Chapter 20
The moment Jin Ri reached the airport entrance, where Heechul and Kibum were waiting for her, she immediately knew something was amiss. Kibum had insisted on driving, while Heechul sat on the passenger’s seat, not saying anything, despite her asking again and again what was going on. The two males merely kept quiet the whole time they were in the car.

In a matter of minutes, they reached the nearest hospital to the airport. She saw how a large crowd was gathered in front of it, accompanied with some media. She frowned as the nagging feeling she got from the time she reached the airport intensified.

“Okay, you have to tell me what’s wrong,” Jin Ri insisted.

“We’ll tell you once we manage to get inside the hospital,” Kibum quietly assured her.

They slowly drove through the crowd and media crew towards the hospital entrance. Security immediately came rushing out to help them get out of the car, while someone assisted in taking the car and parking it for them. Both boys took either side of Jin Ri to protect her from the onslaught of questions that were going to be thrown at them. But they couldn’t make her deaf.

“Jin Ri-ssi,” came the questions, “How did you feel when you first found out about what happened? What do you think is going to happen now?”

“Is he going to be okay?”

“Who do you think had a hand in this?”

Before they could go on and say something that would make her worry further, Heechul stopped walking to snap at the reporters, but Kibum grabbed his hyung’s arm and spoke instead.

“Please give us and Jin Ri-ssi the space that we need to figure things out,” Kibum politely told them.

With that, Kibum and Heechul rushed into the hospital. Both looked very much relieved at being out of the throng and being finally able to relax.

“What happened?” Jin Ri wanted to know as the two boys led her through hallways. “Did one of the members get hurt?”

“Something like that,” Heechul hesitatingly answered. He glanced at Kibum, who merely looked away. No one wanted to be the one to tell her what happened. They knew how she was going to react.

“Who is it? What happened?” she asked, looking very much worried. Any of the members getting hurt was always scary to her, considering all the threats that idols receive daily. “Does Jungsoo oppa know already?” She knew that if there was anyone who needed to be informed of anything bad happening to the members it was him.

“He and Angie are on their way here,” Heechul told her.

They had reached the inner part of the hospital, a part that Jin Ri knew was mostly reserved for patients who had a lot of money for privacy purposes. They were about to turn another corner when Heechul suddenly grabbed her arm and stopped her from walking.

“Oppa?” she asked curiously. She watched as Heechul and Kibum exchanged a look, ending with Kibum excusing himself and walking ahead of them.

“Ri,” Heechul started, not really knowing how to continue. He put his hands on the sides of her arms and looked intently at her. “There’s something I have to tell you. But you have to promise to remain calm.”

“Oppa, you’re scaring me,” she honestly stated, her heart beating faster than normal. Heechul was rarely this serious. He wasn’t even this serious when he kept on talking to her about fixing things with Kyuhyun. There was almost a note of desperation of understanding in his tone, expression and stance.

“I don’t really know how to tell you this,” he continued, taking a deep breath. “I just… Kyuhyun, he—.”

“It’s nothing serious, right?” she interrupted, suddenly not wanting to hear the rest of what he was going to say. She had a feeling that it was Kyuhyun something had happened to. Heechul and Kibum would have told her which member had gotten hurt without hesitation if it wasn’t Kyuhyun. “It can’t be anything serious.” She smiled at him and patted his cheek. “He’s fine, I’m sure,” she repeated as if assuring herself.

She turned to walk away to follow after Kibum, but Heechul stopped her again. He grabbed her arms once more, this time in a firmer manner.

“Look at me,” he insisted, staring intently at her. “Kyuhyun is in the operating room right now. He was wounded by a knife, twice, at the airport earlier.” He faltered and paused when Jin Ri’s eyes widened, gasping at this information. She started shaking her head. “The doctors are doing what they can.”

“You can’t say that to me,” she blurted out, still shaking her head, tears forming in her eyes. “We were going to see each other. We were going to talk because there’s something I have to tell him, something important, something that would help fix our marriage. Kyuhyun is fine. Kyuhyun is fine,” she chanted as if it would make everything go away.

