Hospitals are places where time slows down.
In the stillness of white walls and antiseptic air, life becomes a fragile rhythm of beeping machines and whispered prayers. For Smile, those long hours beside Happy's bed felt like borrowed time—time he wanted to stretch into eternity, though he knew he could not.
Happy Kingston, once full of laughter and chaos, now lay still beneath crisp white sheets. Her once radiant smile flickered like a dying candle. Some days she was herself—joking, teasing, dreaming aloud. On others, her voice was barely a breath, and her laughter a memory.
But she always looked at him the same way.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHWuwxgTfCV
With trust. With love.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmtNbcR52dO
With no regret.
The doctors spoke in coded sympathy: “She’s stable—for now.”14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGtbOV851md
But Smile heard the truth behind their eyes. He saw it in the way nurses lingered by her door, in the way her hands trembled more often now, and in the way her heart monitor occasionally skipped.
And so, he stayed.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡENjVxkXURL
He canceled meetings. Ignored headlines.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeniWdhek9i
The world could wait.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡggUBCjgNWM
Because the only thing that mattered now—14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKvOzDNMdDp
Was her.
He read to her from her favorite books.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgca1DJEMHI
Played her songs she used to dance to.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmjiQHVWIY9
Told her stories of their “someday” world: the little cottage by the sea, the dog they’d name “Button,” the garden she would fill with wildflowers.
And she listened with closed eyes, smiling faintly, as if choosing to believe in a tomorrow she knew she might not see.
One morning, her condition worsened.
She collapsed mid-sentence, eyes rolling back, her body convulsing in his arms.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡneDAzP6Vsn
He screamed for help, heart pounding like a war drum.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeMjKhPS9nH
She was rushed into ICU, machines replacing breath, wires tracing life line by line.
And then—a coma.
Three days passed.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmJZdZbfGzZ
Three days where the world dimmed.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡynw9EM0Jmp
Three days where Smile sat unmoving, unblinking, beside her motionless form.
He whispered to her like she could still hear him.
“Please, Happy... not you too. I can’t lose you. Not after everything.”
No response. Just the soft, rhythmic beeping of her survival.
And during those three days, Smile began to prepare—14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡO3vSVKwyK2
Not just for her death.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9umOiWuOxK
But for his own.
He began to record a video. Not to the world. Not to his company.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJxMQsKHVBn
To her.
His hands trembled as he faced the camera.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6pMPCfPv5j
His voice cracked as he spoke her name.
“I don’t know how to live in a world without you. But if you’re watching this… it means I tried. And I couldn’t. I’m sorry, Happy.”
He paused, looked down, then whispered:
“You gave me my first smile. And maybe... my last.”
But on the third morning, as dawn broke across the skyline—14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9xMk1ZbzVT
Happy opened her eyes.
Weak. Confused. But alive.
She was surrounded by nurses, rushing, relieved. Her lips parted to speak.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡG371VmJyej
There was only one word she could say:
“Smile?”
But he was not there.
Only silence answered her.
And with the echo of his name,14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ78vjbHhrGI
a shadow passed through her joy—14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPT1FG0ONRH
one she didn’t yet understand.
