JIYONG’S POV

Dara’s hands around my waists were shaking. And I was also aware of the tears that kept on falling from her eyes to the back of my shirt as she had her head rested on it. Although I wanted to celebrate because of that fact, I couldn’t.

She told me that Danny just called and told her that they found her grandfather on the floor of his bedroom unconscious so they rushed him to the hospital. And that was where we were going. And since I only brought the motorbike with me, I had to force her to ride it with me, much to her protest. But since this was an emergency, she gave in.

The moment I stopped the motorbike, she jumped off and ran towards the entrance of the hospital. I caught up just when she was just about to leave the desk where she asked for the room number.

We arrived in no time and Dara just opened the door of the room and dashed inside. The moment I also did, Grandpa Park was lying on his bed, still unconscious, with his loyal right-hand man standing and keeping an eye on him. I greeted him with a slight bow when our gaze met. I shifted my eyes to Dara, who was kneeling beside the bed, holding the old man’s hand tight between hers. And I didn’t even notice the doctor that had just finished his examination with the patient.

“How is he?!” Dara turned to the doctor. “Tell me Grandpa is alright!”

The doctor dropped his gaze. “He had been keeping this for so long already,” he said, keeping his voice steady as he could. “I’m sorry but he won’t take long.”

Unexpectedly, Dara gripped on the doctor’s collar, tears already flooding her face. “Do everything you can!”

I was about to step forward and pull her away from the doctor but Danny beat me to it.

“He’s old, Miss Park. There are already too many complications on his health. He had already reached his limit,” the doctor calmly said. “But if he’s strong enough, he’ll last for another three or more months.”

Dara was about to attack again but her body weakened and eventually she fell on her knees, facing her grandpa once again. And then she cried more.

The doctor excused himself and when we were the only ones inside Danny turned to me and whispered, “She needs time with her grandfather.”

And then we left the room.

The moment we were out, Danny faced me again. “Do me a favor and stay with her, at least, here outside. I’ll be fetching Taeyeon. She hadn’t heard this news yet. I tried contacting her but I couldn’t reach her. Her parents are already on their way, on the other hand.”

When he left, I was left standing in front of the door and that was when realization hit me.

Dara kept on calling her grandfather ‘Grandpa’, not ‘Old Geezer’ like she usually does. I knew it! She had kept this side of her for too long. I knew that she cared for him since way before. She was just a stubborn girl who refused and denied his care for the old man. Although it was also another thing to be celebrated, looking at the circumstances now, I just couldn’t pull out a smile.

I was about to head to the cafeteria, probably going to buy a drink for her but when I turned to my left, my eyes caught someone – someone I had never seen for a long time.

“Teddy-hyung?” I called.

He looked up, his hand still on the doorknob as he just went out from the room. He immediately looked baffled the moment our gazes met. I was about to approach him when he turned and almost ran and escape if I hadn’t just caught his wrist to turn him around.

“Where have you been?” I asked.

“I…uh…”

“Are you visiting someone here? Who’s here?” I asked, pointing at the door that he just came out from.

“M…my mother,” Teddy-hyung said, his voice dropping.

I stared at him. “Your mother is hospitalized? Since when?” I asked. But to think of it, I had never met his mother. “I should see her too. Is she alright?”

“Young master,” he called. “You must not.”

I stared back at him. Why did he seem suspicious for a second? “Why?”

“You just must not,” he said.

“Hyung…” I said, my tone warning him.

He looked down and played with his fingers. Finally, he decided to open the door and let me in.

The room that his mother was in was full of medical items and it was a room that looked like a hotel. Also, it looked like a room where a permanent patient stayed. My eyes caught the bed where his mother laid, tubes connected to her nostrils and to her skin.

“What happened to your mother, hyung?” I asked. I was actually expecting some kind of a simpler scenario. Not something like this. And I felt bad for him and for his mother.

“She had been in that vegetative state for more than ten years already.”

I stared at him in disbelief. “How come I didn’t know? You could have told me. I could have helped.”

He looked down and played with his fingers again. I was sure that there was something bothering him and he was unsure whether to tell me about it or not. “I had received help already. And it’s more than enough.”

“From whom?” I interrogated.

He lifted his head for a second and then dropped it again. When I thought he was going to talk already, he dropped to his knees.

“Hyung, what are you doing?” I asked, trying to help him up but he grabbed both of my wrists and stopped me.

“I couldn’t take it any longer,” he said, his voice shaking. But I didn’t have an idea what he was talking about or what emotions he had on his face. “I’m sorry, Jiyong.”

“Hyung, what are you sorry for?” I asked.

He lifted his head, hands still on my wrists. His eyes were pooling tears already. “Madam Kwon helped me. She helped me since my mother got sick ten years ago. She raised my salary and even paid all of the hospital bills.”

I creased my brows. “I don’t understand. Why are you sorry for that?”

His grips on my wrists became tighter. “She threatened me seven years ago,” he paused as if contemplating to go on and he did. “Mother was worse and she needed to be transferred to a hospital that has better facilities. She threatened me that if I will be letting you and Dara be together, she will stop helping me. She will cut the support she had been giving us. I didn’t have a choice but to agree. It was my mother’s life that was at stake.”

