After a personal, quick breakdown at Luna’s business, Hana fixes herself before leaving a goodbye message to one of the staffs to give to her friends. She solemnly walks back to her car. During her slow walk back, Kris has been calling her. She does not want to talk with him at the moment, especially since her voice has been affected by the crying from earlier, so she intentionally turns off her phone.

Arriving in her car and sitting in the driver’s seat, she takes a deep breath and decides to call it a day and not go back to work. She had requested for half a day off to give out the invitations, but with her current mental state, she cannot drop by at Suho’s or Yunho’s to give them theirs. She makes her way around Luna’s company, and driving out of the driveway makes her recall the ultimatum Lay said to her.

“You already made your choice,” she says to herself. “There’s no going back.”

When she gets home, she does not have the energy to make herself a quick lunch. She decides to wait until she goes to pick up Taeyang from school to have a mom and son night out together. She goes into her room, places her purse down on the chair, and heads straight to her bed. She exhaustingly pulls the blanket over her. Tucking herself in, she closes her eyes.

Five hours later, after a much needed sleep, she wakes up.

Hana bats her eyes opened and sees hardly any light shining through the window. She then remembers that she has yet to pick up Taeyang. Worried, she jumps out of bed and runs to check the time on her cell phone. She also sees that she has multiple missed phone calls from the same contact.

To her surprise, it is Suho.

Suho hardly calls her, and they rarely talk over the phone.

She decides to call him later after she has picked up Taeyang.

She picks up her purse and scurries her way out of her house.

Her phone rings again and as she multi-tasks on locking the door, she checks the caller.

Despite the rare occasion of Suho’s calling her, she ignores it because she figures he is calling to discuss of her future plans with Kris. Her main focus is to find Taeyang. Although she should be worried that she is late to pick up her son, she knows that Taeyang will never walk home. She has told him countless times before that if she, his father Kris, or Joongki is ever late to pick him up, he has to wait inside the school office until one of the adults arrived.

Starting her car, her phone rings again and it is again Suho. With Suho never being this persistent, she turns off her car’s engine and takes the call. “This is—”

“Hana! Thank goodness you answered this time!” On Suho’s side, he sounds horrified, apprehensive, and relieved. “I need you here right now.

“Taeyang’s in the hospital.

“He was in an accident.”

*

During Hana’s drive to the hospital, she hardly made it there safely.

Suho explained that when he went to pick Taeyang up from school because Taeyang called him after not being able to reach both of his parents, Taeyang ran over to his car and a car came out from nowhere.

She tried to persuade him to give her Taeyang’s current condition, but Suho was not willing to.

He rather she come by and be told about it personally.

Without much to do, she unwillingly agreed.

She thought she would be able to withhold her tears until she sees her son, but the more she thought about her son on the white bed with possibly many tubes on him and red liquids smeared over his body, her maternal instincts fall without her permission. Because of this, she would have had four accidents along the way, but luck was with her that she made it safely to the hospital.

She arrives at the hospital and parks her car with much rush. Not wanting to waste time with asking the medical assistants about her son’s room, she calls Suho, who answered after five seconds of the first ring, and asks him instead.

He gives her a room number with specific directions.

Upon her arrival, a group has already made their appearance before hers.

“Hana!” Gayoon, sitting by the door with Xiumin, stands up and hugs her tight.

Baekhyun is sitting on a separate couch adjacent of Gayoon and Xiumin. He came because he was with Luhan at the time Luhan received the notice.

Hana doesn’t hug Gayoon back; she can neither feel any presence nor see hear anything. Instead, she is focused at the front where Lay, Luhan, and Luna are standing. Her eyes wander around, but she cannot find Taeyang at all. Or any bed. She sees Suho standing in front of a door at a corner opposite of Lay.

“Where’s T-Taeyang?” As the name affectionately slips from in a hushed and fearful manner, her eyes swelled up with water again. She goes to Suho and requests to see her son.

He purses his lips, expressing that he cannot do much at the moment. He softly says, “He’s still in the ER.”

“How long has he been in there?” She’s trying her best to ensure that her voice is stable.

“Almost two hours now.”

Luhan cannot bear to see his distressed friend having a nervous breakdown, so he goes to her, turns her around, and pulls her into a warm and soothing hug.

She tries to squirm her way out of Luhan’s arms while calling her son’s name in agony. Her despaired screech echoes into the hearts of the people in the room.

