-point-one, severe acidosis. Heart rate two-ten and erratic. No record, no APGAR, no prenatal history—she’s a Jane Doe on the edge.”

Dr. Na’s jaw flexes; his eyes never leave the baby. “She hasn’t even cried yet,” he murmurs, more invocation than complaint. He settles the stethoscope dome against her chest, listening to the ragged symphony within. He moves with a gentle savagery: two fingers beneath her jaw, assessing airway; thumb stroking her sternum, measuring rise and fall. “We’re treating for exposure, possible sepsis, maybe pneumothorax,” he summarizes, voice low but certain. “If the tamponade's hiding under that cyanosis, we’ll see it on the first pass—scalpel.”

Nurse Yuha presses the instrument into his waiting hand, her touch light but unerring. Jaemin leans in close—so close you can see the soft tremor in his breath against her ear—his voice a low incantation of warmth. “Hold on, sunshine,” he murmurs, the words sliding through the air like silk, carrying an unfathomable gentleness that seems reserved for the smallest, most vulnerable among us. “It’s not your turn to leave.” In that moment, the quiet insistence of dawn coaxes petals open after the longest night. You watch as his calloused fingertips, so steady over a surgeon’s steel, curl protectively around her hooded form, and you understand how a man who wields a scalpel with unyielding resolve can also weave tenderness with a single whispered vow.

His blade splits her skin in a deliberate arc, an act of violence meant purely for rescue. Blood wells, dark and sluggish, and a hush falls over the room, as though everyone is praying in languages they’ve forgotten. You count her pulse aloud, one-one-five, one-one-seven, while Jaemin parts tissue to reveal a single, malformed vessel thrumming beneath. You feel the ground shift beneath your feet.

“Truncus,” he breathes, voice cracking as though the word itself tastes of sorrow. He pauses, hand hovering over her pale chest, and exhales a shuddering sigh that rattles the sterile air like distant thunder. His shoulders slump, and for a heartbeat, he carries the weight of every choice he’s made—every life he’s saved and every one he couldn’t—in the storm-gray hollows beneath his eyes. Then he straightens, resolve coiling through him like steel tempered in grief. “That’s why you’re blue.” His tone is softer now, braided with pity and fierce determination. He turns on his heel. “Page Cardiology. She needs a conduit, stat.” The room snaps back to action, but he remains a moment longer, chest heaving, as if he’s inhaled her pain into his own ribs. When no one moves fast enough, he snaps again, sharper, colder: “Conduit kit, ten-French Dacron—now!” 

You fetch it with numbed speed, hands no longer trembling because the work consumes the fear. Jaemin fashions the graft in silence, each precise motion a note in a lullaby only he can sing. When the new conduit seats against the miniature heart and oxygen saturation climbs past eighty-five, the monitor trills a fragile, hopeful melody. Jaemin closes his eyes. For the first time, you see his shoulders relax—just an inch—as if absorbing the weight he’s kept at bay. 

The minute the graft slips into place and the conduit’s synthetic fibers align with her trembling myocardium, the monitor’s pitch, once a dirge, arcs up into a fragile aria of hope. Jaemin exhales, a sound as heavy as night rain, and for a heartbeat you see his shoulders uncoil, the storm-gray hollows around his eyes softening just enough to reveal the toll this life has taken. But relief is a fickle thing in this room; he steadies himself against the rail, voice low and urgent.

“Get me blood cultures, stat,” he commands, gloved fist knocking rhythm against the stainless bench. “And draw a full panel — CBC, CMP, toxicology screen. I want an echo in ninety minutes, and MRI when she’s strong enough.” He pauses, turning to you with eyes that still burn with purpose. “Tell me what her pressures were pre-op,” he asks, tapping his pen against her chart as though scratching out every second of her suffering.

You glance at the scrawled numbers: systolic pressure in the forties, diastolic near the teens, acidosis marked at pH 7.1. Your voice catches before you offer, “Systolic forty-five, diastolic twelve. Her lactate was seven-point-four.” 

Dr. Na nods once, the rhythm of his approval as precise as sutures tightened to a single millimeter. “Good,” he says, softer now, but still carrying the weight of night. “You’re steady. Keep it that way.”

He crouches beside the table, fingers tracing the lines of her tiny sternum as though reading a map of every life she might lead. “This conduit is only stage one,” he breathes, voice almost a whisper, as if confessing a secret. “She’ll need a full repair once she’s six kilos, we’ll patch the VSD, replace this with a long-term conduit but she’s not there yet. Tonight, all we’ve done is give her tomorrow.”

Nurse Yuha steps in, laying down a fresh blanket of gauze. Dr. Na straightens, leaning into your ear with a gentleness that surprises your racing heart. “I’ll need you on sutures,” he murmurs. “This row, hand me the eight-zero Vicryl. I want perfect spacing, no tension.” You fetch the suture tray with hands now firm and sure, sliding the fine, violet thread into his palm. Each knot he ties is a promise, each snip of scissors a vow to keep her star burning. He sutures the incision shut, voice a frayed whisper. “She’s alive. Let’s keep it that way.” You nod, unable to speak past the burn in your throat. As he lifts her into the warmer for transfer, you see his thumb brush the soft rise of her cheek, a gesture so tender it hurts to witness. The room smells of iodine and newborn sweat, of danger deferred. She still hasn’t cried, but her tiny chest rises with steadier intent, and Jaemin’s quiet mantra follows her down the corridor like a prayer.

You wheel the transport isolette out of OR 3 just as dawn stains Hwarang’s eastern windows a hesitant pink. The corridor feels far too large for a life so fragile, every overhead lamp an unblinking witness. Your gloved hand steadies the acrylic shell while Nurse Yuha guides the ventilator cart, its hiss-and-click a metallic lullaby. Jaemin walks ahead, one fingertip pressed to the arterial line as though her pulse might vanish if he lets go. You watch the tentative rise of her chest and whisper the facts you never want to forget.

Cyanosis was the first map of her suffering—lips and fingertips bruised to twilight violet. Tachypnea followed, sixty breaths each minute, small desperate sips of air. Hypothermia curled around her limbs; the probe read thirty-four-point-six. Blood pressure languished at forty over fifteen. All of it explained beneath unforgiving lights when Jaemin opened her chest and found a single arterial trunk—truncus arteriosus—forcing oxygen-rich and oxygen-poor blood into lethal communion. He fixed what he could. Clamp, isolate, conduit: a Dacron lifeline sewn between heart and lung root. A small patch to redirect the river of dark blood. Dopamine coaxing her pressure upward, bicarbonate buffering the acid, epinephrine in sharp, life-snatching pulses. You intubated, set positive pressure, listened to her stiff lungs surrender to the machine’s rhythm. 

Now, as you slip into the hush of the NICU, Dr. Na eases the isolette beneath the radiant warmer. He speaks to her in a voice you’ve only heard in operating rooms—quiet, unwavering, the sound of a man who knows how thin the veil can be. “It’s not your turn to leave,” he murmurs while adjusting ventilator settings with deft fingers. The words settle over you like sunrise shifting through stained glass. He brushes the downy fuzz on her scalp—no gloves now, just skin to skin—and you see how this case has already built a home inside his sternum. “You want to stay, don’t you, Sunshine?” he whispers. She can’t yet cry, but her O₂ holds steady beneath the warmer’s halo.

You breathe in the sterile scent of warmed plastic and antiseptic and understand what you’ve learned: abandonment can be rewritten; a single artery can be bridged by silk thread and devotion; a surgeon’s fury can soften into a lullaby. You step back as the night-shift nurse clips new leads to tiny limbs, and the first full beam of morning spills across the tile—golden, trembling, alive. It pools on her blanket like a promise: borrowed tomorrow, delivered today.

You stand in the hush of the NICU, watching Jaemin’s hand glide across the baby’s cheek as her pulse steadies under his touch. The machines’ soft beeps blend with the hush of your own breath. Across the room, Nurse Yuha presses the social worker for answers, shoulders tense. You catch fragments of her voice: “She has no family, no one will claim her, she doesn’t even have a name. We can’t release her to foster care—she simply won’t survive outside our walls.” Your chest twists with heartbreak at the thought of her alone.

You slip toward the door, certain your presence is no longer needed, certain you’ve lost hours in the glow of that tiny life. Just as your scrubs brush the frame, a throat clears behind you—a tut, a cough, an “ahem” that freezes you in place. Your eyes narrow as you turn to see a stern figure framed by the doorway, arms folded beneath a crisp white coat, those storm-cloud eyes daring you to respond. You glance at her name badge and realize, with a jolt, that she’s your resident: Dr. Park Siyeon, the razor-sharp sentinel of these halls, whose very presence makes hospital protocols tremble. “Really,” she begins, voice measured but carrying the weight of thunder, “I’m impressed. Scrubbing into emergency surgery on day one, but missing your own orientation.” Her glare slices through you. “Do you think hospital rules don’t apply to you?”

Your mouth opens, then closes. You stammer, “I—I’m so sorry, Dr. Siyeon. I lost track of time, I didn’t even realise—”

She cuts you off with a lifted hand. “Save it. Eight hours of lectures, eight hours of simulation, and you skip all of it to play hero?” Her voice rises. “There are five rules to survive here. Do not assume your title makes you special.” She excludes no one as she turns to three figures behind her. You sweep your gaze across the trio, committing each face to memory in the split second before they do the same to you. To your left stands a woman with arms crossed and hair wound into a tight braid, lips pressed so thin they might slice wind, the name badge reads Kim Hyejin, intern; her eyes flick to you once, cool and assessing, like a hawk sizing up its prey. Beside her, another figure offers a softer contrast: Han Hayoung, cheeks faintly flushed, lip balm glinting under the harsh lights as she clutches a stack of color-coded notecards; her gentle smile blooms and retreats in equal measure, the sort of kindness that makes patients cling to her hand. And at the end, leaning casually against the lockers, is Kim Jihoon, three pens wobbling behind his ear as though daring gravity to interfere; he gives you a crooked, conspiratorial grin, brows lifting in an unspoken apology for the chaos you’re walking into. In that instant, you realize these are not just passing faces—they are your cohort, and for better or worse, your newfound family.

Siyeon points to the group. “You all heard me. We are a team, and today one of you decided to improvise.” Her tone softens just enough to cut deeper. “I didn’t name these rules for fun. I want you to repeat them back to me.”

Jihoon shuffles forward first, face coloring. “Never—never skip orientation?”

Siyeon raises an eyebrow. “That was rule one?”

Hyejin steps up next: “Answer every page at a run. That’s rule two.”

Hayoung swallows. “When you’re sleeping, don’t wake you up, unless the patient is dying… rule three.”

Siyeon nods. “Correct. Rule four?”

Your voice cracks as you speak: “Run labs, write orders, be on call every night until we drop.” A flicker of surprise ripples through the group, no one expected you to recite the rule verbatim but you swallow hard and meet their eyes, knowing you memorized Dr. Park Siyeon’s expectations in the hours before orientation. You were determined to be prepared, even as you got swept away by the emergent surgery. The hallway seems to hold its breath at your confession, and for the first time, you feel the weight of both your mistake and your resolve.

“Five,” Siyeon snaps. “When I move, you move.” Silence wraps around you all like a reprimand. Before you can respond, a sudden cry from the incubator draws Siyeon’s attention—and yours. The baby stirs, whiskers of light across her face as she wakes. You realize Jaemin has been standing in the doorway, arms folded, listening. At her whimper, he steps forward, voice low but firm: “Keep the shouting far from the NICU, there’s babies here.” Siyeon stiffens, then bows back into her stormy composure. She turns on her heel and strides away. Hyejin, Hayoung, Jihoon—and you—trail behind her, each footstep a promise to never wander so far from the path again. As the doors slide shut behind you, you feel a new responsibility settle in your bones: you belong here, with the rules, with the wonder, with the fight to keep this little sunbeam alive.

You slip into the wide intern corridor just as the frenzy of evening rounds softens into a gentle murmur. Along one wall, four examination beds have been commandeered as an impromptu lunch nook, mattresses folded back, brightly colored blankets thrown over the footrests, and pillows propped against the sterile vinyl for back support. Without ceremony, you all haul your trays onto the pale blue sheets and settle in a loose semicircle beneath the warm glow of the sconce lights. Instinct pulls you straight to the bed draped in that sunflower-yellow blanket. You tuck yourself beneath its folds, the fabric rising against your chest like a shield of warmth, and inhale its familiar softness until your heart un-tangles. Across from you, Hyejin unfolds her lunch with surgical precision, each triangular rice ball arranged like evidence on a tray, her fingers performing the same exact movements she’s practiced on cadavers, sheath of discipline around her calm intensity. 

At the next bed, Hayoung lifts a pastel binder and fans through her notes with the grace of a lullaby, her voice low and soothing as she recites patient protocols under her breath, tiny blossoms of care in every careful whisper. And Jihoon sprawls on his borrowed mattress, elbow propped on a stack of neon post-its, regaling them with half-improvised quizzes and goofy mnemonics that scatter laughter like confetti, each bright pen behind his ear a playful war trophy in this battlefield of medicine. Here, under the muted glow of the sconces, you breathe in relief as the yellow blanket’s warmth seeps into your bones, and for a moment, you let yourself believe you’re safe enough to rest, wrapped in sunshine, held by strangers turned kindred, ready to face whatever comes next.

Hayoung nudges you with an elbow, soft as a pillow. “Okay,” she says in her gentle voice, “we want every detail. How did ‘Sunshine’ end up in our arms?” Her eyes gleam with concern and excitement. 

Hyejin nudges her rice ball with a chopstick, eyebrows raised. “So what actually happened? Was there dramatic wind? Slow-motion hair flip? Because the nurses are all whispering that Dr. Na swooped in and saved a life.”

Jihoon leans forward, pen in hand, ready to annotate. “We were stuck in a four hour presentation whilst you scrubbed in with the Dr. Na, so don’t spare us the heroics.”

You take a breath, unwrap your sandwich, and begin: “It was just after dawn. A builder burst through with her wrapped in a yellow towel, almost pale as sun-bleached grass, crying one moment, still the next. I didn’t even realise she was a baby, I’ve never held something so small yet lifeless in my arms. I froze completely, I didn’t know what to do. Then Dr. Na appeared, he immediately got to work and ordered me to scrub in. We ran to OR 3, every second ticking off her life like a bomb.” You pause, spoon hovering. Hayoung gives you a gentle smile. “Keep going.”

You describe the incision that revealed a single arterial trunk, a heart born with one artery instead of two, and how Dr. Na, with that gentle fury he reserves for tiny patients, stitched in a Dacron conduit to split her blood streams. You recall the monitor’s alarms softening into hopeful chirps, that first soft tremor of relief in the room. Hyejin’s brows knit as she imagines the sacrifice it took. Jihoon whistled low, “Damn, that’s the work of legends.”

Nurse Yuha’s voice echoes in your memory: “She’s updating her own records now.” You smile, remembering how Yuha once teased you for devouring charts like they were candy.

Hayoung sighs. “I’m so proud of you,” she murmurs, cheeks pink.

Jihoon pats your shoulder. “You didn’t freeze, not where it counted.”

Hyejin leans back, expression softening for the first time that day. “You were born for this.”

You realize the corridor lights have dimmed as the sun sets outside. Four interns, four beds, one shared miracle. And in the hush of that makeshift lunchroom, you all carry a little more warmth than you did before—proof that even in a hospital’s cold corridors, sunlight can bloom in the shape of hope.

You sink into the folded yellow blanket, its sunflower-gold warmth spreading slowly from your shoulders down to your fingertips, and something inside you shifts. You glance around the makeshift lunch nook—Hayoung’s gentle smile as she tucks a stray lock behind her ear, Jihoon’s easy grin as he teases you about your first-day heroics, Hyejin’s rare, half-smile of approval—and realize these faces, once strangers, now feel as familiar as the soft grooves of your own palms. You don’t truly know them, yet you already sense this corridor, these borrowed beds, will be your home. You remember your aunt’s words echoing in your mind: “In hospitals, we bury our grief and plant our courage. The family you find here will choose you back.”

Flash forward a month, and you’re piling suitcases into an apartment just off the hospital grounds, peeling open takeout containers on a wobbly coffee table. The living room walls are too bright, the furniture a mismatched tapestry of thrift-store finds, but it’s yours—yours and theirs. Hayoung hangs fairy lights above the couch and brews ginger tea whenever you stumble in with exhaustion. Jihoon claims the smallest bedroom, swapping trading stories and piping hot ramen at two a.m., his laughter echoing off the walls until your chest aches with relief. Hyejin sets up a whiteboard in the kitchen for shared schedules and pearls of surgical wisdom, her fierce eyes lighting up whenever you solve a med–surg puzzle she’d posed.

Over steaming bowls and battered textbooks, you all learn each other’s rhythms: Hayoung’s gentle way of humming through your mistakes, Jihoon’s uncanny ability to know when you need a joke more than a coffee, Hyejin’s precise nod of encouragement when you’re on the brink of giving up. You fall into the pattern of belonging: mismatched mugs lined up on a shelf, leftover lecture notes plastered to the fridge, the soft thrum of an IV pump reminding you that life and love here are intertwined. In the hush between shifts, while the hospital hums beyond your windows, you realize this is where you belong—a constellation stitched together by shared purpose, laughter, and the unspoken vow to protect one another, just as you protect her—the little sunbeam who first brought you all together.

It’s been forty-eight hours since your shift began, forty-eight hours of adrenaline and trembling hope, but in this hush, all that’s left is you and that tiny form under the warmer’s glow. You haven’t slept more than two hours, and every muscle aches, but you can’t leave without this one pilgrimage. You push through the NICU doors, each step a quiet confession against your own fatigue. Your heels press into the vinyl floor like weights chaining you to the moment you first froze, arms cradling a life you weren’t sure you could save. She lies so small you almost think she might vanish if you breathe too hard. Her cheek is paper-thin beneath your finger, a petal wilting under the hush of the night. You trace the curve of her jaw, so fragile it seems a mere whisper might crack the fragile arc of her bone. Beneath the soft hum of machines, her chest rises and falls in a tremulous whisper, a lullaby of survival you’ve committed to memory:  frets of numbers flickering above her isolette, oxygen saturations like fleeting stars. You lean closer, pressing your palm to the glass, as if your warmth could seep through and steady her flickering pulse.

Guilt, sharp as a surgeon’s blade, cleaves your chest. You remember how your hands shook the first time they placed her in your arms, the terrible weight of potential loss. You should’ve been braver than, but you were buried in shock. The world outside this room spins on, but here, time slows to the beat of her tiny heart. You murmur, voice hushed, “I should’ve been braver. You were.” A single tear escapes, sliding down your temple before you catch it. You swallow the catch in your throat and press a knuckle to your lips, hiding your shame in the dim glow. Tonight, you are both witness and guardian—no longer frozen, but forging a promise with every whispered vow and every careful tracing of her fragile skin. As you stand and tuck a stray lock of hair behind your ear, you feel the gravity of this child’s fight bind you tighter to her fate. Tomorrow, you will return. Tonight, you will believe.

You step away from the isolette alcove, each footfall dragging the weight of two sleepless nights deeper into your bones. Ahead, a lone figure stands beneath the corridor’s pale wash, his jacket still speckled with job-site dust, fingers nervously twisting a singed cigarette butt. He hasn’t moved since he handed you that fragile bundle, choosing vigil over rest because no one else claimed her. In the slope of his shoulders you sense a silent history of loss: a hushed house once full of laughter, a child grown too quickly, an absence he cannot fill.

You pause, and he nods toward the isolette as if seeking permission to speak. His voice is rough with the rasp of concrete and early dawn. “I know it’s foolish,” he says, thumb turning the cigarette ash between his fingers, “but she has no one. No mother, no father—or at least, no one who would come. I couldn’t let her wake up and find the world just as empty as when I found her.” His confession hangs in the sterile air, a quiet anthem to abandonment and hope intertwined, and you realize that in this impossible place, compassion can be the bravest act of all. She arrived breathless and alone, a lone star cast into a sky of strangers—and yet here he remains, a steadfast witness to her first fight. His vigil won’t rewrite her beginning, but it stakes a claim on her tomorrow: someone stood guard when the world turned away. In that pledge lies a fragile promise that, even in the vast loneliness of her first breath, she was never truly abandoned.

You halt and offer the quiet reassurance you’ve repeated like a mantra. “She’s stable,” you murmur, voice gentle enough to cradle hope itself. Gratitude flickers across his face, mingled with relief and buried sorrow, as the last ember of smoke drifts upward like a whispered prayer. He inclines his head in solemn thanks, a wordless pact between two strangers bound by a tiny life fighting its first battles. In the lantern-quiet room, his shadow lingers at the periphery, steadfast as a lighthouse beacon, an unvoiced vow that each fragile pulse of hers will be cradled in unwavering warmth, until she unfurls like a dawn flower against the darkness.

You walk to the nurses’ station hushes to its late-night hum, paper crisp beneath your shaking hands. Post-op note, final vitals, incision clean, no drainage, the pen moves by reflex until you reach the blank labeled Name. Your eyes sting before you even feel the wet. Ink blurs where a tear falls, a dark blot over the vacant line that still reads Jane Doe—a designation colder than any scalpel. You swipe your sleeve across the page, remember the name Jihoon had said earlier which warmed your insides. You smear saline and ink, then steady the pen once more. Sunshine.

The letters spread like dawn across the form, soft, certain, impossibly bright. You know it isn’t the name she will carry forever; she deserves a syllable chosen by loving voices, a sound stitched from lineage and dream. But for now, this fits like the first warm day after winter. She is the infant who outlived rooftop frost and surgical steel, who greets every monitor beep with a fearless conviction, who learned to weave light from the smallest crack in the NICU blinds. Under the radiant warmer’s soft amber glow, the IV tubing arcs like spun gold around her isolette; the monitor’s gentle yellow ring pulses in time with her tiny heartbeat; and the single sunburst sticker on her ID bracelet seems to hover above her wrist—every flicker of light drawn irresistibly toward the new centre of its universe.

Sunshine: because her pulse feels like midsummer on a wrist that once knew only cold clamps. Because her hair flickers copper in the glow of warming lamps, a miniature sunrise cresting fragile bone. Because when she opens her eyes, the greys of this hospital back away, walls repainting themselves in honey and marigold and every bright hue that promises survive. Until the day new parents cradle her and press a chosen name against her temple, you’ll keep calling her this small constellation of light—Sunshine—and even Dr. Na, whose voice rarely softens for anyone, lets the word settle like a blessing each time he bends over her crib. You cap the pen, whisper the name once more to the quiet chart—Sunshine, Sunshine—and feel the ward brighten by a fraction, as if the very syllables have pulled another sliver of yellow into this long night, promising her that she has always been more than the darkness that almost kept her.

You stumble out of orientation into your first week of rotations with your chest thrumming. The halls blur into a conveyor belt of chart reviews, lab draws, and never-ending pages. Hyejin strides past you with the precision of a metronome, already deep into her first cardiac consult, while Hayoung flits between rooms with sympathetic smiles and candy wrappers for anyone who admits they’re hungry. Jihoon appears with two coffees in hand—one for you, one for himself—his grin wide but weary as he jokes about how the pajamas in the call room feel softer than his own bed. You find yourself leaning on the reception desk at 2 a.m., replaying protocols in your mind, trying to reconcile your textbook confidence with the hollow ache of every alarm you answered wrong. Energy flickers like a dying bulb, only to be reignited by the adrenaline of every emergency you’ve barely survived.

Nights become a series of half-dreams and grunt-filled awakenings. You curl into the scratchy vinyl of the call room, blanket tangled at your waist, as the fluorescent light above hums an unsteady rhythm. Your phone buzzes with pages you can’t ignore, and you haul yourself upright on trembling knees to run corridors you barely remember navigating in daylight. The caffeine wears off at dawn, leaving you breathless and hollow, but the moment a patient’s vital stabilizes, a rush of triumph surges through you, sharper than any sleep could have been. By the end of the week, exhaustion has carved lines into your face, but so has resolve—each stumble through the ward forging you into someone who doesn’t just watch the clock, but owns every second it hands you.

You’re standing beside Hayoung, nursing a bruised Styrofoam cup of vending-machine coffee, when Siyeon strides into the corridor. Clipboard in hand, her white coat snapped shut like armor, hair twisted into a bun that could take a bullet and shrug it off. The hallway stills beneath her gaze as though it recognizes prey before a hawk. “Today I’m assigning your rotations,” she announces, voice flat and unyielding. “You will spend one week on each service, beginning immediately after rounds. Do not grow attached to your patients. Do not embarrass me.”

“Hyejin—cardio. You like control. Now prove it.”

“Hayoung—OB/GYN. Hope you don’t faint at the first placenta.”

Before Siyeon can finish her list, Jihoon folds his hands in front of his chest and whispers a fervent, “Please let it be neuro…” as if he’s beseeching a higher power. Siyeon glances his way, unimpressed, then continues without missing a beat. “Jihoon—orthopedics.”

Jihoon exhales a dramatic sigh, cheeks flushing, and mutters under his breath, “Of course,” before slumping into line with the rest of you. His fist shoots into the air. “Bone-saw baby,” he mutters under his breath, and you stifle a laugh—until her voice cuts through the corridor like a scalpel.

“You, pediatrics.” She pauses, letting the words linger. Then, almost quietly: “Since you’ve already made quite the impression.” A twitch at the corner of her mouth, half-smirk, half-sneer, says she means every mocking syllable.

Hayoung slides a hand to your arm, warm and steady. Hyejin lifts a single brow, amusement glinting in her eyes. Jihoon whistles low. “Damn, already chosen? Teach me your ways.” You force a nod, but your heart isn’t in the applause. In its place flashes the memory of a girl no bigger than your palm, taped to life-support machines like whispered prayers. You haven’t seen her, or Dr. Na, in a week, every waking thought still tethered to that rooftop rescue. When the group disperses, your legs carry you forward on autopilot. Your ID badge winks in the fluorescent glare as you turn toward the pediatric wing. Around you, the buzz of morning rounds fades to a hum; your world condenses to one locked door ahead. The pediatric ward beckons—sunshine and sorrow waiting just beyond its threshold.

You pad down the deserted corridor before dawn, each step a soft patter on pale linoleum that echoes like a newborn meal’s first, uncertain cry. The hospital exhales behind you, its night shift’s pulse still thrumming in empty waiting rooms and silent alcoves. With every corridor you cross, your ID badge swings gently, a little seed bobbing on a slender stalk, marking the slow growth of your resolve. The scrubs you donned this morning feel too crisp, too untouched—like a swaddling cloth that has yet to cradle any life—and you realize turning back is no longer an option. A fresh day waits just beyond these doors, and inside them, a babe teetering between breath and stillness has already claimed you.

You haven’t had a reason to cross these doors since that first desperate night, but your feet carry you in hurried unison, as though your heart has been tugging on your ankles all week, aching and desperate for this moment. The pediatric wing stretches before you, its pastel walls humming with echoes of lullabies and soft sobs. You feel every craving it holds: to cradle small lives, to answer silent pleas, to stand guard at the edge of breath. The air grows thick, almost viscous, as if the very walls are holding their breath. You pause at the sliding doors of the NICU, tracing the faint scuff where you first crossed this threshold. How your scrubs were wet with someone else’s terror then, how your heart ached like it had been grafted into another body.

You press the sensor and the doors part with a soft sigh, revealing a silent army of innocence suspended between life and machine. Rows of incubators line the dim corridor, each one cradling a baby no older than a prayer—skin ghostly, limbs bundled in tubes that pulse with borrowed breath. The air tastes of antiseptic and sorrow, weighted by the soft hiss of ventilators and the rhythmic whoosh of warmers fighting to stave off the cold. You catch glimpses of tiny chests rising against impossible odds, IV lines snaking like vines through ghostly forests of whipped-up sheets, and every face you meet is etched with the fragility of a spark that should never have been left to gutter.

Somewhere ahead, a nurse’s shoe squeaks, a soft interruption in the hush. You step forward, heart tightening, as the pale glow of each warming lamp bathes the incubators in a sickly yellow haze, light attempting to stitch warmth into envelopes of translucent skin. Each bed feels like its own graveyard vigil, each monitor’s alarm a tolling bell for lives that might slip away before morning. You realize you’re holding your breath, as though any exhale might extinguish one of these flickering miracles.

Dr. Na settles into the faded green feeding chair, the one he claimed after two sleepless nights. His coat sleeves are rolled to the elbow, revealing forearms taut with lean muscle, and the overhead lights scatter prisms across his dark hair. You pause, heart tightening, as you watch him cradle the nameless newborn, still called “Jane Doe” by official records, in the crook of one arm. His other hand tilts the bottle with a surgeon’s precision, the milk creeping toward her lips in a forgiving arc. She opens her eyes for the first time. rims of dusk around tiny iris pools, and you almost catch the tremor of recognition in her gaze. The soft slur of her suckling is gentle but hungry, a whispered plea that reverberates through your chest.

He leans in, the crease of his jaw softening, and murmurs something so low it is swallowed by the hum of ventilators and the slow hiss of humidifiers. Each word is a caress, though you can’t make out the syllables; it’s the way his voice cups her pain with velvet warmth, like lullaby light behind closed eyes. Her slurps falter into a hiccup of tears—pain lancing through her, honest and raw—but he never pulls away. Instead, his fingertips brush away the tears, tender as if guiding a lost bird back to its nest. In that moment, you see the full measure of his devotion: a doctor whose hands can cut through flesh with cold certainty, yet cradle this tiny life with a gentle gravity that feels nothing like professionalism and everything like love. The air between you fills with something new—an unspoken promise that this small, wounded soul will know care at first touch, and that Jaemin’s vigilance, once so distant, now burns bright beside her.

Your breath catches—not from surprise at finding him here, nor from the sight of her cheeks flushed rosier than before, but because together they look whole, a constellation formed from two solitary stars. You hesitate at the threshold, the sanitizer dispenser gurgles as you wash your hands, each drop of soap a ritual to clear the ghosts of last week. Your heart thuds, synchronized to the soft pulse of her monitor. You clear your throat. “I’m in pediatrics this week,” you say, voice steadier than you feel, offering your name and intention like a key.

Jaemin straightens, gaze still fixed on her pale brow. His ears tune to your words without turning. Then, crisp as a scalpel’s blade: “You’re late. Close the door behind you.”

