When I awoke the first feeling I had was horror, complete and absolute dread because everything else was numb.

I tried to move but every part of my body seemed to be unattached. Then I turned to look at my surroundings. It was night time but a dim light was enough for me to notice the plain empty walls and the needles poked into my arm.

Hospital, I was lying in a hospital and this was just like my nightmare.

I tried again to move my body and this time it listened. My palms clenched but pain immediately shot through my entire left side, my legs still seemed numbed out and my head really hurt. I began to squirm and fight restlessly to remember and then I did.

Franticly I started to call for Jonghyun. He had to be here, he wouldn’t leave me. But my voice came out chocked and dry until finally I called out in a weak and tired voice that surprised me. I guess falling down a flight of stairs does that to a person.

“Jinki are you awake?” a voice asked.

I twisted my head uneasily to make out a silhouette of a person on a chair in the corner of the room. The voice was familiar and yet foreign to me but it wasn’t Jonghyun for sure. If he was around I would have somehow sensed it but his absence is all I felt in that moment. I remembered pushing him aside and falling down the stairs, I remembered blanking out as they took me to the hospital and how he tried to come with me.

But I also remembered having a stupid argument and hurting Jonghyun without apologizing properly. I chuckled softly at the thought of having brought this on myself, had I not been so cruel then I wouldn’t have been standing near the staircase while classes were going on and Hanse wouldn’t have found us. Maybe I deserved being here instead of at home in Jonghyun’s arms.

The room suddenly grew brighter and I realized the tube light in the dull hospital room had been switched on.

“How are you feeling, do you need anything?” I heard that voice ask again. I turned to face the other person in the room and blinked before finally believing my vision, or maybe I was dreaming?

First I thought it was my father, this person had the face but not the same voice. He even looked a little untidy like my father often did when he visited. But this wasn’t my father, the man standing in front of me was my uncle (Taemin’s Dad) and my father’s twin brother. “Please tell me if it hurts somewhere or if I need to call a doctor”

I shook my head to wave off the shock, okay that was not such a good idea. My head began to throb and so I closed my eyes and rested back in bed.

“My legs, I can’t quite feel them properly. And my left side and head hurts a bit” I managed a reply after sometime while trying to look at him. But from where I lay that was a little difficult. I thought of pinching myself to prove I wasn’t dreaming but the throbbing head ache was in fact proof enough.

My uncle calmly shook his head. “That’s just the pain killers. Your left side banged quite hard when you fell and you hit your head too, that’s what the doctor said. They ran some tests but it was Christmas Eve yesterday so the hospital was short staffed and busy. They will take a proper x-ray tomorrow to determine the damage and run a few more tests to check your brain is still functioning properly.” He replied tiredly. He genuinely sounded worn out and his suit was crumpled and was missing a tie. I had never seen my uncle without a tie in my life.

He walked over to my bed and helped me drink a half glass of water. “You sounded a little raspy” he said with a small but comforting smile. I openly stared back at him even if my eyelids were beginning to droop again. Was this really my uncle? And were his eyes bloodshot with lack of sleep or had I finally lost it?

Without another word he turned off the light and resumed his position on the uncomfortable looking hospital chair. “I-I don’t understand” I whispered as I felt my mind shutting down with exhaustion. “I will explain tomorrow Jinki. Now sleep” he encouraged but I tried forming one last coherent sentence. “I mean I don’t understand why you are here even though you hate me..”

I could barely make out his words before I let sleep take me away but I swear he said “I don’t hate you, Jinki”

The next time I woke I knew it was morning. The window was left open and the stuffy little room now had some fresh ventilation, though that did little for the pain. My whole body hurt, I could now move both my legs but regretted it immediately. My left side hurt twice as much as it did the previous night but I was certain that my right leg had taken some serious damage, my hands were covered in purple bruising that were only beginning to fade and I’m sure I had a face that matched.

I heard a noise and gazed in the direction from which it came. My uncle had lifted his chair and bought it to the side of my bed where he took a seat. He poured me a glass of water and waited till I had finished drinking until he spoke. “The nurse had come by and she said the painkillers are wearing off and the doctor will be in to see you and ask some questions. Then they will take an x-ray and keep you back on the painkillers.”

