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.12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTjZmvZ1HRi
With trust. With love.12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOiUe39zTPF
With no regret.
The doctors spoke in coded sympathy: “She’s stable—for now.”12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPSJq3PEOwB
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.12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQ3yc7173so
He canceled meetings. Ignored headlines.12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL9ycwTiJNx
The world could wait.12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXnSwvJLaws
Because the only thing that mattered now—12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7hZ8eGmHkl
Was her.
He read to her from her favorite books.12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJOkb7NnFL5
Played her songs she used to dance to.12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOXxA7A39dx
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.12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8VyN6uzraW
He screamed for help, heart pounding like a war drum.12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡd59dqmRvE4
She was rushed into ICU, machines replacing breath, wires tracing life line by line.
And then—a coma.
Three days passed.12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ87BR2Dz5hr
Three days where the world dimmed.12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbfKe4D2EMg
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—12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡct6lZccQl1
Not just for her death.12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTfDqMOmuFI
But for his own.
He began to record a video. Not to the world. Not to his company.12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5mqOXuZa9p
To her.
His hands trembled as he faced the camera.12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8IMMJkG2pw
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—12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe7Wp0venuR
Happy opened her eyes.
Weak. Confused. But alive.
She was surrounded by nurses, rushing, relieved. Her lips parted to speak.12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPqs9jRpiSA
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,12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxI9CQHCJPD
a shadow passed through her joy—12Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6b4odgWJl6
one she didn’t yet understand.
