The dark grey sky seemed to mourn with her today, if the heavy downfall was any indication of how she’s really feeling on the inside. Her dark brown eyes looked lifeless and empty as she stood at the grave, soaked to the bone just staring at name carved on the grave stone, ‘Yang Hyungsuk’, the name of the man who gave her life, taught her everything that she knows and most importantly, did everything anyone could have ever ask from a father. He’s the only person she truly called family and they were only what each other had. Now that he’s gone and she’s left with his fortune and supposedly mafia family whom she never heard of that were supposed to take care of her from now onwards, she’s left speechless and lost. Just how many things had he been hiding behind her back all along? She doesn’t know what to feel because there are too many emotions crashing her at once, it’s suffocating her. Anger, betrayed, helpless are just a few of them.

          She decided enough is enough, she won’t get anything done by just standing there, one of the main principal in her life is, life goes on. Time would never stop for you just because someone you love died, you’re having the worst time of your life or everything you thought you knew are apparently just one side of the coin. The only thing you can do is just survive it all. Because you will never knew if that moment could be your last and you might regret wasting your time over things that you could never change.

          She turned her heels around, took one last glance at the grave remembering every detail of that moment and walked away. Everyone else already left way earlier and had sincerely offered their condolences one after another but she had been adamant about wanting to be left on her own afterwards at the end of the committal ceremony. She has her own ride, her birthday present a black Maserati GranTurismo courtesy of her late father. Looking at her ride just made her mood worsen remembering those times where both of them would be racing on the highway freely without any care middle of the night. Just enjoying father-daughter bonding time. Her father would always win with his Audi RS7 but afterwards both of them would stopped at a hilltop and just enjoyed the view while discussing why she lost the race and other idle things. She admitted that their relationship was never the typical father-daughter relationship that most people have but she loved her father the most. She had never stopped feeling grateful that he brought her up in an unorthodox way of life. He knew what’s best for her.

          Driving around aimlessly, in her drenched state soaking the leather seat, she let her mind wanders what to do next. By now, her body had started to be warmed up by the heater in the car and she felt more relaxed and composed with her situation. Even the rain had stopped for a while now. Parking in front of a dvd store, she decided to buy the movie that both of them had wanted to watch for a long time but never gotten the time to do so till the day he died. She quickly buy the dvd before getting out of the store with all the curious glances thrown her way due to her disheveled state, but right before she reached her car, she heard faint whimpers and grunts of pain from the alley next to the store. Her curiosity and the need to help overtook her rational thoughts of possibilities of endangering herself entering that dark and dirty alley. It’s getting really late in the afternoon and the sun was supposed to be seen setting if not due to rainfall earlier giving the alley an even more eerie atmosphere.

          She cautiously moves a bit further towards the voice source located nearby a few large dark green dumpsters but couldn’t find anyone anywhere near it. She decides to try to open the lid on one of the dumpster and the scene left her shocked to the core. Before her, a man completely battered and injured were sprawled on the trashes and some of the plastic bags that were doing a poor job of concealing him from whoever he’s running away from. His Lakers’ jersey made a rather stark comparison with the blood pouring out of the long and deep gash across his abdomen. She noticed he’s extremely pale with cuts and grazes littering his skin and at the rate he’s losing blood, he won’t have much longer to live if she doesn’t save him now.

“Can you at least lift yourself a bit from this dumpster? I would help carry you back to my car and send you to hospital. It’s just two blocks away from here.”

“Ahh..pl-please d-don’t send me to the hospital. I can’t explain t-this”, he manages to croak out wincing with both eyes closed while both hands are holding tight to the wound in pain.

         ‘I can’t leave him here but I’m not sure if I’m capable of dealing with such wounds. These wounds surely came from something serious and bad. Aishh, I’ll just give it a try and if the wounds get worse, I will call appa’s private doctor. He would surely know what to do.’

“Come here, just lift a bit of your body and I will help you out of this.” She coaxes him to let her help himself.

          He slowly lift himself a bit towards her and then she grabbed his upper body and with great efforts manage to pull him out slowly. Once he’s completely out of the dumpster, she have to completely hold him up because he can barely keep his eyes open now, his face looks ashen pale and his thin lips already look white. Sweat dripped down the side of his face and covered his forehead in a thin sheen. His breathing is getting shallow with his limbs losing its ability to function. She decided they are running out of time therefore she just knelt in front of him before dragging his lifeless arms around her neck and give him a piggyback ride to her car even though she’s endangering his cut opening up even more. She runs the small distance to her car and rushes him in the passenger seat. He is already completely unconscious and that worries her even more. Buckling up, she tore down the street out of the quiet and slightly remote area praying that she’s not going to lose another life today. Side glancing at his state, she doesn’t think she can saves him on her own with his worsening condition, she quickly dials her father’s private doctor, Dr Kim.

“Hello Dr Kim, I’m sorry to disturb you but I badly need help with an injured person at the moment but can we not meet at your hospital?”

“Hello Ara-shii, sure just come to my private condominium. I will send you the location.”

“Thank you so much Dr Kim. We will be there shortly.”