I struggled to get free from his grips and as I did, I looked for the wall for support. His words made my head dizzy. What was he saying all of a sudden?

“I tried protesting, thinking that what Madam Kwon was asking me to do was wrong. Believe me, I did. But as my mother’s condition worsened, Madam Kwon took advantage of my weakness. She used that fact to lure Dara with the money she offered,” he continued. “Remember when I called you that Dara was in your grandmother’s office? Apparently, Madam Kwon’s plan was to lure her in considering that she was stubborn and a girl with pride and dignity. She told me to call you so that you’ll see Dara as if hurting her. And as you did, as Dara ran away hurt as you shouted at her, that accident happened.”

I felt my whole world shaking as I got dizzier but his words were becoming clearer now.

“You were bumped by a truck. We missed to foresee that happening and as you were in the intensive care unit, as your grandmother became desperate with your life, Dara was too. She was a living dead, if you had seen her. She didn’t want to leave you. She didn’t, believe me. I was there. I was with her all throughout,” he paused again. “Jiyong, listen to me. I’m not lying. I’m not badmouthing your late grandmother either. Everything I say is true. Dara never wanted to leave you but as your grandmother blamed her for your accident, she blamed herself too, thinking that you were better off without her.

“Jiyong, I could have stopped her. I could have, believe me. But as I took a step forward and was almost to grab her wrist, the memory of my mother at the same hospital as you were that time stopped me. I was afraid to lose my mother. She was the only one left of me. I was driven by my selfishness and my love for my mother. And that was when Dara stepped out of your life, without me stopping her, even if I could.”

As he stopped talking, I blinked my eyes rapidly, causing tears to fall down my cheeks. I shifted my gaze towards him. “You’re lying, right?”

“I won’t ever lie in front of my mother. She’s dying and the money left by Madam Kwon is only little. Besides, I know that mother could hear me. I think it’s for the better – to let her hear all the selfishness I did for my love for her.”

I felt my whole body heating up. I knew Teddy-hyung. If he said he wasn’t lying, he wasn’t. And this wasn’t an exception. However, as his revelations were clear to me now, I saw red. I saw fury beyond my capabilities. The next thing I knew, I had Teddy-hyung pinned to the wall with my hands gathering fistfuls of his shirt.

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” I growled in a dangerously low tone.

“I was scared. I was guilty beyond doubt. I didn’t know how to face you and Dara,” he said. “That was why the least thing I could do was to get you back together with her. But you’re already getting married to someone else.”

I raised my fist about to hit him hard on his face. But I was reminded that he was my hyung and I was inside a room with her mother around, though unconscious. With my shaking fist and Teddy-hyung shaking with eyes closed right in front of me, I thought twice. In the end, when I pulled my fist for a blow, it hit the hospital wall, creating a slight crack.

“We could have been together already if you had told me that earlier,” I said, my head bowed, refusing to look at his eyes. “We could have not went through all these sh*t.”

With my head still bowed, I let go of Teddy-hyung and proceeded to go out of the room.

DARA’S POV

I stepped out of grandpa’s room, wiping the remaining tears. Taeyeon and her parents just arrived, though the latter ones arrived earlier than Taeyeon. According to Danny, Taeyeon went out to drink with her friends. I wasn’t sure though because there wasn’t any hint of her being drunk.

Anyway, when she arrived, she was frantic and knelt on grandpa’s side. She literally broke down like I did when I broke to her the news that the doctor told me earlier. Grandpa was still unconscious and, may I just add?

I had been calling him grandpa since I received the call from Danny at the convenience store. Honestly, inside me, although I insist on calling him the old geezer, I still have the respect for him because he was still my grandfather. And although I don’t admit it, I had forgiven him since I had dinner with him years ago but with all the pride I had in me, I didn’t get to tell him that. I wasn’t sure if I would even have the chance to tell that to him.

But I don’t want to think about all those negativities by now.

Anyway, as I made my way towards the cafeteria, to go get a drink or something, I passed on a bench just outside of the deluxe hospital rooms. Someone caught my eye and I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. But when I remembered that he was the one who brought me here, I knew that I wasn’t.

Jiyong was sitting on one of the benches. He was alone, with his head bowed down and his arms propped on his thighs. I think he was deep in his own thoughts so, as I was about to leave him alone, something else caught my eye.

From one of his hand, something was trickling down to the tiled floor. My eyes widened as I recognized blood. And they were already lots of them beneath him.

Panicking, I was about to step forward and bring him to where he would be treated. But I stopped myself and instead looked for a lurking nurse on the hallway. When I found one, I told her about Jiyong and she went rushing towards him.

I hid behind the corner, my head peeking as I watched the nurse trying to budge him from his seat but he wouldn’t. He just sat there as if unaware of the people around him and, most importantly, of the wound on his knuckles. So what the nurse did was to treat him even while he was just sitting there.

I wonder what happened to him…

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