You cross the threshold and stop, catching your breath at how much she’s grown, her limbs still the length of your palm but carrying the promise of tomorrow’s strength. Yet as you lean closer, your heart skips: she still can’t breathe on her own. Her tiny chest heaves only when the ventilator urges it, each mechanical sigh a reminder of how close she still hovers to darkness. Tubes and wires cling to her like crystalline vines—feeding lines, oxygen cannulas, IV catheters—all converging on the brightest constellation in this quiet galaxy. You notice the gentle rise of her brow as if she’s dreaming of sunlight, her fists unclenching around the soft edge of her swaddle, but the truth sits heavy in your chest: no matter how much color blooms back into her cheeks, she remains tethered to machines that whisper the fragility of her fight. And in that suspended moment, you understand the depths of what you’ve joined—this isn’t just another rotation; it’s your vigil beside the edge of life, and every breath she borrows is a vow you silently renew.

He straightens, shoulders coiling into armor. “We have a long day ahead,” he says, voice clipped and precise as a scalpel’s edge. “I’m scheduled for four back-to-back cases: an emergent appendectomy in OR2, a cricothyroidotomy for that car-accident trauma in OR5, a laparotomy on a perforated ulcer in OR1, and then Sunshine Girl’s second-stage repair.” His gaze flicks to your badge, marking the ten-year gap in your ages, your rookie enthusiasm against his decade of hard-earned scars. You feel the distance between you tighten, yet the air hums with something charged and raw beneath his cool command. He folds his arms—one sleeve pushed above the elbow, veins tracing silver paths—and adds without warmth, “We leave for rounds in five minutes. You’ll also be presenting all the pre-op status’, and then we handle the cascade of post-op care for all four of those cases. Do not be late.” His words hang in the humming corridor, a vow not of comfort but of unyielding expectation. In the silent space between life and blade, you are both servant and sentinel—and there is no room for anything less than perfection.

You slip through the doors, the world outside still hushed in dawn’s half-light. Dr. Na Jaemin leads the way, stride long and unhurried, slipping between isolettes and warmers without so much as a backward glance. You trail a step behind, notebook open, pens at the ready, but there’s no coffee in your hand, no pause for camaraderie or small talk. His gait is purposeful; every door he passes clicks shut like a verdict. You hurry to keep pace, heart thundering like a code alarm in your chest, as he moves through the post-op charts with brisk efficiency.

At the first sign of hesitation in your voice—when you attempt to clarify a knot in a ventilator setting—your words tumble over his brisk instructions. He stops mid-step, the fluorescent glare catching the steel of his loupes, and turns slowly. “If you already know everything,” he says, his gaze as flat as an unblinking monitor, “present the rest of the list.” The ward seems to hush around you; Nurse Yuha stifles a chuckle behind her hand. You swallow, cheeks burning, but press on—reciting your notes with trembling precision. He doesn’t reply, only nods and marches on, leaving you to sink back into the rhythm of charting.

Fifteen minutes later, you’re lost in the glow of the electronic record when he slips in beside you, silent as a scalpel. His finger hovers over a misplaced decimal—a heart rate entry off by a hundredfold—and he leans in so close you feel his breath. “If you’d charted that,” he murmurs, eyes cold with precision, “she’d be paralyzed in seconds.” His voice is velvet over steel. You freeze, then your fingers fly, erasing and re-entering the correct value with trembling haste. After ten seconds of paralysis, you rise and track him down, offering the corrected version on a slim clipboard. He takes it, eyes still fixed on the baby’s chest rise and fall. “Good,” he says, the single word almost tender but you hear the unspoken “thank you” buried beneath its clinical edge.

By eight, you’re scrubbed into your first case: a neonate’s hernia repair. The baby boy is six days old and still frail from premature lungs. You hover with the suction line, breathing in the sterile heat, ready to clear droplets as soon as they appear. When you adjust his vitals just before the incision, Nurse Yuha gives you a discreet nod of approval. Jaemin’s silhouette leans over the tiny patient; he allows you to suction but corrects your grip with a fingertip nudge. You flinch, as though struck, but he offers no comfort—only that half-second of his gaze that lingers like a question you need to answer.

At 11:30, you’re back in the scrubs, this time for a teenage trauma patient’s bowel resection. The field is deeper, the stakes higher, and the flash of blood sends your pulse skittering. You note the transfusion threshold just before the anesthesiologist blurts it out, and Jaemin’s eyebrow arches, an almost-imperceptible salute. Steam ghosts off the stainless faucets, clouding the mirrors as you scrub chlorhexidine from beneath your nails. Your pulse is still racing the clock you just outran in OR-2; the bowel resection’s last suture feels stitched into your own heartbeat. Jaemin stands at the next sink, sleeves shoved to his elbows, water sluicing down forearms etched with long night-shift veins. He never rushes this ritual—thirty strokes, flip, thirty strokes—scrubbing as if absolution can be earned by arithmetic. You glimpse the surgical lamp’s reflection glimmer across the edge of his jaw, and suddenly every fact you’ve ever memorized vibrates for release.

“The inferior mesenteric,” you blurt, voice too quick, “branches at L-3 before it supplies the proximal rectum—so if we’d taken the margins any farther distal—” You hazard a glance. He’s drying his hands, gaze fixed on the floor, the ghost of an eyebrow lifted. Heat flares up your neck, but the words keep falling, dominoes you can’t stop tipping: motility patterns, parasympathetic innervation, rare post-op fistula rates. You talk faster, trying to fill the hush, trying to prove you’ve earned the scrub soap flaking off your wrists, until the echo of your own breathless lecture startles you into silence.

Jaemin folds his towel with surgical precision, tucks it into a bin, and faces you at last. His eyes are the tempered gray of an instrument tray, unreadable but razor-bright. “If you’re going to ramble,” he says, voice smooth enough to slice, “then make it useful. Otherwise, silence is preferable, you’re giving me a headache.” The sting lands clean; you feel it bloom behind your ribs. But then he reaches forward, just two fingers, and adjusts the angle of your mask loop where it’s digging into your ear. “You caught the bleed in there,” he adds, softer, almost an afterthought. “Good.” His hand falls away before you can answer.

You hustle into OR-3 still replaying his “Silence is preferable” in the back of your skull, determined to redeem every breath. The room smells of cautery and cold metal; overhead lights pool like noon-bright moons on a field of blue. Dr. Hwang Renjun, Chief of Cardiothoracic. a legend you once dissected journal articles about, is already gown-gloved, guiding a vascular clamp with the poise of someone who has rerouted more blood than most hearts will ever pump. His profile is thoughtful, serene even, but every gesture is a verdict: precise, unhurried, unforgiving. Jaemin steps in beside him without a word, and you fall into position at suction, pulse thrumming against the tubing. The two men work in a choreography so tight it feels illicit, Renjun’s steady murmurs of “Clamp… tie… next,” Jaemin’s sutures flashing like silver lightning under templed brows. You barely breathe, hyper-aware of the heat of Jaemin’s shoulder a hand-span from yours, of how the raw focus radiating off him makes the sterile drapes feel suddenly too thin.

Forty minutes in, just as the graft seats clean, Jaemin’s pager erupts with a shrill insistence that slices the quiet. He barely glances  but you see the infinitesimal widening of his eyes, a flash of storm before the composure slams shut. Nurse Yuha’s voice crackles through the intercom, breathless: “NICU, Code Lavender, Baby Sunshine just required full resus, sats unstable, we need cardio-peds in OR-2 ASAP.” The scalpel seems to pause mid-air; even the vent sputters like it forgot its rhythm. Jaemin draws one measured breath, so calm it’s terrifying, and continues the anastomosis, hands steady while an artery the width of thread pulses between his forceps. Renjun tracks the tension immediately; his gaze flicks from the field to Jaemin’s clenched jaw, and something like recognition softens his brow.

“Go, Na,” Renjun says, voice low but carrying. “I’ll close. She’s your case.” It’s not a suggestion, it’s an absolution. Jaemin knots the final stitch with a snap, meets the older surgeon’s eyes in silent gratitude, and turns to you. “With me,” he commands, already stripping his gloves. There’s no time to marvel at how fast adrenaline atomizes fatigue; you’re yanking off your gown, letting it puddle, chasing his back through the corridor before the automatic doors can finish their sigh. Your sneakers slap linoleum, your breath saws icy against your mask, and still he outruns you, white coat a blur, like he’s tethered to the infant heart blinking red on some distant monitor.

Every hallway monitor seems to echo the same alarm tone, the hospital’s vascular system convulsing. You think of the way Sunshine’s fingers curled around his in the isolette this morning, of the bottle angled just so, of the unfathomable tenderness hidden beneath all that clinical frost. He doesn’t slow, but he speaks, more to himself than to you. “She was stable, her vitals climbed overnight, her surgery wasn’t scheduled until later, this isn’t fair.” His voice is a scalpel now: honed, dangerous, meant for cutting truth away from panic. You pump harder, matching his stride, replaying medication lists in your mind for anything you might have missed.

You and Jaemin lunge through, baby in his arms, the yellow towel damp with sweat and blood. Monitors behind him scream their alarm into the corridor as he barrels forward, feet slipping on tile, heartbeat drumming in your ears louder than the chaos. Nurses scatter, keys clatter, and someone shouts for suction. He doesn’t hesitate, he holds the child as if she’s the only thing keeping him upright, arms locked around her frail body, every muscle coiled. You sprint beside him, scrubs flapping, adrenaline slicing through marrow, and catch the next elevator down. The doors close on a blur of motion and neon.

In the OR’s harsh glare, Jaemin lays her on the steel table with the tenderness of a prayer. His white coat flutters like a banner in a storm, and he doesn’t wait for gloves—he clamps an oxygen mask to her mouth, voice low and urgent: “Breathe, baby. Breathe for me.” You move into position, hands steady despite the tremor in your chest, primed to suction, to stabilize, to fight. Under the interrogation light, her skin is the color of bruised infancy, breaths ragged against the mask. Jaemin’s eyes lock onto yours for a heartbeat—flint and promise—and in that instant you know: no one else matters in this room but her survival. Then, with soft precision, he begins.

The old conduit lies buried beneath layers of scar and sterility as Jaemin’s scalpel carves along the faded thoracotomy line. The skin parts readily under the iodine’s harsh glow, paper-thin and fragile, revealing the dark ribbon of graft beneath. Instantly, maroon rivulets of clot spill from the synthetic tube, each bead a ticking second lost. With measured urgency, you sweep the pooled blood aside, fingers sure despite the tremor in your belly, while Nurse Yuha slides a six-millimeter bovine graft across your field of vision. Jaemin’s movements are economical, he trims the new conduit to length, positions it with uncanny precision, and threads the suture through living tissue and graft alike. Every stitch is a promise: one tightens the lifeline, another seals the vow. As he flushes heparin through the lumen, the first flash of bright effluent appears in your suction tip, a promise of redemption in a swirl of liquid white.

Across the sterile expanse of OR-2, the monitors begin their hesitant climb: oxygen saturations flicker from 68 to 78, mean arterial pressures lift from a whisper to a breathable hum. You hold the suction catheter steady as Dr. Na draws the final knot tight, his forehead slick with sweat, jaw set like chiseled stone. “Come on, baby,” he exhales, voice low and intimate beneath the harsh lights. With deft fingers he closes the incision in imperceptible layers of six-zero Prolene—each pass of the needle as fine as spider’s silk, each knot a quiet exhalation of relief. When the last stitch is buried, he steps back, shoulders finally loosening just enough to admit a fraction of release. “We bought time,” he states, tone flat yet threaded with something fierce—gratitude, exhaustion, relentless hope. And as you sponge away the remnants of battle from his brow, you understand that in this cathedral of conflict, every heartbeat saved is a small victory against the darkness.

Even as the final suture vanishes beneath his gloved thumb, Dr. Na doesn’t turn away. He leans closer, voice soft as a lullaby amid the aftershocks of adrenaline. “You’re so fierce, little fighter,” he murmurs, fingertips brushing her cheek as though the slightest touch might rekindle her spark. “You’ve carried more pain than most people ever will, and you don’t even have a name or a family to call your own. But you belong to the light, there’s a sacred corner of it reserved just for you.” His words flutter through the hush—each one a salve, each one a vow of protection. “You’re stronger than anyone deserves to be—I believe in you, little warrior. I swear I’ll carry you through the rest. Now rest, grow stronger…we still need your fire.”

You choke back a breath as you watch him lean over that isolette, but it isn’t just this moment that catches you—it’s the pattern of tenderness woven through every encounter you’ve witnessed today. This morning, you saw him crouch at eye-level with a trembling three-year-old whose leg brace chafed raw; without a word, he drew a wobbly dinosaur in the dust of the cast and nudged her fingers to follow each curve, her giggles bursting through the ward like warm sunlight. At lunch, he sat cross-legged on the floor beside an intubated neonate, coaxing the baby’s fingers to wrap around his own thumb as he hummed a gentle, off-key lullaby he’d clearly invented right then and there, the tiny hand tightening with trust. Later, he paused mid-stride in the corridor, reached out to catch a knot unraveling on a premature infant’s incubator ribbon, and retied it with surgeon’s precision, transforming the harsh plastic into a cradle trussed in hope.

Everywhere he goes, little eyes light up at the sight of him: toddlers clutch his scrub sleeve in shy delight, babies swivel toward his voice as if it were the promise of home, and from the far corner of the ward, a rough-voiced janitor once paused his rounds to watch the way that a child’s face unfurled into a toothless grin when Jaemin pressed a fingertip gently to her cheek. You remember how he leaned into that moment—softening his shadowed features until even his stern jaw seemed to melt—and offered a high-five that turned into a little dance, the floor echoing with tiny feet gliding in time. Each gesture is another verse in his unspoken hymn to the vulnerable: a stethoscope warmed in his palm before he presses it to a baby’s rib cage, a fingertip brushing a frightened parent’s knuckles as he whispers, “She’s strong, we’ll see her through,” or the simple gift of a handcrafted origami crane handed to a tearful sibling to remind them that even in these antiseptic halls, wonder still exists. In every crease of his coat, in every soft word he murmurs, every careful touch, you see how his healing hands build sanctuaries out of sterile steel and how, for the smallest lives, he becomes both refuge and light.

He is at once tempest and hearth—shattering disease with the precision of a lightning strike, then gathering the fractured pieces of hope and wrapping them in the quiet glow of his compassion. You’ve seen him summon a tremor-soothing smile for one child’s first sip of milk, later catch a frightened toddler’s gaze across the ward and answer it with a nod so steady it might well have been a silent pledge: “I am here. I will not let go.” In these fragments of care—each small miracle of connection—you realize that his fierce competence in the OR is matched only by a fiercer tenderness reserved for those who can barely speak. And now, as he murmurs your name with that same calm fire, you understand that every life he saves is a petal pressed into the pages of his own legend: a healer whose warmth shines brightest where the light is weakest.

In the first four months of Sunshine’s life, her tiny heart beats a desperate rhythm beneath surgical lights and humming monitors, each pulse a fragile echo of hope. Twice she’s reborn on Dr. Na’s table. first when he threads a synthetic conduit through her marrow-soft chest, then again when midnight alarms yank him back to carve out a clot that stole her breath. You hover at his side, suction in hand and courage blooming where fear once froze you, learning to read her tremors like secret messages and to cradle her as if you could hold dawn itself. Between operations, morphine drips slow and sure, you chart every flicker of withdrawal and every quiet victory in her eyes, and Jaemin—stern sentinel by day, gentle guardian by night—whispers fractured lullabies at her bedside. Together, surgeon, intern and nameless newborn weave a bond forged in white-glove precision and whispered promises, proving that life’s most radiant bloom can spring from the sharpest edges of despair.

Each week in those first four months unfolds like a delicate stanza in a dirge-turned-prayer. Under the pallid glow of surgical lights, Dr. Na carves hope from her chest. first by threading a synthetic conduit through the fractured channels of her heart, then by cracking open her dawn-black body again when her tiny river of life stutters into code. At each juncture, you stand sentinel, suctioning froth from her lungs, watching the wavering digits of her oxygen saturation climb and fall like a gull caught in a storm. Your fingers, once trembling at the mere thought of her fragility, grow steady with purpose, tying off lines and titrating morphine drips whose weaning you chart in meticulous crimson ink.

Between those lifesaving crucibles, she clings to life’s thinnest tether—her feeding tube—her fists wrapping around it as though it might sprout wings and lift her from this battleground. Sleepless tremors mark her nights, each shudder a negotiation between the withdrawal gnawing at her marrow and the nascent fight refracted through her blood. Though she cannot yet speak her name, her dark, urgent gaze finds you in every lull, offering a trust so unearned it humbles you: a silent plea that outshines every monitor’s flicker. Her body, smaller than a prayer, carries a weight of suffering no infant should bear: a heart mapped by truncated arteries, limbs restless with withdrawal’s ghost, a liver crying out in enzyme whispers. Yet in every labored breath, every anxious twitch, you and Jaemin see a defiant spark—an ember of life that refuses to extinguish. And so you stitch, you chart, you hold vigil through the soft-bleating lullaby of alarms, tethering yourselves to her survival with each weary, unwavering heartbeat.

She emerges from her second surgery like a wounded bird pieced together with silk threads, her frail body barely casting a shadow beneath the harsh glow of fluorescent tubes that hum above like restless ghosts. Around her, incubators bloom with pastel balloons, handwritten cards and soft toys—tangible prayers from families who refuse to let go—yet her own isolette holds only sterile cotton, a half-full bottle of morphine standing sentinel, and the steady beeping of machines as her lone lullaby. Social workers’ clipped whispers drift through the corridor, tangled in question marks on her chart, and you feel the weight of every unanswered name pressing against your chest. In this vast, antiseptic hall, she is both a miracle and whisper of loss, a solitary heartbeat leaking into the emptiness that should have been filled with arms and lullabies. Fluorescent lights hum low in the vast NICU corridor as you slip past the double doors, your white coat whispering against the floor. Social workers have been hovering at a safe distance for weeks, they’re only doing their job but their clipped concerns drift through the air like unwelcome specters. You ignore their murmurs, focusing instead on the tiny rise and fall of her chest, steady and miraculous against every odds. 

Dr. Na leans in close to her incubator, exhaustion etched into the creases around his eyes yet reverence guiding his every movement. He brushes a stray eyelash from her porcelain brow before smoothing the pale, stiff swaddle with the ritual precision of someone invoking an ancient vow. His voice drops into a hushed confession, only reserved for the terrified and the hopeful as he tucks the pale and stiff blanket a fraction tighter and murmurs “I’ll be back soon, Sunshine, hold the fort, I’m so sorry I always have to leave you when you’re like this, I promise I’ll return, I always promise that,” Before the echo of his words can fade, her chest convulses in a storm of raw grief. Tiny sobs tear through her, each shuddering breath a testament to the loneliness she already knows too well. Nurses gather swiftly, their gentle hands pressing warmth against the cool glass, murmuring soft lullabies that weave through the beeps and hums of the machines. One rocks the isolette in a practiced rhythm while another cups her quivering back, whispering encouragement into the sterile air.

Dr. Na remains at the glass, fingertips hovering above her blanket, eyes glistening with a sorrow that no medicine can ease and chest tightening with the weight of her tiny sobs echoing across the sterile corridor, each shuddered breath a testament to the abandonment she was born into and the silent pleas for someone, anyone, to stay. Her tears carve crystalline tracks down her porcelain cheeks, rivulets of despair that speak of betrayals she cannot yet name. Her small fists press against the glass as if begging for a single hand to hold her so she will never again learn the cost of leaving, and his whispered promise hangs between them, louder than the fluorescent hum, binding him to her fragile heartbeat. It’s as if her wide, wet eyes already know the hollow ache of abandonment that should be kept at bay by loving arms. His whispered vow hovers between them—“I promise I’ll be back”—an unspoken plea to outrun the sorrow she wears like a second skin.

You stand beyond the glass, pretending to chart on your tablet, but your heart pounds too loudly for the typing to cover. Every moment free from rounds, you find yourself drawn back here, watching him care for the child you first held with trembling fingers. He gives her more attention than the other babies receive in a week, and she has nothing but sterile cotton and that half-empty syringe to mark her presence. The incubators around twirl like hopeful promises, cards flutter like whispered prayers, and plush toys stand guard in clusters, comforts she’s never known. She gazes up at the fluorescent lights with wide, unblinking eyes, already too familiar with abandonment, as though she can taste the cost of every step her caregivers have to take away from her. She has only an ID number and a scratchy white hat that she rips off in furious grips, as if even the hospital wants her kept at arm’s length.

Beside you, Jihoon’s shoulders heave in silent sobs, and you glance over with raised eyebrows even as a fresh tear slides down your cheek. He tries to swallow it back, throat bobbing like a bird caught in a storm, until he finally chokes out, voice cracking: “It’s so sad, so sad, she’s just a baby!” You squeeze his arm, and Jihoon hiccups another sob that rips through the hush. “I mean,” he chokes, voice thick, “who leaves a baby like this? It’s—” He breaks off, stares at the isolette as though expecting it to explode into confetti so the loneliness would vanish. “—it’s just criminal. Criminal!” He snorts, tears spilling again. “I didn’t sign up for this.” He waves a hand as if batting away his own grief. “I didn’t sign up for heartfelt emotional breakdowns in the pantry. I thought I’d be throwing scalpels around, saving lives like a badass doctor, not dissolving into a puddle over a tiny human with no parents!”

The doors swing open before you can blink, and Dr. Na strides out of the NICU, coat tails swishing. His gaze snaps to you. icy, exacting, yet beneath it a spark of something raw and vivid that makes your cheeks warm. His jaw is set, eyes narrowed into slits of polished steel, and for a heartbeat the world narrows to the cool, sensual cut of his anger slicing through the dim corridor. You freeze, breath hitching, the echo of baby sobs still lingering behind the glass. Behind you, Jihoon hiccups another sob, shoulders shaking in silent protest. You turn to him, tears still glistening on his lashes, and suddenly your chest lifts with a burst of mischief. Your eyes find him bright and urgent. you have an idea. A slow smile tugs at your lips as you lean in, whispering, “What if we give her something no one can take away from her?” Jihoon blinks through his tears, sniffles once, then nods fiercely, determination and grief mingling in his gaze and just like that, you know exactly what you’ll do.

You slip into the empty nurses’ station the next day, carrying your bag of charts and a secret hope. Nurse Chaeyoung looks up from her paperwork, surprise flickering in her eyes. your notebooks already bulge with hand-written protocols but she doesn’t question you when you clear your throat and whisper, “Could you please teach me how to knit?” 

Chaeyoung blinks. She knows you’re already drowning in notes, but she studies your face, sees the resolve trembling there, then slides her paperwork aside. “All right,” she says, voice a soft acquiescence. She presses two slender bamboo needles into your hands and unfurls a skein of yarn in the hue of sunlit yellow. The alpaca-silk blend. soft as dawn’s first light, was a splurge after your last thirty-hour shift, chosen for its gentle warmth against skin as delicate as petals. Your first stitches are clumsy: loops too tight, tension askew, needles clacking like restless birds. You jab your thumb, hiss, bite the inside of your cheek. Chaeyoung guides your fingers, her own movements certain and slow, but she never scolds when you drop a loop; she just lifts it back onto the needle as if rescuing something sacred. “Keep going,” she murmurs. “Babies don’t judge crooked lines.”

You pretend indifference, say you’re bored, say you need a hobby, but everyone within earshot knows the truth: you’ve fallen for a three-pound girl in Isolette Three, and you’re desperate to give her something no chart can record. Night after night you return to the on-call room, lamp dimmed so the shadows won’t wake the residents snoring on plastic mattresses. Tutorials flicker soundlessly on your tablet; you’ve watched the same row unpicked a dozen times. The yarn whispers over your knuckles, smelling faintly of lanolin and lavender from the sachet you tucked into your bag, the same scent you dab behind your mask before each visit to her crib so your presence will mean comfort, not chemicals. Tiny blood-bright dots blossom on your fingertips where needles have slipped; you wear them like vows. You unravel rows when the corners curl, knit them again until the fabric lies smooth, until each imperfect loop feels like a heartbeat finding rhythm.

One evening, during a lull between rounds the four of you spill onto the scarred wooden bench outside the NICU, take-out cartons steaming in your laps, stethoscopes still draped like question marks around your necks and though each insists they’re “not as invested” as you, every conversation arc bends inevitably toward the girl in Isolette Three, the way sunflowers tilt to whatever light they can find; Hayoung, tongue stained orange from spicy tteokbokki, admits she swings by just to borrow the courage in Sunshine’s clenched fists, and when you pass her the bamboo needle she blushes, threading rose-silk and coaxing a cherry blossom into life because “fragile petals survive storms by being soft and stubborn at once.” Jihoon snorts, denying his tears whenever asked, wiping soy sauce from his chin, yet his hands tremble as he anchors a pearlescent seashell—“so she’ll hear an ocean in the hum of those machines, and know the world is wider than this glass.” Hyejin, quiet as a chapel at dawn, selects gold thread, her star stitched with astronomer’s precision; she murmurs that every child deserves a northern light when hospital nights go power-out. Last, you guide moss-green silk through the fringe, tucking a leaf beneath their symbols—your covenant that life can unfurl even in fluorescent soil. The blanket ripples unevenly across your knees, tension wobbling where laughter shook the yarn, yet in its crooked constellation of blossom, shell, star, and leaf, you feel an entire afternoon distilled into a portable sky she can wear—proof that four imperfect hearts chose to stay.

You’ve been awake since yesterday’s twilight, eyes grainy from a marathon of dropped stitches and midnight caffeine, and the blanket, freshly bound off at 4:17 a.m., still radiates the ghost-warmth of your desk lamp and the lavender sachet you kept tucked beneath the skein to calm your nerves. All morning you hovered at the NICU doors, blanket clutched like a shield. Whenever a rare minute of freedom finally opened, you’d hurry toward Isolette Three, only to find Dr. Na already stationed there—scrub cap discarded on a rolling stool, loupes still dangling from his collar, spending every stolen breath of his break in the hush between his whisper and her fragile inhale. You spot his silhouette again, shoulders bowed, hand cupped over glass and nerves spark hot under your skin. Your feet stall, then inch forward, every step a stitched-together prayer: this is it, no more stalling, don’t drop the blanket, don’t trip, don’t start reciting fiber statistics the second he looks up. You tighten your grip on the pastel-yellow blanket, swallow hard, and force one foot in front of the other, determined to place dawn itself inside her isolette before courage unravels like a loosened stitch.

Dr. Na straightens, still cradling Sunshine against the crook of his elbow, the tiny bottle angled with a surgeon’s precision so a ribbon of milk flows down to the last perfect bubble; her fingers clutch his scrub top like drowsy starfish, a sight so tender you lock in place—heart thudding, blanket clutched to your chest, words snarled somewhere behind your tongue. He senses you before you can retreat, and his gaze flicks first to the yellow bundle in your arms, then skims up to your face—razor-sharp, faintly amused, as if he’s caught you scribbling secrets on the walls. “What’s that?” he murmurs, voice low enough to set your pulse strobing in your ears. “Another failed anatomy diagram?” The smirk curves like scalpel steel, and heat scorches up your neck; you fumble a half step forward, nearly knock your clipboard into the IV pole, then grip the blanket tighter, praying the pastel wool can muffle the thunder of your nerves.

“It’s… it’s for her,” you blurt, eyes fixed on the floor tiles because meeting his stare feels like stepping into open-heart surgery without gloves. “I—I knitted it last night. Well, technically it’s an alpaca-silk blend, nineteen‐micron fibers, I triple-checked, so it’s hypoallergenic and it drapes really softly, not too thick, not too flimsy. I swear I triple-checked—because, look, I know it sounds ridiculously decadent, and yes, it cost almost three times what I usually spend on take-out, but Sunshine’s file notes her skin barrier is compromised, there’s a high likelihood of allergic reactions, even eczema under those incubator lights, so I couldn’t risk a cheap acrylic scratch-monster, you know?” You launch into a flurry of justifications, cheeks flaming. “The alpaca makes it soft enough that you could press your ear to it and hear quiet breaths, and the silk adds strength without weight, and I hand-washed every row in hypoallergenic soap the nurses recommended, then air-dried it on a rack, no dryer heat, because that shrinks wool and roughs up the fibers. I didn’t want any microscopic wool barbs tickling her already-fragile skin.” Your words tangle, spilling faster than you can corral them.

“I stabbed myself, um, seventeen times, eighteen if you count the thumb but I figured a little blood loss is worth it because she needs something gentle, something that’s actually hers and not stamped ‘Property of Pediatrics.’” You inhale, cheeks blazing, then plunge on before courage unravels. “I stitched in these tiny symbols, too, there’s a leaf in one corner because, you know, life keeps trying even when conditions are terrible, and a cherry blossom from Hayoung because fragile things can still be ridiculously strong, and Jihoon wanted a seashell so she’ll always have a bit of the ocean humming near her, and Hyejin’s star is for, uh, portable navigation when the lights flicker at 3 a.m.” You finally risk a glance up, pulse thundering. “I know the tension is uneven and one edge looks like it’s sighing, but it’s warm and it’s soft and it’s hers, and I just—” Your voice cracks into a whisper. “—I just really wanted her to have something that says she isn’t alone.”

He straightens in one fluid motion, still cradling Sunshine in the crook of his elbow, the tiny bottle poised at her lips as she drinks with surprising vigor, an intimate task that makes you gasp. His gaze snaps to the pastel bundle against your chest before flicking up to your face, cool and curious. “Did you make one for me too, or just the baby?” he asks, voice low enough to ripple through your ribcage like warm blood.

Your cheeks flame, and you swallow hard, words tumbling out jagged and too-fast. “You? No. I mean, you never occurred to me.” Your heart hammers so loudly you can almost hear its echo in the hum of the incubators. “It’s just, there was this article in the ‘Journal of Neonatal Textile Therapy, Volume 12, 2023,’ ‘Fiber Diameter and Thermoregulatory Benefits in Preterm Infants.’ It said infants swaddled in sub-20-micron fibers show a forty-two percent increase in weight gain and a thirty-one percent drop in cortisol spikes.” You bite your lip, eyelids flicking to his collarbone as if memorizing its contour. “My brain filed it under ‘useless trivia,’ but when I saw that alpaca-silk blend, nineteen microns, moisture-wicking, thermally neutral, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I saw it on a specialist auction listing, and—I swear—ended up bidding through the night. Four hours of non-stop laptop glances, heart pounding every time I hit refresh, until I won it. Sunshine’s chart notes compromised skin integrity and high allergy risk so I didn’t want some acrylic nightmare scratching her still-healing dermis.” Your voice quavers, and you tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, suddenly aware of every stitch of your scrubs clinging to your skin. “I—well, I got carried away. I just wanted her to have the absolute best chance. All the other babies have cards and soft toys; she arrived with nothing but a blanket that’s now gone yellow, and I couldn’t bear it, I needed to give her a small measure of kindness.”