Luna forcibly shuts her eyes and hugs Lay; Xiumin tightens his jaws and rests a hand over a softly sobbing Gayoon; Baekhyun looks down in distraught, too ashamed at himself for not being able to do anything to his crying crush; and Suho subtly biting his lip.

“There’s something we need to discuss, Hana,” Suho says, once Hana has soften her sobbing. “Taeyang’s in need of a blood transfusion.”

Hana gradually ceases her tears, and her face is damp. When she pulls herself away from Luhan, she isn’t the only one who asked for further clarification.

“Taeyang has a rare blood type, and we do not have enough O-type blood to give him. O-type blood is also hard to find, and he will need about a pint to make up for the excessive loss. I called your friends over for a quick blood test in case they might have the blood type, but none of them does.”

Hana prepares to roll up her sleeve. “Check mine.”

Suho shakes his head. “I already know yours because I had access to your health file. Unfortunately, it’s not a match.”

“Not a match?” She gasps through the hand the covers . She would have fallen if it weren’t for Luhan catching her in time. “Not a match? Th-then how else is…” …is Taeyang going to be saved?

Luna walks over to stand a few steps behind Hana and Luhan. “Are you saying there’s no hope?” She wails after asking, and her boyfriend comes over for support. “At all?!”

Suho doesn’t look bothered. He firmly says, “There is.”

Xiumin, Gayoon, and Baekhyun stand up in hope.

Lay and Luna break into a light smile.

Luhan and Hana look at Suho with anticipation.

“We still have one more person,” says Suho.

Hana immediately freezes. She does not need to know who that person is.

“He’s a direct relative of Taeyang,” says Suho, glancing at Hana before at the confused friends.

“Direct relative?” Almost everyone quietly whispers the phrase that catches their upmost attention. The friends who know of Taeyang’s origins also know that Taeyang’s only direct relative is none other than Hana, in name.

Suho allows for the momentary pause before adding another comment. “In other words, Hana.” His tone of voice hints that he wants her to explain for him.

She perks up with tension.

“Taeyang can be saved with his blood.”

Luhan notices that the conversation has become a two-person conversation exchanged only between Suho and Hana, and he doesn’t like it at all. He may not be Taeyang’s father anymore, but he still deeply cares for the little brat that made his woman cry oceans. “Whose blood are you referring to?”

Suho doesn’t move his attention away from Hana. “You or me?”

Everyone else soon catches onto the change of atmosphere, how this subject is no longer basing on Taeyang completely but on a whole different person, and they’re curious to know about whom this person could be able to save Taeyang when Hana cannot. As they wait for Hana to answer, the door opens again with force.

“How’s Taeyang?!” It is Kris. He scans the white room and ignores the dozen pairs of eyes on him. When he sees no sight of the child, he paces to his friend, Suho. “When can—” he turns around because someone takes a hold of his hand.

It is Hana. “Kris.”

“Hana! I’m so—”

“Your son needs you.” Her hands squeeze his fingers, and Kris can tell that every inch of her body does not want to continue.

Luhan tries his best to not get irritated at such a confession because he had always wanted to hear a similar comment of how his son Taeyang would one day need him.

“Only you can save him now.” Hana takes in a deep breath and puts on a smile. “Because you’re his real father.”

*

A worried and hesitant Kris is standing outside of the room his brother, Hana, and their friends are in.

After the astonishing confession Kris never thought Hana could have known, Suho promptly interrupted the scene and pulled everyone’s confusion back to the real problem at hand. He then escorted Kris into another room to prepare for the blood transfusion to Taeyang.

On their walk, Kris asked Suho if he knew that Hana knew about his real relationship with Taeyang, and Suho only told him to come back if he was willing to confront his fears. But Kris never thought he’d have to face his fears—all at once—and to many people at a time. If possible, he had wanted to properly confess to Hana and then to Luhan, but definitely not to both of them at the same time.

Still outside the door, Kris hears nothing from inside; it’s dead quiet.

That is, until Suho says that it’s passed the time Kris should be finished with his transfusion.

With this, Kris hastily opens the door and courageously steps inside. As before, all eyes look upon him, and he can feel the prickles on his skin. Avoiding such stares, he closes the door behind him and takes a few steps forward. He has no bravery to look anyone in the eyes.

Especially at Hana.