          She briefly looks at his unmoving figure with torn clothes worriedly, gripping the steering hard before directing the car to head towards the location given. She decided to put her skills to use in that situation, dropping gear and stepping on the accelerator harder expertly maneuvering the car through the highway praying hard in her heart to all Gods that she knew to just let her saves his life. She had enough lose for a day already.

As soon as she arrives in Dr Kim’s private condominium, he’s already waiting in the parking lot for them. His eyes widen when he saw her getting out of the car with blood all over her; her face, neck and black dress are stained with his blood from earlier on. He rushes to her, panicly examining her before she shook her head and point to the passenger side, too shook to utter any words anymore. The adrenaline rush that she had earlier had already worn off and now the gravity of the situation is settling in her mind forcing her to take long and deep breath to calm herself down.

         He immediately runs to the passenger side hurriedly opening the door before he carefully lift and carry him bridal style with her help along the way up to his unit on the 17th floor. Thankfully they didn’t come across anyone on the ride up in the lift which would raise unnecessary suspicions. The moment they arrives at his unit, he quickly scan his thumb print before allowing them in his home. Dr Kim carefully lay the injured man on a surgical table in a special medical room that he had designed himself for emergency situations. Both of them get into action on the spot by firstly cutting and removing the bloody clothes. Dr Kim put on oxygen mask onto that man due to his breathing getting shallower and then administer small dosage of anesthetic near the area to numb his pain before the wound is stitched. She disinfect and wipes away the blood covering the long gash with cotton to assess the damage and also stop the bleeding. Then Dr Kim uses holder and forceps before start stitching the gash. In the mean time, she starts disinfecting all of his other cuts and grazes. When they were removing his clothing earlier, she saw that he got some more long slashes on his back, it looks like it comes from some sort of machete which futher alarms her that what they are dealing with might not be as simple as it seems.

         After roughly 3 hours of patching him up, they even manage to do blood transfusion using Dr Kim’s small supply of blood pints to make up for his severe blood loss. He’s very lucky that she found him on time and they managed to get him out of critical state. Although he obviously need proper examinations and x-ray but for now he’s going to survive. They leave him in a more comfortable bed with an IV drip to supply all the nutrients needed for his recovery. They exhaustedly lounged in the living room not even bothered to freshen up after their horrendous activity.

“I’m so sorry for troubling you Dr Kim and sincerely I am thankful for your help.” Ara slightly bow to Dr Kim from her position on the black leather sofa.

“Just call me Jaejoong. No need for you to thank me, it’s my duty to help and by the way, my condolences on the passing of your father. Truthfully I was very worried that you had endangered yourself after the funeral but luckily nothing happened to you. May I ask you, how did you get caught up in this situation? You don’t have to feel obliged to answer it though.” Jaejoong worriedly stare at her in the eyes.

“Honestly I have no idea...I was just buying a dvd that I want to watch with appa before and on the way out of the store before I heard him and then found him at the next alley and you know the rest” she shrugs avoiding to reply the topic surrounding her father and the funeral. She had a very long day, possibly the worst day of her life to date and she has no plan to dwell too much on the details of her situation. She’s aware that what she had done was pretty dangerous and risky but somehow her instinct tells her that she can trust him despite all the injuries suggesting that the truth might not be anything like what she had ever dealt with before in her life.

“His injuries are pretty terrible which worries me that he might possibly have an internal organs trauma based on the dark colors of his bruises and I think I can schedule one proper scanning for him with another one of my colleagues soon. What do you say?” He said with such seriousness to her hoping to be able to convince her.

“Can we wait for him to wake up first? I don’t want him to panic if he wakes up in the hospital because he pleaded me not to bring him there when I first spoke to him. I saw the bruises too and that did cross my mind but I don’t want him to feel betrayed before he’s able to tell me what exactly happened to him.” She pursed her lips with a tired sigh and dejected posture.

         In that moment, Jaejoong can really see how much all of this are affecting her. It’s like she aged a few years in less than 12 hours that he last seen her at the funeral. She just lost her father tragically and then had to go through intense situation right afterwards. He’s really impressed with how well she’s coping with everything going on her life and not to mention, her skills handling all the injuries completely acting like a very efficient nurse. He decided that she should definitely get a well-deserved rest and call it a night. Jaejoong ushers her to the guest room available and gives her a pair of loose shirt and knee-length basketball shorts to change into after her quick shower. He doesn’t know whether it would be appropriate to give her a comforting hug but looking at how reserved she is, he decided against the idea. Maybe a bit of space is what she needs at the moment. Closing her door, he realizes that he himself misses his bed dearly but before he went to his master bedroom, he went to check on his latest patient making sure that the IV drop is not finished yet and the patient is in a good condition just like how they left him earlier. Hopefully, by tomorrow he would at least be able to explain his situation before Jaejoong can proceed to help him out. Ara might trust him too easily but it will take more than that to convince him. He can only hope everything would run smoothly.

Author's note: I'm aware that some of you might not like the way she reacts to her situations, but I want to make her character more reserved, cold and can't express herself well. She's more of a practical person, a doer and doesn't like to let her emotions control her. Do let me know if you guys have any ideas ^_^