“Riri,” he began again, his heart breaking at the sight of his dongsaeng falling into pieces right in front of him.

But before he could get another word out, she fell limp onto his arms.

~ * ~

Leeteuk and Angie arrived at the hallway, where Kyuhyun’s room was, in a running manner. The members thought they’d never seen him look as worried as he was at that moment. Angie kept on grabbing his hand and squeezing it in an effort to calm him down somehow.

“How is he?” was the first thing that the eldest male asked as soon as he and his wife arrived. “We tried to get here as soon as we heard.”

“Hyung,” Sungmin spoke in a small voice after exchanging a glance in Heechul and Zhoumi. “The operation went well. He’s now in his room.”

The couple visibly looked relieved. The eldest male gave his wife a kiss on the head, while she beamed up at him.

“Is he awake? Can we go see him?” Leeteuk immediately wanted to know. Sungmin hesitated before saying anything else and this put the alarm bells on once more in Leeteuk’s head. “What is it?” he asked, glancing at the other members, who weren’t saying anything.

“…He’s in a coma,” Sungmin finally told them.

It was Heechul who had informed him of what had happened. The second eldest male was in Incheon with Kibum for the sole purpose of picking the Super Junior M boys up. Heechul decided to pick them up because of the warning that Taeyeon had thrown their way. They weren’t really sure if it was anything to take seriously; they got threats regularly, after all. But it made them more worried than all those other times and so they decided to take some action. It wasn’t enough. They didn’t take it seriously enough.

Leeteuk slumped down on one of the seats, his face buried in his hands. His whole frame was shaking in suppressed sobs. Angie, who was shocked, just stood there, her hands on . Heechul sat down beside Leeteuk and put his arms around the days-older male, hoping to give him some form of comfort.

“The doctor said that it’s good he’s in a coma,” Zhoumi supplied. “It means his body is protecting itself and is healing.”

No one responded to this. They all knew what Zhoumi was trying to do. He was trying to think positively for everyone. But the members had gone through this before. They all knew that Kyuhyun coming out of that coma, back in 2007, that quickly was a miracle. The waiting was torture. They didn’t know if they could go through it again. They didn’t want to go through it again.

“Have his parents been informed?” Leeteuk suddenly asked, lifting his head up, hastily wiping his tears away. “We should get someone to pick them up.”

“It’s all taken cared of,” Donghae assured the leader, his arm tightening around a quietly-crying Eunhyuk. As soon as they brought Kyuhyun to the hospital, he had taken responsibility in informing Kyuhyun’s parents and sister.

“Where is Riri? Have you told her?” Angie inquired when she finally found her voice. She had sat down on the other side of Leeteuk, her hand on his. She suddenly realized that she wasn’t seeing the magnae’s wife around. “How did she take it?”

Heechul sighed. “Not good,” he told them. He rubbed his forehead and leaned back on the wall, his eyes closed.

“She fainted,” Siwon supplied. “She’s in the next room.” He gestured to the room on the left side of Kyuhyun’s. “The doctor’s checking on her now,” he added when the couple looked even more worried. They knew that Jin Ri wouldn’t take the news well, but to the extent of fainting?

At that moment, the door to Jin Ri’s room opened and the doctor and two nurses came out. The two nurses immediately left for the nurses’ station, while the doctor stayed behind to talk to them about her situation.

“Doctor, how is she?” Zhoumi asked, standing up as soon as the doctor had come out.

“She’s okay, right?” Ryeowook pressed, looking worried.

“She’s fine,” the doctor assured all of them. “It was the shock that triggered the fainting. She just needs to rest and drink lots of fluids.” The doctor opened the chart he was holding. After going through it, he closed it and looked at the members and Angie, who were looking at him expectantly. “The baby is doing fine as well. No harm done. Like I said, she just needs to rest. We’ll keep her here for two nights for observation. I want to make sure she’s well-rested.”

“Thank you, doc—,” Henry started to say before several voices interrupted him.

“WAIT—WHAT?!”

“Doctor, what did you say?”

“What baby?”

The doctor stared at all of the members, who had all stood up so suddenly, as if they had grown tentacles on their heads.

