“APPA!” she screams at him before shaking his arm. Hannah gives out a cry when he doesn’t move, shaking his arm fiercer. Just as she is about to try make him sit up or turn him around, she spots her phone vibrating on the floor. She grabs it and puts it to her ear, crying while holding on to her manager’s arm. But there is no one on the line; she had received a text.

She drops the phone from shaking and instead of picking it up she curls her fingers into a fist, feeling completely lost. Who is she supposed to call? She wants to call the person in front of her, knowing that is what she always does when something happens, but he is lying unconsciously in front of her so she can’t call him. Hannah has no idea of who she is calling, she just presses something on the floor that is on the floor and leans forward to cry against Manager Lim’s back. When someone answers her call, she keeps crying though she thinks she calls for help. Her grip of his sleeve is strong, as if she fears he would float away if she let go of him.

“Hannah?”

Picking up the phone with one hand she turns away from her manager to try focus, but she can’t stop crying loudly. It is Manager Lee, the last person she spoke on the phone with. Hearing his voice worriedly ask what has happened, Hannah holds on to Manager Lim even tighter and crying out that he is lying on the floor.

“Who is?”

“Appa,” she cries, whining it out. “I don’t know what happened. He just fell. I don’t know. He won’t move. Help me.”

She is quick to tell him before she breathes out another crying sound.

“Manager Lim fell? Did he faint?”

“I don’t know!”

“Okay, I will call for an ambulance, Hannah. okay? I will have to hang up, but I will call you soon after, do you understand?”

“He won’t move,” she cries in response, glancing at Manager Lim again.

“Hannah, I will have to hang up and call the ambulance, okay?”

She answers with another cry, keeping the phone to her ear even after he has hung up. As if her brain has stopped working, she sits like that until the phone starts ringing. Instead of answering, she puts the phone away and turns to her manager, asking him to wake up.

“Appa,” she cries lowly, tilting her head down to look at his face. The tears fall from her face on the floor. “Appa…?”

Once more she starts crying loudly when he doesn’t react and she turns to her phone when it starts ringing again. Her brain tells her the phone is ringing and that it will stop if she answers it, yet she turns back to her manager to try turn him around. Just as she touches his arms, she lets go and holds on to his sleeve again. What if he is hurt and if she moves him, it will get worse? She won’t move him.

She sits there, crying with the phone ringing next to her for over twenty minutes before the front door is opened. She panics at the sight of two men and starts telling them that she doesn’t know what happened and that she hasn’t moved him. She knows they work with the ambulance based on their clothes. A third one enters, one of the other two are trying to talk to her but Hannah just repeats that he just fell, she doesn’t know what happened. The third one lightly takes her arm, in a comforting voice saying that they will take him to the hospital. Their problem is that she is blocking the doorway for them and she is holding on to Manager Lim’s arm. Her grip doesn’t let go easily and she can’t hear what they are saying though she knows they are talking. Eventually the third man holds on to both her arms, making her hold on to his, and he guides her to sit outside the bathroom for his colleagues to check on Manager Lim. She cannot hear what they are saying, she just cries.

The second she feels them start to walk past her she lets go of the man and stands up, grabbing a hold of Manager Lim’s sleeve. They have put him on a board to carry him out. Having Hannah hold on to his sleeve doesn’t do much so they let her go with them like that, already knowing she is in shock. It’s like they have two men carrying Manager Lim and a third taking care of Hannah, making sure she puts on shoes and is not slowing them down.

As they come out of the elevator on the bottom floor, Manager Lee is staring at them with phone by ear and eyes wide.

“Is he alright?” he asks, seeing Manager Lim and then looks at Hannah, starting to walk with them and tell the ambulance men that he was the one who called. They get to exchange words with Manager Lee but both him and Hannah sits in the ambulance as they drive off. Manager Lee didn’t want her to come; hospitals, attention, she is Hannah. But she didn’t listen to him, only focused on Manager Lim.

