The faint warmth after a long winter

When Maxen finally listened to her and lay down properly, they didn't talk to each other. Cosette kept her mouth shut while staring at him to let him rest.

Meanwhile, the former tried to avoid her presence as much as possible. But how could he? She was literally digging a hole in his forehead with her gaze!

"Stop staring," he muttered, breaking the silence between them. "Just what do you want from me?"

Maxen set his eyes to her when he couldn't take the undivided attention anymore. Cosette raised her brows, sitting on the chair right next to his bed with her hands on her lap.

"I want you to get better," she replied while cocking her head to the side.

"I mean, why?"

"Because why not?"

"Ugh… never mind." Maxen looked away and shut his eyes.

Before he passed out earlier, he heard a girl's voice. He wasn't slow to recognize that the person who helped him earlier and this girl sitting near him were the same.

Maxen would understand being in a hospital after getting beaten up pretty badly. And he would understand if this girl send him to the hospital as that was logical. But what he couldn't understand was her concern, as if she knew him. This was their first time they met, so this concern she was showing him came off as suspicious.

'Although it doesn't seem she was lying,' he thought, recalling her sincere eyes that were about to shed tears while saying he should get better. 'Ugh… those fuckers… I will get back to them once I get out of here.'

His head throbbed as his body felt heavy with fatigue. It didn't take long when Maxen fell asleep once again.

Meanwhile, Cosette stayed silent and just stared at him. A sigh of relief slipped past her lips when his breathing grew deeper and heavy.

'Just for tonight… I want to stay with Maxen before I wake up to my reality,' she told herself, smiling bitterly as she believed this dream would soon end.

"I still have to tell the chairman, though." Cosette took out her phone from her bag and sent a message to her father, telling him she would unwind. Since her father favored her, she knew he would understand his daughter.

Just then, Cosette recalled she told Lucia to tell her father she would join him for dinner. So, out of courtesy, she sent another message.

[To: Chairman

Sorry, Papa. I will surely join you tomorrow for dinner. <3 ]< p>

Cosette hesitated to send that 'cheesy' message, but she still did after beating herself with it. She initially wanted to fix Cosette's relationship with her father, but with her 'limited' time in this world, she wanted to be with Maxen.

"He may not remember it and this may not be real, but… even in dreams, I want to make him feel someone cared for him."

******

In the middle of the night, Maxen woke up. His initial reaction was to massage his temple at the lingering headache he was feeling. The light in the ward was warm, so it helped him ease his headache.

'Right, she probably left…' his thoughts trailed off when he turned his head to where Cosette sat earlier.

There, on the same spot, Cosette had fallen asleep. She was still sitting on the chair, but her head was resting over her arm that was on the edge of the bed.

"To think she stayed," he whispered, scratching his temple. "Even the people I knew wouldn't stay in the hospital for me…"

A ridiculing chuckle slipped past his lips while shaking his head lightly. This was the first, but from his experience so far, Maxen wouldn't buy such an act of kindness easily. He had learned his lessons and falling for such a cheap trick would never happen again.

So, even though he was slightly thankful and commended her efforts, he still planned to sneak out of the hospital. Right now was a perfect time while she was asleep. But as he moved, he realized Cosette was holding his hand.

"What the…"

"Don't go," she whispered in her sleep, squeezing his hand lightly. "Please… get… better…"

The rest of her mumblings came out as gibberish, but Maxen was already unable to move. He looked at her, wide-eyed. She was sound asleep and still mumbling, but the way she held him was as if she was afraid of letting him go.

"Tch." He clicked his tongue in irritation as he gazed at the ceiling.

Maxen remained silent for as long as he was conscious that night. But he didn't take his hand away from her, who was holding him with such gentleness and care, not minding the calluses on his hand.

"What a strange person," he mumbled after two hours of silence, closing his eyes as he fell asleep once again.

That night, for the first time in the seventeen years of his life, strangely, the faint warmth wrapped around his hand was enough to fight off the endless winter he had endured for a long time.