His eyes trace the ridges of the pastel yellow as though mapping a new continent, then snap up to you with a spark that makes your breath catch. His smirk flickers faster now, teasing and sharp: “You nearly turned my ICU into a lecture hall. Next time, publish the paper first so I can bring popcorn.” The low timbre of his voice vibrates in your chest, and you gasp, an accidental inhale that sounds conspicuously like awe, your cheeks flaming brighter than the incubator lights. You tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, heart hammering in staccato, suddenly acutely aware of every word you’ve ever tripped over and every flutter in your stomach that you’ll never admit aloud.

Before you can sputter another ramble, Sunshine coos, a clear, bright note like tiny bells, and Dr. Na’s gaze softens in an instant. He tilts her head against his shoulder and, with a surgeon’s gentleness, traces a fingertip along her spine, coaxing a series of sleepy kicks. She kicks again, and he presses the tiny foot into his palm, tilting his mouth to make a soft raspberry that leaves her gurgling with delight. You catch the slack in his shoulders, the careful steadiness of his hands, the way his eyes drift closed for a brief, reverent moment, it all reads like fatherhood in high definition. You swallow hard, lips parting in an unsteady whimper that you cloak in a cough, rubbing the back of your neck as though you’ve just stepped into a gale of feelings you’re not sure how to name. Yet even as warmth blooms in your chest, your brow knots with a sudden ache: he is not her father, she has no family, and in this glowing cocoon of devotion, she remains utterly alone.

Your heart thunders so fiercely you half-expect the monitors to pick it up, but you force yourself closer, blanket folded against your chest like stolen sunlight. Your cheeks burn—they’ve been burning all morning—but you step into his space anyway, breath catching as you press the soft wool into his hands. “I—um, would you mind… could you cover her with this?” you whisper, voice trembling between hope and embarrassment, each word a tiny act of bravado masked by your shy, downcast gaze.

Dr. Na’s fingers hover for the barest instant, then he lifts the blanket and, with a surgeon’s precision softened by reverence, tucks it around Sunshine’s shoulders so the pastel yellow settles over her like first light. In the month you’ve known her, you’ve never seen her so still: her tiny fists unwind from the tubes, her knuckles uncurling as though they trust the world for the first time. A delicate coo drifts from her lips—so soft it sounds like a sigh—and her eyelids flutter half-closed, painting sleepy crescents against porcelain skin. Her mouth parts in a gentle yawn, and a flush of rose warms her cheeks as she buries her forehead into the embroidered leaf you placed at her chest, exhaling a slow, contented breath. She nestles deeper into his arm, limbs going lax, her whole body folding into that sliver of warmth, and for one aching, beautiful moment you realize she feels at home.

He straightens with the ease of someone born to this—ever so gently rocking Sunshine in the cradle of his arm, the golden thread work of the blanket slipping into place like a secret promise. His gaze flickers down to her, pupils melting into warmth as he brushes a stray curl of her hair back with the pad of his thumb, eyes dark with tender focus. “There you go, little one. Comfy?” he murmurs, voice husky with quiet devotion, each word a soft caress in the white glare of the NICU. You watch, breath catching at the steady line of his throat, the way his tailored scrubs hug broad shoulders and taper to the subtle swell of muscle at his forearms, and heat floods your cheeks until you’re certain your skin glows brighter than the incubator light. Sunshine answers him with a tiny coo so sweet it feels like a bell inside your chest. her mouth quirks into a sleepy bubble, a gurgle that ripples through her like laughter in slow motion. She flexes her fingers around his finger, tiny translucent nails barely grazing his skin, and a soft sigh drifts from her lips as she nestles closer into the pastel folds.

Dr. Na’s thumb follows the embroidered leaf at her collarbone, tracing your stitch with a reverence that leaves you breathless. He glances up at you—just for a moment—and you flush harder, eyes darting down to the blanket’s edge, wishing you could melt into the warmth of that shared glance. Meanwhile, Sunshine lets out a contented hiccup, her brows lifting as though surprised by comfort, and you swear you can see the faintest dimple at the corner of her mouth. In that hush, full of soft sighs, coos, and the underswell of your own racing pulse, you realize you’ve never witnessed anything so achingly vulnerable, so quietly triumphant, as a tiny life finally feeling at home.

You clear your throat, the thread trembling in your grasp as warmth floods your cheeks all the way to your ears. You can’t help yourself, you have to go deeper. “I—actually,” you begin, voice catching like a hiccup, “I have this extra spool of thread, it’s the same yellow family, but a shade deeper, richer—like sunset gold. I thought, maybe, if you stitched a little crescent moon beside the leaf, or even a tiny halo above it, it would mean more to her, a secret promise shimmering in the corner. I know it’s silly, but I just… I couldn’t resist.” You glance up, eyes wide and earnest, sheepish hope dancing in your gaze, every syllable spilling out because once you start, you always have to ask just one more thing.

Dr. Na lifts his gaze from the isolette just long enough to catch your outstretched hand and, without a word, slides the extra spool of thread from your trembling fingers. Then he leans in and, with that same deliberate care he showed Sunshine’s first feed, he scoops her up, tiny limbs curling against his chest, and places her softly into your arms. Your heart seizes as her warm weight settles against your collarbone, her breath a whisper in your ear. She blinks once, then clasps her fingers around her own thumb and draws it to her mouth, sucking in blissful little gulps that echo like lullabies through the sterilized air.

When Dr. Na peels the blanket back, Sunshine’s face crumples in the most heartbreaking pout, a single hiccup-cry so small and urgent it tugs at your chest, her lips quivering like a wilted flower begging for sun. Even her tears glisten like morning dew on porcelain. You press her closer, brushing a kiss to her forehead as she hiccups again, cheeks rosy and soft under the pastel wool. Dr. Na’s scalpel-steady fingers slip the blanket back into place. He parts the pastel wool with the same reverence he shows her fragile chest, then lifts your extra spool of golden thread and threads it through the eye of the needle as though drawing first light into being. He pauses, hands poised above your embroidered leaf, and for a breath it feels as though time itself holds its pulse. Then, stitch by stitch, he draws a tiny sun beside the leaf—each loop a delicate arc of dawn breaking over shadowed valleys. The thread gleams like honeyed sunrise, the rays curling outward in promise: here is warmth, here is light, here is a vow that she will never face the dark alone.

Sunshine watches it all, eyes widening in the incubator’s glow. A high, breathy coo escapes her lips—so soft it sounds like a secret whispered between friends—and she lifts one nub of a hand to brush at the new golden sun, tiny fingers batting at the yarn with curious delight. Her cheeks bloom rosy, as if she understands that this little orb was made for her, and she presses her forehead into the wool, sighing a contented sigh that ripples through her like a lullaby. She sucks her thumb in blissful rhythm, eyelashes fluttering against porcelain skin, and a single hiccup-cry bubbles up—so dainty it’s almost like applause.

Dr. Na leans in close, voice hushed. “You see that, little one?” he murmurs, tracing the sun’s rays with his fingertip. “That’s your light. Always there.” His gaze lifts to you—warm, intimate—and for a moment you share a smile that needs no words. In the hush of beeping monitors and the soft murmur of the NICU night, baby and doctors alike are bound by the quiet power of that golden sun and the promise it holds.A hiccup of relief escapes you, and Sunshine coos again, her little hand fluttering as if in applause. You swallow hard, blinking back the last of your nerves, as the three of you stand in the pale glow of the NICU—bound by wool, wonder, and the promise that none of you will ever leave her alone.

You clear your throat in a soft, practiced cough. your agreed signal and the door to the NICU slides open a crack. Jihoon slips in, arms laden with plush bunnies, two extra pastel-yellow blankets, a stack of onesies embroidered with tiny suns, and a handful of handmade cards scrawled with “you’ve got this” and “sunshine princess” in mismatched inks. You and him share a relieved smile as he sets down helium balloons that bob gently against the ceiling and a small music box that plays a lullaby too sweet for words. Jihoon grins, as earlier today, you both hosted every bit of warmth from the downstairs gift shop for this one beautiful girl.

Dr Na’s eyes lift from Sunshine’s chest as you lower your voice. “Would it be all right if we… decorated her crib?” you ask, voice sheepish and earnest. “All the other incubators look like birthday parties, and hers feels so bare.” He blinks once, expression clipped, and then gives the faintest nod, as though granting permission to break a hospital rule you didn’t know existed. You exhale a breath you didn’t realize you were holding.

Jihoon peels a sheet of baby-safe stickers from its backing and hands you the first one—a golden sun that catches the NICU light like a promise. Together you press “fighter,” “sunshine baby,” and, in your own trembling handwriting, “belongs here” onto the plastic wall of her incubator, each word blooming like wildflowers in a barren field. You drape two plush bunnies, one snowy white, one butter-yellow, over the edge, their soft fur whispering comfort against the sterile rails. A pink pacifier with a glitter heart bobs on its clip, and you tuck an extra pastel-yellow blanket around the foot of the isolette so it spills over like the first rays of dawn.

Next, you and Jihoon suspend a sunshine mobile overhead, its tiny golden stars spinning in a lullaby waltz. You clip a miniature music box to the side rail, the tin tune coiling through the hum of machines, delicate as a mother’s hum in a silent church. All the while, Sunshine stirs beneath the glow: one tiny hand uncurls, fingertips brushing against the soft ear of a bunny, and she coos, a breathy, bell-bright note that makes your heart catch. She yawns, her lips parting in an unhurried arc as if savoring each moment, then nuzzles into the curve of the blanket, eyelashes fluttering in sleepy contentment.

“Delivery for Miss Golden Cheeks,” Jihoon announces with mock formality, setting down a small stack of handmade cards scrawled with love and a pair of knitted booties you couldn’t resist. He grins at you, nudges the bunnies upright, then quips, “Dr. Na, I’d offer you a pacifier too, but I think you’re already suckin’ the life out of Doctor Y/N.” The words tumble into a hush of shared laughter, and in that intimate glow of balloons, blankets, and baby coos, you feel as if the world beyond these walls has paused, just long enough for Sunshine to know she is, at last, home.

As you stand back to survey your handiwork—balloons drifting, bunnies perched like sentinels, blankets folded in sunlit layers. Doctor Na clears his throat—sharp as a scalpel’s edge—and with a single, precise motion he lifts Sunshine from your arms, cradling her against his chest as though she weighs nothing more than a sigh. His voice drops into the clipped, authoritative timbre of a chief resident on rounds. “Don’t you both have rounds to attend to?”

You and Jihoon exchange sheepish glances, cheeks still warm from pride and embarrassment. Without another word, you hustle toward the door, balloons bobbing at your heels, bunnies and blankets forgotten for the moment. Behind you, the door slides shut, and in the soft glow of the NICU morning light, Sunshine nestles deeper into Dr. Na’s arm. Her tiny hand drifts up to rest against his stethoscope, as if grounding herself in his steady heartbeat, and his fingers curl around hers, two fragile promises bound by dawn’s first light.

The night after, you slip into the NICU on tiptoe, the corridor bathed in a soft, bluish glow that turns every surface to silver. You pause as you reach Isolette Three and realize Dr. Na has dozed off, perched on the small stool beside the crib. His elbow rests on the incubator’s edge, scrub sleeve gently crumpled where he has propped his arm to keep her close and even in sleep his stance is vigilant, as though his body itself could shield her from the dark. Each rise and fall of his shoulders is paced like a metronome, matching the steady beeps of the monitors and reminding you that two lives here balance on his quiet watchfulness.

Inside the incubator, Sunshine Girl lies swaddled in her pastel-yellow blanket, the crooked stitched sun resting just beneath her cheek like a silent benediction. Her eyelashes, fine as gossamer threads, fan across her high, rounded cheeks. cheeks so perfect and full they seem to glow against the sterile white light. Her tiny fist has curled itself around Dr. Na’s finger, knuckles rising and falling with each gentle breath as though she’s discovered an anchor in the darkness. Now and then, the soft rasp of her breathing shifts into a coo so delicate it could be mistaken for a lullaby carried on a breeze. You watch the way her lips part in sleep, the faintest quiver of a sigh escaping her, and you feel a fierce protective surge as if you’d defend this moment with every remaining ounce of courage.

Your breath catches at the sight: the two of them in perfect stillness, man and baby bound by a single golden thread of care. You raise a hand and press your palm to the outside of the incubator glass, where dribbles of warmth linger like fingerprints, proof that she’s no longer just a patient but a presence, a life that matters to you more than just machines. Your hands tremble, not from fear, but from the weight of all the promises you’ve stitched into her blanket and all the vigils you’ve yet to keep. Here, in this suspended hush, you realize she’s still here—and she’s not alone. Below the soft glow of the overhead lamp, the bond between doctor, baby, and the memories of every late-night stitch pulses like a whispered vow: she will always have someone to come back to.

You pause, heart tightening, as the baby stirs—her shoulders quiver in a slow, sleepy tremor like petals trembling at dawn. Instinct propels you forward. You press a fingertip to the blanket’s edge and tuck it more snugly around her shivering shoulders, smoothing the wool in long, careful strokes. She gives a faint whimper, soft enough to be mistaken for a sigh, but her hand flutters free and curls around the folds of fabric as if seeking refuge. You lean closer, voice low and warm: “It’s okay, little one,” you murmur, feeling warmth bloom behind your sternum. The bunnies on either side seem to lean in, their stitched eyes fixed on her, and in that moment you realize your hands know exactly how to comfort her, more tenderly than you ever imagined you could care.

As her tremors fade, Sunshine Girl’s lashes flutter, and she emits a faint coo that resonates like a lullaby in the stillness. You brush a fingertip across her forehead, light as a benediction and step back, heart thundering with a new, fierce protectiveness. The bunnies stand guard, the blanket’s golden sun glows softly, and Dr. Na remains asleep, unaware of the small miracle you’ve woven here: a baby finally finding peace in a world that once felt too cold. You press your palm once more to the glass, breathing in the hush, and carry this tender image with you—the quiet power of love wrapped in yarn and vigilant hearts.

It’s been exactly one week since you slipped that uneven, golden-hued blanket beneath Sunshine’s fragile shoulders for the first time, and every night since, tucking her in has become both ritual and refuge. You arrive before midnight, the corridor’s fluorescent hum receding behind you as if yielding to the warmth you carry in your arms. Kneeling beside the isolette, you spread the blanket like dawn unfurling across her body, each imperfect stitch a vow you’ve already kept ten thousand times in your heart. You lean in close, brush a fingertip along her cheek, and murmur the nonsense lullabies you’ve invented, soft rhythms meant only for her ears, until her breath steadies and her fist relaxes around the plush edge. The nurses know you by that glowing silhouette, the way you coo her name under your breath, and you wouldn’t trade this private hour for any other. In that golden glow, you feel her confidence bloom: the blanket is no longer just yarn and yarn, it is your promise that she will never wake alone.

Morning always arrives with a flurry of vital signs and lab reports, the turning pages of her chart as familiar as a heartbeat. Her oxygen saturations hover in the high nineties, her weight inching upward by grams, and cranial ultrasounds show no new bleeds, small mercies that keep you tethered to hope. Yet the specter of future procedures lingers in every echo and blood gas: there will be more surgeries, more anesthetic dawns, more nights you’ll pace these linoleum corridors with your heart in your throat. Today’s brief reads stable but cautious: minimal ventilator support, tolerating feeds at fifteen milliliters per hour, no fevers, no new murmurs. It’s hardly triumph, and not quite warning, but enough to remind you that her life is a tightrope walk above uncertainty. Still, for now, she is holding on—and so you hold your pen steady, charting her rises and falls as if mapping the constellations of her survival.

You’ve been by Dr. Na’s side for the entire month, your rotations intertwined like threads in a single tapestry and yet your care extends far beyond Sunshine. Each morning you slip into the NICU and then down the pediatric corridors without fanfare: he sees you waiting by the doors, ready to plunge into the lives of every fragile infant and child whose charts bear your name. He delegates with clipped efficiency, “I want your numbers on her intake by 0800,” or “Prep the line-change in Room 4, then meet me for the pre-op huddle”—and you glide into action, moving from Sunshine’s isolette to the ventilator-dependent preemie in isolette two, to the toddler in PICU recovering from congenital heart repair, to the school-age child with diabetic ketoacidosis in room 12. 

Fellow interns whisper that he values your precision and rapid surgical aptitude alike: you recall every baby’s perfect foot-warmer setting, deftly threading a central line into the tiniest vein without a tremor, anticipate the toddler’s restless kicks and distract her with a finger puppet, and spin quiet bedtime stories for the eight-year-old as she drifts toward anesthesia. In just days you’ve mastered ultrasound-guided catheter placements and flawless surgical knots—skills that typically take months to acquire—yet you never forget to memorize each patient’s personal quirks. He never praises outright, but when you hand him the latest blood gas for that cyanotic newborn and the drip-check sheet for the septic one before he even asks, his nod is enough: he trusts your competence with every life in this ward in a way he never has with anyone else.

Though sponge baths technically fall under the nurses’ domain, today two RNs have been pulled into a respiratory emergency across the ward, and the charge nurse’s clipboard is bulging with admissions. You know that no one else can give Sunshine that quiet hour of warmth that she deserves, a sacred pause in her battle, so when the nurse asks, “You sure you’re not busy elsewhere?” you and Hayoung exchange a look and slip past her gentle protest.

Steam drifts like silver ribbon through the alcove when you wheel Sunshine’s isolette against the tile, and the world narrows to a lit basin of water, clear as blown glass, trembling with heat that halos upward in soft wavering columns. The overhead lamp pools amber on the surface, turning each ripple into a molten sunbeam, and somewhere behind the hiss of warm taps and the distant ventilator beeps, you catch your own heartbeat counting off the measurements you memorized at dawn: thirty-eight degrees Celsius, just shy of skin; saline flush at the ready; cloth folded four times into a square small enough for her sternum. Hayoung steadies Sunshine’s neck with a gentleness that reminds you of a bird handler coaxing a sparrow to trust her palm, and you slide your arms beneath the baby’s fragile spine, feeling the flutter of hidden wings in the muscle of her back. For an instant she dangles between air and water—caught in the hush of a tide about to turn—and the blanket you peel away from her feels suddenly enormous against the threadbare hush of her soft cry.

The moment her heel touches the water, she startles—tiny mouth pulling into an O, lungs expanding like the opening of a stormcloud—and she loosens into a half-sob, wet and breathy, that ricochets off the tile. The basin shivers as her fists jerk, droplets flinging outward like startled minnows; her pulse skitters, monitors chiming in uneasy counterpoint. You press the warm cloth against the swell of her ribs, whispering the numbers in rhythm, one, two, three, lift; one, two, three, glide, while your thumb strokes the tremor that quakes at her collarbone. “Shhh, little current,” you murmur, letting the invented pet name ride on the hum that spills from your throat—a low, wordless vibrato that seems to braid itself with the water’s soft slosh. Hayoung’s breath catches when Sunshine jerks again, but you flatten your palm across the fluttering cage of her heart, and the warmth seeps into bone like sunlight into river-ice. Slowly, her sob tapers to a whimper, then to a hiccup that bubbles and fades; her fists uncurl, fingers splay like tiny sea stars against the surface, and she surrenders to the lap-lap of cloth gliding over her knees, her cheeks, the fragile sutures at her sternum. Each pass of the linen feels sacramental—an ocean washing grief from stone—until her eyelids droop, lashes beading with little diamonds of water that catch the lamp and scatter it across her cheeks like dawn-lit salt.

As the water settles and the two palm-sized rubber duckies drift like yellow planets at the basin’s edge, Sunshine finally melts into the warmth, her legs loosening, toes flexing under the surface until she gives a sudden, delighted kick that arcs a crescent of droplets across your scrub top; the duckies bob and wobble in her wake, far too large for her starfish hands to seize, yet she sends them spinning with each rhythmic flick of her ankles. You grin, angling the cloth in slow circles over her knees, and murmur, “Easy there, little ballerina, save your grand jetés for Auren Hall,” letting the joke float atop the steam. Hayoung huffs a watery laugh, and even Sunshine rewards the line with a burbly sigh, half-coo, half-giggle, as though she understands that choreography is simply another way to say I’m alive, watch me dance.

When the bath is finished, you lift her free in a cradle of toweling warmth, and the basin stills behind you, glassy as a tidepool after storm. Sunshine sighs—an almost inaudible reed-whistle—and burrows into the crook of your elbow, skin flushed rose where the water kissed her, eyelids drifting like soft curtains in a breeze. Hayoung drapes the pastel-yellow blanket around her crown; you fold the corners beneath her chin so the crooked sun Dr. Na stitched sits just at her throat, a makeshift medallion of dawn. In that moment she is a tiny comet wrapped in gold, and even the machines seem to hush, their lights dimming in reverence. Jaemin’s silhouette appears at the threshold, arms crossed, unreadable eyes catching on the way your hands settle her deeper into the blanket’s glow. He watches as Sunshine releases a drowsy coo—more exhale than word—and then, impossibly, a gurgle of something close to laughter flares in her throat before dissolving into a dream-heavy sigh. The steam around you disperses like a curtain parting, and the room, water-warm, antiseptic-bright, feels for one breathless instant like the safest harbor on earth.

You and Hayoung lift Sunshine onto the heated changing pad, the steam curling around you like a promise as you peel back the damp towel. She trembles, tiny shoulders shivering in the cooler air and unleashes a fresh cry, thin and urgent, as Hayoung slips a soft cotton onesie over her feet. You pause, heart tightening, and the wet strands of her hair plaster against your fingers. Without thinking, you begin to hum, a gentle, wordless lullaby that drifts from your lips like warm breath. The melody curves around the alcove, threading itself into the hiss of the warmer and the distant hum of ventilators. Hayoung freezes, roots her hands in the folds of the sleeper, and watches as Sunshine’s wails falter. The baby’s eyes flutter shut, a quaver of relief softening her lips, and she settles against your forearm, body folding into the soft cotton as if the song were a soft landing.

You straighten and whisper encouragement—“Almost there, sunshine”—then lower your voice so only she can hear. Hayoung fastens the little snaps at your coaxing, hooking the final one beneath Sunshine’s chin. Your lullaby falters, and you realize with startled wonder that you didn’t even notice the tune rising and falling; it simply poured from you. For a heartbeat, Hayoung’s eyes brim with unshed tears, and you blink away your own as you step back, hands trembling with the residue of that unbidden song.

From the far corner of the alcove, Dr. Na watches in silence, arms folded over his scrub top, gaze narrowed but not unkind. “Intern.” The single word drops into the steam like a stone. “Keep singing.”

Heat floods your cheeks. You swallow, stripes of red blossoming across your neck, but you lift your chin and offer the melody again—soft, steadfast—this time for him as much as for her. Sunshine breathes in time with the hum, tiny chest rising and falling beneath her sleeper, and you feel the quiet power of voice meeting flesh, of song meeting skin. In that charged hush, the world narrows to three hearts, baby, doctor, intern, bound by the simple grace of a lullaby in a room that knows too much sorrow.

Back at the isolette, you fasten the pulse-ox sensor, the one with the tiny bunny print, around her heel. You remember, almost without thinking, to switch to the smaller warmer pad; you’ve memorized her chart’s foot-sensitive notes. Jaemin leans in close as you whisper her vitals into the tablet. “You always remember the heel warmers,” he murmurs, voice quieter than the ventilator’s hum. It’s the first time you hear “thank you” from him, and your fingers falter on the clamp. He watches you, gaze unreadable, and you realize he’s catalogued every small devotion you’ve shown this child.

You settle beside Sunshine’s isolette and Dr. Na’s hand drops on your shoulder—warm, firm—a silent prompt to begin. You peel the corner of the gauze dressing at her sternotomy site and, in your haste, pull too sharply. The adhesive rips away from her porcelain skin in a rough tear, and she jolts awake with a high-pitched wail, her fists clenching at her chest. Guilt ricochets through your chest as you freeze, thumb hovering over the damp gauze. The room tilts: her tears, the twitch of her lip, your trembling hand.

Jaemin bends over the isolette, voice pitched to a velvet command. “Easy, Sunshine.” He cups her crown with one broad palm, thumb stroking the downy hair at her fontanel, and she settles in seconds—tiny breath catching, then sighing back into half-sleep. The dominance in his posture is palpable: shoulders squared over her like a sentry; eyes flicking to you, unreadable, expectant. Heat flushes up your neck. You reach for the second strip, but hesitation glues your fingers. They shake.

“Here.” He slides behind you, torso grazing the curve of your spine, gloved hand enveloping your own. The contact is clinical, rubber on skin, yet the weight of him is molten, breath grazing the shell of your ear. “You anchor first,” he murmurs, guiding your thumb to brace the intact skin just beyond the adhesive. “Counter-traction. Minimizes dermal shear.” His other hand closes over your wrist, applying the gentlest backward tension: slow peel, adhesive rolling on itself instead of tearing free. Sunshine barely stirs, lips parting in a drowsy sigh. Your own breath hitches, trapped between the porcelain warmth of the baby’s skin and the incandescent press of Jaemin’s sternum at your shoulder blades.

Together you irrigate the incision line, he steadies the sterile saline ampoule while you direct the flow, each droplet catching amber light before sliding over the neat column of sutures. He guides your swab in small concentric circles: “Center out. One pass per pad. Pressure just enough to blanch, not bruise.” The tone is steady, assured; you feel your pulse ease into his cadence. Sunshine’s eyelids flutter at the cool flush but remain closed, trusting.

When the gauze dries, he lowers a fresh transparent dressing into your palm. “Lay the center first,” he instructs, fingertips brushing the inside of your wrist—a static spark that travels up your arm and settles in your spine. You suspend the film over the wound; his thumb nudges your angle by a hair. Film kisses skin, adhesive sealing with a soft hush. Jaemin’s fingers linger to smooth the edges, tracing the perimeter with measured reverence. Sunshine releases a breathy coo—small, silvered joy—and the corners of her mouth tremble upward. It’s barely a smile, but the room seems to tilt toward it. You step back, the metronome of monitors syncing to your heartbeat. Jaemin straightens, gaze cutting from the dressing to your face. Steel meets softness; a quiet flare of approval smolders in the dark of his eyes, but no compliment escapes. Only a clipped “Good,” vibrating somewhere between benediction and command. 

Morning dilutes the hallway’s night-blue hush into ivory light, and you arrive at Sunshine’s isolette before rounds, breath clouding the glass like a secret. She’s already awake—eyes the color of bruised plums, lids still puffy from last night’s tears—yet there’s a new alertness firing in the tiny flick of her lashes. Her cheeks glow lamb-pink, mottled where the cannula tape presses, and the slope of her nose is dotted with pinprick milia that look like spilled sugar on porcelain. She’s still a thicket of tubing: nasal prongs feeding warmed oxygen, an OG tube taped at the corner of her mouth, a pulse-ox lead hugging her bunny-print foot. But her legs, those impossibly frail sticks, keep kicking against the boundaries of her blanket, testing gravity as though she’s just discovered it can be pushed back. Yesterday she scarcely flexed a toe; this morning each kick seems to announce, I’m here, I’m here, in a rhythm brighter than any monitor’s green glow.

You ease the isolette door open, and she startles—first with a gasp, then with a high, breathy “ah,” like the piano note at the very top of a scale. She flails, fists grazing the ventilator tubing, and in that flurry of motion her blanket slips, exposing the little sun Dr. Na stitched beside the leaf. The sight steadies you: vows sewn into cloth, still guarding her sternum. You tuck the blanket around her knees, thumb brushing the soft fuzz at her shin. She grips your latex-gloved fingertip—translucent nails against sterile blue—then promptly loses interest and kicks again, as if auditioning for some celestial swim team. It’s ridiculous, it’s beautiful, and it squeezes something aching and incandescent behind your ribs.

Dr. Na strides in with the rest of early rounds—clipboard in his left hand, stethoscope slung like a silver lariat over his shoulder, but the room seems to shrink to the triangle of you, him, and the baby. Her eyes flick toward him as though she recognizes his scent in the air. “Vitals?” he asks without looking up from the chart, but you’re already reciting them, heart rate 146, sats 95 on two-litre flow, urine output steady, no residuals on the last feed. He grunts an acknowledgment and flicks the diaphragm of his stethoscope against his palm to warm it.

Jaemin lifts the blanket’s corner, and cool air slips beneath the pastel folds. The stethoscope disk finds the soft swell of her belly, silver circle gleaming against moon-pale skin. He gives a gentle tap—just enough for the tiniest vibration to ripple through her, a secret knock at the door of her heartbeat. Sunshine’s eyes flare open, lashes quivering like wet petals; her mouth forms an astonished O, and then—out of the fragile hush—rises a gurgling laugh, round and effervescent, bubbling up as if a pearl had broken free from seawater. Her limbs answer first: feet kick slow, delighted arcs; fingers uncurl, brushing air the way a dreamer reaches for light. He taps again, softer, and the laugh returns—lighter now, half-hiccup, half-song—spilling down her tongue in tiny, shimmering crescendos. Tubes quiver against her cheeks with each sound; the cannula trembles, catching a droplet of breath. Beneath the transparent film at her sternum, the stitches rise and fall, but above them, life pours forth fearless and bright. The little sun embroidered on her blanket glints beneath her chin as she wiggles, laughter beating inside the isolette like a hummingbird’s wings—proof that even stitched skin and plastic lines cannot cage joy when it decides to bloom.

The silver disk skims lower, grazing the faint curve of her ribs, and Sunshine’s whole body anticipates the touch, knees drawing up, toes flexing, lips already quivering at the corners. Jaemin whispers another invisible boo into the hollow of her belly, and the laugh bursts out brighter, a liquid trill that sends her pacifier bobbing on its clip. Her eyes ribbon into crescents; the soft down of her brows lifts as though wonder itself is tickling her from the inside. A flush blooms across her cheeks, staining the skin just beneath the tape a rosy dawn, and she kicks hard enough that one bunny-printed footie blurs in the isolette’s light. Jaemin’s mouth tilts a fraction—more exhale than smile—but he taps once more, gentler than breath, coaxing another ripple of giggles that flutter through her like tiny wings.

You feel the sound land in the hollow of your chest—warm and aching—while your hand hovers inches from hers, ready should she reach, though you don’t interrupt. Her laughter drains into soft hiccups, lashes fluttering open to track the stethoscope’s gleam, as if she’s discovered a private moon. Jaemin finally lifts the disk away, but keeps his palm braced near her flank, steadying the residual tremors of joy. His eyes flick to yours—dark, bright, a quiet astonishment neither of you name—and in that exchange you taste salt behind your teeth, the sweetness nearly too much to bear. Sunshine sighs, lashes sweeping down, and nestles her face into the blanket’s sun, breathing tiny haloed clouds against the wool, her whole body soft as dusk. The room feels newly spun, tender and humming, each of you held in the fragile orbit of a baby’s laugh.