Manager Lee takes over from the third man, who gets behind the steering wheel to drive. He sits next to Hannah, watching her holding a firm grip of Manager Lim’s sleeve, not letting him go. Though he tries to comfort her, he isn’t sure if she hears him. He keeps taking calls too. He had to call the agency, he called Manager Lim’s wife and he gave Julia a call too, and now they keep calling him. It isn’t until they near the hospital that one of the men asks Manager Lee to please take care of Hannah so they can get Manager Lim inside quickly; he motions at her grip of his sleeve.

It is all a mess. He holds on to Hannah’s hand at first but when she realises it isn’t Manager Lim’s sleeve she is holding; she takes her hand back. But she stays next to Manager Lee. Whenever he moves, she moves. They are then put in a room to wait there.

Hannah goes to sit in the corner, curling her fingers into fists when noticing that she is shaking. She can’t get that image out of her head; Manager Lim lying lifeless on the floor.

She gasps for air when the tears start falling anew. Manager Lee can’t sit still. He wanders back and forth, glancing at the door waiting for someone to come tell him what has happened. Someone comes to ask what happened, asking a bunch of questions but Manager Lee can’t answer much and Hannah doesn’t hear them. Mrs Lim comes inside in panic, asking what happened and asking for the doctor, asking what is wrong with her husband and when seeing Hannah in the corner she bursts out in tears.

“Oh Hannah,” she says and walks over to her. Hannah cries even more, a low apology leaps out of her before she is taken into a mother’s embrace. They both cry. “It’s okay, he will be okay.”

Though Mrs Lim says that, Hannah can’t believe her. How would she know?

They sit there for over two hours. Manager Lee leaves the room all the time to take calls, assuring Julia and Carolina over the phone that they should not come. Emelia is at rehearsals and Maria is still out with friends after the fashion show, neither knows what has happened. Jonghyun is at the house with Julia and Carolina. In the mess of leaving the apartment, Hannah left her phone and everything there, but when Manager Lee asked her if she wants to talk to Jonghyun or Julia over the phone, she shook her head.

After those two hours at the hospital, she has calmed down. Her tears have calmed down, at least for now. She is sitting with Mrs Lim who is almost holding on to Hannah’s hand with a shared worry.

Eventually the doctor comes inside, glancing at the three people before turning to Mrs Lim. Hannah focuses to hear what he says. She focuses really hard, but the words are difficult, she doesn’t understand a thing of what he is saying so when Mrs Lim starts crying again, Hannah joins her without knowing why.

“He is awake now if you want to see him,” the doctor finishes saying.

Hannah takes her hand out of Mrs Lim, starting to regain her thoughts now. Mrs Lim gives her a glance before taking her hand again, taking Hannah with her. Hannah can feel her body start shaking again when they walk over to the room Manager Lim is in. She doesn’t want to go in there.

“Omma,” Hannah whispers, carefully taking back her hand again. “I have to use the bathroom. You go first.”

Motioning for his wife to go first, Hannah then turns around to leave. She almost bumps into Manager Lee. He says he will come with her; guiding her to the bathroom and waits outside for her. It’s not that she felt like she had to use the bathroom, it was just an excuse to not have to go inside that room. She takes her time, uses the toilet though she wasn’t sure if she needed it, takes a long time staring at her mirror reflection when washing her hands and then stays a bit longer just dazing out before she finally walks outside. Manager Lee looks worriedly at her. Worried about Manager Lim.

“I can’t go there,” Hannah says, her voice cracks with those words. She can’t find her voice.

“You should go in there,” Manager Lee comments.

She shakes her head. Her face feels like it is on fire after all this crying. She feels dreadful, looks awful, and she does not want to see her manager right now. Manager Lee looks to be thinking of what to do, if he should listen to her or try talk her into going there anyway. In the end he gives her a nod, guides her to take a seat, and says he will come back in a few minutes. Manager Lee goes to see him.

Hannah is nervously shaking her leg while waiting for him, looking down at her hands and trying to not start crying again.

