Fifth Vital [EN]: Chapter 482

483. Two Victims

“Did you like the movie?”

“Like it? I loved it!”

Kana was on her way home with her boyfriend, Oh Si-won, after a delightful dinner following his proposal and a late-night movie.

“It was so touching! Even though I hadn’t seen the first one, I understood everything. It was really good. What about you?”

“I enjoyed it too. It was even better because I got to go to the movies with you after so long. But three hours is quite a stretch.”

“It felt like the time flew by once I got into it.”

“Yeah, it did. It’s pretty late. Are you okay?”

The dinner had run longer than expected, pushing back the movie time, so the movie ended later than planned.

Oh Si-won was concerned about Kana, who had to wake up early for work the next day.

“I’m fine.”

“I have another day off tomorrow, but you have to get up early.”

“I usually stay up talking to you until 1 or 2 AM anyway. Don’t worry, I’m okay.”

“Do you really like it that much?”

Whether they were eating, watching a movie, or even now, Kana kept looking at the ring on her finger and smiling.

Her radiant smile was as pure and clear as a child’s, and utterly beautiful.

Oh Si-won felt good seeing her so happy, but he also wondered if she truly was that happy.

“Of course.”

“I didn’t do anything grand, but I’m glad you like it so much. Thank you.”

“Tell anyone who claims to have had a more wonderful proposal than me to step forward! You probably don’t know how happy I am right now. Thank you for such a wonderful proposal, a beautiful ring, and flowers.”

“Your sister will be surprised when you get home.”

“I already sent her a picture of the ring, and she went crazy asking if I got proposed to. Oh! Honey, drop me off here, in front.”

Kana asked Oh Si-won to stop the car in a different place than usual.

She wanted to go to a convenience store in an alley a little further from her house.

Kana, who lived with her younger sister attending university in Korea, planned to buy a trendy bread her sister had asked for from the convenience store. These trendy breads often have collectible stickers inside.

“Are you going to see if they have the bread with the sticker in it?”

“My sister called the convenience store earlier, and they said there was only one left. The part-timer said they’d hold it for her. So, I’m going to buy the bread and go home.”

“Then I’ll turn around, stop by the convenience store, and take you home.”

Oh Si-won planned to take Kana home as always.

“No, it’s okay. Besides, the alley from there to our house is too narrow, and you can’t get in at this hour.”

Oh Si-won had tried to take her home several times before, but he had trouble navigating the narrow alley.

Once, he had a hard time after asking the owner of an inconsiderately parked car to move it a little.

Because the alley was so narrow, even the people living nearby usually parked their cars in the nearby public parking lot and walked home.

Kana, who knew this better than anyone, didn’t want her boyfriend to go through unnecessary trouble.

“You can just come out slowly.”

“Honey, you’re going to your parents’ house early tomorrow. Don’t bother coming into the alley and struggling. I’ll just get off here. It’s right there if I cross the crosswalk and go inside. Just turn the corner and go straight up to get home.”

“Be careful; cars drive fast here at night.”

“Oh Si-won, this is my neighborhood. I know it well.”

“Okay, okay.”

“Oh, right! Mom said to tell your mom that she sent dried side dishes by international mail today.”

“She sent them again? She doesn’t have to send them anymore…”

“I guess Mom remembered that your mom said they were delicious when she came to Japan.”

“I’m so grateful. I’ll call her.”

“Okay. I’m going now.”

Thump-

Kana got out of the car and approached it, seeing that Oh Si-won hadn’t started to leave with the blinkers on.

“Honey, what are you doing, not leaving?”

“I’m going to watch you cross.”

Oh Si-won was planning to leave after seeing Kana cross the crosswalk.

“You’re impossible. Just go. The light here takes a long time. You’ll get a ticket. Go quickly!”

“It’s okay…”

“I’m not okay. Go quickly!”

“Alright, I’m going.”

In the end, Oh Si-won couldn’t resist Kana’s urging and started the car.

“Call me when you get home.”

“Okay. Don’t worry, and drive carefully.”

Kana waved at Oh Si-won’s car as it drove away and walked towards the crosswalk.

It was late, and the early morning hours were deserted, so there wasn’t a single car on the road.

She could have just crossed, but Kana waited.

As always, she was going to wait for the traffic light to turn green before crossing.

She put the shopping bag containing the flowers she received during the proposal on the ground and sat on the round marble stone marking the boundary between the road and the crosswalk for a moment.

Kana searched for something diligently on her phone, then put it to her ear and played a file to check it.

She smiled, enjoying whatever she was listening to, then took the phone from her ear and sent a text message.

A moment later, the traffic light changed, and the LED on the crosswalk floor turned green. Kana checked both sides and began to cross the crosswalk.

And just as she was about to call her sister with the phone in her right hand, it happened.

Vroom- Bang-

A car that had entered the road with a left turn, driving madly as if intending to kill someone, hit Kana head-on and continued to drive.