Jaemin, still staring at the impossible joy that just erupted from six pounds of scar tissue and willpower, murmurs, “Guess she thinks I’m funny.” The monitors carry on, oblivious, but every clinician in the alcove stands suspended in that shimmer of pure, unfiltered triumph. Her giggle hardens into legend over the next hour; Jihoon practically sprints to noon conference so he can announce, between panting breaths, “Sunshine likes dad jokes confirmed,” and no one bothers hiding their grin.

Later, as rounds wind down, you watch her burn through her newfound energy: a flurry of kicks, then a sleepy whine, then a thumb sucked loud enough to fog the cannula. Jaemin adjusts her feed angle, his knuckles grazing yours, and though the contact is gloved and fleeting, it sears a path of heat up your forearm. He murmurs a dosage adjustment under his breath, you nod, and together you settle the isolette lid. She sighs through her tube, lashes trembling shut, pacified by your lullaby-quiet breathing. She’s still sick—lines in, surgeries ahead—but today her laugh is proof that healing is not only measured in milliliters and milligrams; sometimes it bursts forth unscripted, a silver bell in a sterile room, and everyone present re-learns what hope sounds like.

You chart her milestone with trembling fingers—First audible laugh, 05:47, elicited by Dr. Na J.—and as the entry saves, you realize your cheeks ache from smiling. Sunshine sleeps, one foot kicking in dreams, blanket sun brimming beneath her chin; Jaemin steps behind you, voice low, neither praise nor reprimand—only, “Keep her this warm, her laugh is beautiful,” before he’s gone. But the day hums brighter for every soul that walks past that isolette and pauses, just long enough to see a tiny mouth quirk, as if she might laugh again, and let the dawn break twice in one morning.

Leaning into the isolette’s porthole, you let your voice dip into the hush between monitor beeps, forehead almost touching the clear plastic. Sunshine’s lashes flutter at the brush of your breath, and you trace a finger along the curve of her swaddle where the feeding line meets her shoulder. “You hungry, beautiful?” you murmur, letting the words tumble out like warm milk themselves—soft vowels, slow consonants. Her lips purse, working around the pacifier in a tiny suck-pause-suck rhythm, and one fist rises sleepily in answer, knuckles brushing the blanket’s sun as if she’s reaching for the idea of nourishment before the syringe even clicks into place.

The scare begins so quietly you almost miss it. Sunshine has been tolerating her afternoon gavage feeds, twenty milliliters of fortified milk sliding through the orange NG tube at a careful drip, but today she fusses halfway through, tiny brow knitting, fists tightening under the blanket. You stroke her foot, waiting for the wriggle to settle. Then, in a blink, everything splinters: her eyes fly wide, pupils blown with panic, and a wet gurgle rattles up her throat. Milk refluxes through the tube and pools at her lips. The pulse-ox monitor shrieks, oxygen plunging from 94 to 70, while the overhead alarm flashes a strobe of angry red.

Your hands freeze above her chest, mind fractured by the cacophony. You see the numbers falling—68, 63—but your fingers won’t move. Dr. Na materialises from the med cart like a shadow called by instinct. In one motion he flicks off the feeding pump, palms her sternum with two fingertips, and tilts her sideways. “Suction,” he commands, voice calm enough to still the room. The nurse snaps the catheter into his hand; he threads it past the tube in a single practiced glide, clearing the frothy milk and thin strings of mucus while his thumb taps gentle compressions along her back. The monitor bleeps up—72, 83—yet he doesn’t exhale until it climbs past 90. Sunshine’s chest heaves, then settles; her colour tints from ashen lilac to mottled pink. Only then does he nod once, clamps the NG line, and reattaches the nasal prongs.

Hours later, after the charting and the machine resets, you retreat to the metal stairwell that smells of bleach and burnt coffee. Your knees draw to your chest; your scrub top is damp where the milk splashed. The adrenaline drains, leaving a hollow tremor in its wake. You stare at your palms and wonder how hands that know every stitch of her blanket could turn to stone when she needed them. Footsteps echo. Dr. Na descends, pausing three steps up so you have to tilt your head to meet his eyes. He doesn’t scold. He simply extends the pink pacifier you’d left on the procedure tray. The glitter heart catches the stairwell light. “You forgot this.” His voice is quiet enough to slip under your guard. “You’re better when you’re not scared of losing,” he adds, tone neither harsh nor gentle—just true. “She needs you to be sure.” You wrap shaking fingers around the pacifier, and he rests his hand on the railing beside your head—close, not touching—until your breathing matches the slow cadence of his own. Only then does he climb back up, leaving the smell of scrub soap and peppermint lingering like a vow.

In the days that follow, Sunshine stitches together a quilt of tiny victories that remap the ward’s heartbeat. Hayoung slips the white plush bunny into the isolette one dawn, and the instant the velvety ear brushes Sunshine’s cheek, she releases a pleased coo—three rising notes that sound like a miniature skylark greeting morning. Later, during chart checks, Jihoon parks himself beside her crib and recites her medication list in a hammy Shakespearean baritone—“Two milliliters of caffeine citrate, thou noble babe!”—and she answers with an enormous yawn, jaw unhinging to the ceiling, pink tongue curling like a comma at the end of a sentence. The whole bay chuckles; she looks faintly pleased with herself.

Her strength blooms in whispers: one afternoon you lift her onto the wedge for physiotherapy, and she pushes up, drowsy but determined, head floating a full half-inch off the mattress. Those five seconds steal the air from your lungs; you duck into the supply closet and cry against a stack of diapers, the smell of powder and plastic cocooning your joy. By week’s end she’s strong enough to lock onto your lanyard—tiny fist snagging the ID badge and yanking with startling ferocity until the clip pops loose. Dr. Na smirks, reattaches it, and remarks under his breath, “Recruiting her early, are you?” She hiccups in reply, cheeks blooming sunset pink.

None of these moments rewrite her prognosis—she’s still tethered to half a dozen lines, still facing more surgery—but they redraw the map of what is possible: bunny coos, Shakespeare yawns, half-inch head lifts, lanyard captures. Each demands new space in the margin of her chart, written in the same ink as vitals and vent settings, because here, joy is as measurable as any lab value. And every night, long after rounds, you slip that yellow blanket up to her chin, whisper the day’s new victory into her ear, and wait for the soft exhale that means she believes you: I’m here, I’m here.

You don’t realize how narrow your orbit has become until Chief Resident Siyeon plants both palms on the on-call room table and says, very evenly, “You’re not a pediatric intern, and you’re not her mother, you shouldn’t be this attached.” The fluorescent light picks out every crease in her brow; the words sting harder because they’re true. Since the night Sunshine emerged into your arms, you’ve lived along a single corridor, drifted from isolette to OR to isolette again, stitched tightly to Dr. Na’s service as though the rest of the hospital were merely background noise. No one bothered paging you for adult trauma consults anymore; your colleagues joked that if anyone needed you they should try the NICU first. At morning sign-out other interns swapped war stories about bowel resections and emergent craniotomies; you traded tips on heel warmers, cannula sizes, and pacifier flow rates. Somewhere in the haze of feeds, line changes, and Dr. Na’s clipped requests, you forgot that the internship program expects breadth, not devotion.

It started innocently: an extra set of competent hands during a midnight PDA ligation, the way you anticipated retractors without being asked. Dr. Na liked predictable, silent efficiency, and you showed up every shift with the chart colour-coded and the OR prepped to his exact preference: curved Metzenbaums at ten o’clock, stat drain at one, suction tubing primed, arterial line transduced to the decimal. When preemies bradyed, you nudged the FiO₂ up before he spoke; when sutures needed tying, your knots lay flat and surrendered at the precise tug pressure he favoured. Word spread that he “doesn’t use interns—he uses her,” but no one challenged it because beds were turning over faster than staff could learn names. And yes, Sunshine cooed for you and settled for your lullaby, but the truth was every neonate under his care benefited: the baby post-gastroschisis closure who only took feeds when you paced the bolus; the ex-24-weeker who desatted less when you calibrated the pulse-ox clip just north of the knee. Other interns documented vitals; you documented patterns and presented them before dawn rounds like tiny weather reports of each child’s storm.

That’s the context Siyeon slaps onto the table when she orders your transfer. “Dr. Na can like you all he wants, but you are not a single-service intern.” She hands you a temporary badge for Cardiac Surgery, Surgical Hearts Unit, Dr. Hwang. The name alone is legend: minimally invasive valve wizard, five papers in JTCVS this year. You nod, throat paper-dry, and turn toward the elevator bank feeling like someone has untethered your gravity. Dr. Hwang’s OR is an icebox of precision, temperature down for myocardial protection, sarcasm dialed up for survival. He watches you scrub, notes your clumsy opposite-hand brush technique, and corrects it with a quick bark. Yet once the chest is cracked and the aorta cross-clamped, he sees how your hands move: quick, economical, no wasted rotation of the wrist. “Good vessel control,” he mutters as you snare the right coronary ostium. Later, in debrief, he studies the suture line on the explanted valve ring. “Soft hands,” he says, which in his dialect counts as euphoria, but follows with, “You second-guess too much. Stop waiting for permission, just take it.” The compliment lands like grit; you pocket it anyway. But the scent of chlorhexidine in Peds still clings to your scrubs, and each time the unit phone rings across the OR, your pulse spikes, waiting for a code you’ll no longer answer.

By the end of the second day, the NICU corridor carries your absence in every echo. Hayoung’s text arrives like a cautious ripple: “Sunshine’s residuals are up. I tried your slow-drip angle—it didn’t settle.” Beneath the bright fluorescents, the incubators stand like empty pews, waiting for someone who knows their hymns. Hyejin’s message reads: Day 3: she misses you. How do I make her stop crying? The accompanying photo shows Sunshine’s lashes stuck together with tears, cheeks mottled pink, eyes too big for her face. You send back instructions, tuck the blanket corner just so under her chin, pacifier rotated to the magic angle, a humming note in F-sharp to match her resting heart rate but the reply is a cascade of crying-face emojis. Down the hall, whispers say Dr. Na prowls the bay like a storm’s eye; when a resident delivers an NG tube two millimeters too large, Dr. Na’s low “Take it back” cuts sharper than any reprimand you’ve ever heard him offer.

He’s accustomed to your rhythm: the exact moment you’d read a drop in sats and cradle her head, the way you’d coax a stubborn feed track into her gut as if it were your solemn vow. He never voices it—prefers to let the ward’s heartbeat betray his preference—but when Hyejin steps forward to lower the FiO₂ by protocol, he slides his gloved thumb to tweak the dial up just enough to see that familiar flicker of calm return to Sunshine’s face. When she gags on her line and Hyejin hesitates, Dr. Na’s hand drifts to your old stool’s empty space, his gaze lingering on the scratches your penlight made on its leg. And though he never summons your name aloud, every order he issues, every shift he schedules, bends toward the unspoken certainty: you’re the one who can speak her language, who knows by heart the fragile grammar of her survival.

And you—torn from the little miracles of midday rounds and the soft triumph of a warmed towel—feel the ward’s pulse in empty spaces. You miss the steady click of the pump when she takes a full feed, the hush that falls when babies like her hold still under your touch, the sharp comfort of a successful central line placement. You miss the shuffle sneakers as you arrive to pre-rounds, the low hum of drip alarms and the chorus of tiny sighs that greet sunrise. Most of all, you miss the small hand that once sought your lanyard and the confident tug that felt like a promise. In the quiet hours between Cardiac’s sterile walls, you close your eyes and hear again the soft gasp of a little fighter beneath the sun-woven blanket, and you know that every stitch you ever made—and every stitch you’ll ever make—exists only because her breath still needs you.

Day Five dawns beneath a vault of piercing lights in Dr. Hwang’s operating theater, where the stainless steel and polished glass gleam with an almost reverent intensity. You stand beside the patient—a silent promise of new life etched into the pale curve of her chest—fingers gloved and poised on the prosthetic valve’s silken cuff. The heart-lung machine hums at your side, its steady pulse echoing the very organ you’re about to replace, and the room smells of antiseptic and opportunity, as if salvation has a scent. Monitors blink in unison, their green and yellow digits sliding across the screen like a countdown to rebirth, while Dr. Hwang’s measured voice issues commands that you, reflexively, transform into precise action: clamp here, suture there, a swirl of motion so practiced it feels like breathing.

Then the doors melt open, and Dr. Na steps in as though summoned by fate itself, mask hanging slack beneath his chin, eyes obsidian pools reflecting the perfusion lights. His presence shifts the air: confidence sharpened to a blade’s edge. He crosses the threshold with the soft authority of someone accustomed to victory, and without hesitation says, “I need her for a consult.” His tone carries no question. Dr. Hwang pauses mid-incision, glancing at the perfusionist as if the entire divine hierarchy has realigned; a single, meaning-laden sigh escapes him. He turns to you, eyebrows arched, and with the quiet grace of a conductor acknowledging another soloist, he nods. In that moment, gowns and gloves become vestments cast aside. You slip out of your apron without ceremony, hand off your instruments, and follow Dr. Na through the antiseptic corridor, the soft click of your boot soles a promise of return—return to the row of incubators where dozens of tiny lives still tremble, each one waiting for the careful hands that know its name.

He says nothing down the hallway, but his pace is clipped; you lengthen your stride to keep up. In the NICU procedure room a 34-weeker lies blue-mottled; a pleural drain has occluded. He snaps on gloves, hands you curved hemostats, and you fall into rhythm—no speech needed. You angle the trocar, he rides the guidewire, and together you chase the trapped air until the pleura sighs and the baby pinks up like dawn over snow. Fifteen minutes, one silent ballet. When the lid is sealed, he nods once. That’s it. You half-expect dismissal, but he holds the door as you wheel the bassinet back, and the air between you feels warmer for the first time in days.

Just before the hospital clocks flick past midnight, the electronic roster shifts without fanfare—your badge ID vanishes from Cardiac Surgery and reappears beneath Pediatrics, as if carried on a silent breeze. No emails, no explanations: one moment you’re scrubbed in for valve repairs; the next, you’re back amid the soft hum of incubators and the diffuse glow of night-shift lamps. In the NICU’s gentle glow, Sunshine lies swaddled in her yellow blanket. Beneath her cheek, the tiny sun Dr. Na stitched gleams like first light, its golden rays a silent promise. She breathes in slow, trusting rhythms—feed residuals minimal, heart steady—and then stirs. A single fist drops free to curl around the loop of your lanyard, tugging once as if greeting an old friend, before her lashes flutter closed again. You press your palm to the glass, feeling the warmth of her tiny victory in every exhale, and in that hush you know you’re exactly where you belong.

Six months have passed since that first fragile sunrise in the NICU, and outside, winter’s breath has begun to frost the glass. Dawn arrives later now, silver light seeping through drawn blinds into the hushed corridor. You pause by Sunshine’s isolette every morning, noting how the steam from her heater mingles with wisps of chill air. The world beyond these walls has shifted from spring’s tentative green to winter’s crystalline stillness, but inside, her incubator glows like a private hearth. Nurses pad past in wool socks, carefully closing doors behind them to guard her microclimate, and you feel the weight of time’s passage every time you see how much she’s grown.

Once a three-pound ember fighting to stay alight, Sunshine now tips the scales at nearly five kilos, her limbs plump with promise. Her cheeks, once translucent as porcelain, bloom a petal-pink when she’s warmed; her tiny shoulders undulate with breaths that no longer rattle but rise in lazy, confident arcs. She no longer needs invasive ventilation, only a gentle nasal cannula that nestles beneath her button nose like a protective halo. Ultrasound echoes show stable shunts, steady cardiac function; every lab value whispers of a body learning to thrive. And within that expanding vessel of flesh and resolve, a personality unfurls: when the mobile swings, her fist bats at dangling stars; when your voice drifts near, her lips curve in an emerging smile that brightens the monitors more than any reading ever could.

Her daily check-ups have become routine rituals rather than alarms. At 0800, the neonatologist traces her growth chart, notes her weight gain, and listens to her lungs with that same stethoscope that once coaxed the first giggle from her belly. No new murmurs surface; no fresh bleeds stain the scans. Feed tolerance climbs to full oral volumes—thirty milliliters every three hours—and the NG tube only remains in place for emergencies. With the stability earned after half a year of vigil, Sunshine now joins a select few for “winter walks”: nurses tuck her into a thermal blanket burrito, pop the isolette into a stroller, and glide her along the ward’s sunlit atrium. Her eyes widen at the soft crunch of gravel in the courtyard below, and for those precious moments of fresh air and gentle landscape, she’s more than a patient—she is a child tasting the world.

And oh, how she explores it. Head held high against her pillow, she tracks faces with that arresting stare that once only prompted solemn charts; now she beams, coos, and squeals like a tiny songbird. Her fingers, once too feeble to clasp, now curl around a nurse’s pinky with surprising strength. She reaches for the music-box ballerina atop her isolette, a tentative grasp followed by delighted gurgles. Rolling from back to side—a milestone she practiced under the soft lamplight—Sunshine declares her presence in the room. Hayoung laughs when she sees the crooked sun on her blanket peeking from beneath her chin, and you sigh against the glass, heart full. In every twitch of an eyelash, every breath drawn in the cold winter air, you witness a living miracle becoming herself: lovely, stubborn, and utterly impossible to imagine ever leaving this world without leaving a piece of herself inside every soul she’s touched.

Midday in the NICU has become its own quiet tradition: the hum of monitors and soft whir of ventilators fade into the background, replaced by the gentle clatter of paper cups and the low murmur of stolen lunches beside Sunshine’s isolette. It's become tradition for interns, nurses, and the occasional resident to gather around Sunshine’s incubator for lunch. It began as whispered guilt: how hollow the bay felt when she sat alone under those fluorescent beams, tray tables untouched, her tiny chest rising and falling without anyone to witness. Now you come armed with fold-out chairs and paper cups of Jihoon’s miso soup, steam curling like a benediction, and the corridor hums with rustling wrappers and soft laughter. Hyejin sits at Sunshine’s head, knitting yet another pastel hat whose stitches count the days of warmth you’ve given her. Hayoung perches on the foot of the isolette with her sketchbook, capturing the curve of a cheek, the slope of a newborn nose in quick graphite strokes. You slip a single marshmallow beneath Sunshine’s blanket for “protection,” tucking it into the fold so that, if luck were candy, she’d have enough sugar to share. When Dr. Na strides by, brow furrowed beneath his cap, you and Hayoung exchange a conspiratorial glance before nodding as if bathing babies at lunch were the most natural thing in the world. Hayoung sighs, strides out, and returns with matcha buns—plastic bags crackling like applause—urging, “Eat up,” because Sunshine’s feast is the only one speeding up the universe.

Over weeks, the bay has become a small, sacred ecosystem of devotion. The isolette’s walls gleam with new stickers every shift—“fighter,” “sunshine,” “baby astronomer”—each one a talisman pressed against the plastic. You’ve knitted half a dozen more blankets: a sky-blue shawl dotted with ivory clouds, a rose-tinted wrap flecked with golden stars, and a mustard-yellow square embroidered with Grandpa’s initials. Plush bunnies multiply beside her chest—one wears a tiny bow tie in forest green, another a lace collar—while a rotating mobile of silver moons arcs above, each rotation a silent benediction. Behind the incubator you keep a little leather notebook, its pages blossoming with scrawled notes: She smiled when I hummed last night, Coos when the thermometer clicks, Fist-bites the NG tube, tiny rebel. That diary is your secret sanctuary, where every flutter of her growth is chronicled like a miracle in bullet points and half-drawn hearts.

But not every story here blooms. One afternoon, you’re mid-round when the resident calls a code on Baby R—a tiny preemie only days older than Sunshine. You rush in, hands steady but heart pounding, to help with chest compressions on a body so small you can’t believe you’re pressing down at all. The machines whine, the alarms pierce, and despite every intervention, he slips away. His isolette stands empty afterward, the space beside his cradle ghostly. You swallow against the lump in your throat, taste bitter fear on your tongue, and slip out to the stairwell, each step echoing your loss. The world narrows to the sound of your tears soaking your scrub sleeve, shoulders shaking like you’ve forgotten how to stand. Jihoon finds you there, eyes soft with shared grief. He doesn’t say a word, he never needs to. He presses a sticker into your palm, bright yellow and crowned with the words World’s Best Intern, and steps forward until you’re wrapped in his arms. His chest rises beneath yours, solid and warm, and you let yourself dissolve, head falling against his shoulder as he hums a single note of comfort. “I’d lose myself,” you manage between ragged breaths, “if anything happened to her.” He holds you closer, the hum resonating through his ribs, a promise that in this bay of fragility, hope still breathes

You slip into the bay at noon, still carrying the weight of yesterday’s loss like a stone in your chest. The grief of Baby R’s passing, so close in size and age, has shadowed every breath you draw, and you find yourself flinching at the thrum of alarms, haunted by the echo of compressed chests. Jihoon watched you disappear into the stairwell, shoulders heaving, tears soaking your sleeve, and he vowed to carve out a moment of light. So today he’s assembled six plush bunnies around Sunshine’s incubator, not as mere toys, but as symbols of hope. Each one was chosen for the way its fur recalls a memory of comfort: mint-green for morning baths, sky-blue for gentle ventilator hums, buttercream for every feed you coaxed her through, and three more in pastel hues you’ve yet to name. He wants you to see that life still blooms here, that joy can return even after we’ve been scorched by sorrow.

The air in the NICU feels charged with something tender, anticipation, maybe, or the quiet insistence that life endures. Jihoon bursts in mid-afternoon with two new plush arrivals cradled in his arms: one snow-white bunny with button eyes like polished pearls, the other golden-furred and soft as spun dawn. “All the bunnies need names,” he declares, setting them on the edge of Sunshine’s incubator as though presenting royal guests. Sunshine, swaddled in her lavender blanket dotted with silver stars, stares at them with wide, unblinking eyes, the first clear focus you’ve seen all day. Her tiny hands seem constantly curious, reaching forwards with delighted determination. She babbles, her little mouth forming consonants as if eager to speak. A gummy smile spreads, occasionally accompanied by a drool that traces her chin. Her eyes, when she focuses, are impossibly wide, full of wonder as she reacts to the world around her. Her small belly rolls gently as she wriggles, her movements soft and innocent, evoking a tender, near-aching affection.

Jihoon clears his throat, voice low and ceremonious, and you feel the weight of every eye in the bay resting on the scene. “Friends,” he begins, tilting his head toward the golden-furred bunny, “I present Egg Yolk.” His tone is playful but firm, as though he’s performing a rite older than any you’ve witnessed in these walls. Sunshine’s big plump cheeks flush a soft sunrise pink at the sight of her new companion, and you watch her lower lip tremble in an exquisite, heart-touching moment when the world seems to hold its breath just for her.

You step closer, cradling Sunshine’s head in your gloved hand, the gentle warmth of her fine downy hair brushing your palm. “Egg Yolk,” you murmur into her ear, letting the name roll off your tongue like a lullaby. Her tiny fists uncurl from the folds of her blanket and she reaches out, fingertips brushing the honeyed fur of the golden bunny with a tenderness that feels too profound for her six months of life. As her hand closes around the soft ear, a delighted gurgle escapes her—an unexpected sparkle in the sterile air. You half-laugh, half-sigh, unable to stop the emotion threading through your chest. “Yes,” you whisper, voice thick, “Egg Yolk, because you’re the first light of our mornings.” Jihoon watches her, eyes softening, and Hayoung’s pencil flutters over the paper as she captures the upward tilt of Sunshine’s lashes. In that suspended second, as the golden bunny nestles against Sunshine’s cheek, you sense the full weight of what naming can mean: belonging, protection, the promise that she will never wander these corridors alone.

Now it falls to Cloud—the pristine, snow-white rabbit—to claim her place beside Sunshine. Jihoon shifts beside you, pressing a gentle finger into Sunshine’s open palm as though guiding the choice. You lean in, voice hushed: “And this friend, what shall we call her? Do you like the name Cloud?” Jihoon smiles, a rare soft curve to his lips, and replies, “Because even on stormy nights, she’ll carry you to peaceful skies.” As he speaks, you watch Sunshine’s eyes brighten, that familiar glint of recognition flickering like a celestial spark. She extends both chubby hands, batting at Cloud’s perky ears with surprising purpose, then presses the bunny’s belly against her own in a sleepy, contented sigh. Her small body shivers with a half-giggle, a wet, breathy coo that seems to ripple through her like sunshine breaking through winter clouds. 

Hyejin pauses her knitting to offer a quiet “Yes,” and the nurses lingering nearby press their palms to the glass, sharing in the warmth of the moment. 

You lean forward again, voice soft as snow: “Cloud and Egg Yolk, official guardians of our Sunshine.” The words hang between you, a tapestry of devotion woven in syllables, and as Sunshine nestles her head into the curve of Cloud’s back, you know she has, in naming these companions, chosen her own small constellation of love.

Jihoon arranges the six plush bunnies around Sunshine’s incubator with precise reverence: two stand guard at her head, two flank her feet like dutiful escorts, and two rest at her sides as loyal companions. Sunshine’s cheeks bloom with a gentle flush as she lifts her head to regard her new court, bright eyes alight with curiosity—an imperious little monarch surveying her circle of soft, devoted attendants. Her tiny hands emerge from the folds of her lavender blanket, plump fingers brushing the ears of the nearest bunny in a delicately deliberate salute. A soft gurgle of delight escapes her lips, and she gives a tentative tug on the silk bow around the bunny’s neck, as if testing the bonds of loyalty she helped forge. You and Hayoung exchange triumphant smiles: the original naming ceremony may have christened Cloud and Egg Yolk, but here, in this moment, every stuffed friend feels newly honored. Jihoon steps back, hands on hips, eyes shining with the quiet satisfaction of a guardian who knows his charge is surrounded by love. In the hush that follows, Sunshine coos again, her coo rippling through the bunnies like a royal decree, and you realize that her laughter has become the anthem of this makeshift court, binding each of you ever closer to her bright, unfolding world.

Then, as if deciding they’re trustworthy, she reaches out one pudgy hand. Her fingers are plump crescents tipped in milky-white nails, each one flexing with surprising purpose, and she wraps them around Egg Yolk’s silky ear. A single droplet of clear drool pools at the corner of her mouth, catching the light like a dew-kissed petal. You nearly gasp at how perfectly it glows against her rose-tinted cheek. She gives a gentle tug and the golden bunny wobbles—but doesn’t fall—and she emits a soft, breathy squeal: a tender half-coo, half-laugh that reverberates through the incubator like a blessing. Encouraged, she shifts in her swaddle, exposing the tiny dimples on her knees as her legs kick in joyous arcs. Each kick sends a ripple through the blanket, and you swear she’s dancing—six months old, still tiny enough to fit in the crook of your shoulder, yet bold enough to claim space in your heart. Her lips part in a gummy grin, and you glimpse the faintest hint of tooth buds just beneath her gums, two pearly pledges of the milestones still to come. Then, between another series of kicks, she coos again, clear, resonant, an unmistakable “ma-ma” that echoes off the glass. Your breath catches. It’s the first time you’ve heard her attempt a consonant, and the sound feels like sunrise breaking through winter’s longest night.

As she settles her hands on Cloud’s plush belly, she breathes out in a sigh so contented it feels like a lullaby in itself. Her eyelids flutter into soft crescents; the bunnies rock gently with the sway of her body. Even the monitors quiet, their beeps retreating into the hush. In that intimate pause, you and Jihoon exchange a glance—no words needed—because you both know: this tiny miracle, this bubbling sprite of light and laughter, has grown not just in size, but into her own radiant self, full of purpose, promise, and the tender power to bind all of you to her orbit forever.

You catch Jihoon’s eye and he offers you a soft, conspiratorial smile, an unspoken assurance that this was for you, that even in grief you can find reasons to rejoice. You lift Sunshine from her incubator, cradling her against your chest as though she might drift away otherwise. “Who’s my wittle princess?” you coo, voice low and tremulous with delight. Her eyes open wide at the sound of your tone, those bruised-plum irises fixing you in a gaze so knowing it feels like a touch. She answers with a stream of warm gurgles, tiny lungs humming under your scrub top. You lean down, pressing a sweet, gentle kiss to her forehead. “Yes, you are, my shining star, my Sunny-Bunny,” you murmur, each pet name tumbling out in a river of soft vowels.

Around you, the interns fall silent, chairs scraping the linoleum in hushed awe. Hayoung’s pencil stills mid-sketch; Hyejin’s needles pause in mid-click; even Jihoon stops the rustle of wrappers in his hands. The nurses drift to the doorway, glancing in with tender smiles, whispering among themselves, “Look how perfectly she fits in her arms,” and “She’s so at home with her.” Sunshine coils her fingers into the fabric of your gown as though anchoring herself to your heartbeat, then releases a series of coos and squeals, each one a miniature conversation, as if she’s replying in her own newborn dialect to your stream of endearments. You sway in the soft overhead glow, lost in the rhythm of her breath, the hush of the bay folding around you like a benediction.

At the threshold, Dr. Na stands with his back to the corridor, shoulders tense, mask lowered like armor. He watches you and Sunshine entwined in that private orbit, and a knot tightens in his chest, equal parts longing and reverence. He doesn’t step forward; he doesn’t speak. There’s a tender ache he can’t describe and an emptiness in his chest that no monitor can measure. The world beyond these walls blurs into quiet insignificance, and all that remains is the soft chorus of your coos and Sunshine’s trusting squeals—a duet heard only within the hush of this sacred bay.

The night after, the NICU hums under low evening light, monitors pulsing like distant constellations, and Sunshine lies nestled amid her newly christened court of bunnies—Cloud curled beneath her chin, Egg Yolk tucked at her hip, Marshmallow posted like a sentinel at her feet. At six months she still fits in the crook of your arm, yet her movements have gained intention: a careful palm patting Cloud’s velvety ear, a gummy kiss pressed to Egg Yolk’s honey-colored nose. She studies each plush friend with solemn concentration, blinking wide lavender-grey eyes as though she can read history in their stitched smiles. When she coos, the sound carries a whisper of ownership, an almost musical lilt that claims these soft companions as part of her story. Even her breathing seems gentler tonight, as if the bunnies have absorbed the sharp edges of the day and handed back only quiet.

