
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.13Please respect copyright.PENANAcZ8GC3ipEM
With trust. With love.13Please respect copyright.PENANA7sNOwfbQ1u
With no regret.
The doctors spoke in coded sympathy: “She’s stable—for now.”13Please respect copyright.PENANAcUHN0dgtF9
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.13Please respect copyright.PENANAJY9yorF6Z5
He canceled meetings. Ignored headlines.13Please respect copyright.PENANASvpcNbqFzN
The world could wait.13Please respect copyright.PENANACknB9z27rT
Because the only thing that mattered now—13Please respect copyright.PENANAgofsXaO3Mm
Was her.
He read to her from her favorite books.13Please respect copyright.PENANActIM8fVlCn
Played her songs she used to dance to.13Please respect copyright.PENANAbq9rmsjCcl
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.13Please respect copyright.PENANAVcf7BC4wgv
He screamed for help, heart pounding like a war drum.13Please respect copyright.PENANA5EKUThhS1z
She was rushed into ICU, machines replacing breath, wires tracing life line by line.
And then—a coma.
Three days passed.13Please respect copyright.PENANAwWFfUHMufm
Three days where the world dimmed.13Please respect copyright.PENANAsmOaKwHXam
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—13Please respect copyright.PENANAckoItzJj5m
Not just for her death.13Please respect copyright.PENANA4swpxeaYJc
But for his own.
He began to record a video. Not to the world. Not to his company.13Please respect copyright.PENANARGwyHIox6Z
To her.
His hands trembled as he faced the camera.13Please respect copyright.PENANAUE12O7rI5t
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—13Please respect copyright.PENANAjqGvTslCOe
Happy opened her eyes.
Weak. Confused. But alive.
She was surrounded by nurses, rushing, relieved. Her lips parted to speak.13Please respect copyright.PENANAKiE2ibjnTA
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,13Please respect copyright.PENANAt36pegYfk3
a shadow passed through her joy—13Please respect copyright.PENANAOloI5lDVib
one she didn’t yet understand.