The cold blue light of the hospital room flickered faintly, casting long shadows against the sterile white walls. The rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor echoed like a countdown in Rajan's ears—steady, yet haunting. A thin tube ran from the machine to Kabita's frail wrist, its plastic skin resting against hers like a silent lifeline. Machines hissed gently, keeping her alive, while she lay unconscious beneath crisp white sheets.
Rajan sat motionless in the hard plastic chair beside her bed. He hadn't moved in hours. His eyes, red and heavy from days of sleepless nights, stayed fixed on her face—so peaceful, so pale. He could barely recognize her now. The bright, confident girl he had once known was buried beneath layers of wires and silence.
His hand trembled as he reached forward, brushing a stray lock of hair from her forehead. Her skin was cold. Not lifeless, but not truly alive either.
"I'm still here," he whispered. His voice cracked, raw from both emotion and exhaustion. "Even now... I'm still here."
He looked down, biting his lip to keep the tears in. But it was no use. A single droplet escaped, rolling down his cheek and landing softly on the white bedsheet. He watched it disappear into the fabric like a secret swallowed by the universe.
The pain in his chest wasn't just emotional—it felt physical, like a hand was reaching inside and squeezing his heart. And maybe it was. Maybe it was the universe's way of warning him—reminding him of what was to come.
He pulled something out of his pocket. It was small and fragile—a paper crane keychain. The color had faded over the years, and the plastic was chipped at the edge, but to him, it was priceless.
It was the first thing Kabita ever gave him.
His mind drifted backward—through time, through pain—to a place far from hospitals and machines.
---
It was during his second year of college, in the late summer, when he received it.
He remembered the classroom vividly: crowded, noisy, filled with laughter he never joined. Rajan had always been the quiet one in the back—never because he wanted to be invisible, but because life had taught him it was safer that way. He was an orphan, raised in a government shelter, scraping through life on scholarships and part-time jobs. He wore the same two shirts in rotation. He couldn't afford coffee or movie tickets. He couldn't belong to their world.
And Kabita—she was everything he wasn't. Bright. Rich. Beautiful. The daughter of a successful businessman. She came to class in polished heels, her smile turning heads as easily as pages. People gravitated toward her. And yet... one day, she walked up to him.
"You always sit alone," she said with a smile, placing the crane in his hand. "This looked like you. Quiet, but... kind of peaceful."
He remembered the exact way her fingers brushed his palm. The flutter in his stomach. The hope.
He had smiled. For the first time in weeks, maybe months. That little gesture made him feel seen.
He kept that keychain in his pocket every day after that.
---
Now, years later, he held it again—its edges worn but his memory fresh.
He glanced at Kabita's sleeping form. Machines breathed for her. Her chest rose and fell in shallow motions. Her face was thinner now, framed by tangled hair. But still, even now, she looked ethereal.
Rajan's heart twisted.
"They don't know I'm here," he said, half-smiling through tears. "Your parents… the nurses… no one really notices me. Just like always. But I had to see you. One last time."
He stood slowly and leaned closer. His shadow fell over her. He studied her closed eyes, remembering how they used to shine. His fingers brushed hers on the bedsheet—just briefly.
He imagined her waking up, looking at him, remembering him. But he knew that wouldn't happen. Not the way he wanted.
She didn't love him. Maybe she never even thought about him at all.
Still, he stayed. Because love doesn't ask for permission. It doesn't need to be returned to be real.
"She needs a heart transplant," the doctor had said just hours ago. "Her blood group is AB negative. Extremely rare. We've searched the registry, we've tried every contact… but no donor has been found."
Rajan didn't speak then. He just looked at Kabita. Looked until his soul cracked open.
He had always loved her from a distance. But maybe… just maybe… his heart could finally be close to hers. Not in the way he dreamed. But in the only way left.
He closed his eyes.
"Maybe this is what love really means," he whispered.
The door creaked open behind him. He turned to see a nurse peek in, giving a soft, apologetic smile.
"Visiting hours will be over soon," she said gently.
He nodded. "Just a few more minutes."
The nurse didn't argue. Something in his voice stopped her. She quietly left.
Rajan looked at the keychain again. Slowly, he reached forward and placed it on the bedside table, right next to her hand.
"I never gave you anything," he said, voice low. "But this… this was yours from the start."
He leaned in once more and gently kissed her forehead. She didn't move. Not even a flicker.
But somehow, he felt something stir inside him. A sense of peace. Or maybe surrender.
He stepped back, turned, and walked toward the door.
He didn't look back.
.
.
The past didn't come back to Rajan like a movie. It returned like a smell—vivid, sudden, and hard to shake.
He remembered the faded blue walls of his hostel room, the cracked ceiling fan above his head that never stopped groaning, and the single window that let in just enough sunlight to remind him there was a world outside. He used to sit on the narrow wooden bed after long hours at the library, trying to escape the hollow in his chest with books and borrowed dreams.