Jihoon hovers at the bedside, arms folded, watching her explore this miniature kingdom. “Look at her,” he murmurs, voice half-reverent. “Treats them like glass heirlooms.” Sunshine answers with a gleeful squeak, patting his offered knuckle with sticky fingers. The gesture snags a sigh from his chest, one of those involuntary releases that happen when hope outweighs fear. You lean closer, adjusting her cannula prongs with feather-light precision; she hardly notices, too busy stroking Marshmallow’s ribbon, the frayed satin catching on her still-dimpled knuckle. The nurses slow their steps near the isolette, drawn by the hush that settles whenever Sunshine enters this state of concentrated gentleness, as though she knows tenderness is a power, and powers should be wielded carefully.

When the overhead clock clicks past twenty-two hundred, you begin the bedtime ritual you’ve refined over months of sleepless vigils. First, Egg Yolk is positioned under her elbow for warmth; then Cloud is tucked beside her cheek to catch stray dreams; finally, you unfold her blanket edged with moon-white yarn and lay it over her lap, smoothing each ripple until it mirrors still water. Sunshine watches with grave attention, lower lip caught between soft gums, as if memorizing every fold for the nights you might not be here. You bend to kiss the center of her forehead, skin warm, faint antiseptic scent in her baby curls, whispering, “Goodnight, precious baby,” and her eyelids drift down while a rose-petal sigh escapes her.

Jihoon breaks the hush with a mock ceremonial bow, sweeping his arm across the bunnies. “Sleep tight, Her Royal Brightness,” he says, conjuring a smile that lifts the weight from his shoulders, and Sunshine rewards him with a half-giggle that bubbles like tonic water. He taps the isolette glass twice—an unspoken seal to the ritual—before stepping back, cheeks pink with quiet pride. The hallway lights dim to their midnight setting, and for a breath you think the night is wrapped, but rain begins to tap against the tall windows: soft, insistent percussion that turns the bay’s reflective surfaces into shifting rivers of light.

“Rain,” Jihoon whispers, eyes widening. “She’s never seen it.” Before the monitors can mark another heartbeat, you both nod with an unspoken agreement. He’s already rummaging through the supply cart for colored paper. You fish a sheet of translucent raindrop stickers from your binder, left over from a discharge poster, and begin to press them onto the isolette’s clear canopy, one after another, until a cascade of sapphire droplets drips across her field of view. Sunshine stirs, pupils tracking the new shapes with awed fascination. Jihoon brandishes a quick-cut paper umbrella, blue handle crooked just right, and tapes it above her head like a comic-strip sky. You dim the overheads, swipe open a cloud-slow video on your phone, and angle the screen so shifting cumulus reflections ripple across the blanket. In that gentle gloom, the isolette transforms: raindrops trickle down acrylic walls; a paper sky shelters her; distant thunder murmurs through tinny speakers. Sunshine’s mouth forms a perfect O, lashes fluttering as she reaches into the hologrammed air, fingers curling around visible nothing. A single delighted squeal escapes her, and she kicks both feet, the bunnies wobbling around her like cheerful life preservers.

The bay doors hiss. Dr. Na steps in, rain-speckled scrubs, gravity in his shoulders. He pauses, absorbing the tableau: you crouched in semi-dark with a phone-lit cloudscape, Jihoon holding a construction-paper umbrella over an isolette cloaked in blanket and bunny guards. One eyebrow arcs. “Do I even want to ask?” he mutters, voice low, though the faint crease at the corner of his mouth betrays intrigue. The rain-track melody answers for you, soft tambour strokes tapping the silence.

“She’ll walk in the rain one day,” you reply, adjusting a droplet sticker. “Tonight’s just rehearsal.” Sunshine echoes with a breathy sigh, gaze flicking from the projected clouds to Dr. Na’s silhouetted frame, as though acknowledging every player in her private storm. The moment hangs, thick with quiet prophecy. Outside, real water traces erratic paths down the windows; inside, paper rain and sticker droplets fall in perfect choreography.  In the lamplight Dr. Na’s eyes soften—not joy, not sorrow, but something suspended between: a tender ache, a promise of mornings yet to come. The storm flickers across Sunshine’s blanket, and for one breathless span the metaphor aligns: her body—a world of fragile weather; the umbrella—your steadfast team; every droplet—a survival flagged and named. When the projector’s clouds drift away, she’s already asleep, one tiny fist curled around Cloud’s ear, face lit by the smallest smile, a child who has weathered so much, cradled by the quiet certainty that she never storms alone.

Your first six months at the hospital are lived between breaths held too long and exhaled too quickly. You enter the sterile glow of surgery with textbooks still imprinted behind your eyelids, yet you discover swiftly that anatomy in ink is nothing compared to anatomy beneath your fingertips. Under the stark, humming lights, you learn that a steady hand means nothing without a steadier heart; that the body, when opened, yields not only bone and sinew but stories—fragile and whispered, stark and unforgettable. You learn the mathematics of precision, how the smallest measurement can mean life or loss, and that vulnerability is something your textbooks leave untouched.

But it’s not just technical skill you find scrubbed beneath your nails. Within each procedure—every suture, every exact clamp of a bleeder—you uncover layers of yourself. Hesitation transforms into quiet decisiveness; the tremor in your fingertips steadies into confident grace. You discover your instinct isn’t caution—it’s compassion, and it blooms fiercely. Your capacity to carry pain surprises you: each loss presses its fingerprint into your chest, each success becomes a quiet celebration in the curve of your palms. You become the kind of surgeon whose strength is drawn from empathy rather than distance, whose courage flourishes quietly in the silence after loss.

Around you, the other interns are not just colleagues but family forged by late nights and whispered anxieties over lukewarm vending-machine coffee. Jihoon’s steady humor shines like a sunlit corridor; Hayoung’s soft intensity sketches itself into every careful note she scribbles; Hyejin’s resilience threads gently through the wool she knits during each midnight shift. They fill your days with a companionship as essential as breath. Within hospital walls, among antiseptic scents and fluorescent hums, you find a home that nestles deep into your bones, a place where your fears are shared, your hopes held gently, and your dreams tended by hands as careful as those that wield the scalpel.

Yet of all your teachers, the most profound is the smallest. Sunshine arrived wrapped in quiet tragedy, a newborn miracle cradled by incubator walls, fragile limbs mapped in veins delicate as lace. She teaches you bravery with every rise of her tiny chest, every fluttering blink beneath eyelashes like silver threads. Because of her, you learn that courage means staying—through fevers and midnight alarms, through terrifying silences and small victories that feel monumental. Your hands grow steadier for her, your voice softer, your heart larger. Without conscious thought, you revolve around her axis, her survival a silent religion you practice every day with quiet reverence.

And orbiting alongside you, always at the edge of your awareness, is Dr. Na. He teaches without speaking, his presence quiet yet colossal, a surgeon whose clipped voice hides oceans of care. You mirror him unconsciously, your movements syncing into unspoken choreography, your fingertips tracing paths he first outlines. But the closer you grow to Sunshine’s small, resilient heart, the more his shadow blurs with your own. In the intensity of your shared vigil, your pulse sometimes flutters not from exhaustion or anxiety, but from something deeper—something you will only recognize later, once it has already taken root within your chest.

At the center of it all remains Sunshine, cradled in the quiet pulse of your shared gravity, a delicate bloom facing resolutely toward whatever faint warmth your fingertips and voices offer. She’s a sunflower turning instinctively toward your muted glow, her face open and trusting as petals unfurled beneath the sterile glare. Yet even in her perfect softness, beneath the porcelain silk of her skin and the ink-black lashes that sweep shadows down her cheeks, lingers the hushed tremor of something stolen—innocence pilfered by a mother who slipped away, leaving only fragmented echoes and silence thick as velvet curtains falling closed after the final act.

She holds a secret behind eyes luminous as nebulae, quietly reflecting galaxies you have not yet learned to navigate. Each tiny breath she draws into lungs once too frail for air whispers promises she cannot yet fulfill—promises of survival, yes, but also promises steeped in shadows that creep just beyond your sight. She becomes the axis of your private universe, a small sun around whom your and Dr. Na’s lives revolve unknowingly, pulled into an orbit that masks something darker, more precarious, beneath the incandescent sweetness of her smile. Behind every quiet coo lies the faintest echo of the puppeteer’s strings, threads you cannot see but sometimes feel—tugging softly at your heart, leading you gently, inevitably, toward a deeper ache. You begin to sense, in the hush between her breaths and in the silence that settles when your lullaby fades, that the purity of her existence has always held both light and dark, two sides of the same celestial coin spinning silently through the void.

And Dr. Na, whose guarded eyes flicker briefly behind surgical masks, whose carefully composed expressions hide oceans vast and turbulent, orbits beside you unaware—pulled into the dance, suspended in the strange, cosmic ballet of her gravity. He is a planet eclipsed by shadows of feeling he does not yet recognize, wearing masks like armor against truths he dares not face, truths that quietly, relentlessly press closer, inevitable as tides pulled by distant moons. Yet you are blind to the fracture lines spreading quietly beneath the surface, hairline cracks that trace futures still shrouded in darkness. You hum lullabies, tracing gentle patterns over her skin, believing you hold storms at bay, not realizing those storms swirl already within, readying themselves behind the fragile sky of her chest. She is both the star you chase and the thief who will quietly steal your heart—who already has—leaving behind a void in which you will wander, searching desperately for light that flickers faintly just beyond reach.

You fall irrevocably into love with her luminous presence, her sunflower face turned faithfully toward your warmth, not yet understanding that her survival will demand a cost, a darkness heavy and waiting like curtains poised at the edges of your vision. Her tiny fist grips your finger, impossibly soft and yet strong enough to hold galaxies captive. In that small touch, you sense dimly the ache you are running toward—a heart cracked open beneath fluorescent lights, a surgeon’s quiet devastation, a mask slipping just enough to reveal the raw humanity hidden behind practiced precision. You don’t yet realize she is guiding you toward the storm, her tiny breaths quietly drawing you forward, each gentle sigh a promise and a warning intertwined—telling you that love, like innocence, comes cloaked in both brilliance and shadow, a sweetness stolen quietly, inevitably, beneath your very fingertips.

Sunshine is eleven months old now, a living testament etched delicately into the hushed miracle of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Her third surgery, a meticulous Fontan procedure to reroute the path of blood through her tiny heart, has been deemed an unequivocal success. Every intricate suture, every precise alignment of vessels was stitched by hands steadier than prayer, leaving behind a gentle scar—a silver whisper beneath her sternum. Though there have been nights thickened by uncertainty, days blurred by fevers and episodes of hypoxia that rippled briefly across the screen of her monitor, she’s emerged stronger, brighter. Good nights now outweigh bad, her chest rising and falling in perfect synchrony beneath the pastel blankets, and the soft hum of machinery around her crib has gradually become a song of reassurance rather than caution.

This NICU, a place once stark and foreign, has gradually melted around her like wax warmed by a gentle flame. She’s grown familiar with its rhythms: the lull of distant monitors, the faint rustle of charts in early morning rounds, even the whispered shifts of nurses’ feet over linoleum floors. She no longer startles at every click and beep; instead, her wide eyes trace patterns in the ceiling tiles, curious and calm, each gaze a tiny explorer charting constellations out of sterile hospital lights. The once-alien scents of antiseptic and sterile plastic tubing now mingle seamlessly with softer notes of lotion and freshly laundered cotton, forming an atmosphere of delicate comfort.

Her small, sacred corner in the NICU is a universe unto itself, draped lovingly in soft hues of soft yellow, cream, and gold—her blankets adorned with tiny embroidered stars, stitched meticulously by your hands in quiet midnight hours. The walls of her isolette gleam gently, decorated meticulously with baby-safe stickers—raindrops, clouds, suns, and stars, each one placed with whispered hopes. The mobile suspended above her head spins slowly, turning stars and moons into a gentle orbit that dances across her field of vision, lulling her into peaceful dreams. Beneath these softly swaying shapes, plush bunnies guard her bedside, their velvet noses gently worn from her kisses, ears curled lovingly from her tiny fists that clutch and stroke them as though even at eleven months she understands the fragility of comfort.

Sunshine has warmed not just to the hospital itself, but to the hearts beating softly within its walls. She coos whenever Nurse Chaeyoung smooths lotion into her tiny palms, giggling softly when the nurse playfully taps her fingertips against Sunshine’s button nose. Nurse Yejin, known for her melodious voice, always hums softly while changing Sunshine’s IV lines, each gentle note met with a delighted gurgle from the little girl nestled in the crib. Nurses Mingyu and Sora often linger longer by her bedside during the quieter shifts, telling her gentle, nonsensical stories about brave princesses in faraway kingdoms, their voices wrapping around her softly, like lullabies spoken rather than sung.

And then there are the interns, her beloved companions. Hayoung sketches softly by her isolette, tracing Sunshine’s perfect bow-shaped lips and impossibly delicate eyelashes into her journal, each pencil stroke like a gentle caress. Jihoon arrives bearing miso soup and matcha buns, crumbs dusting the corners of his mouth as he insists Sunshine will eat buns one day soon, his confident assurances earning a delighted wave of her little arms. Hyejin knits steadily, her needles clicking rhythmically, creating soft hats and socks that adorn Sunshine’s tiny feet and head, each knitted row a pledge of devotion. But it’s you, above all, whose presence is now woven intricately into the very fibers of her day. You’re there every night, murmuring softly as you tuck her blanket beneath her chin, smiling as her small fingers curl around your thumb with tender insistence, as though she’s found her anchor in the world. She recognizes your scent, your voice, your heartbeat—your presence a certainty etched deeply into her small, fragile bones.

She shares this delicate space with other tiny souls, her roommates in this fragile kingdom of wires and whispered hopes. She smiles softly at Minho, a bubbly nine-month-old with wild tufts of hair, who waves clumsily from the isolette beside her, both babies exchanging soft gurgles and wide-eyed looks of gentle curiosity. She coos in gentle delight at baby Yuna’s tiny yawns, each yawn contagious enough to prompt Sunshine to mimic the gesture herself, stretching her little arms and releasing an exaggerated sigh, bringing soft laughter from the nurses nearby.

But her favourite presence—undeniably, unmistakably—is Dr. Na. He walks into the NICU quietly each morning, the click of his shoes a familiar rhythm that sparks a luminous change across her cherubic face. Sunshine knows him by the subtle hints—the crisp lines of his scrubs, the deliberate movements of his hands, the soft shift of his shoulders beneath his white coat. Her eyes brighten instantly upon catching sight of him, widening in recognition, sparkling with quiet, adoring expectation. It is not just his appearance, though she studies the sharp line of his jaw and the familiar pattern of his scrub cap—it’s the essence of him, a quiet gravity she orbits instinctively, a healer whose very presence seems to imbue her small universe with warmth.

The moment he nears, Sunshine’s whole tiny body transforms: her little feet kick excitedly, the rhythmic tapping against the mattress a small drumbeat of welcome. Her arms stretch upward, reaching for him with such hopeful insistence it’s as if she believes she can grasp his gentle aura in her tiny palms. Her lips form soft, exploratory syllables, “daa,” “naaa,” little sounds so tenderly formed they tug at the hearts of anyone listening. But when Dr. Na bends low, murmuring softly, asking her about her night or teasing gently about her bunnies, her babbles grow more intentional, more emphatic—as if she’s holding conversations only they can understand.

She is mesmerized by him, entranced not just by the warmth of his voice, but by the scent of him that she recognizes instinctively, vanilla and spice lingering softly on the fabric of his coat. Each time he leans over her crib, she lifts her head eagerly, nose crinkling delicately as she breathes him in, a gesture of recognition so clear that nurses glance away with quiet smiles. When his fingers brush her cheek, she tilts into his touch, eyelids fluttering in quiet, perfect trust. This tiny, luminous child transforms in his presence—calmer, softer, happier, as if she knows he is both her guardian and her greatest comfort.

He checks her diligently each day, changing her ointments himself, his fingers infinitely careful as they glide over her silvery scar, his voice murmuring words as soothing as his touch. Sunshine doesn’t flinch beneath his hands, her tiny fists uncurling, the muscles in her small frame easing into complete tranquility. Even during auscultation, she settles instantly under the gentle press of his stethoscope, her breaths slowing in a measured rhythm matched perfectly to his heartbeat, as though her tiny body recognizes its safest haven.

In these moments, the world narrows down to just them—doctor and patient, guardian and child, healer and healed. Each visit Dr. Na makes is another gentle petal unfolding within Sunshine’s small world, brightening her eyes and softening her heart. Nurses and interns alike whisper quietly of their connection, shaking their heads fondly at how unmistakably she has chosen him. Jihoon teases him about being her favourite, earning only quiet smiles in response, but no denial—because they all see the truth woven between every interaction, delicate and profound.

In this fragile corner of the NICU, lit softly by gentle fluorescents, surrounded by plush bunnies and embroidered stars, Sunshine blooms gently beneath Dr. Na’s care, a sunflower following the quiet warmth of his presence. He is her healer, her gravity, the silent core around which her small universe rotates, unknowingly tethered to him by a bond so sacred it makes everyone pause—watching in awe at the tenderness that flows silently between them, invisible yet palpable, as steady as the quiet heartbeat thrumming beneath his gentle fingertips.

Sunshine’s world narrows each time Jaemin crouches beside her cot, the smooth metal disk of his stethoscope cradled gently, almost reverently, in the careful curve of his palm. It’s the kind of quiet that shouldn’t exist after surgery, the fragile, crystalline stillness woven from shared breaths and whispers of comfort. Every other approach draws discomfort from her tiny frame; nurses’ gentle touches or other doctors’ cautious movements send her squirming, arching, tiny fists clenched tight in helpless protest. But with him, she quiets instantly, a silent blossoming of trust, the trembling petals of anxiety folding inward to shield the precious calm blooming beneath his hands. Her lashes dip low, casting delicate shadows over her flushed, cherubic cheeks, and her breath eases into a gentle tide of recognition, rhythmic and peaceful, as if her body remembers the first time Jaemin listened and chose, unwaveringly, to stay.

There is a sacredness, a secret language their bodies speak as Jaemin threads a central line into her fragile vein. Sedation should erase awareness, yet somehow her hand drifts instinctively toward him, fingers curling around his gloved digit in a grip surprisingly strong and heartbreakingly tender. Nurses pause in quiet reverence, their glances lingering on the silent tether of her tiny palm wrapped around his finger. Jihoon’s voice breaks the hush, soft and teasing: “She knows who her person is.” Jaemin doesn’t speak, the silence deepening as his thumb strokes soothing circles against her hand, holding on longer than clinical protocol requires—longer, perhaps, than he fully comprehends himself.

Sunshine’s vitals become poetry when Jaemin nears. It’s almost mystical, the way her oxygen saturation rises subtly, the tense line on her monitor smoothing the moment he steps through the doorway. On difficult mornings, when alarms pulse frantic signals, he appears like quiet deliverance, his silhouette framed sharply against the pale hospital walls, a still point of certainty amidst uncertainty. Her gaze lifts through the clouded haze of discomfort, finding him with the instinctive precision of sunflower petals tracking the sun, her small body recalibrating gently, her breath easing, heart synchronizing quietly to the measured rhythm of his voice. Jihoon insists it’s mere coincidence, but you see more: you see her cells remembering the timbre of his comfort, his steady presence like gravity pulling her back from the brink.

Post-operatively, Jaemin insists on performing her ointment changes himself, though it defies hospital rotation schedules and clinical practicality. Each time, his movements are carefully deliberate, each tape peeled from her scar with infinite tenderness, as though unwrapping delicate lace. His voice murmurs quiet reassurances, syllables stitched gently into her healing tissue, smoothing the sting of antiseptic, blunting the tug of gauze. Sunshine never flinches, never withdraws—not from him. Her tiny feet wiggle, her head turning slowly to the gentle timbre of his voice, her gaze fastening to the shape of his mouth behind the surgical mask, trusting implicitly the quiet story he whispers into the skin over her heart, letting him retell it until pain fades softly into comfort.

Chart updates become gentle conversations. Jaemin narrates softly as his pen traces careful lines of ink across her records—each measurement a chapter in the quiet narrative of her survival. “Thirty grams today,” he whispers, a faint smile curving beneath his mask, pride softening his eyes. “Someone’s been working very hard.” Sunshine’s feet kick happily, delicate limbs stretching in playful affirmation, and small coos tumble from her lips, punctuating his reports with innocent delight. Jihoon jokes she’s gunning for his job, but Jaemin only taps her name band gently, fingers lingering, communicating devotion rather than mere documentation. Sunshine watches him, eyes wide and luminous, responding as if every softly uttered word knits another stitch into the fabric of her healing.

Even masked, Jaemin’s subtle cologne—notes of vanilla, spice, musk—envelopes Sunshine in gentle familiarity, a fragrance of quiet constancy in her shifting world. Her tiny nose crinkles adorably, lips curling upward into a delighted little sigh—hehh!—each time he leans close, his scent triggering recognition deep within her. Her head turns instinctively, even in sleep, toward the warmth radiating from his skin, her body drawing comfort from the memory woven into his presence. Nurses watch fondly from a respectful distance, softly murmuring, “It’s him. She knows it’s him,” their quiet awe amplifying the tender reverence of the moment. Jaemin remains silent, allowing her delicate senses to confirm what they all know but never speak aloud.

When Sunshine emerges from sedation, Jaemin’s voice is always the first anchor drawing her back from anesthesia’s gentle twilight. He leans close, murmuring softly: “Sunshine,” the syllables a quiet incantation of return, a gentle tug pulling her consciousness through the haze. Her tiny fingers twitch, limbs stretching lazily, mouth parting in gummy yawns filled with sleepy relief. She babbles softly, syllables blurred and slurred yet unmistakably addressed to him—nonsense threaded with love. Her eyes flutter open, finding him first, as if his voice alone carries the magic needed to coax her spirit back from the gentle brink of sleep.

Even off-schedule, Jaemin’s quiet nightly visits leave clear signatures of care. The warmer always dims precisely to the gentle hue she sleeps best under, her favorite bunny—softly worn at the ears—is always tucked exactly at her left side, within easy reach. Her blankets fold crisply at perfect angles, corners symmetrical, edges smoothed with meticulous tenderness. Nurses and interns exchange knowing glances, their quiet smiles a silent hymn to his unspoken devotion. Jaemin never acknowledges their whispers; he merely leaves these quiet gestures behind like fingerprints of tenderness, helping her dreams settle more peacefully each time his shadow passes gently over her sleeping form.

Around eleven months, Sunshine’s babbles sharpen into syllables bearing faint, intentional shapes. Each time Jaemin steps into the NICU bay, she lights up, arms reaching eagerly, her little mouth forming ecstatic sounds: “daa!” Sometimes “nmm,” and once, astonishingly clear—“na.” Jihoon’s startled gaze meets yours in silent astonishment as Sunshine stretches her fingers, desperate to pull Jaemin’s presence nearer, her lips smacking softly as she tastes the shape of his name. Jaemin freezes in gentle awe, caught off-guard by the sacred clarity of her tiny voice calling softly to him, a prayer spoken softly from innocence, puncturing the sterile silence with breathtaking purity.

Sunshine grows fiercely protective of her plush companions—her bunnies become tiny charges entrusted to her loving care. When Jaemin draws near, she lifts them protectively, small hands patting their heads gently, brows furrowing with comical seriousness. She tucks them tenderly beneath her chin, eyes lifting expectantly, as though weighing Jaemin’s approach with serious, infantile judgement. Your whisper, “Egg Yolk, you’re being evaluated,” draws an affectionate chuckle from him as he leans in solemnly, whispering, “I come in peace.” Sunshine giggles uncontrollably, joyful laughter bubbling from her chest, soft and sweet as summer rain, echoing delicately against sterile walls.

Night after night, even on difficult post-operative evenings, Sunshine watches the NICU doors with quiet anticipation. Each soft hiss of automatic doors draws her eyes, hopeful and searching, toward the illuminated entrance. When unfamiliar footsteps pass, she deflates gently, eyes drifting closed in quiet resignation. But when Jaemin’s familiar silhouette appears—steady, quiet, filling the doorway like gentle gravity—her small body relaxes instantly, a delicate sigh of relief parting her lips, her lashes fluttering softly against rosy cheeks. Her tiny chest lifts gently, as if the air itself settles back into harmony, comforted by the quiet certainty of his return.

These threads of tenderness, the careful stitches woven by daily devotion, create a tapestry binding Sunshine irrevocably to Jaemin. Beneath fluorescent lights and sterile walls, their quiet dance unfolds—small gestures, whispered lullabies, careful caresses forming a silent language only they speak fluently. Sunshine’s universe rotates softly around the quiet orbit of Jaemin’s presence, his shadow casting gentle patterns over her healing days, his voice threading through her dreams, his touch tracing invisible paths of comfort across her skin. In the quiet pulse of their shared moments, an unspoken truth blooms silently: Sunshine has chosen him, her tiny heart tethered gently yet irrevocably to the quiet devotion woven within Jaemin’s every gesture. Nurses and interns watch, humbled by the gentle miracle of connection—a fragile child and her quiet healer, bound softly by threads of trust and silent adoration. As Sunshine’s tiny fingers reach instinctively for Jaemin’s steadying presence, her heart beating in quiet synchrony with his quiet breaths, the NICU holds its breath gently, witnessing the delicate, unbreakable bond growing silently, profoundly, between them.

Even though Sunshine’s favorite presence in the universe is unmistakably Dr. Na—her sunflower head swiveling whenever his silhouette enters the bay—night still wedges itself between them like a restless tide. Since her third heart surgery, her sleep has unraveled: low-grade fevers drift in after dusk, her pulse-ox trace stutters, and every lullaby you cradle in your cracked voice frays before it settles. Hayoung tries warm compresses that cool too soon; Jihoon fusses with the fan filter and humidifier settings; you hover for hours, tension climbing your shoulders like vines, while Sunshine claws at sleep, eyes luminous and wet, tiny fist welded to your pinkie as though that fragile link might anchor her to rest.

The air in the NICU grows stiff with exhaustion, monitors ticking, nurses trading looks edged with worry, yet Dr. Na lingers a heartbeat longer at the chart, studying the erratic peaks of her circadian graph, thumb ghosting over the page as if he can smooth the data flat. No one says it aloud, but you sense him rereading her logs after hours, searching for the rhythm that will let her sink peacefully into darkness again. Dawn filters through frosted windows, and a new object sits beside her isolette: a pale-pink device, all rounded edges and soft-mesh speakers, silver accents gleaming like moonlit water. Bunny stickers parade in a ring around its base, and below them, a single gold sun in a tutu, labeled in his precise handwriting—Sunshine, Unit B2. Dr. Na is conspicuously absent, tenderness tucked out of sight. 

Hyejin arches a brow, fishing her phone from her pocket. “Let me see that,” she murmurs, thumbs flying over the screen as she Googles “neonatal lullaby machine price.” Her eyes skim the results. “Wow…” she says, voice low, scrolling. “These start at three thousand dollars.”

Jihoon leans in, pressing his ear to the grille. “It even pulls in audio via Bluetooth,” he says with a smirk. “So you can stream wind chimes or whale songs.” 

Hayoung’s whisper follows: “He’s pretending it’s hospital-issued.” Yet no one believes it.

You situate the machine just outside the isolette’s acrylic wall. It’s a neonatal-calibrated lullaby generator, imported, whisper-quiet: a minute hum floats across the crib like a feather. You toggle through the settings, heartbeat thrum, distant rain, until you reach one titled ‘Twilight Symphony.’ Soft piano enters, joined by silk-thread orchestral strings, a melody that feels less like a song and more like arms opening. At once Sunshine’s frantic kicks slow. Her eyelids drift, hover, fight, then blink in drowsy wonder; your finger brushes her brow, smoothing the fine down of stray hairs. “Dr Na knows just how to make you happy, doesn’t he?” She exhales a brief, underwater bubble of sound. a barely audible pbbtt—and the ward hushes at last. Nurses pause mid-note in their charts, monitors seem to soften their beeps, until nothing remains but music and the sigh of a child surrendering to sleep.

Her cheeks flush with a deeper rose beneath the isolette’s gauzy glow, as if the very warmth of the lullaby has settled into her skin. The music rises gently, a tinkling cascade of piano notes embroidered with whisper-soft strings, each delicate motif spinning like ballet slippers twirling across a mirrored stage. In that delicate hush, every electrical hum and distant footstep recedes until only the princess melody remains, wrapping her in a silken cocoon of sound. She tugs once at your pinkie, an anchoring ritual, and then unfurls those tiny fingers like petals peeled apart by morning light, settling fully into the rhythm’s tender embrace. Her chest lifts and falls in perfect synchrony with the heartbeat pulses of the machine, a duet of flesh and circuitry that hushes her restless stirring into a tranquil dream. Around her, the sticker trail gleams—gold suns, moonlit clouds, ballerina footprints—each tokens of a jeweled vow in the court of Unit B2, proclaiming her gentle royalty even as she drifts toward sleep.

This melody, though born of transistors and clinical precision, feels holy here, an unbidden heirloom forged from circuitry rather than cradle songs. It breathes warmth into the antiseptic air, weaving threads of calm where fever once frayed her nights. The lullaby’s crystalline notes shimmer against the curved walls of her incubator, pooling into silent eddies that wash over sensors and tubes until they too seem to pause in awe. In this sacred moment, love arrives not on the wings of ancestral memory but in an engineered hymn, humming through imported speakers, slipping beneath her fragile brow, and stitching rest back into the fragile seams of her small, brave heart.

Close to midnight, you hear the soft click of the door before you see him. You’re crouched beside the isolette, fingertips gently brushing the speaker grille as the lullaby drifts on, and your heart leaps at the sound of his boots on linoleum. He steps in. scrubs rumpled, mask lowered at the chin. eyes immediately flicking to the pale-pink device. You clear your throat, cheeks flaring so fiercely you’re certain the glow of the isolette will betray you.

“I—thank you,” you babble, voice thick with relief. “It’s… it’s perfect, really. I mean, the decibels, the pulse settings, how did you even find something with a ‘twilight symphony’ mode?” You reach to tuck a stray curl behind your ear, throat tight, all your practiced confidence slipping into shy stutters. “I mean, who even stocks lullaby machines with heartbeat pulses and twilight modes? I looked online just now—these cost thousands. It’s ridiculous how… thoughtful you are, to bring something like this in. I didn’t expect it, and she—” You break off, flushed, because Sunshine’s eyes flutter open and she manages a small, drowsy coo of recognition as if she agrees. She tugs your sleeve once, a gentle insistence that she hears every note. You lean closer and murmur, “See? You love it, don’t you baby?” Her lashes drift shut in contentment, curls brushing your palm in soft reassurance. You look up, cheeks still warm. 

