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.11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMLHqyX4jow
With trust. With love.11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs254EutTpt
With no regret.
The doctors spoke in coded sympathy: “She’s stable—for now.”11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNvXXHXKRFW
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.11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡN6lyL7HYmJ
He canceled meetings. Ignored headlines.11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWpIEqwDxBf
The world could wait.11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6RjKRo6jlx
Because the only thing that mattered now—11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡurA6AgTJ6C
Was her.
He read to her from her favorite books.11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZnrUKCSbbH
Played her songs she used to dance to.11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡO0qforpXCq
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.11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLmXnL0Xjs0
He screamed for help, heart pounding like a war drum.11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1D0zOLQ6in
She was rushed into ICU, machines replacing breath, wires tracing life line by line.
And then—a coma.
Three days passed.11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8W0Qza7UGt
Three days where the world dimmed.11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoMPeaqkvBC
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—11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj9mx2y1iMR
Not just for her death.11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdp0tsjXEHh
But for his own.
He began to record a video. Not to the world. Not to his company.11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwykD9D1iGy
To her.
His hands trembled as he faced the camera.11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGRAjK3aBYd
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—11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3HYWSpoIuF
Happy opened her eyes.
Weak. Confused. But alive.
She was surrounded by nurses, rushing, relieved. Her lips parted to speak.11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWZfI3cY5WZ
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,11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVy1YXAR6TI
a shadow passed through her joy—11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2DcToY0Udb
one she didn’t yet understand.