Manager Lee comes back and grabs her arm lightly, saying that they can leave. Hannah wants to ask how Manager Lim is doing, what the doctor said, how bad it is, what happened – she has a lot of questions. But she doesn’t say a single word. No question is asked and he doesn’t explain anything to her. They take a taxi to the house and when getting out outside the house, Hannah can only guess what is waiting for them. Again she wants to avoid it.

While Manager Lee starts walking to the second house, where Hannah thinks everyone will be waiting with questions, she goes up to the first house.

“Please,” is all she says when Manager Lee says they are in the other house.

He sighs and says someone will check up on her soon. Hannah doesn’t care about that. Walking inside the house, it feels like no one is there. It is too quiet. She is met by a happy Milo and Tiger is quickly there too, both happy to see her but Hannah just walks past them. She feels like a mess. Taking a seat in the sofa, she sits at the side and pats the seat. Milo gladly jumps up and falls down on her leg, happy for the attention. She wonders if they know she is sad because both Tiger and Ace comes too. Tiger, she understands because the cute cat is always around her, but for Ace to come his back against Hannah’s arm when both Tiger and Milo are there is unusual.

“Hi…”

She turns away when hearing Jonghyun’s voice. She hadn’t heard him come in, she doesn’t know that he has been waiting for three hours in the other house with the others. Jonghyun sits down behind her, resting his head on her shoulder.

“Are you okay?” he whispers.

Jonghyun reaches out his arm next to hers to pat Milo, the glad dog moving his head to hang it over Hannah’s leg, panting towards Jonghyun’s arm. Hannah doesn’t answer him but her crying is answer enough for him. He embraces her from behind, keeping his chin on her shoulder while letting her cry. Manager Lee had told them that the headaches and tiredness Manager Lim has had for the past weeks is from a brain tumour. The doctor had said they will have to do tests in the upcoming week to know what kind of tumour and how to get rid of it. When Jonghyun was about to come over, Manager Lee took him to the side to say he isn’t sure how much Hannah knows because she has been out of it. She is in shock; the doctor had commented with just a glance at her.

She leans her head back after a while, sighing. Jonghyun thinks she might fall asleep soon. She has stopped patting the pets. Milo is lying comfortably on her leg, Tiger is lying there too, while Ace has gone to sleep at the other end of the sofa.

“Did Ji Young talk to you?” Hannah whispers.

“Mm,” Jonghyun nods. He gives her shoulder a peck before resting his chin on it again, just slightly tilting his head against hers.

He can hear her start to cry again. “Appa…” she starts to say but stops to sob instead. Jonghyun hushes her, holding her tighter.

“He’ll be fine,” Jonghyun says.

“You don’t know that.”

“I want him to be fine,” Jonghyun changes his choice of words. He looks at her from the side, seeing her focus her face to stop crying. “Do you know what happened?”

Turns out to be the wrong question because she whines when the tears just flood out, shaking her head to answer him. She has absolutely no idea of what happened. Jonghyun hushes her again and Milo’s tail starts moving. Hannah lowers her head and wipes her tears, feeling Jonghyun’s fingers on her cheek, wiping the wet skin of hers.

“He wasn’t moving,” Hannah barely whispers, gasping for air when trying to hold back the tears.

“He fainted,” Jonghyun explains.

Hannah tilts her head with a grimace. She can’t get rid of the sight of Manager Lim lying lifeless on the floor. “What did Ji Young say about it?” she finally gets out of her. She has wanted to ask it but she has been crying that no words have gotten out of her.

“Do you know what a brain tumour is?” Jonghyun wonders. He isn’t sure if she understands the Korean word they use for it, that’s why he asks. Hannah looks like she doesn’t know what it means and Jonghyun puts his hand on her head. “It’s some sort of cancer. No, no, no, Hannah, listen. There are surgeries he can go through-”

“No,” Hannah shakes her head.