He watches you with that inscrutable gaze, jaw working like he’s chewing on something unsayable. Finally he says, low and clipped, “Monitor her closely.” His fingertips linger by the speaker for a heartbeat too long—an imprint of warmth you wish you could bottle—then he turns, already halfway to the shadows of the nurses’ station. You stand rooted, throat echoing with unspoken gratitude, watching the slight stoop of his shoulders as though every step away pulls at a silent thread between you.

Later in the week, Sunshine babbles toward the machine when its song begins, round vowels that tumble like new planets searching for orbit. Jihoon, mischievous, records his own voice over track three: “Uncle Jihoon loves you, go to sleep!” Sunshine giggles so hard the pulse-ox blips; you shake your head, half scold, half smile. By month’s end the device graduates with her to a crib beyond the isolette. On tough nights she reaches for its soft glow, fingers brushing the bunny stickers until the Twilight Symphony swells again, catching her before she drifts too far from the quiet gravity anchoring her to dreams.

Sunshine is eleven months and five days old—a lullaby’s worth of heartbeats shy of her first birthday—and she remains a pocket-sized cosmos, galaxies tucked into threadbare cotton that never fully dries between hurried wash cycles, forever smelling of bleach instead of backyard sunshine. She has never tasted the metallic tang of playground swings or felt grass bite her knees, never known the delirious, ordinary freedom of toddling from living-room carpet to a parent’s open arms; her calendar holds only the choreography of dawn rounds and lab draws, breakfast bottles served beneath the blue glow of a pulse-ox clip, and lullabies that must compete with the metronome of a vitals monitor. Sometimes you catch yourself wondering—does she sense the absence? Does she know that beyond these walls most children grow giddy on kitchen aromas, drowsy under ceiling fans, lulled to sleep by the reassuring duet of Mommy’s and Daddy’s voices instead of by the whir of air pumps and the rustle of isolation gowns?

Each season that should have shaped her growing body—spring pollen icing her lashes, summer sweat curling her hair, autumn smoke curling through a cracked window—has collapsed into the one sour-sweet smell of antiseptic and plasticized tubing, a scent so constant it has become her weather, her climate, her private atmosphere. The fluorescent bars overhead, too bright to permit shadows anywhere else, carve hollows beneath her lids that whisper of sleepless decades rather than sleepless nights; their hum is the cradle song the hospital can’t turn off. She shares her days with a chorus of other incubators, fragile planets orbiting the same fluorescent sun, each crib holding a story that feels both twin and alien to her own; some babies are swaddled in the soft murmur of visiting parents, others lie in an ache of silence broken only by machines, and you can’t help but ache at the uneven distribution of kisses and bedtime stories. When the elevator doors groan open down the hall, Sunshine lifts her head as if to greet an incoming sunrise, but the light that reaches her is only the elevator’s pitiless glare reflecting off burnished linoleum, and you find yourself choking on the question: does she already understand that the world outside these walls is vast and green and full of laughter she hasn’t heard, or is she still innocent enough to think that childhood begins and ends beneath this unblinking, clinical sky?

Night after night a nurse whispers, “time to go,” and the scrub-green doors swallow Sunshine for “small” procedures that always steal another piece of her tiny future. While other babies learn to crawl across living-room rugs, she crosses thresholds into operating theatres, trading milestones for scalpel lines. Every squeak of the gurney splits your world in two: you are stuck outside, clock-watching; her inside, drifting under anesthesia instead of lullabies. She should be weighing finger-paint messes, not intubation risks, yet each trip robs her of strength she hasn’t even had time to earn. You kiss the soft dip between her brows, promising survival you’re not sure you can deliver, then stand in a corridor that freezes your breath and counts your heart beats like overdue debts. In that cold hush you do desperate math—heartbeats × minutes ÷ prayers—but the sums never add up to a normal childhood. Meanwhile, the notebook in your pocket fills with names of other infants wheeled past you and returned, proof that luck exists but is rationed; you pray her name isn’t the one the universe overlooks.

However, Sunshine rejects the hospital’s careful calculus. She sits now like a monarch on a plastic-cushioned throne, her spine trembling but unwilling to bow, her head bobbing in rhythms that belong to a future dance she intends to master outside these walls. She reaches for her bottle with the conviction of a child who has lived through too many hands doing things for her; the first time she threaded her fingers through its curved handle, the room erupted into an impromptu celebration, nurses cheering, monitors screaming in alarm at their sudden movement, you crying soundlessly because a plastic bottle had become an act of revolution. Those same fingers, once filaments so translucent the veins looked like morning-glory vines, now curl into something purposeful: today they tug at her nasal cannula with mischievous intent, tomorrow they will, you dare believe, lace your own hand on the way to the park. When she grips her threadbare bunny, a pale-yellow relic whose stuffing has migrated into lopsided bulges, the toy transforms under the fluorescent glare: it’s a shield, a pennant, a declaration that she will name her own allies even in a ward filled with sterile strangers. And each time she drags that bunny across the sheets, tiny sparks of static crackle, bright and fleeting, as if the universe is applauding her stubborn will to generate light where none is offered.

Her eyes—vast, dark nebulae rimmed with lashes that tremble like comet tails—search the doorway every time footsteps reverberate down the waxed corridor. In those glassy pupils you glimpse all the worlds waiting beyond the ward: the first-day-of-school chalk dust she hasn’t yet sneezed, the firefly lanterns she hasn’t yet chased, the bruised-orange sunset that will one day wash her cheeks in color more honest than overhead LEDs. One nurse tucks a paper snowflake above her bed; Sunshine reaches, convinced she could catch winter in her fist if given one inch more slack on her IV line. Another nurse wheels in a potted basil plant from the staff lounge; Sunshine leans, nostrils flaring to claim a scent her lungs still struggle to decipher. Loving her hurts precisely because every triumphant milestone—the spontaneous giggle, the first syllable of a babble—carries the echo of something stolen, a cost paid in childhood moments the hospital devours like a voracious clock. You applaud her victories and mourn their context in the same breath: clapping when she tolerates seven uninterrupted minutes of oxygen, grieving that those seven minutes happen inside a room with no window that opens.

Still, beneath the layered clamor of alarms and the rhythmic hiss of the ventilator, there is a quieter percussion—an irreverent, clutch-fisted hope that evades every monitor’s graph. It drums each time she blinks against the fluorescent glare as though rehearsing for sunlight, each time her fingers trace the edge of the crib’s steel rail like a cartographer mapping the perimeter of tomorrow. You imagine a day when her name is called not by overworked residents but by friends across a playground; the only beeping then will be the triumphant countdown of the ice-cream truck reversing out of the cul-de-sac. Until that hour arrives, you measure life not in months or hospital billing cycles but in lungs that continue to rise and fall, in the warmth of her fist closing around your thumb during night checks, in the way her gummy smile unspools the knots in your chest. You mend your frayed courage by threading it through the buttonholes of her stuffed bunny, repurposing fear into silent lullabies, letting the improbable glow of her existence thaw the metallic chill of another fluorescent night—one more night you survive together, chasing dawn through the slats of the venetian blinds.

Today is significant. You and Dr. Na turn the corridor in step, your rubber soles squeaking, his quiet authority announcing itself in the click of his clipboard against his thigh and the hush of after-midnight pediatrics feels almost reverent compared to the perpetual storm of the NICU. Sunshine’s cubicle door stands ajar, its paper nameplate still reading NICU 3-B, but the first thing you see is her face: wide awake, as if she was waiting for you, moon-pale cheeks flushed with anticipation, eyes sparking like two held-back giggles. The instant she spots her favorite silhouettes, your lopsided ponytail and Dr. Na’s tall, muscly shadow, she unleashes a flurry of almost-acrobatic joy: arms pinwheeling, fingers opening and shutting in applause, little bottom trying to levitate off the mattress as if propelled by pure delight. She heaves herself to a wobbly sit, triumph written in that determined pout, only to topple sideways onto her stuffed bunny; she rebounds with an indignant squeak, kicks both feet so hard her ankle-ID band flashes, then tries again. The music box clipped to her crib detects the motion and chirps its tinny lullaby, which only spurs her on. She flaps, she coos, she squeals a syllable that might be “ba!”—or might be the universe giving itself a pep-talk.

Dr. Na leans over the railing and says, “Good morning, Sunshine.” She giggles like she outranks him, and even the IV pump chooses that moment to hush its alarm, surrendering the night’s command to Sunshine’s joyous racket. You and Dr. Na work around her orbit, he releases monitor leads, you gather dangling fluid lines like a bouquet of translucent vines, while Sunshine, now on her knees, throws a one-woman parade inside the crib. Whenever the gurney wheels creak forward, she slaps the mattress in applause, convinced field trips are her personal invention. You baby-talk instructions she doesn’t need: “Hold tight, sweet pea, we’re going for a ride!” She answers with earnest babble, eyebrows vaulted in concentration, as if spelling out coordinates for your journey to the next galaxy. Nurses lean from their stations to wave; Sunshine responds with exaggerated waves of her own, palm splayed, wrist flicking wildly. 

You catch yourself staring at him as he wheels Sunshine’s isolette down the corridor—Dr. Na’s strong forearms tensing beneath his scrubs, the line of his chest defined even through hospital blues, the way his back muscles shift when he steadies the crib like it’s carved from holy glass. He glances over one shoulder, mouth twitching upward in that half-scowl you’ve come to recognize as both rebuke and invitation. “Stop staring at me,” he mutters without turning fully. But you can’t help it. You watch the soft thaw in his gaze as he guides the incubator through the doorway, one hand firm on the rail, the other adjusting the speed with surgeon’s precision. Sunlight shards, from the monitor glow and the dawn bruising the horizon outside the dimmed windows, play across his strong jaw and the curve of his throat. Sunshine’s triumphant kicks set her hospital socks spinning into a blur, and somewhere between the elevator’s hum and Pediatrics East she discovers echo: every delighted squeal bounces off tile and ceiling panels, returning to her doubled, and she shrieks with pleased disbelief. You pass that bank of windows together; outside, a pale dawn bleeds into the sky, and her reflection—fuzzy hair haloed by plastic and light—claps right along with her, as if the glass itself knows how to cheer.

Her new room waits with impossible quiet: soft-yellow paint, a rocking chair you wheeled in at the last minute, and—miracle of miracles—a real crib, not an incubator, its wooden rails wrapped in star-patterned bumpers you and Jihoon stitched last week. Dr. Na positions the isolette beside it like an old shell she’s finally outgrown; gently, you lift Sunshine into her “big-kid bed.” She sits, legs splayed, diaper rustling under a lavender romper printed with cartoon bees, grasping for her bottle with one hand and her threadbare bunny with the other, uncertain which treasure counts as more essential. You settle the pink music box on the headboard; instantly she reaches up, presses the cracked yellow button, and beams when the first notes chime. The room feels enchanted: no constant compressor thrum, no crowd of blinking LEDs, just the faint hiss of oxygen tubing and the soft woof of the rocking chair nudged by Dr. Na’s knee as he adjusts the pulse-ox sensor. Your heart pinches sharp: this is the cozy tableau you always pictured for her, yet it’s only temporary. Paperwork waits in Dr Na’s tote, forms that will place Sunshine with the Kwon family, a couple two counties over in a white-clapboard farmhouse, who own a therapy-dog mutt and three acres of orchard and ran out of tears the day they learned they could not carry a child to term. Wealthy, kind, background-checked to perfection, people who can give her something more enduring than your night-shift affection and Dr. Na’s guarded optimism. Still, you fold the forms shut each time Sunshine’s fingers brush yours; the contact feels like a stay of execution against the inevitable signing-over.

When the last monitor is silenced and the corridor lights dim to peach, Sunshine leans back against her bunny, cheeks sticky from drool and victory, and gazes up at you both as though expecting an explanation. Does she know her universe is changing again? That beyond these walls two strangers are trying to choose a name for her legal name, which isn’t “Sunshine” at all—and discussing paint swatches for a nursery she’s never seen? Will they keep the nickname or replace it with something delicate and store-bought, something that matches the lace on christening gowns and monogrammed blankets? Watching her blink under the unfamiliar hush of her new room, you ache with the knowledge that identity is another thing she’s never been allowed to own: first the hospital bracelet decided who she was, and soon a courthouse stamp will decide who she’ll become. She babbles a soft “da-da?” to no one in particular, maybe you, maybe the empty space above her head and Dr. Na clears his throat, turns away, fusses with the IV pole that no longer needs fussing. 

You tuck Mr. Bunny right against her tiny chest, snuggle him under her chin, and breathe, “There you go, sunshine-peach, your snuggly friend is right here.” She reaches up, those small, star-bright fingers threading into your hair and tugging with surprising conviction, as if her whole soul is saying, stay. You laugh softly, tilt your head so she can fist a thicker lock, and let your thumb smooth the worried little line between her brows. “It’s okay, sweetheart, I’m not going far. You’re my brightest girl, no matter what they scribble on those big scary forms.” She answers with a half-tooth, half-gummy grin that melts you clear through, eyes crinkling like crescent moons. Somewhere out there, a nursery lamp is already glowing warm, practicing the light it will spill across her first real bedroom—but for now it’s just you, her, and the soft hush of this hallway, her tiny hand still tangled in your hair, holding you right where she needs you.

Dr. Na lingers at the foot of Sunshine’s crib, ostensibly tightening the line on an IV pole that hasn’t needed adjusting all morning. His gloved fingers move with practiced calm, but they’re slower than usual, deliberate, stalling. The soft overhead glow paints the cut of his jaw in quiet gold, and every so often, when he thinks you aren’t looking, his gaze slips past the drip chamber to the curve of your shoulder, to where Sunshine’s fist remains tangled in your hair. You feel the weight of his attention before you meet it—an almost-static hum that prickles down your spine. You turn, half-smiling, and catch him mid-sweep of the monitor screen, as if he’s reading vitals that haven’t changed in hours. He clears his throat, murmurs something about “baseline stability,” but the words float, unanchored; there’s no clinical urgency here, only the hush of a man reluctant to leave a scene he finds quietly sacred.

Sunshine gurgles at the sound of his voice, and his eyes—dark, steady—soften. He shifts closer, one palm settling on the crib rail with a surgeon’s controlled grace, knuckles brushing yours as you adjust the bunny under her chin. For a heartbeat, neither of you moves: skin buzzing where it almost, almost touches; the warm exhale of his breath stirring a strand of hair at your cheek. It’s nothing overt, just a current, a subtle pulse of something that sits between professionalism and confession. Then he straightens, a mask of composure sliding back into place, though a faint flush lingers low on his neck. “Call me if she needs anything,” he says, voice low, steady, but as he turns away you see the corners of his mouth fight a smile he doesn’t let surface, and his hand hovers on the doorframe a second too long, as if memorizing the light around you before he slips into the corridor’s cool hush.

Lunch rolls around, feeling like a farewell party no one is brave enough to name. Dayoung corrals an extra-wide rolling tray and drapes it with a disposable linen, as though a linen could ever make vending-machine cuisine look refined. Jihoon arrives last, eyes red-rimmed, balancing a foil pan of strawberry shortcake that lists dangerously to one side. cream sliding, sugared crumbs scattering like confetti across Sunshine’s blanket. “Last lunch with our princess,” he warbles, already tearing up again. Hyejin opens her sketchbook to a fresh page, determined to capture every gummy grin, every curl of downy hair, every droplet of formula on Sunshine’s chin. You prop Sunshine against a fortress of knitted pillows, tucking Cloud Bunny under one arm and Butterscotch Bunny under the other. She laughs—an unfiltered, chiming sound—and pats the checkered napkin as though christening her own banquet table. “Mmmm!” she declares, a command for more food or perhaps more adoration; you oblige with a heart-soft “Yes, my bright girl, banquet time!” and guide her hands around the bottle she insists on holding alone. She gulps, pauses to babble at Butterscotch, then smacks a strawberry chunk with unsteady delight.

Jihoon’s tears don’t stop; they glimmer on his lashes like doomed dew. “This is it,” he sniffles, spoon hovering over soup he’s forgotten to taste. “Tomorrow she’s gone.”

You reach a calming hand to his shoulder. “Not gone,” you say, though your own voice trembles. “She’ll be back for monthly check-ups, remember? She won’t leave us fully, plus she’s going to an actual home, we should be happy for her, this will be her first chance to experience a normal childhood.” But as Sunshine’s tiny fist locks onto the sleeve of your scrub top, fingers curling, tugging like she can fasten you in place, heat pricks your eyes. Hyejin chooses that moment to sketch you both, pencils fluttering; Dayoung hums quiet encouragement while wiping strawberry residue from Sunshine’s chin. The music box Sunshine adores so much sits on the tray’s edge, its baby pink speaker humming a delicate harp-and-wind-chime melody. With each accidental press of her thumb the tune restarts, and Sunshine squeals in triumph, a maestro rediscovering her orchestra. The lullaby drifts over plastic rails and swinging doors, turning this ordinary corridor into a soft palace echoed by baby giggles and Jihoon’s sniffly sighs.

Sunshine sits in her brand-new crib, her little fists clutching the rails as she waits for her new parents to arrive. She looks up at you with wide, trusting eyes—an echo of hope in her gaze and you press both hands over your face, “peek-a-boo!” You giggle and her laughter erupts, tiny bells in an empty cathedral. She grabs both your hands with fierce determination and promptly stuffs three of your knuckles into her gummy mouth. Drool glitters on her chin like glass beads; you smooth it away with the back of your wrist, murmuring, “Oh, hungry baby girl.” When you offer her bottle she latches instantly, cheeks hollowing, eyelids fluttering in bliss. Milk beads at the corner of her lips; you wipe it with a napkin no bigger than a postage stamp, then trace the silk-fine wisps at her hairline. Her skin is soft as the inside of a magnolia petal, still almost translucent: veins like faint blue rivers beneath sunrise-pink ponds.

Jihoon’s sniffles fade into gentle background static. Hyejin sketches, Dayoung hums, and the lullaby box loops its filigree melody, harp, distant chimes, the faint click of a ballerina twirling in paradise under the speaker grille. The room feels suspended in warm syrup, each of you orbiting gently around the bright nucleus of one small girl. A faint clang—metal against tile—breaks the syrup’s surface. You pause mid-stroke, thumb still resting on Sunshine’s brow. It’s the kind of sound that doesn’t belong in a ward softened for babies: sharp, arrhythmic, like someone dropping a tray in an echo chamber. Then another clash, closer, as if a faulty heartbeat is advancing down the corridor. Sunshine’s eyes flick to the doorway, bottle still clutched between her fists but forgotten; a single drop of milk rolls down her chin, slow as a comet.

The hallway hushes, a ripple of tension moving through the nurses’ station. You feel it before you see it, an obstruction in the air, a cold draft sweeping ahead of something that has no place near a cradle. She appears in the doorway as though prised from a nightmare’s seam. Bare feet slap the linoleum with slippery, crimson smears, blood painting her soles like ruined lipstick. Her hospital gown hangs askew, neckline torn, one sleeve ripped clean away. She cradles a pacifier on a fraying shoelace to her breast the way Sunshine cradles Butterscotch, knuckles white, wrists webbed with old needle bruises that bloom like nightshade. Hair once intended to be platinum tumbles in split, muddy streaks; every violent turn of her head fans it like a shattered halo. Layers of foundation crack along her jaw, peeling where sweat beads beneath, and her pupils are so dilated they look like collapsing stars.

She staggers forward alone, each unsteady step echoing in the hollow corridor. Her gaze slides past you, never lingering, scanning walls and ceiling lights as though searching for hidden exits. “Glass garden… she lives in the stars… my baby,” she murmurs, voice ragged and hollow, as if the words themselves have been clawed from her throat. The air around her flickers with tension, each breath carrying a metallic tang of fear and old sorrow. Her mismatched bracelets chime softly, hospital tags, a faded club band, a velvet choker once inscribed with ‘Daddy’s Girl’ now threadbare and broken. Foundation cracks along her cheekbones like dried riverbeds, and sweat beads, trembling, at her temples. In that fractured light, she seems to teeter between worlds, an unmoored spirit dragging grief behind her, unseeing eyes cast outward yet never truly meeting yours.

You tighten both arms around Sunshine. She squeaks, startled, but presses closer, her cheek hot against your collarbone, the lullaby still chiming its delicate lie behind her. Jihoon’s spoon clatters to the tray. Hyejin’s pencil stalls mid-line. Dayoung’s humming dies. In that instant, the corridor splits: on one side, a woman crumbling under the weight of ghosts; on the other, a baby wrapped in yarn and hope, eyes wide, breathing clouds onto your skin. And between those worlds, no sound except the soft click of the ballerina turning, turning, turning, unwilling to face what’s coming.

Instinctively, Hyejin, who’ll never admit how deeply she’s grown to love Sunshine—steps in front of you both, her body a trembling shield between the stranger’s pain and the two of you. Hyejin steps forward on instinct, voice gentle but firm. “Ma’am? Are you hurt? Do you need a doctor?”

The woman’s jaw works in a silent scream before words tumble out, jagged and surreal. “Stars, the parasite star, it burrowed through my ribs, I swear—swallowed me whole, then spat me out on the glass garden roof… my baby, my beating star parasite, you stole the glow from inside me.” She clutches the cracked pacifier to her chest, eyes rolling back as though she’s listening to voices no one else can hear. “They fed her my blood but she doesn’t bleed like me—she blooms in the dark, a black sunflower, he made her here, a god trapped in skin…”

Her limbs jerk as though pulled by invisible strings. “Open your eyes—can’t you see? The stars are crawling down the corridor, carving parasites into the walls…”

The woman’s body convulses once more—and then she lunges forward, arms flailing as though reaching for a phantom constellation. Her eyes remain unfocused, tracking nothing and everything at once. Sunshine, enthralled by the sudden movement, lets out a delighted giggle and coos, patting at the air as though playing her own game of peek-a-boo. You press her tighter into your chest, heart hammering, folding her arms across her little torso so she can’t slip—no matter how she squirms in innocent delight. With your free hand, you slide a finger over the silent alarm button at the crib’s foot rail, a discreet plea for reinforcements that only you know you’ve sent. As the soft chime rings down the hall, you rock Sunshine gently, whispering into her hair, “It’s okay, my love. I’ve got you.”

The alarm’s soft chime curls down the hall like a silver thread, too gentle to belong to the dread it heralds, yet the woman hears it as a summons. Her body, until now a marionette of spasms, falls eerily still, head tilting as though to receive a secret frequency. When her eyes slide to Sunshine they widen, black-marble and awful, not with mother-love but with recognition warped into prophecy. It’s as if she’s staring at a cosmic crime scene: a god in a diaper, an executioner sucking on a bottle.

“It’s her,” she breathes, reverence and ruin in the same syllable. “She came out of me. She crawled out of me.”

The corridor hushes so completely you feel reality falter, like a stage whose scenery might peel away at any moment. Her gaze darts to the lullaby machine perched beside Sunshine’s crib, the gentle box whose underwater-princess melody has cocooned the ward for months. She moves with predatory velocity: one lunge, one rip, and the device slams to the tile. Plastic fractures with a scream of its own; wiring spills across the floor like snapped veins, sparks guttering out in forlorn pops. Sunshine’s eyes balloon with confusion. She doesn’t cry—she laughs, a bright, bubbling trill, blinking up at the silence as though the smashed lullaby were playing peek-a-boo and would spring to life again any second. To her, all of this is only a new round of the game, a world still full of wonder, untouched by the shadows collapsing around her.

“That sound kept her from me,” the woman snarls, voice grinding like gravel set aflame. “That’s what made her forget.” Now her pupils hook on the butter-soft blankets you spent nights knitting, sun-colored yarn, crooked stitches that spell half a name. She tears them free, shredding the pastel fabric with clawed fingers. “They dressed her in false skin so I wouldn’t know my own,” she hisses. “But I see her now.” The unraveling strands puddle to the floor like peeled flesh. Sunshine’s tiny mouth quivers, a tremor before the quake.

Then the woman’s fury ricochets into a brutal kick, once, twice, against the crib’s frame. Metal rings out, a bell tolling doom. “They told me she died inside of me!” she shrieks. “They lied. They cut her out. They cut me open and they took her!” She paces, pacing the trauma into physical space, calling the blanket's skin, calling the lullaby box the machine that fed her lies. She smears blood from a split knuckle across the pristine wall. “This is what they fed her,” she mutters, drawing a crude constellation that drips like dying stars. An overturned sharps bin scatters needles, tiny silver stingers glinting beneath fluorescent glare. She claws at the vitals monitor, ranting that it “maps her mind.”

“Born of stars, fed on parasites!” she sobs, delirious. “She was born screaming, clawing through my ribs like a god that wanted out. Now she giggles, plays—who taught her that?!” The scent of antiseptic mingles with burnt sugar and copper, burning your nostrils. Sunshine begins to wail, an animal-raw cry you’ve never heard, worse than post-op nights, worse than chest tubes or morphine wearing off. Her bunnies lie gutted on the linoleum; her blankets hang in ribbons. She sobs so hard her whole body quakes, and something inside you tears.

The woman wheels back, eyes blazing, and lunges straight towards you, straight for the child. Instinct detonates. You clutch Sunshine tighter to your chest, spin, and thrust your shoulder against the advancing figure. The impact knocks the breath from both of you; she staggers but doesn’t fall, hissing curses about glass gardens and stolen gods. Sunshine’s scream ratchets higher, a siren of pure grief, tiny fists pounding your clavicle.

“You don’t touch her,” you rasp, voice shaking with rage you didn’t know you possessed. The woman’s reply is a babble of star-parasite nonsense, a warning drenched in madness, yet you register none of it. All you feel is the hot weight of Sunshine’s terror, her soaked cheeks sliding against your scrubs, your own heartbeat drumming a single vow: no one reaches her whilst she’s in your arms. 

“Let her go, nurse-girl—she’ll hollow you like she hollowed me. She drinks marrow, she drinks dreams, she’ll burrow into your ribs and light her little suns until you burn from the inside.” She steps closer; the overhead fluorescents flicker across the sweat on her brow. “You think she’s laughing? That’s not laughter, that’s the parasite singing. She sang inside me, carved constellations in my blood. When she’s done with you, she’ll crawl back into the stars and leave your body empty as glass.”

Sunshine’s sobs knife through the air, high, desperate, breaking like waves against your sternum. You tighten your hold, rock her, whisper hushes, but the woman only climbs in volume, her threats turning razor-thin: “Give her to me or I’ll crack your shell open myself. I’ll peel the doll-skin they wrapped her in and show you the god underneath, show everyone how she burns. Do you want to watch her set this place on fire? Do you?” She spreads her fingers, nails splintered and slick. “She set my lungs alight, she’ll feast on yours next. Hand her over, little puppet, and maybe the parasite won’t learn your name.” A fresh wail bursts from Sunshine—raw, scraping, furious—while you plant your feet, pulse thundering against her trembling back, and wait for security’s footsteps to thunder down the hall.

Finally, security barrels down the hall in a tangle of radios and clattering batons but Dr. Na is faster, a silent blur in surgical blue. His gaze goes first, instinctively, to Sunshine: your arms locked around her trembling form, her face botched crimson from crying. The moment he sees her alive—safe—his chest loosens, a breath sucked through clenched teeth. He reaches, fingertips hovering to soothe the tears streaking her cheeks but then he looks past you.

The woman. She might as well be an eclipse dragging its own gravity, every fluorescent bulb dims the instant her outline collides with his vision. His breath stops; not held, stolen. It’s as if a long-sealed incision in memory rips open and bleeds across the hall, staining the air between them. Her face is warped, paint cracked, eyes raw but beneath the ruin he maps a familiar constellation: the tilt of a cheekbone once kissed by nightclub neon, the mouth that once shaped his name like smoke. A thousand unspoken midnights flicker behind his irises: velvet couches, chemical laughter, a wrist pressed to his pulse where a hospital tag now dangles like a noose. 

His clipboard slips; gravity forgets him for a beat. Sunshine’s sobs thud against your collarbone, but he hears only the subterranean echo of that past life, the throb of bass, a stranger’s perfume, a promise made too casually to ever stay buried. She stares back with pupils blown wide, a mirror reflecting everything that was abandoned and left: desire, recklessness, a single misstep that grew teeth and learned to howl. And in the wobbling fluorescence he sees the equation complete—child, mother, surgeon—three bodies locked in an orbit he wrote in careless ink and can’t now erase.

His pupils blow wide, shock shattering the practiced calm you’ve watched him wear like armor for a year, this is the only time it’s ever slipped. Horror floods the space between them—dark, electric, cataclysmic. “Jaemin,” she croons, voice a cracked lullaby as the guards wrestle her flailing limbs, “they were the men in white coats, they carved her out, your star-seed, she has your blood, not mine. You injected her into me, remember? Your little god. Your parasite.” Her laugh rasps like a saw through bone. “You promised to save her. You promised—” Words crumble into babble: glass garden, burning galaxy, ribs torn open like creaking doors.

Dr. Na staggers one half-step, mouth slack. “Aseul?” His voice fissures, equal parts disbelief and dread. “Aseul, what the fuck happened to you?” 

She lunges, spitting accusations at the guards—“You stole my baby, white-coat thieves!”—then swings her gaze back to him, eyes glittering obsidian. “Your baby never needed me. She only ever needed you.” For one split second, as the guards drag her backward, her face rearranges itself, painted ruin collapsing into something heartbreakingly familiar. The mascara runs, the mouth trembles open not as a snarl but as a child’s plea, and the madness seems to peel away like wet wallpaper. You glimpse the woman she once was, young, startled, fragile as unfired clay, and her eyes, suddenly lucid, spear Dr. Na with a grief too naked to bear. “Save your child,” she sobs, voice shredding on every word, “save her from the parasite, save her from the voices that live in me!” Security tightens their grip; she reaches anyway, fingers splayed, as if trying to tear open her own chest to show the demons gnawing there. “They want her dead, the shadows in my blood, they’ll crawl out of me and swallow her light!” Her wail ricochets off the polished walls, a strangled hymn of terror and love, before the sedative syringe bites her arm and the doors swallow her whole, leaving only the echo of that desperate command: save her.