“Cho Jin Ri-ssi is two months pregnant,” the doctor informed them.

~ * ~

Sun Young shifted on the bed as her cousin stirred into consciousness. She brushed some strands of hair away from her cousin’s face and smiled as Jin Ri slowly opened her eyes.

“Hello sunshine,” Sun Young greeted in a teasing manner.

“What are you guys doing here?” Jin Ri asked, slowly sitting up and seeing Il Sung and Jae Sun sitting on the sofa, watching television. She glanced at the glass of water near the small fridge. Sun Young immediately got off the bed to get it for her.

“I told you she’d be wondering why we’re here,” Il Sung commented, tearing his gaze away from the TV.

Jae Sun snickered and grabbed the remote to switch the device off. He turned to his cousin. “When family faints, family comes to visit,” he shared with her as if it was some wise teaching.

“Appa and Sung Ki oppa and Yung Ho oppa stopped by last night when you were knocked out, in case you were wondering,” Sun Young filled her in as she handed her a glass of water.

“Thanks,” Jin Ri muttered, drinking the glass dry and placing it on the table beside her bed. She leaned back on the now-raised bed and closed her eyes.

There was a short silence, where Sun Young, Il Sung and Jae Sun all looked at each other as if challenging each other as to who would start the conversation, as to who would ask the question they’d all been dying to know.

“Yes, I’m pregnant,” Jin Ri finally declared, bringing them all out of their miseries. She opened her eyes and looked at each of them. “Apparently, I’ve been pregnant for two months.”

“How can you not know you were pregnant?” Jae Sun wanted to know.

“The doctor Kyuhyun and I went to said I wasn’t,” Jin Ri explained. “And, after that, I became busy and so many things happened that I failed to realize that I haven’t been having my period.”

“Okay, that’s too much information,” Jae Sun mumbled, letting out a breath.

“How are you feeling?” Il Sung inquired, concern in his eyes.

“I’m okay,” was the quick reply.

Sun Young and Il Sung exchanged a look before Sun Young moved closed to the bed, placing a comforting hand on her cousin’s. “Does Kyuhyun know?” she asked.

Jin Ri closed her eyes once more. “I was supposed to tell him this morning,” she told them in almost a whisper. The appointment that she had gone to before going to the airport was a doctor’s appointment. She had decided to have herself checked again because she still kept on throwing up, despite it being lesser in frequency.

Sun Young clutched Jin Ri’s hand in an effort to comfort her. There wasn’t anything else she could do. She knew that no words would be able to get her cousin out of the hurting she was in. What could they say or do to help? She knew that only Kyuhyun waking up would fix things and they couldn’t guarantee her that.

“You’ll get to tell him,” Il Sung suddenly spoke up. Jae Sun and Sun Young’s gazes snapped towards him.

“Sungie,” Sun Young rebuked, shaking her head at him. She didn’t give her cousin a chance to respond. “Have you been to see him?”

“I don’t want to,” Jin Ri shockingly proclaimed. She unclasped her hand from Sun Young’s and turned to her side, her back facing them.

“Riri,” Jae Sun began.

“Please leave me alone,” Jin Ri halted him.

As they moved to leave, closing the door behind them, they heard start of her sobs. Sun Young wanted to go back to comfort her, but Il Sung stopped her and closed the door, leaving her by herself.

“She needs to face this alone for now,” Il Sung told his wife, putting an arm around her.

“Is she okay?” Donghae asked, getting up from his sitting position outside in the hallway. None of the members had gone to her room for she had been sleeping ever since she had been brought to the hospital.

“She’s only just woken up. How is Kyuhyun?” Sun Young asked him in return.

Donghae shook his head. “We won’t know anything new until for a couple of days or even weeks.” He glanced at Jin Ri’s room’s door. “Has she mentioned anything about him? Or asked about him? Does she know about his… condition?” Kyuhyun being in a coma was such a hard thing to say aloud. No one ever thought that it was something that would happen to him again.

“She doesn’t want to see him,” Sun Young stated flatly.

“What?” Donghae gaped at her. If there was anything more surprising than everything that has happened, it was this.

