ELEVEN:
Here I Am

Pandemonium ensued. 

People started to stampede toward the door or duck behind and under tables or fall to their hands and knees. Yoshiki dropped Jisoo’s hands and immediately ran to Boyoung and pulled her away from the center of the floor. Jisoo jumped into action.

“No! Stop! Everyone, calm down!” she shouted, but her voice was drowned out by all the hysterical screaming. “It’s not a real gun! Everyone, just stay calm!”

 Random guests crashed into her. Her ear started ringing when she hit the dance floor, her rib cage hitting another guest’s high-heeled shoe. Her vision was a rush of color and the screaming only got louder. She shook her head, trying to come back to her senses and stop her grandfather before he could ruin the evening further.

Jinyoung had dragged Minji away from the dance floor and pulled them to crouch beside their table. Jinyoung pulled her so that she was closer to the table and then shielded her with his body. Minji was hysterical, as was everyone else. Everyone was running and screaming and taking cover. He looked above everyone’s heads and tried to spot his sisters and his parents and Yoshiki to make sure they were safe.

“Harabeoji!” Jisoo shouted as she finally made it back onto her feet. She shoved people aside as she tried to make it over to him. But another guest ran into her, and she lost sight of the old man. 

Next thing she knew, Harabeoji was pointing the shotgun at Yoshiki, who was still shielding Boyoung. 

“Boyoung! Stand aside!” the old man shouted. “This man is a Japanese spy!”

“No!” Jisoo sprinted at him. “Harabeoji, put that down! Stop this!”

Jinyoung spotted Jisoo as soon as she stood. The rest of the scene unfolded as if in slow motion. She ran to where her grandfather was wielding the shotgun and point it at Yoshiki and his sister. His heart stopped when Jisoo placed herself between Yoshiki and the barrel of the shotgun.

He bolted toward her. Jinyoung dodged all the panicked guests. Their screaming dulled to a sharp ringing. Jinyoung threw himself between Jisoo and her grandfather. She didn’t even register who it was who flew in front of her. Her grandfather was still shouting angry curses at Yoshiki, and she was still screaming at him to calm down over this stranger’s shoulder.

Everything else happened to so fast. Security guards barged into the room. When the old man was distracted, Jinyoung pulled Jisoo to the ground and covered her. Jisoo’s back hit the floor and she watched, helpless, as one of the security guards brandished a taser.

“No!” she screamed, tears in her eyes.

Jinyoung turned his head just in time to witness one of the guards taser the old man. The shotgun fell from his hands, and he hit the ground hard with a painful grunt. Jisoo shoved Jinyoung away and immediately ran to her grandfather. She knelt beside him and tried to shake him awake.

“Harabeoji? Harabeoji?” she said.

His frail form remained still. Jisoo held her breath as she waited for some kind of movement, anything to tell her that he was okay. Jinyoung, Yoshiki, and Boyoung all watched from the sidelines.

Jinyoung was fidgeting with his shirtsleeve again when he realized that one of his cufflinks must have come undone in the wild rumpus at the reception. He undid the button on his tuxedo jacket and slouched down in his chair in the hospital waiting room. After the panic that ensued, someone had called both the police and an ambulance. 

They learned that the shotgun Harabeoji was wielding wasn’t operational. It wasn’t loaded, and all of its little holes and spaces had been filled with lead so it would never be able to fire anything anyway. Still, nobody in the hall knew that. As far as they knew, the old man was about to shoot up a wedding reception. 

He must have wandered out of the house and into the town again. He must have seen the slew of Japanese guests wandering into the hall, and it triggered his memories from the war. At least that was how Jisoo explained it.

Jinyoung looked further down the hall and saw Jisoo. She was speaking to the town sheriff, who was scolding her for not taking better care of her grandfather. According to the doctor, the extent of his delusions and memory loss would have warranted him professional attention months or even years ago. Why had they never brought him to see someone, or took him to live someplace where he could have around-the-clock care?

Jisoo answered their questions as best as she could, but Jinyoung could tell that she was shaken by the experience. When the panic died down, he offered to give her a ride to the hospital where Harabeoji had been rushed. It starting to get late, but he was waiting until she finished up her conversation with the police before taking his leave.

Jisoo gave the pair of policemen a deep bow before they left. Then she started to walk back. Her eyes were red and puffy, and she was rubbing her arms to comfort herself. Jinyoung stood as she neared him.

“You’re still here?” she asked with a trembling voice.

“Yeah,” Jinyoung sighed as he got up. “I was waiting for you to finish up with the police. “What did they say?”

“They’re taking the shotgun,” Jisoo said, rubbing her arms. “Good. It’s better he doesn’t have it. How is he doing?”

They both turned and looked into the window of the hospital room where Harabeoji was sleeping. When he hit the ground, he dislocated his shoulder, and the electric shock from the taser brought on even more problems. He woke up once and exhibited some symptoms of a panic attack, and now the doctor wanted to keep him a little bit longer to monitor his condition and then later run some tests to check for Alzheimer’s or dementia. 

“The doctor said he’s stable for now,” Jinyoung said. “They said you can go in there now, too.”

Jisoo let out a shaky sigh. “I have to call my parents,” she said. “They’re out of town, they need to know about this. Can I borrow your cell phone?”

Jinyoung fished his phone out of his pocket and handed it to her. “You might need to step out of the building to make calls, though,” he said. “They purposefully weaken cell signal in here.”

“Okay,” Jisoo said. She looked at Jinyoung and then her grandfather. “I’m sorry you had to stay so late—”

“It’s fine,” he said.

“Could you just stay with him while I make this call?” she asked. “I don’t want him to wake up alone and start panicking again.”

Jinyoung agreed. Then Jisoo turned and exited the hall to call her parents. Jinyoung went into the hospital room to sit at Harabeoji’s bedside. The room had a sterilized, clinical smell that was just slightly tainted with the scent of old age given the room’s occupant. He found a chair and sat down. It was quiet. The only thing to hear was the beeping of the EKG monitor and Harabeoji’s weak snoring.

Jinyoung heaved in a deep breath. 

Real gun or not, Harabeoji had scared the living daylights out of him back at the wedding reception. His stomach still lurched when he recalled those moments of sheer panic. Minji was screaming, she was scared less. Then he remembered looking up and seeing the old man pointing the barrel at Yoshiki and his sister, his finger over the trigger. Then Jisoo put herself in front of them and then he put himself in front of her.

He didn’t know that it was an antique. He didn’t know the gun was obsolete. All he knew back then was that his best friend, his sister, and his new brother-in-law were going to die if he didn’t do something.

It struck him just how fragile and impermanent life really was. No matter how beautiful or tragic or exciting it was, it could all be gone in a moment. 

“Oh, Park Jinyoung,” said a weak voice. Jinyoung looked up and saw that Harabeoji had awoken. His sunken eyes darted around the room. “Where am I?”

He was lucid, Jinyoung realized. He leaned forward in his chair.

“You’re in the hospital, sir,” Jinyoung said, answering his question calmly so as not to upset him.

“In the hospital?” Harabeoji said, then grunted. “Did my daughter finally scrape up the money