The scream dies, hollowing out the air around him until Jaemin hears nothing at all, no heartbeats, no whispers, no soft hum of machinery, only the echo of a voice from a past he thought that he buried deeply. His limbs lock as if crystallized, every muscle freezing as the fragments rain down. The floor feels unsteady, unreal, as the walls ripple like water disturbed by a stone. Your face blurs through his vision, tears glittering down your cheeks, your hands trembling where they clutch Sunshine tightly, her sob piercing him like shattered glass. He’s heard her whimper through morphine fog, felt her shudder when chest tubes were pulled, watched silent tears leak beneath anesthesia tape but this cry is different. It rips out of Sunshine like something torn from the root, a howl so old it sounds ancestral. Her world has been razed in seconds: the lullaby box she learned to command with a single push now lies gutted on the floor, gears exposed like a small mechanical heart that will never beat again; the butter-soft blankets you knitted through night shift after night shift hang in shredded pennants from the crib rail, their pastel threads unraveling across tile like intestines; her court of bunnies, Cloud listing on one torn ear, Butterscotch caved at the belly, Egg Yolk beheaded, sprawl in mute carnage where they used to stand sentry. In Unit B2 the other babies still drift in cotton cocoons, flanked by balloons and family hands and lullabies sung off-key; Sunshine only had these talismans you made her, and now even those have been desecrated.

The memory detonates without warning, blooming behind Jaemin’s eyes in smoky chiaroscuro: a spring wedding at an expansive villa where string lights trembled like distant galaxies and champagne tasted of polite disappointment. He had arrived draped in designer complacency, hand in the delicate grasp of a woman whose hair fell in liquid silk down her spine, her gown stitched with the kind of haute geometry that photographs well but never warms a body. Old friends toasted reunions; old sorrows skimmed beneath the laughter. Something hollow yawned inside him all evening, a vacancy that no vintage could drown. Later—hours, glasses, and smiles too tight—he let himself be pulled to a bachelor party in a velvet-walled lounge pulsing low with bass and sorrow. That’s where he saw her: Aseul, the familiar dancer his best friend had once used as morphine for a broken heart. Glitter dusted her cheekbones like meteor fallout, and her eyes held the bright, panicked shimmer of a creature running too fast to stop. Their gazes locked, a collision of hungers, and something reckless flared alive in his chest. The designer girl with silk hair vanished from his periphery, replaced by red lights and the scent of cheap vanilla and smoke.

Hours later, glossy black hair pooled like ink across pristine sheets while Aseul straddled him, hips rolling with decadent slowness; perfume and sweat mingled into a narcotic fog. Her laughter rang sharp as shattered crystal as she arched over him, fingers clawing his scalp, vodka-sweet breath branding his skin. A cascade of black hair poured like silk over Jaemin’s face, strands tickling his mouth whilst he’d been smothered beneath thighs that tasted of jasmine and salt, her hips grinding slow and deliberate against his tongue. The woman above, elegant, obsidian, rides his mouth with a designer’s entitlement, her hands tangling in his hair, tugging until his jaw aches. Her laughter falls in cool ribbons, scattered through the dark. Below, Aseul arched back on his cock, body a honey-gold vessel painted in sweat and wild streaks of glitter. She bounced on him shamelessly, reckless and ruined, her pulse thundering as she leaned forward, mouth latching hungrily onto the other woman’s ass, tongue slick with need. It was a tangled symphony, Aseul’s moans sharpened by the slick friction of flesh, the other woman’s gasps fracturing through Jaemin’s mouth, hands, hips, everywhere. Perfume and vodka saturate the sheets, breaths threading into the ether—grief and hunger made holy, made obscene, made temporary sanctuary.

He tasted desperation at the seam of her thighs, felt the fever under her painted flesh, sensed the fault lines trembling beneath every whispered dare but he chased oblivion anyway, swallowed her broken starlight like it might fill the void gnawing his ribs. In that darkness he was young and ravenous, willing to drink any ecstasy that promised to drown the ache he refused to name. And even then—between the smoke and her shaking laughter—he knew something inside her was fracturing, a dangerous pulse flickering beneath the glitter. He took it into himself regardless, letting her body become the vessel for every unanswered hunger he carried but never once imagining the night would echo back to him in the form of a crying child cradled in his arms nearly two years later.

And now that ache returns, tenfold and roaring, burning into his ribs, demanding recognition. Sunshine’s wail pierces him, sharper than any scalpel he’s ever held, shattering the veil between past and present. His gaze snaps down to where Sunshine struggles violently in your arms, her tiny limbs desperate and flailing, fingers grasping toward him through a torrent of tears. He moves without conscious thought, propelled by a force deeper than blood, surer than bone. The second his arms close around her trembling form, she clings to him fiercely, little hands gripping his ear like it’s the only anchor she has left in a world that has turned hostile. And in that moment, feeling her sobs vibrate against his chest, feeling her small body mold itself so perfectly to the hollow beneath his collarbones, Jaemin’s entire universe aligns. 

It clicks into place with an undeniable, quiet finality, a truth so stark it aches like a bruise deep in his marrow, yet Jaemin feels no luxury of paralysis. Weakness is a currency he can no longer spend, not when the small, shaking body in his arms has nothing left to cling to but the cadence of his heartbeat. He steadies his breath, corralling the tremor in his hands, forcing every muscle to remember what duty feels like. Regret can howl later; right now responsibility climbs his spine like armor, locking each vertebra in resolve. Sunshine’s sobs hitch into hiccups against his collar, and he realizes the equation of his life has changed forever: her safety before his comfort, her future before his penance, her heartbeat before his own. The debris of shattered lullabies and gutted bunnies litters the floor around them, but he gathers her closer, standing taller, spine ironed straight by purpose. There is no room to freeze—only to move forward, to build a fortress of flesh and certainty around the child who has chosen him. In the fluorescent hush, he plants his feet, recalibrates his pulse, and vows—silently, fiercely—that from this breath onward, every beat of his heart will circle hers like a shield. He whispers into the dark silk of her hair, voice breaking, raw and vulnerable, “You’re mine. You’re mine, baby. I’m going to protect you.”

Around them the ward still crackles with echoes of madness—glass garden, parasite, cut from me—but Jaemin lets the words drain into static. All he hears is Sunshine’s grief: a heartbreaking wail from a child discovering too soon that even handmade miracles can be smashed. He seals his mouth to the damp crown of her head as if heat and skin could solder the fractures in her sense of safety, swearing—bone-deep, marrow-deep—that she will never feel this hollow again. Nurses tiptoe through wreckage, sweeping up the shattered lullaby box like it’s a fallen organ; bunnies are gathered with the tenderness reserved for battlefield dead. Jaemin tightens his arms until her sobs gutter to exhausted hiccups, until the only heartbeat she can find is his—steady, claiming, unbreakable.

She keens again, high, forlorn, as though her tiny body intuits loss before it understands language. The sound needles through his ribs and something inside him crystallizes into ruthless clarity: she is his, and he has failed her already. He draws her closer, her fingers locking around the shell of his ear, last unbroken talisman, and her lungs convulse like sparrows against a cage. Each hiccup shudders through both of them, and he feels the sum of her ruins: the music that once promised sleep, the yarn that once promised warmth, the silly fabric animals that once promised she’d never be alone. He rocks her in slow, tidal circles, voice splintering as he whispers, “Shh, mine, mine—Daddy’s got you,” tasting salt where her tears meet his own.

Facts blur under the roar of devotion. The timeline fits, but bloodlines remain a gamble, Aseul’s life was a revolving door of lovers and long nights. Biologically, Sunshine could belong to anyone. He doesn’t care; chromosomes aren’t the measure of fatherhood. In this luminous, brutal instant he decides: love will outrank DNA, intention will outrank accident. Whether fate drew her from his body or destiny simply laid her in his hands, she is his. He will sign forms, fight courts, rewrite the origin story if he must, because the fierce rush in his chest tells him family is forged in crisis as much as in blood. Found, not given. Chosen, not owed.

He bends to her ear, voice hushed and velvety—words woven more for comfort than comprehension, yet spoken in full, steady sentences. “Sweet girl, I’ll write you new lullabies, notes gentle enough to cradle your dreams. I’ll knit blankets thick with warmth and patience, stitch enough bunnies to stand watch along every edge of your night. No shadow will reach you while my arms are near. If the world bares its teeth, I’ll meet it first and break its bite. Your work is to breathe and bloom. My work is to keep the path clear. Sunshine whimpers, then sighs against him, loved, trusting, the wet heat of her cheek cooling on his collar. Jaemin presses a final kiss to her temple, feeling the place where fear has welded into resolve, and thinks: If lineage is questioned, let them test me. They can measure genes and alleles; they cannot measure this.

His heart, previously fractured and scattered, now holds her with the reverence of myth, a truth written in fate, etched in the cosmos. A slow, sorrowful symphony settles over him, grief mingling seamlessly with revelation, each breath drawn feeling like the first genuine inhale he’s taken in a lifetime. It doesn’t matter how many times Aseul screamed deliriously about parasites and stars, blood and betrayal, beneath the madness and horror lies a single stark thread of truth that Jaemin can’t shake. He doesn’t need tangible proof, doesn’t need lab results or paternity tests, not yet, because the connection thrumming through him now, skin against skin, heart to heart, surpasses anything that cold science could offer. He knows because he feels it—in her trembles, in her heartbeat synchronizing perfectly with his own, in the way she settles into the cradle of his arms like she’s always belonged there, even before he knew she existed, that she was his.

The woman dragged away moments ago was a shadow, twisted and broken beyond recognition, yet undeniably woven through his history. He knew her once, intimately, carelessly, and she planted within him the seed that now blossoms with devastating clarity. All this time, Sunshine—this tiny miracle he’d held first when she emerged broken from that rooftop, beneath dying stars and impossible odds—had been his own flesh and blood. Sunshine, who first opened her eyes to his face as if she knew him, who hushed instantly in his arms as though recognizing the heartbeat that once pulsed beside her in the womb. The thought is too overwhelming to voice aloud. Instead, Jaemin stands rooted in place, chest heaving silently beneath his scrubs, cradling Sunshine as though she’s not just made of fragile, healing flesh but spun from something sacred and luminous, threads of starlight and resilience intertwined into a tiny girl who survived against every conceivable horror.

He shifts slightly, angling himself instinctively between you both and the retreating chaos, and something ancient stirs within him, fiercely protective, dangerously possessive. This child chose him first, before either of them knew who they were to each other, before he recognized the invisible, golden cord of fate looping endlessly around their lives. It’s the sort of mysticism he’d always scoffed at, scorned in favor of clinical rationality. But here, in the sterile halls stained with violence and grief, holding Sunshine close as she buries her tear-streaked face deeper into his chest, all his skepticism fractures into dust. His world realigns around this tiny creature, this impossible child, whose arrival was heralded by loss and tragedy and whose existence now reshapes his entire soul.

Somewhere deep within his chest, beneath layers of ache and realization, Jaemin already knows what comes next: confirmation, bureaucracy, paternity tests, guardianship battles—legalities that cannot be avoided. But those concerns pale in this instant, eclipsed by the profound weight of his newfound truth, a revelation stronger than any evidence could hope to be. He glances down, meeting Sunshine’s eyes, those eyes that always felt familiar but never more so than now, and whispers once more, voice thick and cracking softly, “You’re mine. You’ve always been mine, I’m always gonna fight for you.” She nestles closer, whimpering softly as her sobs fade into hiccuping breaths, small fingers threading through his hair as if claiming him back. And there, beneath the sterile fluorescence and the watchful eyes of nurses, interns, and security still lingering, he cradles his daughter for the first time knowingly, heart breaking open with a love so fierce it threatens to destroy him as it rebuilds him, piece by piece.

Jaemin holds Sunshine tighter than he’s ever held anything, his pulse hammering against his skin in an anxious rhythm. He believes in his bones that she belongs with him—her tiny fingers fit perfectly around his thumb, her soft babbles seem to respond to his voice in a language no one else understands. Every instinct screams at him that this is his daughter, that fate had conspired to place her in his arms, from the first moment he calmed her cries in the NICU to the nights he stayed awake beside her isolette. He’s memorized everything: the delicate curl of her eyelashes, the precise way she smiles when he whispers her name, how she settles only for him when the world overwhelms her. Yet the fear curls deep, stubborn and bitter, because the only way to bring her home is through a paternity test. He hates the thought that genetics could betray what his heart already knows. But one detail anchors his hope: the way her eyes mirror his own, a soft almond shape, dark and knowing. It’s something no one noticed until whispers began that they might be father and daughter.

The gossip spreads like wildfire through the hospital corridors, nurses and interns hiding smiles behind clipboards, whispering in delighted awe whenever Jaemin passes by with Sunshine nestled protectively in his strong arms. He towers over everyone, muscles defined beneath the fitted scrubs, a silent, vigilant bodyguard beside the tiny girl who clings to his shoulders like he’s her personal jungle gym. It’s adorable, the contrast, the strength of him against the fragility of her and the hospital staff melts each time he patiently fixes the little bow in her hair, wipes drool from her chin with his sleeve, or gently rubs her back until she sighs into sleep against his chest. It seems, to everyone who watches, like Sunshine has always known exactly who he is—Daddy—her little hands grabbing at his ear, her excited squeals when he appears in the doorway, her sleepy murmurs in response to his whispered reassurances.

You watch him closely now, cheeks flushed with a heat you try to blame on embarrassment or nerves, but your pulse quickens whenever Jaemin cradles Sunshine in the crook of his arm, whenever he leans down to kiss her forehead, voice dropping into soft baby talk that makes your heart flip dangerously. You flush deeper when he catches your eye, a subtle, knowing smile curling his lips, the silent exchange charged with a tension neither of you have the courage yet to name aloud. Especially the day you take their blood samples for the paternity test, your hands trembling slightly as Jaemin distracts Sunshine with gentle tickles and kisses, giggling and playing until she’s blissfully unaware of the needle prick, cooing softly as he murmurs, “You’re okay, Daddy’s got you,” into her hair.

In the following weeks, Jaemin’s days blur into a whirlwind of meetings with lawyers, detailed discussions about custody and parental rights. Each time he attends these stressful consultations, Sunshine sits contentedly on his knee, oblivious to the tension thickening in the air, absorbed completely in her ever-growing collection of brand new plush bunnies. She babbles softly, reaching out to pat his cheek whenever his voice tightens, as though reminding him why he’s fighting so fiercely. His heart clenches when her little fingers stroke his jaw, a gentle anchor amidst harsh words and cold legal jargon. He knows the road ahead is complicated, but whenever she giggles into his neck or squeals in delight as he bounces her gently on his knee, he’s reassured. He’ll fight endlessly for her if he has to.

He would wade through courtrooms like minefields, baring every secret scar if the blast meant she could sleep unafraid. He would duel bureaucracy with scalpel-sharp patience, carve loopholes in statutes the way he once carved infection from bone. He would mortgage time, reputation, even the marrow of his own certainty, trading away sleep and solace until the ledger of her safety showed nothing but black ink. If the law raised walls, he would scale them hand-over-hand; if another family laid claim, he would stand between, a living bulwark of muscle and vow. Every breath he owns is already pledged, each one a brick in the fortress he’ll build so her heartbeat never has to echo in a room without him.

Finally, the day arrives. Jaemin sits rigidly across from the lawyer, Sunshine curled sleepily into his chest, unaware that the next few minutes will decide her entire future. His stomach twists with nausea as he contemplates every possible scenario: if the test denies their connection, he knows he’ll wage war anyway. He’ll petition, appeal, fight relentlessly to make sure Sunshine never has to endure another moment feeling abandoned or unloved. He’ll use every resource, every argument, because despite biology, he feels in every fiber of his being that this little girl is his daughter. But even as he braces for disappointment, prepares himself for an endless battle, the lawyer looks up from the document and meets Jaemin’s eyes, voice calm but firm as he finally utters the words Jaemin didn’t realize he was holding his breath for: “Dr. Na, this baby girl is yours.” 

Relief crashes through him so hard his knees nearly give. He sinks into the cotton-soft crown of her hair, breath catching on the scent of talc and warm milk and lets the tremor in his voice glide against her ear. “You’re mine, baby girl,” he murmurs, lips brushing her temple like a vow sealed in skin. “Daddy’s here—Daddy’s not going anywhere now.”

Sunshine slumbers against his chest, small lips parted in the gentlest O, lashes trembling each time his breathing shakes. In the hush he presses reverent kisses along her downy crown, one to the soft spot still pulsing with life, one to each curve of her cheeks, another to the bow of her chin. Between kisses he pours out promises in a whisper meant for her dreams. “You have a room waiting, sweetheart,” he murmurs, voice thick and wet with tears. “Walls the color of first light, clouds stenciled across the ceiling so you never feel trapped under a roof. Your crib, dressed in the softest cotton, picked it three times until it felt right and there’s a chair beside it where I’ll sit whenever you stir.” He grazes her button nose with his lips. “There’s a shelf already sagging under storybooks. I’ll read you every single one, even the silly rhymes, until you choose your own.”

He kisses the shell of her ear next. “Outside, a park with swings that squeak like laughter. I’ll run behind you, promise I won’t let go until you beg me to. Saturday mornings we’ll wander the farmers’ stalls, let you taste strawberries warm from the sun. On Sunday evenings we’ll buy flowers for the house: tulips in spring, dahlias in September, white camellias in winter so you always have color. I’ll always buy you flowers, my beautiful girl.” 

Another kiss finds the soft pulse in her neck. “Baths that smell of lavender bubbles,” he breathes, letting each promise glide over her skin like warm water. “Pajamas that are softer than moonlight, so even your dreams feel soft. A night-light shaped like a lighthouse, turning its little beam until morning because even in the dark you should know there’s a door left open for you.” Tears slip from his lashes and vanish into her hair. He doesn’t pause; the vows keep spilling, a steady litany of devotion threaded through gentle breaths. “I swear you’ll grow up knowing seasons by their scents: spring lilac on the breeze, cinnamon in autumn air, the sharp bite of pine at Christmas. I’ll learn lullabies in every key until I find the one that makes you sigh deepest. I’ll hide love notes under every fitted sheet, I’ll play with you until my arms tire.”

His voice wavers, but the words keep coming. “My life is yours now—every breath, every heartbeat, every call shift, every dawn that pries my eyelids open. If you need marrow, I’ll offer bone; if you need shelter, I’ll become stone. You owe me nothing, just open your eyes each morning and let me be the first thing they reflect. Let me stand guard when fevers climb, when nightmares knock, when the world grows loud enough to shake the windows. I’ll meet every thunderclap before it reaches you. I’ll carry umbrellas the size of constellations, learn storms by name so I can spell them into silence. And when you fall—because all children fall—I’ll kneel first, so my hands become the ground that finds you.”

He presses another kiss, this time to the delicate curl of her ear. “You have the most beautiful birthday parties, whatever theme you want, parades for your lost teeth, I’ll teach you the innocence in believing in the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus. I’ll create galleries for your finger-paint masterpieces. I’ll show you how river water feels against bare feet, how fireworks braid color into night, how forests speak if you hush long enough to listen. I’ll buy you every flavor of ice cream—yes, even the strange ones—because discovery should taste like delight. One day we’ll walk to the ocean’s edge, and I’ll show you how to let the waves lift you like a lullaby. When you doubt yourself, I will list every brave thing your heartbeat has ever done. When you soar, I will cheer loud enough to lift the sky.” His tears blot the sun-yellow dress, tiny blossoms blooming where salt meets cotton and still he whispers, softer, fiercer: “You never owe me a thing, my girl. Just exist. Breathe. Grow at your own impossible pace. Let me love you in the space between each heartbeat you borrow from the stars.”

She stirs at last. A tiny coo flutters from her chest as she nudges herself higher beneath his jaw, clenches a fistful of his  collar, settles with a sigh that sounds suspiciously like trust. Jaemin breaks, silent tears tracking down his cheeks, throat squeezed shut by gratitude and fear. He thinks of the nursery he and Jeno built: the pale-wood crib assembled at 2 a.m. to the soundtrack of whispered jokes; the mountain of pastel dresses, today she wears the yellow one embroidered with sunflower hearts, bought a week ago on a blind, impossible hope; rows of tiny socks rolled like white peonies; jars of organic purées labeled for flavors she hasn’t met; a plush zoo occupying half the floor. Every object back home feels, in this heartbeat, like proof that he has already been living for her long before the test confirmed what his heart decided. He kisses her brow once more, softer than a prayer, and breathes against her skin, “I love you. I love you. I love you,” until the words melt into her warmth and steady both their hearts.

Yet outside the glowing sanctuary of his newfound fatherhood, shadows creep along the edges, a storm brewing in the distance. Across town, the Kwon family nursery, painted pastel and adorned with meticulous care, now echoes with raw, wrenching sobs. Eunbi clutches a tiny blanket to her chest, the fabric slipping helplessly from her fingers as Jiyoung slams a hammer repeatedly into the delicate crib they spent weeks lovingly assembling, wooden slats splintering and cracking with each violent strike. Their dream lies shattered around them, the empty crib symbolic of a loss so profound it tears relentlessly at their hearts, leaving them hollow, bitter, and ready to fight.

At the hospital, Jaemin cradles Sunshine proudly, peppering her small face with kisses as he announces the joyful news, the staff clapping and cheering softly, hearts warmed by the happy ending they’ve all secretly hoped for. His victory curdles in an instant. A lawyer with a black suit, expression bloodless, slides into the room like a shadow with edges, a thick envelope held out as if it carries contagion. Behind him stand the would-have-been parents, a woman hollowed by sleepless grief and a man tight-jawed with silent rage; both watch Jaemin with eyes that shine like broken glass, all fight layered over a sediment of despair. He breaks the seal; the letters on the page slash upward, custody petition, emergency injunction, expedited hearing, each phrase a blade replacing the air in his lungs with iron shavings. The room’s warm fluorescence recoils, bleaching into grayscale; even the nurses’ soft smiles seem to ossify, like flowers flash-frozen mid-bloom. Jaemin feels the sunlight drain from the moment, replaced by a howl of cold wind he alone can hear, and the envelope in his hand suddenly weighs as much as fate itself.

Jaemin glances down at his baby girl, blissfully unaware as she plays happily in your arms, wrapped in the soft, lovingly knitted blankets that now carry twenty-one brand new, carefully stitched symbols and images, one for every staff member who loves her deeply, twenty-one and counting. Sunshine giggles, tiny fingers tracing embroidered motifs, her world safe and warm, unaware that her newfound family, the home she’s supposed to sleep in tonight, now hangs precariously in the balance. 

She’s no longer the abandoned baby left on a rooftop, no longer the lost child waiting endlessly in sterile rooms; now she is the child two worlds are reaching for, cradled in one set of arms while another claws desperately to claim her. Tonight was supposed to be her first night at home, her first night tucked securely beside Daddy. But as Jaemin clutches the harsh legal notice tighter, feeling the cold bite of paper against his palm, he knows the fight has only just begun. Another family, heartbroken and grieving, is coming for the daughter he’s only just found, and Sunshine—unaware and innocent—remains caught blissfully in the crossfire, her future once again uncertain beneath looming clouds.

The night-shift hush thins toward dawn as Jaemin climbs the final stair with Sunshine curled against him, warm and weighty as a sleepy kitten. This is the very rooftop where she was first found, then a fist-sized miracle wrapped in hospital linen, the stars above her as indifferent as broken glass. Now the early light rinses the garden boxes in brushed silver; calendula buds yawn wide, their orange petals blinking awake like tiny suns relieved to keep watch for her. Jaemin settles on the low parapet, tucking her into the hollow of his chest. She’s dressed for the occasion in a butter-yellow pinafore sprinkled with white polka dots, cream tights bunched adorably at her knees, and toy-silk ballet shoes that barely brush his ribs when she kicks. One dimpled hand pats the zipper of his scrub jacket, the other reaches toward the horizon, and she releases a delighted chain of vowels—“ah, da, ya-ya”—as though she’s announcing herself to the sky she’s only now allowed to claim.

He studies her face in the newborn light. Those eyes, dark, fathomless, unmistakably his, catch the sunrise first, twin mirrors pooling liquid gold. Otherwise she shares none of his features; her cheeks are plump crescents dusted rose, her nose a perfect button, her hair a soft corona of honey-brown curls that refuse to part neatly. Yet the eyes are enough: windows where his own childhood stares back at him, equal parts wonder and will. She coos again, puckering her lips into a tiny “o,” and he can’t resist, he presses a kiss to each cheek, feeling their satin coolness give beneath his lips. “Morning, princess,” he whispers, letting the pet name glide like a feather over her ear. She squeals, tiny fists tightening in his jacket, and for an instant the whole hospital below seems to hold its breath just to listen to her joy.

She turns those mirror-dark eyes onto him, pupils blown wide in trust, and he feels the universe tilt: her world is eleven months old, and he is the gravity that keeps it steady. Swallowing a rush of tenderness so fierce it borders on pain, he begins to speak—soft, steady, a father’s dawn-lit monologue. He tells her the calendulas opened just for her, that the city beyond the rooftop is full of parks where pigeons will scatter like confetti for her laughter, that there are bookstores with carpets plush enough for story-hour nests, and a tiny bistro on the corner that already keeps a highchair waiting. “We’ll walk there after your next surgery,” he promises, brushing a curl from her forehead. “No scalpels for Daddy anymore, I’ll just be holding your hand while we count down from ten. I’ll be right there when you wake up, ready to cuddle you and sing silly songs to cheer you up. That’s my job now.”

Sunshine answers with another babble—higher, brighter—as if the syllables themselves are bloom-tips of happiness. Her yellow dress catches the breeze, fluttering against his forearm like a flag of new territory claimed. He rocks her gently, heart thrumming under her ear, and the rooftop feels transformed: no longer a place of abandonment, but a balcony of beginnings, the first true morning of a life he is determined to fill with warmth, color, and every tenderness he once thought was beyond his reach.

He marvels at how much space she now occupies in his arms—only a year ago she was scarcely heavier than a stethoscope, lungs fluttering like moth wings against his palm, and he held her without guessing the blood-thread knotting them together. Since then she has stretched into herself with stubborn grace: thighs no longer matchsticks but soft rolls snug beneath her cotton tights; fingers once wrapped around a single ridge of his thumb now span two, intent and insistent as they explore his buttons and penlight. Even tethered to surgeries, she has learned to sit unassisted, to fling both arms skyward when she wants lifting, to trumpet her opinions in vowel choirs that echo clear down the ward. Every gram she’s gained feels stolen from the jaws of statistics, a living proof that mercy sometimes chooses the smallest vessels. Looking down at her now—cheeks flushed peach, hair riffled by dawn breeze—Jaemin feels the weight of that improbable growth settle in his chest like a second heart: she is a miracle he once cradled by duty and now embraces by destiny, his bubba, his living affirmation that love can rewrite biology’s bleakest footnotes.

He speaks in a voice barely above the breeze, describing every fragile marvel in her new kingdom. “That yellow flower is called marigolds, baby, it smells like pepper and sunlight. Those are wisteria vines, they’ll drip purple in spring. See that little red light on the horizon? That’s a plane; people inside are chasing morning across the ocean, planes take you from one place to another but in the sky.” She squeals, kicking her star-patterned socks, and he laughs quietly before adding promises: ‘I can’t wait to show you oceans up close one day. I’ll stand behind you on the swing so the world feels safe. When surgeries come, I won’t hold the scalpel—daddies don’t—but I’ll hold your hand until the room stops echoing. You have a family now, and waiting is what families do.”

She gnaws experimentally on the collar of his scrub top, eyes shining wet in the half-light. He brushes a thumb over her cheek. “You hear that heartbeat?” He presses her hand to his chest. “It’s your metronome. Any time you’re scared, sync to it.” Her eyelids dip, a slow blink of trust, and the rooftop seems to inhale around them, old loss exhaling at last into something tender and new.

Footsteps scrape at the service-door landing, and you pause, sudden, breathless, an uninvited guest at a private sunrise. For a moment you only watch: Jaemin’s broad shoulders curved protectively, Sunshine half-dozing against the steady rise and fall of his ribs. The picture is so raw with devotion you almost retreat, but the idea burning your tongue refuses to be swallowed back. You clear your throat; the sound flutters like a nervous bird. Jaemin looks over, one eyebrow lifted. “Why are you up here?” His tone is neutral, but the hand on Sunshine’s back tightens, territorial.

“I—well—sorry,” you start, words tangling. You look ridiculous, an inner voice hisses, but you soldier on. “I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about the name we keep calling her, the name on her chart. Sunshine is a lovely name, truly, but maybe not her forever, and it suddenly felt important to me that she has a real name, something chosen, not inherited from circumstance.” Your pulse thrums; Sunshine peers at you, thumb halfway to her mouth. You inhale. “So I made a list, actually several lists. I looked up meanings, syllables, and cultural roots. I wanted something gentle but strong, something that carries light the way she does.” Still no interruption so you forge ahead.

Second paragraph of ramble: “I narrowed it down to names that mean grace, or dawn, or salvation because that’s what she is, isn’t she? Grace for all of us, dawn after the ugliest night, proof that survival can be soft. I kept circling one in particular: Haeun— hae for sun, eun for grace. It feels like brightness but also depth.” Your voice wobbles; you clutch the notebook you’d carried like evidence. “And it sounds musical when you whisper it—try it, the vowel slides like a lullaby. I don’t want to overstep and I made an entire list so you can see if you like any more, because, well, you should decide, obviously, but I wanted to offer it before the paperwork finalizes.”

“I know Sunshine isn’t wrong, she’ll always be sunshine but  children grow and maybe one day she’ll want a name that fits on school forms and passports, something that still holds the light but also lets her be whoever she chooses beyond this rooftop story. Haeun does that. And if you like, Sunshine could stay her nickname, a secret code between all of us who knew her first.” You exhale, cheeks burning, gaze fixed on the note pad rather than his unreadable eyes. Silence stretches; only the whir of rooftop vents and the faint click of IV tubing sway. Then Jaemin lowers his chin, looks down at the baby blinking up at him as if awaiting her own verdict. He whispers the syllables once—“Ha-eun”—testing shape and sound. Sunshine coos, a pleased gurgle, and pats his chest like a seal of approval. Something eases in his shoulders; he kisses her hairline. “Na Haeun,” he says again, fuller this time, letting the consonants anchor against his surname. A soft, incredulous smile cracks through the fatigue. “I like it.”

He gathers her under his chin, bunching the sunflower blanket until its yarn presses a soft sunflower seam between them, and shifts so that dawn’s first blade of gold slices over the horizon and crowns them in trembling light. The rooftop inhales, petals quiver, air tastes of tin and morning dew and suddenly the hum of generators, the drone of distant traffic, the courtroom thunder that waits below all fall away. Only three pulses remain: his, heavy as cathedral bells; hers, quick as sparrow wings; yours, somewhere between, stitching the moment closed.