“I think she’s in denial about what happened,” Il Sung commented. “If she doesn’t see him and doesn’t know the details of what happened, it wouldn’t be real.” He sighed and rubbed his forehead. “I really don’t think we should force her to deal with it for now. She has her baby to think of on top of everything else.”

“Which is what makes everything even more complicated,” Jae Sun remarked with his own sigh. He turned to Donghae. “What leads do the police have with regards to what happened? Has anyone seen anything, the airport cameras, anyone?”

“We’ve all given statements, the members at the airport,” Donghae shared with them. “But we didn’t really see anything. There were a lot of people, fans and…”

Donghae trailed away, feeling regret course through him. How he wished that he had paid more attention, that he tried to grab onto Kyuhyun the way Sungmin was obviously trying to. He wished that none of them had allowed the magnae to go near the fans, that they’d stuck to the normal precautions. None of the members, except for Sungmin and Zhoumi knew about the warning that Taeyeon had mentioned, and so none of them were really prepared for what had happened. But how he wished that they were just prepared at all. Kyuhyun had been receiving more anti-fan letters than all of them ever since he had gotten into a relationship with Jin Ri, more so when they got married. They should have taken that into account and should have taken it more seriously. He couldn’t bear to see their magnae like that and he couldn’t bear to see his sister-in-law even more broken than before.

“It’s no one’s fault,” Sun Young’s voice seeped through his thoughts.

Donghae looked at her as he heard what she said and hoped against hope that she could believe her.

“Trust that we’ll look into this as well,” Jae Sun assured him. “We already have detectives checking everything out to help the investigation move faster.”

“Thank you,” Donghae sincerely said.

“No problem,” Jae Sun told him, patting his shoulder. “We’re family.”

~ * ~

Eunhyuk’s eyes fluttered open, his eyes adjusting to the dark room. Slowly, he moved his neck from left to right to ease the stiffness that had settled there. Groaning a bit, he shifted on his sitting position on the couch and checked his glow-in-the-dark watch for the time. It was just past 2 o’clock in the morning. He made a face despite knowing no one could see it.

He had insisted on being the one to look after Kyuhyun that evening. It was only Kyuhyun’s second night at the hospital and everyone wanted to stay with him. But the manager firmly told them that only one to two members could stay with the magnae. They were then reminded that, despite what had happened, they still had their respective schedules to go to. Heechul and Yesung, having had not sleep ever since Kyuhyun was brought to the hospital, were both tasked to go to the dorms and get some sleep. Eunhyuk and Leeteuk had both agreed to take over the shift after Sungmin and Ryeowook’s. They had gone straight to the hospital right after their radio schedule. But Leeteuk had already gone home at midnight. He had a family to attend to, after all.

Carefully sitting up, he glanced at the bed, where Kyuhyun was situated. There was something that had woken him up from his sleep and wondered if anything had happened to him.

That was when he heard the suppressed weeping.

Getting up from the couch, he walked towards Kyuhyun, his eyes completely adjusted to the dark. He frowned then looked around the room. That’s when he saw a figured huddled by the foot of the door.

“Riri?”

Jin Ri lifted her head from where she had buried it on her arms, which were resting on her propped up knees, and Eunhyuk just knew that her face was wet with all the tears she had been shedding.

“What are you doing over here?” he asked, crouching down beside her.

“Oppa,” she brokenly spoke. “He’s not waking up.”

“Riri—,” he started to talk.

“He’s not waking up. I called his name so many times. I prodded him. But he’s not waking up,” she told him, clutching his arm. “Why isn’t he waking up?”

“I’m so sorry, Ri,” Eunhyuk said, wrapping his arms around her and hugging her tight. “I’m sorry.”

“He doesn’t even know,” Jin Ri softly responded, fresh sobs coming out of . “He doesn’t even know about our baby. I was going to tell him when I see him at the airport. It was supposed to be a surprise. And now he won’t even know.” She clung onto him, her tears wetting his shirt.

“Shh,” he tried to comfort her. He closed his eyes and tried to keep his own tears from falling. It wouldn’t do any good if he broke down in front of her. He had to be strong for Jin Ri. They all had to be strong for her.