As my uncle kept talking I only nodded which also took some effort. I wasn’t able to process everything he was saying but I did try my best. After all I was still surprised that he was talking to me like a normal human being. He no longer harboured that look of hatred and coldness either however his desire to maintain a certain level of distance was palpable.

I began entertaining the questions that filled my mind. Why was he here? Why had he always hated me? Why did he care enough to stay with me?...Why wasn’t Jonghyun here?

The moment I thought of Jonghyun I had to hide my disappointment. As the questions kept floating in my mind I decided to sum them up into one. I turned to face my uncle who was gazing out the window. “Why?” I asked, not bothering to elaborate because I knew he understood.

He slowly turned to face me and for once in my life I didn’t flinch under his gaze. He didn’t look like the person I knew to be my uncle because in that present moment I saw beyond the suit to the sad and lonely person he hid so well.

“2 years ago I lost my wife and for the second time in my life, I felt like I lost everything” he began to say, his voice heavy with a sense of loss I could never even attempt to comprehend. My uncle then lifted his head and looked into my eyes as a rueful smile grazed his features before he continued.

“I never hated you Jinki. If anything, I envied you and your happiness. Your father and I are identical twins but when we were younger, it was like we were the same person. He was always the more outgoing one but still found time for me as the years passed, we were truly inseparable. Then one day, out of nowhere during dinner he told our entire family that he was getting married and was going to be a father. That’s the first time in my life when I looked at my twin brother and saw a stranger standing in his place. We didn’t talk much after that, he finished school and left”

My uncle paused for a moment as I noticed him trying to keep himself together before moving on.

“After he left, my parents would constantly argue over whose fault it was. So after I graduated, I left for law school and fell in love with Taemin’s mother, then got married. My brother visited me twice after that with you when you were quite young. And each time I looked into the mirror I saw him staring back at me, yet seeing his child, seeing you made his betrayal a real thing”

I had closed my eyes by this point because looking at my uncle while he told me his story, felt like an invasion of privacy as he so clearly displayed what he felt. I didn’t deserve to offer him any comfort when I was the cause for his pain.

“Then I lost my wife and I seemed to have lost myself too. I closed myself off from any further loss or betrayal and simultaneously closed myself off to my son. Taemin and I almost never spoke after his mother died until the day I got an e-mail from your father stating that you were going to attend the same school with Taemin. So, as cruel as it may seem, I asked Taemin not to talk or meet you but I know that I had long ago lost the right as a father by then and that he wouldn’t listen. Honestly, I was scared he would leave me too. That one day he would think his father wasn’t worth coming back home for. And then that day came during dinner, he spoke of you and said you were like his older brother and that led to a long argument. I tried to tell my son that I knew what it was like to have a brother and he was better off alone and then he said he was already alone because I was never at home and...that he hated me for it.”

After a few minutes of silence I opened my eyes and mouthed the words ‘I’m sorry’ because I did feel responsible for Taemin’s words in some way. Taemin had once told me himself that he hated his father and I had done nothing to correct him.

“It isn’t your fault Jinki and I realize that now. I probably always knew that none of this was your fault to begin with. But there were moments when I decided to ignore my better judgment and tried everything that I could conjure up inside to hurt you back and sheath my resentment towards myself. So when Taemin called and said he needed me to come to the hospital, I didn’t think twice. Also some part of me is grateful that he still thinks of his father in times of need. Moreover, last night has given me time to reflect on my past and the way I have treated you”

My uncle stopped talking then and I figured he was done with his explanation and in a way was asking for forgiveness.

Having heard his story, his life, I couldn’t help but compare it to my own. He and I were strikingly similar. We hid our feelings well and dealt with our loneliness and betrayal by shutting everyone else out. But maybe that was the person I was before Jonghyun, because my walls had crumbled down and I had someone to love, who in turn loved me. He didn’t save me but helped me save myself before I caged myself in with loneliness forever.

“Thank you” I said to my uncle and smiled my most genuine smile at him. Maybe I still wasn’t family to him but I would try and be the next best thing.

Just then I was about to ask about Jonghyun when the doctor came in. He greeted me and asked me some questions, he told me that it didn’t seem like anything major but an x-ray was required. After the tests and x-ray was taken, I waited back in the room for the results with a fresh supply of painkillers.

I asked the nurse to turn it down a bit so