He lowers his forehead to hers, skin to skin, sunrise to sunrise and lets her name float out on a breath like pollen: Haeun. The sound drifts upward, latching to the breeze, a firefly syllable that makes even concrete feel fertile. Calendula heads turn as though summoned; shadow pulls back from the parapet like a curtain, and the city beyond seems to pause, leaning in to eavesdrop on the vow wound inside that single word. There will be gavels and ink, families fractured into legal shards, nights when fear scratches at the door louder than lullabies. But none of that exists in this sliver of honey-lit stillness. Here, a father plants his heartbeat in a child’s ear. Here, a baby tucks her fist into the fabric of his collar as if anchoring dawn itself. Here, a witness stands one pace away, feeling the earth tilt just enough for hope to spill forward like warm milk. As long as the horizon keeps leaking gold, you hold your place in an impossible orbit: Haeun, newborn sun, pulsing warm against your collar; Jaemin, once a planet of stone, now lit from the inside by her fire; and you, the steady moon that keeps their tides from tearing loose. Together you rise above the waking city like a brand-new constellation—three bright points soldered by miracle—burning the night’s leftover ghosts into pliant, honey-soft clay, ready to be shaped into whatever tomorrow you dare to build.

author’s note

surprise !!! to my back to you lovers—did you catch that name reveal at the end? and what did you think of haeun’s tragic, tangled backstory? she’s always been more than just a hospital legend or a little miracle in a yellow dress—she’s got her own storm, her own origin, and her own kind of magic. i hope this chapter made you ache for her even more, because she needs all the love you can give her. she’s our sunshine, our ballerina, our little magic bubba. :((( just so you know—this isn’t the end. not even close. the fic will have at least three parts (possibly more if you all yell loud enough), and yes, i promise the slow burn between mc and jaemin is about to catch fire. if you felt the ache and the longing in this part, buckle in: it’s only going to get more intense from here. their story is just starting, and i can’t wait to share it with you. it was wrong if i made mc or jaemin fuck in this chapter considering the main events, plus she may be a virgin so !!!! yeah next chapters about to be very interesting

now, if you made it this far, i’d love it if you left me a comment, reblog, or even a like. i read every single one and they mean so much to me—it’s genuinely the best way to let me know what moved you, what you loved, or even what broke your heart. writing is a little lonely sometimes, it always takes me restless nights, and hearing from you makes it all feel worthwhile, like sharing a secret or lighting a candle for these characters. so don’t be shy! every little note is treasured and makes me want to keep going. thank you for reading, and for loving these messy, magical people with me. <3

taglist — @yukisroom97 @fancypeacepersona @jaeminnanaaa17 @shiningnono @junrenjun @honeybeehorizon @neotannies @noorabora @oppabochim @chenlesfeetpic @kynessa @awktwurtle @euphormiia @hi00000234527 @yvvnii @sunwoosberrie @ppeachyttae @dee-zennie @ballsackzz101 @neonaby @kukkurookkoo @antifrggile @dedandelion @fymine @zoesruby @yoonohswife @jessga @markerloi @ryuhannaworld @yasminetrappy @sunghoonsgfreal @jaemjeno @lovetaroandtaemin @yunhoswrldddd

[vertical-tacos]

HEY GUYS BACK AT IT AGAIN WITH ANOTHER "FUCKED-UP-IN-THE-HEAD" BLORBO!!!

as per usual, info below cut

TWO_TIME - KILLER CONCEPT

INFO

BACKSTORY:

As time went on, Two Time became more and more invested in the activities of the cult they were in, especially the sacrifices. And after their first sacrifice, the gaining of their sacred "second life" drove them further into their own delusions. Finally, Two Time approached Azure, who was none the wiser about the sin they were about to try and commit. But when they finally launched their attack on their fellow cultist and best friend, they were ultimately overpowered, stabbed with the same dagger they had planned to sacrifice Azure with. Azure ran, and the body was disposed of. But days later, days after Two Time had started to "go bad", their second life finally kicked in. Remembering nothing but their original goal and the hindrance that prevented them, Two Time will stop at nothing to make sure that they finish what they started, and providing even further gifts to their beloved Spawn.

ABILITIES

PASSIVE: "HOLY RETRIBUTION".

If Azure is in the round, Two-Time gains the ability to see a trail of their footsteps if they are within 25 studs of them. Azure will also gain the "Guilty Conscience*" Debuff whenever Two-Time gets within 45 studs of them (Debuff disappears whenever Two-Time leaves the 45-stud radius)

*- "GUILTY CONSCIENCE" IS A SURVIVOR-SPECIFIC DEBUFF !!! ONLY AZURE CAN GET IT !!! This debuff decreases their movement speed, stamina regen, and objective-completion value by 15% (For example, if completing a puzzle page adds 1/4 completion to a generator, then an Azure with the "Guilty Conscience" Debuff would only add around .21% completion to the generator.)

Passive2: "AMBUSHER"

Two Time's killer radius is lower than other killers (by about 15%).

LMB

Two-Time pulls the dagger used to kill him out of his chest and takes a swing. Arc hitbox, 15 damage. 2.5s cooldown.

ABILITY ONE: “CURSE”.

Two-Time fires a projectile that travels in an arc like a boomerang. If it hits a survivor, the projectile disappears and the survivor is thrown into a “spectral” state, gaining Weakness VI and Undetectable I for 10s. No matter their health, they will instantly die if they receive any damage within the first 5s of this state. This ability can only “ghost-ify” one survivor at a time.

ABILITY TWO: “SPAWN-POINT”.

Two-Time will set down a platform with the classic respawn logo on it (logo glows faintly, as to not be totally invisible in the dark). After that, whenever Two-Time activates the ability again, they are instantly teleported to the “spawn point”, gaining Undetectable I for 5s, or until they hit someone. If they hit someone while Undetectable, the survivor takes twice the damage and receives the Afraid* I debuff.

*- Afraid: Increases Speed, Stamina Increase/Decrease, but increases damage intake by 5% each time. Max stack is III, resulting in a 15% speed and stamina-drain increase, but a 15% increase in damage intake.

STATS

DIFFICULTY:★★★★☆

DAMAGE: 15

HEALTH: 800

REGULAR SPEED: 16

SPRINT SPEED: 28

STAMINA: 100

STAMINA-LOSS: 20

STAMINA-GAIN: 24

VOICE LINES

Idle

humming

When Holy Retribution is in effect

"Look what the cat dragged out!"

"Fate drew them together, just as intended..."

When using "CURSE"

"FALL AS I HAVE!"

"A FRACTION OF WHAT I'VE FELT!"

When using "SPAWN-POINT"

"I'll be back.."

"Keep this in mind..."

KILL LINES

When killing Jason

"Keep your head high!"

"Hope you don't sink!"

When killing John Doe

"I can't wait to hold this over HIS head!"

"Call this your resignation!"

When killing 1x1x1x1

"Consider the heretic CONDEMNED!"

"If only it could've saved you again."

When killing C00LKIDD

"Awh, are you scared?"

"Don't you worry! This is just a bad dream."

When killing Guest 666

"You have no place here, beast."

"Should've stayed a myth!"

When killing Azure

"And so comes the conclusion of your story."

"The thread has been cut."

[tanoraqui]

Listening to paladin of souls (again) and scrolling what you have to say about Penric and Desdemona. I started that series, but it didn't grab me immediately like Curse of Chalion did. Can you give me a reason to try again? (I'll be convinced fairly easily)

One time they get captured by pirates, just by unfortunate coincidence (and also probably the will of the Bastard), and the pirates end up paying a ransom to get rid of them.

This kinda applies to every protagonist in the World of Five Gods books, but: ongoing personifications of the idea that sometimes you receive a miracle, and sometimes you are the miracle for someone else.

Desdemona is scared of heights. One time, they have to basically rappel down the side of a cliff, and she explodes multiple seagulls to cope.

LMB is clearly having fun figuring out how you can cleverly use pure destructive power for good, or at least very selective harm, especially in the human body. Pen & Des are also having fun, Pen in a particularly nerdy way. As the series goes on, he gets increasingly disappointed that no one else knows more than him, such that they could learn by comparing notes.

THEY’RE BEST FRIENDS.

[call-me-rucy]

She wore space armor though for the moment she carried her helmet tucked under her arm like a decapitated head.

Do you think LMB looked at this sentence and said, you know what, a decapitated head sounds fun, let's do that in Barrayar?

"God help us now" is a fun expression for Miles taking into account that in TWA he instructed Elena to use it as expression of ultimate despair/disappointment.

GREGOR I LOVE YOU

ALSO GREGOR, PLEASE GET SOME SELF-PRESERVATION

Now that I think of it, I think I've seen this scene drawn. Here: https://www.tumblr.com/artfrostedleaf/642488576204013568/a-wonderful-scene-from-the-vor-game-by-lois?source=share Lovely art!

Poor Gregor...

"I can only bluff. Your breath is law." is such a good summary of these characters.

"You realize, Gregor, you did this? Sabotaged the Cetagandan invasion single-handedly?" "Oh," breathed Gregor, "it took both hands."

My boy :")

I fear that this post is going to be just Gregor quotes. I just love him so much.

He raised his head to say tiredly, "Commander Cavilo, both my parents died violently in political intrigue before I was six years old. A fact you might have researched. Did you think you were dealing with an amateur?"

Cavilo's threat for the future sounds like... some kind of curse. I too wonder what Miles would be like in 20 years.

Gregor being emperor! Always nice to see. Use your power, my boy!

It's a pity these were written so long ago because the sentence "Two ships trying to rematerialize in the same place at the same time would result in no ships and a very large explosion" has the precise structure needed for a "none pizza with left beef" joke. Sometimes I think Tamsyn Muir has spoiled me with Tumblr jokes in scifi books.

There's a chinese quote about this scene. From The Three Kingdoms Romance. I had to so search it in Detecteive Conan of all places but here it is:

Liu Bei said, Do you not understand that the plans elaborated in a little chamber will determine victories thousands of miles away?

Goodbye Oser, you won't be missed! Wonder if Cavilo and Metzov died there too...

HELP COMING!

THE PRINCE SERG!! Gregor, is that you??? :D

(Why is "Prince Serge" not translated to "Príncipe Serg"? I guess because "Triumph" and "Peregrine" are not translated either. But this is a title not a name. And you did adapt "Kurin's Hand".)

EMPEROR GREGOR VORBARRA AND ADMIRAL COUNT ARAL VORKOSIGAN, JOINT COMMANDERS!!!!!!!!! YESSSSSS!!!!

Ah, right, Tung was Aral's fan. I hope they meet, that would be so much fun.

[joannalannister]

What would a not knight lords son that isn't a lord yet be called in not asoiaf? Duke? Earl? Baron? What about knight wives? How could grrm have made it easier?

In not ASOIAF? Well, Lois McMaster Bujold has a cool noble hierarchy for her Curse of Chalion series (which I have not yet read):

ser - Lowest title of nobility, below a castillar in rank, roughly equivalent to a knight or baronet

sera - Wife of a ser, or a female ser

castillar - Title of nobility below march and above ser, roughly equivalent to an earl or baron

castillara - Wife of a castillar, or a female castillar

march - Title of nobility, below provincar and above castillar, roughly equivalent to a marquess

marchess - The wife of a march, or a female march

provincar - Title of nobility, below a roya and above a march, roughly equivalent to a duke. Addressed as “Your Grace”.

provincara - Wife of a provincar, or a female provincar. Addressed as “Your Grace”. The Provincara (capitalized) is the dowager Provincara of Baocia in CoC.

royse - Son of a roya, a prince.royesse - Daughter of a roya, a princess.

roya - Ruler of a country, equivalent to a king.

royina - The wife of a roya, or (possibly) a female ruler of a country: a queen.

Titles and definitions taken from The Bujold Nexus Dictionary

Some might say that this is more complicated, but I can recite the Lannister family tree going back six generations, and I can recite the positions of the Small Council, so I think I could get this down easily. 

For ASOIAF, GRRM might have made Aegon I into an Emperor, with his wives as Empresses, and Targ children as, idk make something up, like Empir Maegor and Empira Rhaena. And then you would have King Loren and King Torrhen Who Knelt and then princes, dukes, etc

But GRRM wanted to emphasize the social cohesion of Westeros, he wanted to emphasize how Aegon’s Conquest radically changed Westeros and made it all one Realm, he wanted a place with the same laws and same language etc, and he wanted it to be more meaningful when it all breaks up at the end into separate kingdoms again, so GRRM didn’t go the Emperor route. 

Basically anything where GRRM had a more complicated system of rankings for the nobility would have been better, even if he just borrowed real-world titles. I know GRRM has explained why he didn’t do this to make it simpler, but I think it would have been better this way. 

[astralnexus]

Mark: Partner, pardner, pordner, pardino, pimento, puunter

me: superb you funky little cursed rabies-infested cowboy

it’s almost 2am lmb but also send help

[artemisegeria]

I was tagged by @bartagnanz to list top 10 things. Thanks! Some of these are my favorites of all time, but some are as of this moment. Not necessarily in order.

MOVIES 

1. Ever After: A Cinderella Story

2. Beauty and the Beast (animated)

3. Avengers: Infinity War 

4. Mulan

5. Wimbledon 

6. Hitch

7. Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse

8.  Captain America: Civil War

9.  Atlantis: The Lost Empire

10. The Road to El Dorado

TV SHOWS 

1. Doctor Who 

2. The Good Place

3. The West Wing 

4. Gilmore Girls

5. Castle

6. Avengers: United They Stand (animated) 

7. Parks and Recreation

8. Marvel’s Runaways

9. Once Upon a Time

10. Agent Carter

BOOKS 

1. The Curse of Chalion - Lois McMaster Bujold (LMB)

2. Paladin of Souls - LMB

3. Shards of Honor - LMB 

4. Ethan of Athos - LMB 

5. Deerskin - Robin McKinley

6. Shiva’s Fire - Suzanne Fisher Staples

7. The Raging Quiet - Sherryl Jordan 

8. Harry Potter series - J.K. Rowling

9. Finishing Becca - Ann Rinaldi

10. A Swiftly Tilting Planet - Madeleine L’Engle

 MUSIC ARTISTS 

1. Howard Shore 

2. Michael Giacchino

3. Alan Silvestri

4. Michelle Branch 

5. Ingrid Michaelson

6. Sara Bareilles

7. Imagine Dragons 

8. One Republic 

9.  Enya

10. Florence + The Machine

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

Persona Problems: Apathy Syndrome, Mental Shutdowns, and Reverse Cases

Sooooo uhhh I can’t sleep so might as well ramble about this.

Comparing and contrasting the 3, ranting on why Mental Shutdowns are called Mental Shutdowns and why it’s stupid, and trying to fix PTS’ Reverse Cases.

An issue I’ve had with P5 tbh (I think I’ve talked about this before), but while thinking about it I realized that......my own idea of fixing P:TS’ Reverse Cases instead....made me realized some complications (I mean the complication was there to begin with but I’ll get to that). 

Anyway I’ll save Reverse Cases for last since I’m sure most of you are only here for P3/5. 8U

So one thing that bothered me in P5 is.....the fact they call Mental Shutdowns well...Mental Shutdowns. I mean because....it’s just Apathy Syndrome (or at least, how it’s called by the public, “Mass Lethargy Syndrome, which we find out in P4D, as a similar case is happening there).

Well let me explain what each one basically is.

Apathy Syndrome. is basically when a person’s shadow goes on vacation in P3, and Nyx/Full Moon bosses be giving out those vacation tickets like Oprah when well....the Full moon comes around. 8U I mean technically the person’s shadow gets “eaten” by a Dark Hour Shadow (and yes it’s their shadow, MegaTen says “psyche” but it’s clarified more that by psyche they mean shadow). Basically, while there are technicalities in HOW the shadow isn’t in the person’s body, the fact remains it happens because the shadow is not in the body. As for what happens to the person, they usually go into a coma/vegetative state and will die without medical help.

Mass Lethargy Syndrome: 

Now let’s look at Mental Shutdowns. It happens when a Shadow Self is killed.....ok.....so basically that means the Shadow is not there anymore. The Shadow is not in the body. Basically the same exact thing as Apathy Syndrome. What happens to the body? Same exact thing as Apathy Syndrome, they go into coma/vegetative state and will die without medical help. I mean sometimes they’ll die right on the spot for no good reason(ok maybe not RIGHT on the spot, stupid delay reaction Okumura....fudging things up), but of the 3/4 we saw, we know 2/3 (dunno if I should count train guy, but Wakabe and Kobayashi def count) died because they fell in traffic and not by whatever Okumura conveniently got. Also this doesn’t count Ichiko’s friend who was just in a coma, so it seems Okumura’s reaction is.....VERY rare. Btw fun fact, in P3′s 1st movie, something similar happens at a train station that mirrors Wakabe/Kobayashi, someone gets Apathy syndrome and falls in front of a train (I know it’s the movie, but the game DOES say there was a delay and the movie spells it out for us it’s cause of a body on the train tracks so.....there might be some weight to the movie). 

Now PTS....I’m....I’m mostly gonna focus on Reverse Cases, I mean this anime has Apathy Syndrome but I don’t recall it (or I didn’t get that far into it), and the wiki states it’s when a Persona is taken or destroyed, while Reverse Cases (as well as Kagenuki) specifically mention Shadows....and I dunno it could be P:TS being weird again and not knowing how the relationship between Personas/Shadows work, but then again Kagenuki was used so that people could tell if that person has a strong shadow and thus strong Persona and....basically I don’t think the creators through it through or the wiki is missing some info. ANYWAY, Reverse Cases are similar, it’s where a Shadow is forcibly taken by another Persona user for a certain goal of summoning something more powerful by gathering those Personas (if any of you Arena/Ultimax fans feel like you might’ve heard something like this before yeah I think they repurposed P:TS’s thing), and when that happens the person is turned inside out! Whoops! Well that’s a bit different, but hey same concept, shadow leaving the body (THAT BEING SAID it’s understandable why it’s called something different, the outcome is different compared to AS and MS). (btw Kagenuki is where you pull a Shadow/Persona out but it’s used to relieve stress or some BS, it’s temporary and....it’s kinda more like you are forcing someone to summon their Persona rather than take it....unless you are discount Strega aka Marebito then they are trying to actually take it).

Fun Fact: P2IS I believe is the first place that showcases Apathy Syndrome (or whatever we wanna call all 3/4 of these things), as the character Yukino experience similar symptoms when her Shadow Self commits suicide. P2IS didn’t have a name for it but....just a fun fact. 8U

Anyway before I pick apart P:TS’ mess, lemme get back to P5. Why the fudge do they call it something different? Like I GET MS’ process is a little different, but the outcome is pretty much identical, esp to the public....who are the one’s naming the phenomenon. Like us the players know it’s different, one is caused by the Dark Hour and is temporary, the other is caused by Goro being an asshole and it seems like this one is a bit more permanent....BUT THE PUBLIC DOESN’T KNOW THAT! To them it should be “Apathy Syndrome/Mass Lethargy Syndrome has returned and a new phenomenon ‘Psychotic Breakdowns’ has emerged!” you could possibly connect them due to both showing up at around the same time, but calling AS something different? No, to the public it’s pretty much the same, people are becoming vegetables and we dunno how to help them. In all honesty, just because the way shadows are leaving people’s bodies are a bit different, I don’t think it warrants a new name...in fact I think it can be confusing “Wait isn’t it basically the same thing? How/why is it called something different?” it just raises unneeded questions. And no you can’t make the argument that ‘maybe AS wasn’t well known’ because 1) it’s mentioned later in P4D (and I think even in Arena), albeit by a different but similar sounding title and 2) even a small town like Inaba’s murder mystery was still being alluded to in P5 about 5ish years later in-game....and Iwatodai is a city and it was being talked about on the news A LOT.....so no it’s not a small town/city thing.

But...”Well why aren’t you complaining about P4D’s re-name?” Probably cause the rumor of knowing the cause of MLS vs AS/MS. MLS is associated with the cursed video, while AS/MS are unknown to the public..... Or maybe AS was just known as MLS to the mass public or it’s a phenomenon where a bunch of people fall to AS, I need to replay P4D tbh if there are additional details I’m missing, but the fact remains that, to the public, MLS has a possible root cause while the other two do not so it’s possible to let that slide....tho it brings up the fact MS should either be called AS or MLS.... Esp because there’s also the fact that P4D is probably taking place in Tokyo (P3/4/4D basically just call it “the city,” but I think it’s heavily hinted to be Tokyo, heck a quick google search lead me to a LMB festival look alike, aka Tokyo Idol Festival so....yeah 8U). Which makes it even more jarring for P5 since WE KNOW it takes place in Tokyo so why are they using two names for the same thing??? It’s like.....calling the Chicken Pox something like “Polly Pocket Pox,” same symptoms, we just feel like calling it something totally random and new now for no reason even tho it’s literally the exact same thing in everyone’s eyes. 8U 

Anyway end rant on P5′s annoying alt naming, now for P:TS.

So.....Reverse Cases are a bit of a mess....both in the show (damn it be bloody) and.....lore wise (not new to P:TS bless its soul....haha soul....pun not intended). Lore wise it doesn’t make sense. I mean P3/4D/5′s way of doing it we basically have different ways of doing X1+A/B/C but we still get the same Y (basically X+A=Y, X+B=Y, and X+C=Y for P3/4D/5 respectively, X=a shadow leaving, A/B/C=the different forms aka Full Moon/Cursed Video/Goro-murders). RC is different, it’s end result is different even if say.....it’s the same as P5 (P5 involve another human harming another Person’s shadow so yeah). So with PTS, instead of X+C=Y, it’s now X+C=Z (Shadow leaving+basically stealing and absorbing the shadow=a person explodes).....so with PT X+C≠Y.....and that’s.....that’s some problems. Because PTS equates the shadow leaving with the person exploding (we’re ignoring AS in this universe cause....we don’t need more problems).

So....to fix it.....I originally thought “maybe add one more thing to the equation!” Have it be X+C+D=Z. With D= maybe the shadow goes berserk before it’s eaten and that’s how the person is exploded. Kinda similar to how Personas can turn on their user in P3 and strangle them....or in P4 the Shadow Selves....do something that kills them. I mean they both try to kill their hosts and seem to do different things to get the job done, and how they do it could result in a different outcome (P3 it’s strangulation tho not sure if traceable, P4 it’s unknown, PTS it’s explosion). There fix right? Nope.......I realized, thanks to P4 esp....there’s an issue....And this exists with how RCs already operate not just my fix it tweak. The issue is that.....once the person is killed, the shadow self (and by extension the Persona) disappears with it.... 

“Ok how is that bad?” Well the point of the RC are that the Marebito are gathering Shadows(/Personas) to make themselves stronger (and so that what’s his face can summon something, keeping it vague for spoilers but hey already dropped a spoiler so whatevs). But.....as soon as the Person explodes that Shadow should cease to exist. Rendering everything moot.

Which means we need to change PTS again, and we can do it a few ways thankfully! I mean you might have to rewrite PTS for some of the options but.....like it already needs rewrites so klnvkds;vna Anyway here’s what we can do:

No RCs! Instead it’s just Apathy Syndrome a new wave. What ain’t broke don’t fix it. Personas/Shadows are still stolen, but we just keep the symptoms as AS and just call it AS (or MLS, I’m down for either)

Might be an issue with getting the police involved, so either with the revamp have Shadow Ops be involved 

Or make it so the police think AS in PTS has a different patter compared to P3′s so they think it might be a group or some BS.

Keep the RC, but don’t make it about stealing shadows/personas to make something stronger or summon something. Instead just make it about a (or a group of) serial killer(s)! 

Either they just use their Persona to explode people

Or they utilize the Kagenuki to draw out the shadow self to do it for them!. 

Use both 1 and 2, by which I mean I guess pull a P5 (aka have two going at the same time like P5 has with Mental Shutdowns and Psychotic Breakdowns, and RC could be the reason the police get involved), AS is when they steal the shadow, RC is when they wanna kill a person without the weird as time delay MS has at times. 

I feel like I had more to say but it’s late and.....I think I’ll just end it here. 8V

[fully-booked-this-weekend]

June Bookish Photo Challenge - 16. fictional fathers

The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold

Neither of these protagonists are fathers but they are both a fresh of breath air for their age and wisdom. In the first, Cazaril is 35-year-old war veteran and in the second, Ista is a 40-year-old lady of leisure. These books won so many awards and it’s easy to see why, they take you along for an incredible ride. LMB is a master of fantasy.

[violetstrongblog1]

MIIX EVENT por Violeta McDowell Via Flickr: 1658 - @MIIX EVENT (30 June - 20 July) LMB Witch Set *Lara* *Legacy* *Reborn* @MIIX EVENT ** NicK'n BriNK ** Tattoo and Accessories *NB* BOX - Lady Earrings *NB* -Hud Colors - Resize @MIIX EVENT Moon World Store The Moon lipsticks Curse Lelutka Evo X HD @MIIX EVENT quasesemprenublado.blogspot.com/2022/07/miix-event_6.html

[naomilibicki]

I'd like to know why you so dislike the Chalion books? Because I kind of love them. I've got a couple complaints, but the way the divinities function is great, and Paladin of Souls is probably one of my favorite books. Everything about Ista is so good.

Okay, well, I guess this is the time and place for my World of the Five Gods rant!

So first of all, I want to say that I can totally see why someone would love the Chalion books.  There are a lot of very good things about them, which is part of what makes me so mad.  There’s a lot of upsetting things in fantasy novels, and if they were unreadable drivel, or if they were written by an author I didn’t respect, I would just shrug and move on.

And, you know, everyone has their priorities and brings their own stuff to the table when they’re reading and draws their line in different places, and that’s fine.  I am 100% not judging anyone for loving the Chalion books.  I’m not–okay, I kind of am judging LMB for having written the Chalion books, but I don’t think it makes her a bad person or a bad author or that she deserves to be cast into the outer darkness until she says she’s sorry or anything like that.

THAT SAID–

Okay, my first problem with the World of the Five Gods is right there in the name.  It’s the world of the five gods.  In the first two books, the ones set in Chalion and Ibra, there’s a religious conflict between the people who worship four gods and the ones who worship five, and there’s never any doubt from the perspective of the story that the people who worship five gods are right, that there are five gods who are worthy of being worshiped.  And while there are certainly evil Quintarian individuals, and individual Quadrenes who are virtuous and beloved by the gods, it’s made pretty clear that the Quadrene religion is wrong and causes harm by its rejection of the divinity of the Bastard and the consequent refusal to make a place in its society for the people and things the Bastard represents.

I don’t like it when there’s a religious conflict and one side is right and the other side is wrong.  I don’t like it in fantasy fiction from a sense-making worldbuilding point of view–speaking directly to the gods in the World of the Five Gods is unusual but far from unheard of, so why don’t any of these saints ever just ask “Oh hey Father of Winter, we’ve been having these wars and maybe you could clear this up for us, should we be worshiping the Bastard as a god or cursing him as a devil or what”–but more than that I just don’t like it.

I especially don’t like it when there are clear parallels to real-world religions in play.  And while there’s not a lot of similarities between Quintarianism and Christiany or Quadrenism and Islam in terms of doctrine or religious practice, the historical parallels and cultural cues are pretty clear.

(Incidentally, and this is almost a side issue, but it does make me mad that there are no Jews.  It’s medieval Spain.  How are there no Jews.  That’s my people you’re erasing from history because it doesn’t fit your neat set of contrasts that you’re building.)

But what really, really makes me want to spit nails is–okay.  So remember how I said that Quintairianism is better than Quadrenism because, as a consequence of acknowledging the divinity of the Bastard, they make room in their religion and society for the people and things that the Bastard represents?  In other words, because Quintarianism is more tolerant.

And remember what I said about historical parallels?  These are not sort of vague historical parallels.  Among the heroes of The Curse of Chalion are stand-ins for Ferdinand and Isabella.  You know, the people who expelled the Jews and Muslims from Spain and started the Spanish Inquisition.

And, like, I get it.  LMB likes and admires these historical figures.  And that’s okay!  That’s fine!  Historical figures are complex and there is what there to like and admire!

But you do not get to take them and make them more palatable to modern audiences by giving them the exact opposite virtue of what they actually did.  You can’t just erase their crimes and their victims because you happen to like them.  You don’t do that.  It’s not okay.

[solivagantis]

@calystegiaidol

There was no rest for the wicked, it seemed.

Only half of a year had passed, and the former Investigation Team already had something suspicious going on around them. Seeing them on TV was surprising enough, but it's the rumors of a cursed video surrounding the impending LMB Festival that truly caught his attention.

"If you go to the LMB Fest site at midnight you will see a video of a dead idol dancing". It sounded like a simple urban legend to someone unfamiliar with the supernatural. To him, however... Well, needless to day, it jogged a couple of memories. And the new cases of Apathy Syndrome popping up made him worried in addition to that.

So it was nothing short of a blessing when a word reached him about a strange portal opening up at Takura Productions during a photo shoot. Reserve or not, he was still part of the Shadow Operatives. And it was their job to investigate happenings like these, wasn't it? So it was his job as well. And if he had motives unrelated to work, well... It only made him want to get to the bottom of this more.

After getting to the TakuroPro building and scaring some staff with his badge, he happened to stumble upon someone he knew. Members of the Investigation Team were expected, but not this. No, what he got instead was probably worse. Puppy eyes and quiet incomprehension aside, few liked to be less qualified than someone half their age.

But one strained conversation with Dojima and a stern 'no' to Nanako later, he was all ready to go. Tomorrow, local library, Mashita Kanami. Chestnut hair, square glasses, plain clothes. Shouldn't be too hard.

And it wasn't. The library was almost dead when he got there — must’ve been too early for visitors. He quickly located the one he was looking for. She was sitting at an empty table, spacing out from the looks of it. Sliding into the seat opposite of her, he lightly tapped the table surface to catch her attention.

"Mashita Kanami? I know I'm not the one you were expecting today, but I'll be taking over for detective Dojima on this case."

[bixbythemartian]

OP's tags have been selected for viewing by the peer review process:

#vorkosigan saga#LMB is cursed#that’s the only explanation I have for why the covers remain so bad#she traded for her writing talent in exchange for never getting a decent cover

Looking at the current covers on iBooks for the Vorkosigan Saga and I’m howling, because while YES these are probably some of the best covers I’ve seen for the series (and actually reflect the book contents) they suffer from the classic LMB issue that the covers are still TERRIBLE.

Like seriously. A Civil Campaign is never, ever, EVER going to get a good cover, ever, is it?

It’s not only a Butterbug it’s THE SPECIAL VORKOSIGAN BUTTERBUG. Look at the maple leaf.

(It’s hilarious, I adore that it’s ROSES with THAT BUG but also I could never ever hand this to anyone while saying ‘actually this is the best book in the series and the cover contains at least 3 solid injokes in tribute to the fact the book is also just concerted references and payoffs to the past 33 years of events in the series’ with a straight face)