TWENTY-EIGHT CHAPTER
Wicked Fate by Kenzo
The Land Trembles
Ji called up Young Bae the moment he knew that he was set-up.
“WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU???” he asked his best friend over the phone as soon as the other man answered after five tries.
“Don’t shout man” Young Bae answered over the other line.
“I’m going to ask you again, where the hell are you?” Ji didn’t care whether his voice was at a hundred decibels.
“I went to pick-up Sun Mi” Young Bae answered in a whisper and Ji felt his eyes thin to slits.
“Sun Mi?!?”
“She’s a new waitress from one of the restaurants at the beach and I promised to take her out when she’s free… she happened to be free tonight.” Ji was betting that his best friend was smiling like a dog right now and he’d share his sentiments too if it wasn’t for the fact that he left him with Dara.
“I thought we were both going to help out Mai-noona look after Dara?!? You even made me promise to her that I was going to stay too!!!”
“Well… Mai-noona won’t really need two doctors right and come on man! At least give me this night. I’ll cover for your shift tomorrow I promise.”
“I, somehow, don’t trust your promises anymore MAN” Ji answered sarcastically.
“I won’t break the one about work” Young Bae told him “Hey! I’m really sorry okay? But you have to understand Ji… I’ve been asking this girl out for ages and I can’t let this chance pass me by.”
Ji heaved a sigh and knew how pointless it was to rant – which wasn’t his style at all. “Next time we see one another, I’m going to plant a fist on your eye” he told his best friend and just shook his head “Cover for me tomorrow then.”
“Ha! Ha!” Young Bae yelped on the other line “Knew you’d understand bro. I’m going to go back in there now coz I’ve made her wait long enough. I’ll see you the day after tomorrow then.”
Ji put down the phone and looked uncertainly at the door of Dara’s house. He told his noona he’d go down a while to check where Young Bae has gone to and to also escape from Dara’s presence.She – a little disheveled as she was – wasn’t doing any good for his peace of mind or his pants.
“You’re erted as hell” he scolded himself “Think about her Grandfather and those childhood pictures… think about saints… think about churches…”
“Ji Yong… what are you murmuring about?” Mai asked him as she suddenly popped open the door much to Ji’s surprise.
“Oh! Noona! You shocked the hell out of me.”
“Ow I’m sorry” the older woman apologized “I just went down because I heard you shouting a while ago.”
Ji nodded sullenly “ I was just shouting at Young Bae.”
“Has he finally answered your call? What did he say?”
“He said he had to pick-up a date – a girl named Sun Mi from one of the local restaurants.”
Mai shook her head, smiling helplessly. “I’m going to teach that guy a lesson from running off like this. Why, he left only you and me to look after Dara.”
“I bet he’ll be hiding himself behind a rock in the following days.”
“Well… I sure hope this Sun Mi is beautiful because if she isn’t, Young Bae will suffer the full brunt of my anger in the next days.”Ji smiled at that and put his phone back on his pocket. “It’s getting colder now noona. Why don’t we both go back inside?”
“That’s a good idea. Dara has just fallen asleep and maybe I could catch a few zzzzs myself.”
“Why don’t we do 3-hour shifts?” Ji suggested, removing his loafers again as he entered the house “I’ll look after her until 12 and then you can look after her until 3 and then you can wake me up again so I can watch her until 6.”
“That’s a good plan” Mai agreed, stifling a yawn “Anyway, I looked for something for you to change in to. Seungri has a few clothes here and since you have almost the same body built, they might fit on you.”
She handed him a crisp white shirt and a pair of board shorts. These were hardly his style but beggars can’t be choosers. “Thank you noona. I’ll change into these now.”
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What people you know will say about you
Mai settled in the room right across Dara’s – she had told Ji that it was Chaerin’s room that had now been converted into a guest room.“If there’s anything that you don’t know while going about the house, don’t hesitate to wake me up ok?”
He nodded. “Hopefully, I won’t need to do that. Go get some sleep for yourself noona.”
He decided to settle in the lounge chair right beside Dara’s bed and hunted amongst her books for something to keep him awake. There was quite a selection of books that normal girls won’t often read about such as Plato’s “The Repubic”, Machiavelli’s “The Prince”, Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War”, etc. These were books he had read while he was in the army and he mused at why a woman such as Dara would find things like these good for late night reading.
She had romance books too but they were quite few. There were also a lot of travelling books and a whole stack of them just about the Philippines.
That country must have been good to her for she obviously loved it.
While busily looking about, he heard the door bell ring. Slowly, he went down the stairs and peeked through the hole to find an elderly woman with a bowl of soup standing outside.
He immediately opened the door, noting the older woman’s surprise.
“Good evening Ma’am” he greeted “Do you need help with that?”
“Oh. Hello there” she immediately handed him the soup. “I didn’t know there was a man in the house.”
“I’m Dr. Kwon. I work with Dara, Grandmother. I’m looking after her now.”
“It is nice to meet you Dr. Kwon. I’m Mrs. Su from next door. I’m a friend of Principal Lee.”
“It’s nice to meet you too Mrs. Su and thank you for the soup.”
“I just arrived from my daughter’s house and I heard about Dara when I went to see Dr. Kang at the hospital. Thought I would drop by to check on her because Principal Lee is out of town right now, isn’t she?”
“Yes she is” Ji confirmed “Would you like to go inside first? It’s cold out there.”
“Why thank you Doctor. I would love that.”
He led the woman to the living room as he put the bowl of soup in the kitchen. “Is there anything you’d like Ma’am?”
“Oh don’t fuss about me. I just wanted to check up on that young woman because you know how she is… she’s too independent for her own good.”
Ji smiled “We all call her the “mother hen” at work.”
Mrs. Su smiled, rubbing together her hands “Well that she is. I didn’t know she had it in her to be like that but I guess I have to be thankful that she took her Grandfather’s death that way instead of sulking around and becoming a ghost herself.”
“She doesn’t seem the type to sulk around…”
“Thank God she isn’t” Mrs. Su continued “I guess having lost both her parents at a young age toughened up her shell. We were all just concerned because if you had known her when she was just in high school – she couldn’t even utter a word to my grandchildren. She was often more comfortable with either older or younger people but not children her age.”
Ji was about to say that she did know her from high school but Mrs. Su had started to talk again.“I was concerned because I thought she decided to self-medicate again. The Principal has always been telling me that she may have toughened up but she still likes to keep to herself most of the time. I mean… you’ve noticed haven’t you doctor? How many people can say they really know what’s going on her mind? She’s better at coping with people but she’s still as secretive, if not, more secretive than ever. That’s why I’m happy to note that she’s allowed friends of hers to look after her now. You’re the first person from where she works who she has allowed to look after her.”
Ji raised an eyebrow at that but decided not to tell the older woman that he and Young Bae had stubbornly insisted on it. Dara had NOT allowed the both of them to stay at all but he had firmly told her that it was either that or they were taking her to the clinic.
He also reflected how all of a sudden, sequences were making him learn more of her without the woman actually wanting him to. Deep inside, his curiosity about her was peaking as more and more he was staring to paint a picture of who she was and who she is now, however… he couldn’t very well show that to anyone.
There were things in the past that still had a hold on him and no matter what everyone else was saying and were about to say, he was sure of only one thing – Dara’s forbidden fruit to him… because he is who he is and she is who she is.
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