006.

               “Naeun, can you hear me?” An unfamiliar voice caught into her ears.

               Naeun slowly opened her eyes and found three blurry shapes in front of her. Her ears were still ringing but it was bearable. As her vision slowly sharpened, she realized that she wasn’t in the cabin nor her room. The blurry shapes also turned into three person she personally knew: Kim Jongin, Kim Jieun, and Dr. Lee, Kim’s family doctor.

               Dr. Lee was leaning towards Naeun, hovering his flashlight on her face. Jongin and Jieun was right beside him. Naeun could see how worried both of them looked which she felt strange about it. Jieun was biting her nails and looked horrible with her busted lips and dirty clothes. Jongin was as disheveled as she last remembered. His forehead wrinkled a lot more and leaned towards her as he spoke, “Naeun, do you hear him?”

               It took a while before Naeun heard Dr. Lee calling her name. Her eyes shifted towards Dr. Lee in perplexed.

               “She looks… slow. Is she okay?” Jieun asked to Dr. Lee, definitely worried.

               He hovered his flashlight on both of Naeun’s eyes, looking for response. Her eyes squinted in response of the blinding lights directed on her eyes. Dr. Lee sighed in relief but Jongin and Jieun didn’t feel relieved the slightest bit. Dr. Lee stood up and faced the Kims directly, “She has concussion so she’ll be a little bit slow on communication and balance. She will need assistance on daily basis just for a few weeks.”

               “How long until she fully recovers?” Jongin asked.

               “It varies depends on the patient, but usually it will take two or four weeks until she fully heals.”

               “A month? Jesus.” Jieun stole a glance on Naeun, feeling remorseful.

               “She’ll be fine, Miss. This is just a part of her recovery. I’ll check her up every Saturdays and prescribe her medicines to improve her health. You’ll need not worry.” Dr. Lee reassured.

               Jongin waited for Dr. Lee to finish packing up before he could offer his hand to shake. He thanked him for his service and walked him to the front door along with Jieun. When the front door shut, Jieun let out a heavy sigh. Jongin leaned on the door, massaging his forehead. Both of them knew they were screwed and they brought a possible casualty into this warzone. For Jieun, she was lucky to be leaving the site with only a busted lip. She’ll not be this heavy if she took the biggest blow, but it had Naeun instead of her.

               “This is a mess, Jongin.” Jieun’s voice almost cracked.

               “You think I don’t know that?” Jongin answered with a defeated tone.

               “T-this war’s going to be big. Father will be furious if he found out that it almost had you.”

               Jongin wasn’t in the mood to discuss strategies, “Can we discuss this later?”

               Jieun caught Jongin’s mood and nodded, “OK. I hope you don’t mind me crashing a few days to help Naeun. I’ll be back with my clothes.”

               Jieun took her bag from the counter and vanished as she closed the door. It was just Jongin with silence, like old times but he didn’t like it anymore. He liked it more when he could hear Naeun’s shuffled steps or her humming to top chart songs. Jongin walked to his room, finding Naeun trying to peel off the drip on her hand. He walked towards her and sat beside her. He watched her looking perplexedly at her hand and twitched in pain when she touched it.

               Jongin took her hand, securing it in his palms, “You can’t play with it.”

               It took a while before she could say, “Uh… your ears… is it okay?”

               Jongin was taken aback by her question. As much as he didn’t want to remember the event, he did vividly. He remembered that he got shoved by a heavy blow behind him and the heavy ringing on his ears. But it didn’t matter compared to how he saw Naeun falling on her chest and the loud thud when her head hit the ground. He remembered he saw blood trickling down Naeun’s nose. As her eyes flickered closed, she looked directly at him as if she surrendered her life in front of his eyes. At that moment, Jongin tried to recollect himself as fast as he can and crawled to her. He remembered he frantically asked her to open her goddamn eyes to which she obliged about a minute (which felt like an hour) later only to brushed his blood.

               “Thanks to you.” Jongin finally replied.

               A pause from her. Then, she gave him a weak smile and said, “Thank God.”

               Jongin couldn’t help but crack a smile. He realized he had been brushing her hand against his all this time and for the first time in a long time, it didn’t bother him. But what has been bothering him is the fact that her hands were cold and she was stuck with Jongin. He wished that he could fire her and let her lived her ordinary life. But knowing the pact she made with Father, he would most likely kept her.