Suho calmly looks around the room and clears his throat, preparing to continue from the confession of Hana earlier, but what interrupts the anticipated discussion is Luhan lunging over to throw his older brother a merciless punch across his older brother’s face in front of everyone present.

“That’s for Taeyang!” Luhan says, his tone resilient. His face is red with anger, and his popping blue veins are evidence of his wrath. He would have gone for another round had it not been for the nearby Xiumin and Baekhyun running over to grab him and pulling him away from his fallen brother.

Lay, on the other side, goes over to help Kris stand up.

Suho, however, stays behind because he had to stop Hana from unnecessarily stepping in between the two brothers.

Hana understands why Suho stopped her, and she obeys.

“Let me give him another taste of my fist!” Luhan shouts, still being held back by the two young men. “Guys, let me go! I still have two more. One for Hana, and one for me!”

Xiumin shows to be having problems with keeping a pushing and shoving Luhan from behind, but Baekhyun seems to be just fine.

“Suho says to wait for your explanation, but there’s no need for any!” Luhan continues to shout at the top of his lung. His glazing eyes never part from his brother who has been moved to sit on the couch and getting his wound cleaned up by Luna and Gayoon. “You had six years, six years to tell the truth, and you waited until this happens?!”

“Lu—” Hana is stopped by Suho again who shakes his head.

He tells her to wait because he wants Luhan to calm down first.

“If anything happens to Taeyang,” says Luhan, “I’ll kill you will my own hands, and even that wouldn’t be enough to satisfy me!”

A tired, but trying hard Xiumin hopelessly tries to persuade his friend to cease his anger. He wants to hear Suho’s side of the story and would like to believe that Kris has a good reason for keeping the truth about Taeyang being his biological son.

“Good reason?” Luhan scoffs at his friend’s attempt to defend his older brother. He backs away in dissatisfaction and anger.

Xiumin and Baekhyun silently hope that Luhan will not pull another move at Kris even though Kris is currently at a good reach away from Luhan.

Luhan clenches his fists again. “What good reason could he have other than that he did not want to take responsibilities for a son he has? He had countless opportunities to tell us the truth about Taeyang’s origins, but instead, he intended to give Taeyang away and the person who was perfect for him was Hana! His selfishness caused her life to turn out this way, and he ruined our relationship!”

The more Luhan spoke up against his brother, the more rage is built within him, and he is tempted to throw another fist.

Before a second attack can happen, Suho finally steps into the field. He comes over to stand in the middle in front of both groups, and he momentarily glances at the door he was standing at earlier.

Only Hana is standing behind Suho.

“Although I completely agree with Luhan, I do want to fairly say that Kris does have a good reason for supposedly throwing Taeyang away to Hana.” He reaches for something inside his chest pocket of his white lab coat.

It is a picture.

Kris knows exactly what this picture shows, and he freezes up in fear.

When Suho turns the picture around for the audience to see, the group focuses attentively on a non-familiar person standing in the middle between Suho and Kris.

“Seo-Seohyun…noona?”

All eyes soon refocused to the first words spoken by Baekhyun, and they then question the possibility of Baekhyun knowing whom the girl is and of their relationship.

Baekhyun has been quiet the entire time because he has his own mental thoughts to process. After Hana blurted out a confession that explicitly hinted that Taeyang is not her son but Kris’s, he wondered why the friends are shocked to hear such a thing. He had not expected her friends to be almost as confused as he is when he is the one who has been out of her life for almost the last decade. Unlike the friends, he had believed of her “real” relationship with Taeyang and Kris despite still having a few doubts and curiosity.

As Baekhyun silently conjured mental answers to his questions, Luhan’s verbal outburst of anger at Kris when Kris returned indirectly helped answered his question for him. It made clear to him that Hana was not the biological mother of Taeyang; Kris is the biological father of Taeyang; and as Baekhyun had told him, the four of them did have a prior relationship with one another, and it is most definitely during the time of Taeyang’s birth.

He only has one question: why is a person he is related to, all of the sudden, is involved in this familial mess?

“That’s Seohyun noona, isn’t it?” Baekhyun asks, not believing. He leaves Luhan’s side and heads toward Suho. “When—how come—why do you have—”

“She’s Taeyang’s real mother,” says Suho.

As soon as the name slips out from Baekhyun’s lips, Hana makes a horrifying conclusion about the relationship between Taeyang’s real mother and Baekhyun. She carefully takes a few steps farther back to the room as she keeps her eyes on Baekhyun.