College was supposed to be a new beginning, but Rajan knew better than to expect miracles. He had entered through a scholarship—one of only three students in his batch from an orphanage background. Most others never even made it that far. His grades were his only pride. His uniform was always clean, even if worn. His notebooks were filled with perfect handwriting, every page a symbol of silent rebellion against his fate.
He didn't talk much. No one expected him to. The few friends he did make came and went, but none stayed long enough to understand him. And yet, amidst the noise of cafeteria gossip and late-night parties he never attended, there was one person who seemed to orbit just close enough to burn him—Kabita.
She wasn't just beautiful; she was magnetic. Wherever she went, people followed. Her laughter was music in the hallways. Professors adored her. Boys worshipped her. Girls either loved or envied her. She had a glow that made Rajan feel like he lived in black and white.
But despite everything, she wasn't cruel. She noticed things—small things. Like when he stayed late to clean the class after everyone else left. Like when he brought the same bread-and-banana lunch every day. Like when he helped a blind student find their classroom without ever mentioning it.
One day, without warning, she walked up to him after class.
He was packing his books when he heard her voice: "Hey."
He looked up, confused. She was standing there in her floral kurta, a notebook in one hand and something small in the other.
"You're always so quiet," she said, almost teasingly. "But I like that. It's peaceful."
She extended her hand and dropped a tiny keychain into his palm—a paper crane inside a glass dome. "Saw this at the station. Thought you might like it."
He had stared at it for a long moment. Then at her.
"Why?" he'd asked, unable to stop himself.
She shrugged. "Don't know. Just felt like it."
Then she smiled, and walked away like it was the most normal thing in the world.
That moment haunted him for weeks. For the first time, he felt seen. Not as a charity case, not as the quiet kid in the corner—but as someone.
He started watching her more closely after that. Not in a creepy way—just in those quiet moments where he thought she wouldn't notice. When she tied her hair into a bun while reading in the library. When she fed a stray dog her lunch. When she hummed old songs while waiting for class to begin.
And then… it happened.
A week after the gift, he was walking back to the hostel late at night after finishing a part-time shift at the print shop. His path took him near the south campus garden. That's when he saw her.
Kabita. Standing beneath a tree. And not alone.
There was a boy with her—a senior, tall and broad-shouldered. Rajan had seen him around. He was charming, popular, always surrounded by people.
Kabita laughed at something he said, and the boy leaned in. Their lips met under the moonlight, brief but clear. She smiled afterward, brushing his hair playfully.
Rajan didn't remember how long he stood there. Long enough to feel the invisible crack form in his chest.
He turned before they could notice him and walked away, slower than usual. He didn't cry. He didn't scream. He just walked—past the library, past the canteen, past the gate, until he reached his room.
That night, he placed the crane keychain on the table and stared at it for a long time.
So it hadn't meant anything. Of course it hadn't. Why would someone like her ever—
He stopped himself. He wasn't angry. Just… hollow.
The next day, he sat farther from her in class. The day after that, he avoided eye contact. And soon, he became a shadow again.
But Kabita—she was strange.
Even after all that, she sometimes left small things on his desk. A candy. A folded paper note that said, Smile more. Once, a bookmark shaped like a feather. She never stayed long enough for him to ask why. Maybe she was just being kind. Or maybe she didn't even realize what she was doing to him.
And Rajan? He kept every one of those things.
---
Years passed.
Rajan graduated with honors, moved to the city, and began working part-time jobs—data entry, teaching kids math, delivering newspapers at dawn. He lived in a single-room flat with peeling walls and a broken fan, not so different from the hostel he'd once called home.
But Kabita never truly left his thoughts. He didn't stalk her. He didn't obsess. But whenever he passed a place she might've been, or heard her name, something in his chest stirred.
Then one day, he saw her again.
It was by accident—he was delivering a courier to an aviation company. She walked out of the office in a navy blue dress, her hair tied in a neat ponytail, a tablet in one hand and coffee in the other.
She hadn't changed. If anything, she looked more radiant—more put-together. He stood frozen near the elevator, just watching.
He thought about approaching her. Just saying hello. Asking how she'd been.
But before he could gather the courage, a car pulled up. The window rolled down. A pilot stepped out in uniform, smiling. Kabita rushed into his arms and kissed him, laughing.
Rajan turned away again.
---
Back in the hospital, sitting beside her motionless form, Rajan thought about all of it.
All those years of watching from afar. All the dreams he buried before they could take root. All the ways she never truly saw him—and yet, somehow, gave him just enough hope to keep going.
He had no illusions now. He wasn't the hero of her story. He never had been.
But maybe, just maybe… he could be the ending.
The kind that doesn't need recognition.
The kind that doesn't ask for love in return.
The kind that gives everything—even the heart.
.
.
The city didn't care who you were. It swallowed people whole—turned dreamers into clerks, scholars into waiters, and believers into shadows.
For Rajan, life after college was like drifting through a storm with no sail, no compass, and no land in sight. He had graduated with top marks, but marks alone didn't pay rent. Connections did. Money did. Luck did. And Rajan had none of them.
