1 Ch 1 | Another Chance

B-City, City Hospital, Room Number: 310

A lean and depleted man was lying silently on the white bed with white bandages wrapped all around his body, revealing just a bit of his sunken and pale skin on his face, indicating his approaching death.

He was Anton Zaytsev, one of the most handsome and eligible bachelors in the entire B-City until two weeks ago. Two weeks ago he met with an accident which led to his current situation.

After teaching his class at B-City university, Anton, who was 44 years old, was returning back to his company after receiving a call from his assistant. Driving along his usual path to the Zaytsev Corporation, the company founded by his father, from the B-City university, Anton was slowly humming a song.

However, what he didn't know was that his end was approaching him at the next turn of this relatively busy street.

Humming his favorite song supposedly for the last time, he turned the steering to make a turn and go towards his company. But the direction led him to the hospital and probably towards his end.

A truck speedily rushed towards him. The driver as if drunk blasted his car with the 1000 tone steel beast and didn't even stop, just ignoring the shouting public.

Apparently all of this was pre-planned…

It was a conspiracy against him. Not for the sake of his business nor for any revenge. It was for love… a love that never truly belonged to him.

Currently, lying silently on the bed Anton's eyes were rotating about in his only moveable part of his body, his eye sockets, looking around. His entire body was crushed under the impact of the steel beast, leaving him incapable of moving and the damage brought to his organs was irreversible, giving him only a few more days or perhaps hours to live.

He was looking at the people in the room. The people who were accompanying him in his last moment, or it can be said he was looking at the people who were still willing to accompany him.

In the big room, there were only four people. He sighed, looking at the downcast mood of the four people staring at him. He also sighed after thinking how he was once the most popular man in the city, yet now, apart from his parents and sister, his brother like friend was the only person willing to come here.

However, his eyes didn't catch a lonely shadow leaning against the door of his room from outside.

Looking at his moving eyes, his mother who was a beautiful woman just a week ago, said weakly and looked as if a decade has passed after his accident, "Child, you won't allow her to meet you even now?"

Anton listened to his mother's crying voice and his own eyes became wet. But her words made him astonished for a moment before he calmly moved his eyes left and right, indicating his denial.

"Sigh… that child is pitiful too… she left everything belonging to her just for you and you still…" This time, it was his father who spoke. Although as a man he didn't want to cry but yet his voice choked several times while trying to speak.

Anton just calmly stared at his father's and mother's aging faces and while memories from the past and present passed through his eyes.

At first, it was the faces of his young parents, then of his elder sister and his brother who was currently sitting beside him trying hard to hide his manly tears. However, what he didn't expect was that the face which appeared at the very last was someone he never thought it'll be. It was a petite, shy face of a young girl, apparently in her early twenties, sitting on the classroom desk of B-City University.

He sighed again… at last, my hidden wish to see her again is fulfilled. Though it's not really her… I-am-satisfied.

His vision then started darkening and the world around him started swirling around. His organs were failing, he was going towards the afterlife as the screams of people and beeping machines kept buzzing with a fade, in his ears.

However just before his life was completely gone, the voice of the door opening followed by a sweet, anxious, crying, faint yet clear shout resounded in his ears, "Teacher! You can't leave me alone!"

This Voice… I am satisfied.

He gathered all the strength available in his fading body, forcefully smiled before everything came to an abrupt halt.

'It's the end… maybe I'll get another chance in another life to make it up for her.'