With heavy breathes and quick steps, Seungho rushed towards Sohyun. His eyes were fixated on her and never spared a look at Jaeha. His hands and legs were steady, his eyes were still but his breath quivered. He placed his palm on her cheek gently and gazed at her. ‘Panic, dismay, dread, worry, anguish', he read in her eyes. Both, his power of speech and his mother tongue had failed him. He never uttered a word, but his tears took the lead to speak to her. His narrowed brows in agony and compassionate eyes begged forgiveness from her.

“Take me home…”, she breathed as her tears slipped through her eyes. He leaned in and pressed his forehead against her and wrapped her in his embrace.

Though the ropes were untied, the impression on her hand painted itself red upon the swelling. He gently slid one of his arms behind her back and other beneath her knees and lifted her up. Crushing the empty water bottle and the empty cup that failed to fill her empty stomach, he made his way out without sparing an inch of attention to Jaeha.

Smirking at his act of avoidance, he followed them gathering Sohyun’s personal belongings.

While Sohyun was resting on the hospital bed, Seungho and Jaeha took their seats outside the room in the waiting area. With an empty seat by his side, while trying to control his thoughts and words, Seungho took his seat and slouched resting his arms on his thighs while intertwining his fingers. While Jaeha, showing no symptom of any weighty happenings, he nonchalantly observed the people who were running across the hall busily. When his eyes dropped on Seungho, it brought the Sohyun’s belongings to his mind. He placed her things in the empty seat between them with a loud thud catching Seungho’s attention.

“Since when?”, Jaeha asked keenly.

Not paying any attention to him, Seungho turned his head towards Sohyun’s room.

“Dehydration…”, Jaeha spoke calmly gaining Seungho’s attention, “I did the first aid so, adequate rest and counselling will get her through. I already took care of all those procedures, so she just needs to comply with the regimen. For all those, your support is a must and -”

Seungho’s smirk in disdain interrupting him, “You inflicted the wounds and you’re giving the cure?”

“Is it me? Am the one who ordered it? Am I the one who did it?”

“You’re the one who neglected it!”, Seungho spoke through his clenched teeth.

“OK… It was a delayed rescue, I shouldn’t have waited till you submit the evidence… I’m not the bad guy here… Some sacrifices are unavoidable, but it’s for the good”, he smoothly diverted the blame.

“When you begin to sacrifice others, it’s no more for ‘the good’… it’s for your ‘own good’! Evil creeps in slowly and it kills your common sense, before it becomes addictive, withdraw now!”

His words brought smile in Jaeha’s face, “I always yield to my conscience, so don’t worry. I’m touched by your concern though!”

“You function on logic, but I function on emotion. So, don’t involve her, unless you want to witness my vengeance…”, unlike his words, Seungho’s expression was calm by the gravity of his words felt heavy.

“By the way, since when did you have your doubts on me?”

“When you made the threat call, we tried to track it through the lag in the signal. But you purposefully led us to the Dr. Oh’s hospital network. But you made a mistake, Dr. Oh wasn’t in the hospital when you made the call. Secondly, you became a board member but, your records are clean.”

“So, my clean records raised suspicion?”

“Your hands on their corruption records and your clean record, gained you power didn’t it?”

Jaeha smiled amused by his words.

Seungho continued, “I wasn’t sure about it, until the call I made to you after Sohyun got kidnapped. I said she was missing, but you asked who kidnapped her.”

“That’s why, you told me that you submitted the evidence even though it was out of place and irrelevant to me?”

“Why are you doing this?”, Seungho asked.

“Hmm…”, Jaeha hummed while thinking hard and replied, “You know, it is complicated to explain the reason for one’s behaviour when you have no trauma to attach behind it? I was just going in my way removing the obstacles instead of evading it!”

“When everyone evades it, you want to collide with it head on? Being a whistle blower or exposing the corruption, won’t do you any good! While in Rome, do as Romans do… you have to follow the rules of the society, if you want to live in it… only then you can be happy like everyone else”, Seungho tried his best to knock some sense into him.

Jaeha laughed out loud on hearing him. Wiping the laughter of tears in the corner of his eyes, he said, “What is happiness in life? Is everyone happy? Can you be happy if you live by the rules of the society? What the society has taught you? It told you, don’t lie, do no wrong… DON’T QUESTION OTHERS, trust in karma… Can we be happy by following all this?”

Jaeha’s question left Seungho inarticulate.