It happened so quickly.

Bang-

The moment she was hit, Kana’s body was thrown into the air by the tremendous speed of the car.

The shopping bag and her purse, which she was holding in her hand, also flew into the air.

As if it were a lie, as if this moment were a dream, Kana felt that everything about her was flowing slowly, as if in slow motion.

Kana’s body, which had been floating for a moment, fell limply next to the ground transformer on the roadside, away from the crosswalk.

A person’s body fell powerlessly, like an object.

Soon after, her phone, purse, and shopping bag fell one by one in front of where her body had landed.

Some say that when a person dies, they know that moment is coming.

Kana felt the same way.

The moment she fell onto the cold pavement, she sensed it.

‘Ah! This is my end. I’m going to die soon. This is going to be hard.’

Kana realized that she was going to have a hard time and that she was going to die.

Petals that had fallen from the bouquet she had received during the proposal were slowly falling one by one before her eyes.

At the same time, an extreme pain she had never felt before washed over her.

She wasn’t a doctor, a nurse, or someone who worked at a hospital, but she could tell that her body was in terrible condition.

It was as if all her bones were broken, as if a transparent glass bottle had fallen to the floor and shattered into pieces.

Then, as if by magic, the past flashed before her eyes in a panorama, rushing in like a receding tide.

The moments she had spent with her family in Japan, the moment her parents cried at the airport when she came to Korea for study abroad, the moment her sister was happy to be accepted into a Korean university, and the moments her family came to Korea to travel together were all before her eyes.

And the image of her beloved boyfriend, Oh Si-won, whom she had been with for the past 11 years, unfolded.

His pure smile when he confessed to her at the age of 20, when he still had a hint of youth, the image of him crying as he enlisted in Nonsan Training Center [a major military training center in South Korea], and the image of them celebrating together when she got a job came to mind.

Finally, his desperate expression when he proposed to her after registering their marriage today, and his loving concern when he told her to go home safely a little while ago, came to mind.

I’m scared. I don’t want to die.

Kana wanted to live with all her heart.

She had never been greedy in her life.

She just wanted to marry her boyfriend, have a normal family, have a child who resembled him, and live happily every day.

She imagined that after raising the child together, when the child grew up and got married, she and Oh Si-won would go down to the countryside and farm.

She wanted to spend her old age in a quiet space away from the city, relying on each other without being flashy or noisy.

That was the life Kana dreamed of.

“Ah…”

Kana tried to make a sound, but nothing came out.

She wanted to make it with all her might, but she could only let out a groan.

‘I want to live.’

‘Si-won, I want to live.’

‘Please save me.’

She begged and begged in her heart for someone to save her, to find her lying there after the accident.

She couldn’t move her head, so she couldn’t see where her phone had fallen.

If she didn’t have much time left, then she wanted to hear her husband’s voice, even just once.

There was something she had to say.

“Ugh… Ah!”

She squeezed out all the strength left in her body to make a sound, but only a painful groan came out.

‘Si-won, Si-won…’

‘I’m in pain. I feel like I’m going to die.’

‘Si-won…’

Kana called Oh Si-won’s name over and over in her heart, and her consciousness was slowly fading.

* * *

Lee Jung-bon placed the warm food in front of the door, rang the bell, and got back on his motorcycle.

“Jung-mi?”

And he immediately called his younger sister, Lee Jung-mi.

-Oppa!!

As soon as she answered the phone, his nagging younger sister shouted.

-When are you coming home? Huh! Come home quickly. It’s dangerous! You said you’d be home early, what are you doing still out?

“Yeah! Yeah. I just finished the last delivery. I’m really on my way. I’m driving.”

-Okay. Always obey the signals and drive carefully.

Lee Jung-mi hung up the phone as soon as he said he was riding a motorcycle.

When she nagged him to be careful, it felt like his young sister had grown up.

Lee Jung-bon didn’t dislike his sister’s worried voice.

“Ahem!”

He had been working out and working at the factory since morning, and then he came straight to the delivery job, so he felt more tired today than usual.

“Did I run too much this morning?”

He thought that his morning workout had been a bit too much. Still, he had a lot of good deliveries today, mainly big ones, so he made quite a bit of money.

On days with a lot of big deliveries like this, his body was tired, but his heart was lighter and he felt good.

As he was thinking about what to have for breakfast tomorrow, he was waiting at a red light.

“Did we have any radish left at home?”

Lee Jung-bon, who was recalling the remaining ingredients in the refrigerator and stopped exactly at the stop line, started his motorcycle when the traffic light turned green.

As always, he complied with the speed limit and wore a helmet and knee pads.

There were occasional cars passing by, but the road was quite deserted at this hour.

He was driving straight when it happened.

Bang-

Lee Jung-bon’s motorcycle, which was going straight through the intersection according to the traffic light, collided with a car that had ignored the signal and ran from the left turn.