His cousin. She cannot grasp the new profound realization she made.

When she had tutored Baekhyun, Baekhyun, and their friends because she saw them on a frequent basis when she used to babysit her nieces and nephews, Baekhyun was a young boy of few words unless he was talking about his dearly beloved cousin.

Her name was Seohyun.

She has never seen his cousin, but she knows Baekhyun respected and admired Seohyun because the only girl whose name would ever be said from him is the name “Seohyun.”

His close friends, including Baekhyun, know how much Seohyun means to him for they, too, regard her as a refined jewel they were lucky to have.

Luna stands up in shock, and she, too, comes over to Suho. She takes the picture out from Suho’s hands and deeply stares at it. After thoroughly analyzing the young lady in the picture, she believes there is no doubt of Taeyang’s relationship with the lady. She can see both Taeyang and the lady having the same sweet smile where they only subtly show the front teeth. Even their slight curvature of their brow shape is the same.

Lay follows his girlfriend and goes to stand beside her. “Not to be rude, but if I remember correctly, Kris once had told us that Taeyang’s mother is no longer here with us.”

Xiumin quickly recalls that specific information and adds his two cents. He clarifies that it was during the time Hana was in the hospital because of the accident right before she left Luhan with Taeyang.

“Yeah, noona isn’t alive no more,” Baekhyun flatly adds. His hands are balled into tight fists, and his toes curled from inside his shoes. He’s trying to keep calm, but only one thought plays in his mind.

“Kris hyung…” He has yet to turn around to face the older man. If what he is thinking is true, he will not allow anyone to stop him like how he had stopped Luhan. He hopes that his friend of six years, whom he has come to view him as an older brother that he had never had, will not be the guy he has vowed to his cousin to spill blood.

“You’re not…that man, are you?” He has intended to ask calmly to hide his anger, but his gritted teeth help does the opposite. “Taeyang…is not Gaeul too…right?” He does a quick process of math in his mind, trying to find a fault in Taeyang’s age with his cousin’s death anniversary.

Sh*t. Taeyang is seven years old. Seohyun noona died seven years ago. Taeyang is a summer child. Seohyun’s death was in the summer too. Sh*t! Sh*t! Sh*t!

Kris quietly thanks Gayoon for cleaning up his wound before standing up to answer Baekhyun. He knows Baekhyun also deserves a proper answer. “The man whom you have vowed your existence to ensure of his brutal death in revenge for the loss of your beloved cousin…that man…is…me.”

Suho steps in again, this time, much faster than before to avoid another altercation. “Before further questions are asked and misunderstandings are ensued, I’d like to confess three things.”

Everyone, but Kris, moves their attention back on Suho again, including Hana who halts her mental thoughts about Baekhyun and Seohyun.

Suho exhales. “My first one starts with seven years ago. I was in the last year of receiving my bachelor’s degree. The same for Kris too. Because we were too busy with graduating sooner, we hardly made quality time for friends, let alone joining clubs or going drinking with them. When a mutual friend of ours invited us, Kris wanted to stay in his dorm as usual, but I wanted to change routine. It was my last year anyway, so I wanted to take it slow. I didn’t want to go alone, so I persuaded Kris. Well, in all fairness, we dragged him along.”

He lets out a small laugh as he reminisces such a memorable moment. He was the one grabbing onto Kris’s legs, and his friends helped by grabbing onto his upper body. They literally kidnapped him and forced him into the back of the car and used a toy handcuff one of the friends bought online—for his personal use—to keep Kris from having any advantages on escaping.

“We had planned to go clubbing but when a sunbae said that his crush was at a karaoke bar not far from where we were, we changed courses. It was there that we met six beautiful ladies.

“Yes, one of them was Seohyun. She, too, was forced to attend with her friends, so she was quiet and reserved, sitting at the end of the table.

“While we had fun doing our own thing, Kris and Seohyun were the only ones who didn’t bother to do much at all. They just drank one after another, but I do remember them engaging in small talk, but nothing more.

“Halfway through the night, they were in their own world. Apparently, she was his junior in the law field, and she was learning a lot of things from him. He, too, never had someone whom he was able to speak comfortably with, especially when he used big words anyone wouldn’t understand in normal conversations.

“I was happy for him.” Suho glances at his friend and sees him tightly clasping his hands together. He knows his friend is still not mentally nor emotionally prepared to have his