Jaeha answered, “No, following them is not enough to be happy in this society. There is a much bigger responsibility! A family and kids, a content family, three meals a day, a salaried job, an own house, then there go accessories like Tv, after that a home theatre… A car or a bigger car if we already have one, then school for the kids and strictly a high result producing school…”, he paused for a smirk and continued, “For a happy family, once in a week you must take them to a restaurant or a shopping mall or an amusement park or a movie theatre. Apart from this, clothes, and shoes whenever required. You can buy how much ever you want…. Actually, you’re bound to buy them. You don’t have to think what you have to buy… Bcoz, wherever you are, you are surrounded by Tv, radio, newspaper, mobile, internet and roads full of shops with advertisements and exciting offers. All this is FOR MONEY! The society says that I will respect you if you’re rich. Simple! Work wherever you want, snatch from anyone’s plate, flatter anyone, be a slave, be corrupt, kill, coerce or exploit anyone, fool as many as you wish, run a multi-billion scam… no one will chastise you… because, there is only one rule in the society… it will respect you , if you have money. If you don’t have enough money, you’ll have problems with your family, your relatives won’t respect you, nor will your parents and siblings… I don’t want all these accessories, who needs all this? It is for some rich bosses in the world and his slave bosses that controls us… For all those bosses to prosper, they need a market… one such market is the pharmaceutical… We have no choices but to buy their products with so many ads around. We toil every day and buy unnecessary stuffs. We forget why we bought them for and keep toiling… To die fulfilling all the wants and need of the societal standards makes a family. Only then, this society will accept your family and you… If you accept all this, then you can live happily in the society….”

“So?”

Jaeha sighed in disbelief, “I just gave a long enlightening lecture and you’re asking me a one-word question?”

His intentions and his words intimidated Seungho, but burying every reaction inside him, “What’s the bottom-line?”, he asked wearing a straight face.

“Set a different standard of happiness and bring back the theme ‘Health is Wealth’ from ‘Wealthier is Healthier’… Isn’t it a glorious goal?”, Jaeha asked smiling.

“All the best!”, Seungho said with a straight face, “But, leave us out of it…”

Jaeha nodded saying, “I won’t involve her anymore but, I hope you stay out of my lane too”

“Nothing is going to change between us. But when you hear my voice, be certain that you’re doing something wrong”, Seungho warned.

“The louder your voice, the more I’ll grow”, Jaeha replied resolute.

Seungho sighed out aloud; got up from his seat and made his way towards Sohyun’s room to end the pointless conversation.

“I’ll give you one of my kidneys!”, Jaeha shouted making Seungho turn in bewilderment.

“What?”, Seungho questioned the absurdity.

“I heard that’s what friends do!”, Jaeha threw an innocent smile.

Seungho shook his head in disbelief and took his leave.

He stayed by her side till she woke up. When she opened her eyelids, her eyes fell on Seungho who looked at her contented. She smiled asking, “Didn’t I ask you to appear in front of me whenever I think of you?”

“Let’s go home now!”, he responded smiling. 

On reaching home, the mess and litters in the living room caught her eyes. She rolled her eyes and sighed out loud. Perplexed at her reaction, “Just a minute”, he said and made her sit on the sofa, while he started tidying up. “Since, you weren’t by my side, my consciousness wasn’t with me to even realize how much of a mess I’ve made!”, he gave excuses as he cleaned up. After the makeover, he brought her to the bedroom and adjusted the pillow for her to lie down.

She shook her head and whined, “I’m not sleepy…”

“You’ve been advised to take rest…”, he pronounced like an instructor.

“If I had my pillow on your lap, I’ll sleep peacefully!”, she said.

Her words hit him more like a confession on request rather than a cheeky string of flirty words. He immediately sat on the bed; positioned the pillow on his lap and tapped on it, signalling her to lie down. She laid her head on his lap and coiled down. As she fell into sleep, his hands her hair gently as if it had merged with the breeze.

Author's thoughts:

Hello readers! Thank you for reading :)

 I hope all the knots have been untied, if anything is left unsnswered please tell me :) And all the things mentioned in this chapter are fictious... and a few dialogues may sound familiar and cliche' (I don't remember where I heard them or read them or saw them. So, the credit goes to the respectful owners)

The last chapter is on the way... Just a few more hours or a day to to go! The chapter went too long, so I split it up. Thank you for the wait! Have a beautiful weekened:)