               “Are you cold?” Jongin asked.

               Jongin waited for response, but Naeun kept blinking at him and hummed a perplexed tone. So, Jongin leaned closer to her ear, “Are you cold? Should I lower the temperature?”

               It took a while for Naeun to understand the question but when she did, she turned her head to look directly at Jongin, only to make both of their faces inches away from each other. Despite their position, Naeun nodded and smiled as she said, “Yeah. That would be great.”

               Jongin was taken aback by the distance she made, but she was too sick to notice any tension between them. Jongin definitely felt the tension up into his body. He felt his body tensed up the temperature. He definitely felt warm and a tingling in his stomach when he saw her smile. Before he could lose more time in her smile, he broke away and put her hand properly before he could lower the room temperature with the remote and walked outside.

               A buzz came to his phone. He picked his phone from his pocket and only watch in defeat when the notification said Alan had sent him a message. He had been dreading his call, but he didn’t think that the news would fly so fast. Jongin opened the message that said, call me asap. He shoved his phone on his pocket and walked to the kitchen. He opened a bottle of wine that he kept for emergency and drink it directly from the bottle.

               He plopped down on the couch and pulled out his phone. His finger hovered around the important contact. He took a big sip on the wine before he could hit the call button to Alan’s ID Contact.

               He accepted the call on just two rings. He shot first, “Jongin, how’s the situation there?”

               “Depends on which person you asked.”

               “Father wants to know you and Jieun’s condition. He’s terribly aware of the upsetting news.” Alan said.

               “We’re okay.”

               “Thank God there are no casualty in this upsetting event. This act of terrorism is something that we can’t tolerate. We’re going to claim war against the Huang Family. I need you and Jieun to come to the house to talk with Father about the preparation.”

               Jongin stayed quiet, remembering the rage and thirst of revenge when he claimed the war along with the other cousins. Then, he remembered about Naeun, “You almost lost one of your members, Alan.”

               Alan went quiet in the other line before he could ask, “Who?”

               “Naeun. She’s in a bad shape.”

               “I’m sorry, Jongin. I’ll make sure that Naeun could get the treatment and basic necessity that she needs.” Alan sounded sincere. It made Jongin felt weird for a second.

               “So, I wanted to tell you that Naeun would be dismissed temporarily from her job until she could fully recover.” Jongin took a big gulp on his wine.

               “Yes, absolutely. Take all the time she needs to recover.”

               “Thank you. I’ll make sure me and Jieun come to the house tomorrow afternoon.” Jongin closed the topic.

               Alan ended the conversation, “We’ll be waiting. Good night.”

               The phone clicked into an end. Jongin had another gulped of wine before he could hear the front door unlocked. Jieun walked in with a bag full of clothes and noticed Jongin in the living room. She had been his wingman for such a long time that she knew he’s not okay. Jieun put down her bag and went to the kitchen, taking two glass from the cabinet and sat beside Jongin. She snatched the bottle from his grip, only to pour some on the glasses she brought. Jieun offered him the most filled glass and he gladly took it.

               Both of them went into comfortable silence as they sipped on their glass.

               “Have you talked to Naeun?” Jieun started.

               He nodded.

               “Bad?”

               “I mean, I never see someone has concussion in front of my eyes. So, yes, I guess.” Jongin shrugged. He was already feeling slightly drunk from all the wine he had consumed on a such short period of time.

               “This is not your fault, Jongin.”

               “True. It’s Father’s fault,” He turned to Jieun. “But I’m responsible of it.”

               “Then, count me in, Jongin.” Jieun laughed halfheartedly as she clinked her glass against his.

               Jieun caught him staring at her eyes. She swore she could see fear all over his irises. It almost scared her because Jongin was the most fearless person she’d ever encounter—that was why she liked him—and this part of him was something she never expected to see. Then, it clicked to her that this is just the beginning of a big continuous war. Today onwards will be the scariest series of unfortunate events because the dwelling of this family business will hinge on the choices of Jieun and Jongin.

               “Our hands are going to be dirty, Ji.” He almost whispered.

               “They will,” Jieun held his shoulder for reassurance. “We’ll make sure there are no casualty on our side. Okay?”

               Jongin was slightly assured by the fact that both of them agreed on one thing: settle this in a way that nobody in their side will expect any loss, but in other words, they agreed on the term that they’ll have to protect Naeun from this havoc.