He worked wherever he could. Day shifts as a data entry clerk in a small office where the computers were older than the staff. Evening tuitions for school kids in a crumbling neighborhood, where parents paid him in food more often than cash. Night shifts at a cold printing press—where machines never slept, and neither did he.
He lived in a room so small that turning over in bed meant hitting the wall. The fan made more noise than wind. The walls leaked during rain. There was no TV, no refrigerator, and for the first few months, no hope.
But he didn't complain. Life had never been soft, and he didn't expect it to change now.
Still, every now and then, when he stood on a crowded bus holding onto rusted handles, he'd wonder where Kabita was. Was she flying? Sitting in a cozy apartment watching romantic dramas? Laughing with friends in a warm-lit café?
Did she even remember him?
He doubted it. But some memories refuse to die, even when they're one-sided.
One winter evening, Rajan passed a toy shop on his way to a student's house. In the display window, among rows of plush bears and wooden puzzles, there was a tiny keychain—a paper crane inside a glass dome.
His heart skipped. It wasn't the same one she'd given him. That one still sat on his bedside table, aged and yellowing. But the sight of it struck something deep.
He walked inside. It cost more than he could afford to waste. He bought it anyway.
That night, he didn't eat dinner. But he slept with the crane in his palm, feeling the sharp truth of his reality and the soft lie of his hope blend together.
---
Life rolled on.
Two years became three. Then four. Time didn't ask questions, and Rajan didn't have answers.
He had stopped expecting fate to be kind. But fate, unpredictable as ever, had other plans.
It happened on a Wednesday. He remembered because he hated Wednesdays—the midpoint of the week, where exhaustion was already settled but rest was still too far.
He was delivering a sealed document to an aviation office—a courier job he only took when the tutoring didn't cover the bills.
He walked into the lobby, filled with glass panels and corporate shine. His shoes squeaked embarrassingly on the polished floor. He waited at the reception, trying to look invisible.
That's when she walked out of the elevator.
Kabita.
Her hair was in a ponytail, sharp and elegant. She wore a navy blue pencil dress and heels that clicked on the tiles like drumbeats. She held a clipboard in one hand and a phone in the other, talking briskly as she walked past him.
He saw her. Clear as day.
But she didn't see him.
His heart stuttered. For a moment, everything fell away—the office, the courier, the past five years. It was just her. Just him.
Then came the car.
A sleek black sedan pulled up outside. The driver got out and opened the door.
And out stepped a man in a pilot's uniform.
Handsome. Confident. The kind of man who walked like he owned the sky.
Kabita smiled, wide and genuine. She ran to him. They hugged. Then they kissed.
Rajan looked away.
It wasn't jealousy that twisted his stomach—it was reality. That undeniable, unchangeable truth.
He didn't belong in her world. He never had.
She had her wings. He had his shadows.
He delivered the document and walked out of the building like he'd walked out of her life years ago—quietly, without a word.
---
Back in his room that night, he stared at the original crane keychain—the one she gave him back in college. He held it in his hand for hours, turning it slowly, watching the light refract through the scratched plastic dome.
He didn't cry. He hadn't cried in years.
But something inside him loosened, like a knot that had kept him upright for too long.
He placed the keychain back on the table. And this time, he didn't pick it up again.
---
Time passed.
Rajan worked. Ate. Slept. Worked again.
He heard about Kabita through old classmates now and then. She was doing well. Traveling. Promoted. Engaged, maybe. The news came in fragments, like postcards from a world he wasn't invited to.
He stopped listening after a while. What was the point?
But fate, stubborn as ever, wasn't finished yet.
---
It was raining the day he got the call.
A friend from college—someone he barely spoke to anymore—called him out of the blue.
"Did you hear?" the voice said, breathless. "Kabita's in the hospital. Car accident. Head trauma. She's in a coma."
Rajan froze.
"What?" he asked, the word falling out like glass.
"They say it's serious. Internal injuries. And… her heart. Something's wrong. She needs a transplant."
Rajan didn't reply.
That night, he found himself outside the hospital. He didn't know how he got there. The rain had stopped, but the air still smelled like sorrow. He stood in front of the building, hands in his pockets, staring up at the windows like they held answers.
He wasn't family. He wasn't even a friend, not really. But he walked inside.
Somehow, nobody stopped him. He asked the nurse at the desk about her. Maybe he sounded convincing. Maybe they didn't care.
She told him the room number.
---
That's how he ended up sitting beside her bed.
And that's where he stayed.
For hours.
Watching her chest rise and fall. Listening to the machines breathe for her. Holding on to memories like driftwood in a flood.
He had thought he'd let go of her years ago.
But you never really let go of something that became part of your soul.
And now, fate had placed her in front of him again—broken, silent, dying.
And he? He was the only one who could save her.
AB-negative. The rarest blood group.
He'd checked his own blood type once out of curiosity during college.
AB-negative.
Of course it had to be.
.
.