The moment he said ‘cancer’, he saw her expression change. Jonghyun kisses her hair, telling her that operations are possible, that cancer doesn’t mean death. To Hannah, it does. Most of the time. Her grandmother, Emelia’s, friends Kyungho had when he lived at the hospital; all dead because of cancer. And now Manager Lim has it.

“Hannah, Ji Young said that the doctor thinks they can help him. He’ll be fine, you hear that?” Jonghyun tries to comfort her, caressing her hair and holding on to her.

“Stop saying that!” Hannah cries out and gets out of his arms. Milo stumbles up on his feet quickly, almost falling down on the floor before he jumps down on his own because of Hannah’s sudden movement. She wipes her tears again, getting on her feet.

“Hannah…” Jonghyun lowly says, looking worried.

“You don’t know if he’ll be fine or not so stop saying that he will,” she tells him in a cry.

Jonghyun has a pair of puppy eyes looking at her. Before he can say anything, Maria’s voice is heard by the front door. “Hannah?!”

Her tears are falling again and Hannah walks a few steps before Maria comes inside the living-room. With long legs she is quickly in front of Hannah, crying as she just found out about it too and arms held out to get a hug. Maria has been out with friends, SHINee’s Key and SNSD’s Hyoyeon among others, but Julia ended up texting her to ask when she is coming home so Maria came home earlier to hear what’s going on, just hearing about Manager Lim. When asking where Hannah is, as Manager Lee is in the other house, she went over here to make sure she isn’t alone. Emelia is in the other house too.

Maria and Hannah hugs for a long time, just crying on each other’s shoulders. Hannah calms down first, looking over at Jonghyun who is sitting on his own in the sofa. He looks like he will cry too. Maria slowly starts to calms down, leaning back to look at Hannah’s face, though the younger lady turns her head down.

“Are you okay?” Maria asks. “Ji Young said you were in shock?”

“I’m fine.”

Maria turns her head to look over her shoulder at Jonghyun. He shakes his head.

“I’m fine,” Hannah repeats, seeing their silent conversation. Maria wipes her own tears but manages to give Hannah a look. Hannah repeats it again that she is fine. She can’t get out any other words though she knows they don’t believe her.

“I need to go pee,” Maria mumbles, frowning at Hannah before stepping away.

While watching her leave, Hannah’s eyes lands on Jonghyun when Maria walks by behind him to go to the bathroom. She wipes her cheek from tears before going over to sit next to him, putting her arms around Jonghyun from the side and watching his profile.

“Do you want to go home?” she asks. Her voice sounds hoarse and she feels like she can fall asleep within minutes if she lies down in bed; which is exactly what she wants because that means she doesn’t have to face reality.

Jonghyun gives her a glance though. “You don’t want to go see the others?” he wonders.

“I’m asking what you want,” she whispers back. Jonghyun puts his hand up to touch her head, leaning closer to kiss her forehead before mumbling that he is here for her and will stay for as long as she wants. Hannah pouts at his answer and when she hears Maria coming back from the bathroom, she hides between Jonghyun’s arm and the sofa’s backrest. Maria stands behind the sofa though, putting an arm down on Hannah’s body.

“I’m going to the other house for some tea,” she lets them know before she takes off.

Hannah hugs on to Jonghyun’s arm. She can fall asleep like this. Jonghyun rests his head on hers, for minutes the two of them quietly sitting there. Tiger comes to lie on Hannah’s legs and Milo ends up resting nearby on the floor. Ace is still lying at the other end of the sofa.

“Do you want some tea?” Hannah mumbles.

As she again asks him what he wants, Jonghyun starts to smile. He presses his lips against her head before telling her they should go over to the others. She breathes deeply when he starts moving and holds on to his hand as she goes with him.

The other house is quiet besides from the TV. The volume is low. Julia, her mother, Carolina, Emelia, Manager Lee, Manager Kim and Maria are all in the living-room, some drinking tea. Maria has cuddled up with a warm up in the corner, a blanket around her. It feels like not a