She violently yanked her wrist free from his grip, taking a sharp, unsteady step back toward her doorway. Her face was burning hot, tears spilling over her eyelashes as her eyes blazed with intense anger and vulnerability.
"Do Ra-ik-shi!" she yelled, her voice echoing down the corridor as she wiped her eyes with the back of her trembling hand. "I need time to contemplate what I suffered these past few days! I think I have gone insane with all YOUR trauma! All YOUR pain! And ironically YOURS...not even mine! How is it even possible?! How can something like this even happen?!"
Ra-ik froze, staring at her in utter shock as her words confirmed the impossible reality.
"I don't want to talk about it!" Se-na sobbed out in pure, flustered rage, her chest heaving violently. "I have zero intention of ever looking back on it or speaking to you about it! Go away! Just go away!"
Desperate to escape his penetrating gaze, Se-na grabbed the edge of the heavy oak door and tried to slam it shut in his face.
"Se-na, wait!" Ra-ik gasped out.
Ignoring the agony in his fractured ribs, he lunged forward, throwing his large, uninjured right palm flat against the wood to block the door from closing.
"Please... don't shut me out!" Ra-ik pleaded, his gravelly voice cracking with a desperate, breathless panic as he held the door open. "Just... just tell me... I'm not crazy, am I? You were really there with me, weren't you?!"
Se-na stood on the other side of the gap, her small frame trembling violently. At his desperate plea, a fresh, heavy tear overflowed her eye and spilled down her burning cheek, glittering in the hallway light.
Ra-ik's words caught in his throat.
Looking at that single, glittering tear tracking down her face, he hung there as if stupefied...completely frozen in place. The ruthless, untouchable female doctor who had slapped him, berated him, and spoken to him with sharp, icy malice was standing before him broken and weeping. The sight struck him with such surreal, staggering impact that his grip on the door loosened, his mind completely paralyzed.
Se-na didn't miss the moment. Taking advantage of his stunned pause, she shoved the door forward with all the remaining strength in her body and shut him out.
BANG!
The lock engaged automatically with a sharp, aggressive electronic click.
Inside the dark, quiet foyer, Se-na backed away from the door, her hands frantically rubbing at her cheeks.
"What is this, Se-na? What on earth is this?!" she choked out, her voice trembling with intense self-contempt and humiliation. She violently swiped the back of her hand across her face to dry the wet trails, but more tears kept spilling out anyway, completely betraying her iron control. "Why are you crying?! Stop it! Stop crying this instant!"
No matter how hard she pressed her palms against her eyes, the tears refused to stop.
Her legs gave out beneath her. She slid down against the cool surface of the heavy door, her knees pulling up to her chest as she buried her face in her hands. Broken, frantic sobs escaped her throat in the quiet entry.
She was terrified. She was deeply, profoundly scared...terrified of the bizarre cosmic joke that had entangled her soul with his, terrified of the raw, suffocating trauma that wasn't even hers, and terrified of the man standing on the other side of the wood who had just stripped away every defense she had built over a lifetime.
Inside the quiet apartment, only her ragged breathing filled the room.
Until...
THUD!
A heavy, dull impact vibrated through the solid oak frame, shaking the lock itself.
Se-na's head jerked up instantly, her tear-stained face pale, her breath hitching in her throat. She sat frozen on the floor, her ears straining as she waited for another aggressive push, a frantic yell, or the repeated chime of her doorbell.
Silence.
Complete, suffocating, dead silence returned to the hallway. There were no heavy footsteps retreating toward the elevator. No raspy breathing. Nothing.
A cold prickle of dread ran down Se-na's spine.
Forgetting her embarrassment, she scrambled to her feet, unlocked the electronic latch with shaking fingers, and pulled the door open almost instantly.
Do Ra-ik had collapsed.
His tall, battered frame lay crumpled across her entryway floor, his dark coat pooled around his trembling shoulders. His casted left arm was pinned awkwardly beneath his chest, his head resting limply against the cold tile, and his dark eyes closed in total unconsciousness.
The sheer physical toll of escaping the hospital ward, dragging his broken body across the city, and standing at her threshold had finally drained the very last drop of his strength.
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