Chapter 5

Then darkness swallowed everything whole. I couldn't see a single thing, couldn't hear anything beyond the sound of my own ragged breathing.

It came on fast. Far too fast.

No... not this again...

My chest constricted, panic climbing up through me as though it meant to strangle me from within.

I'd always despised this—small, enclosed spaces. Ever since childhood, it had felt as though the walls themselves might press inward, as though the air would simply vanish, leaving me to suffocate with no one even aware it was happening.

I used to tell him that once.

"I hate the dark," I'd said. "Wherever I end up living, I want it lit constantly, no exceptions."

Back then, he'd actually taken it to heart. The villa remained illuminated every night without fail. I'd believed that meant something real.

But now...

I drew myself into a tight ball, my fingers digging into my own arms as I fought to steady my breathing.

"Calm down... just breathe..." I whispered to myself. "You're okay... you're okay..."

I wasn't, though. Not even close.

Suddenly the door groaned open and a sliver of light spilled through. I flinched, squinting as a figure entered the room.

Mirasol.

She gazed down at me, her lips curving into a slight, cruel smile.

"Wow," she said, dripping with contempt. "You genuinely look pathetic right now."

I offered no response.

"If you didn't happen to resemble me somewhat," she continued, stepping closer, "Jimmy wouldn't have glanced your way even once. Did you honestly believe you ever mattered to him?"

My fingers curled into fists.

"But no matter," she said lightly, as though she'd just settled something in her mind. "Once I've ruined that face of yours, you won't be able to deceive him any longer."

My heart plummeted.

She withdrew a small knife, its blade catching the light briefly. Then she began advancing toward me.

Slowly. Deliberately.

Her eyes held something ugly within them—jealousy, hatred, something twisted beyond recognition.

"Let's find out how long you can keep up this act after tonight," she murmured.

My body reacted before my mind could catch up. I threw my hand up defensively, my eyes stinging, my heart hammering wildly against my ribs.

This was really happening. This was it.

"Iris!"

A voice erupted suddenly from the doorway.

An instant later, something collided with me at full force.

I was thrown to the ground, my forehead striking the sharp edge of the wall. Pain detonated instantly, whiting out my vision for a moment. Before I could even process it, my body crashed backward into something.

A skeleton.

I heard it crack beneath me, bones snapping with a dry, sickening sound that froze my entire body in place. But what followed was far worse.

Mirasol suddenly screamed and plunged the knife straight into her own left shoulder. I stared at her, my mind emptying completely.

Blood spread rapidly, soaking through her clothing as she crumpled to the floor.

"Iris..." she cried out weakly, her voice quivering as though she were the wronged party. "I came here to help you! I only w-wanted to save you... w-why would you try to kill me..."

My stomach dropped straight through the floor.

"No... I never—"

I wanted desperately to explain myself. I needed to. But Jimmy wouldn't even spare me a glance.

He rushed straight past me to her side, his expression consumed by a panic I'd never once witnessed from him. "Mirasol!" he shouted. "Stay with me. Don't you dare close your eyes. I'm getting you to the hospital right now!"

He lifted her as though she were something impossibly delicate, something irreplaceable. As though she were the whole of his existence.

I remained there on the ground.

Not a single person spared me even a glance.

—

Chaos erupted the moment we reached the hospital. Jimmy summoned every top physician he could reach. The corridor filled with people rushing in every direction.

His white shirt had soaked through with blood, his hands trembling uncontrollably, his arm scraped raw and bleeding from where he'd forced open some rusted gate earlier.

He looked utterly shattered. I'd never once seen him in such a state.

Never for my sake, though.

"Get out!" he suddenly barked at those attempting to console him, his voice sharp with fury. "All of you—just leave me be!"

No one dared utter another word after that.

Then he did something I never would have anticipated.

He sank to his knees beside the window.

"I'm begging you," he said hoarsely, head bowed low. "If anything happens to Mirasol, I won't go on living either. I mean every word of that."

I stood there watching. That was the moment I truly understood how deep it ran.

The operating room doors burst open suddenly.

"The patient is hemorrhaging too heavily," a nurse announced urgently. "The blood bank doesn't have sufficient supply right now—"

"Take mine," Jimmy interrupted immediately, already rolling back his sleeve. "Draw from me. We share the same type. Use however much you need."

"Have you completely lost your mind?" one of his friends grabbed his arm, visibly stunned. "She's just a woman. Even if you love her, this isn't worth gambling your own life over!"

Jimmy turned to face them, his eyes cold and unwavering. "Mirasol is the person I love above everyone else. She is my entire life. Without her, I have nothing left."

Something in my chest constricted painfully. So that was what love looked like, according to him.

The surgery stretched on for a full day and night.

Mirasol pulled through.

Even after losing a considerable amount of blood himself, Jimmy appeared entirely indifferent to his own condition. He cleared out an entire floor of the hospital, redirected every physician's attention solely onto her, and remained at her bedside without pause.

Everyone spoke of the two of them afterward—how profound their love must be, how rare something like that truly was.

I simply stood by in silence. And somehow, inevitably, I thought of my father. How he'd lain there entirely alone. How no one had fought for him the way Jimmy fought for her. How effortlessly someone else's fate could be decided—whether they lived or whether they didn't.

Life and death, it turned out, really did hinge on whose heart you occupied.

Funny, isn't it.

—

Mirasol remained hospitalized for half a month, and Jimmy stayed by her side throughout the entirety of it.

He didn't leave her, not even once.

During those two weeks, I gathered every last belonging I owned and walked out of the villa for good.

Five years.

Erased, just like that.

I rented a modest apartment with what little money remained to me and returned to my old part-time shifts at the bar where I'd once worked.

Only two more weeks.

I simply had to endure two more weeks before I could officially begin at the National Research Institute.

That's what I kept telling myself. Though I hadn't expected to cross paths with him again so soon.

That particular night, the bar was packed wall to wall.

Jimmy had reserved the entire venue to celebrate Mirasol's discharge from the hospital.

Dim lighting, music blaring, people crowded everywhere.

And right there, at the very center of it all—

The two of them.

He remained close beside Mirasol throughout the night, his focus never straying from her. His friends had gathered around her as well, laughing, chatting, treating her like something precious and rare.

I wanted nothing more to do with any of them.

So I texted my manager and requested the rest of the night off.

I only wanted to slip out quietly.

But—

"Iris."

Her voice halted me mid-step.

I froze in place.

Mirasol approached slowly, her eyes still faintly red, as though she'd recently been crying. "After everything you put me through... you're not even going to offer an apology?" she said softly. "You're simply going to walk away like this?"

I turned to look at her.

Then I answered evenly, "I've already told you. I did nothing wrong. Keep spreading lies about me, and I'll take you to court for defamation."

Her expression hardened.

I turned to leave.

But before I'd managed more than a few steps, someone blocked my path. Jimmy's bodyguards.

"STOP!"