The Battle of Kings

“What do you say about backing off the wager and waiting until Dara wakes up” Young Bae asked him for the nth time already and Jiyong knew it was what everyone wanted.

He pressed his lips together and decided not to answer as he began stretching exercises. It HAS been a month since the accident and Dara has been in a coma ever since. Teddy and Suenghyun had done their best to revive her after one of the worst accidents even Jiyong had ever witnessed.

News crews were all over the place and people had even began expecting she was going to die from it but she held on – as silently and as resiliently as she always had. She was a miracle for all of them and her strength was a source of both inspiration and tears.She seemed to tell them all that the Mother Hen was not going down easy.

And now, even with Dara unconscious, everything reminded Jiyong of her and sometimes, he just wanted to rip his heart right out because of the pain but he has to remain strong. He has to believe she will come back or he would lose his sanity.

It was hard already but what made it all the more harder was that he couldn’t look after her the way he wanted. She was engaged to another man and in her final moments, no one knew what was going through her mind when she took that drive to go to him.

“Was it even to go to him at all?” Jay had asked everyone.

The hotshot attorney was not going to make it easy. He guarded Dara almost everyday and would have even taken to blaming Ji for the incident if only he could do so without acknowledging the fact that his fiancé could be in love with another man.

In truth, though, there were nights when he wanted to blame himself too.

“Jiyong, did you hear me?”

He looked back at Young Bae. “I don’t want to back off that wager. I was the one who made it. I won’t break my word.”

“You do know that if you loose to him in the Battle of the Kings, he won’t allow you to ever go near Dara again?” his best friend reminded him.

“I know that” he replied “That’s why loosing is not an option.”

“You have to stop hustling him man” Daesung piped in “Hyung is from the military. I daresay he has the best chance to win this.”

“It’s just that… a lot of things could happen you know. And we have to think about what if he doesn’t?” Young Bae responded seriously.

“Well… you have to help me stage a kidnapping then” he joked to ease off the tension and began sprinting before any of his friends could think of an answer to his jesting.

Thirty minutes from now, the clinic’s Battle of the Kings was going to start and people have started to go out and put up their places on the beach where the last part of the course was going to run because the stakes for this one were too high and too controversial.

Of course, everyone in the island knew it now – they all knew that the famous bad boy had fallen for the island’s sweetest girl.

No one had actually really talked him about it outside of his family but in very small ways, he felt their support and understanding of the predicament he was in. 

In the past month, he had not only begun to bask in his love for Dara but he truly felt how he was a part of the islanders. He received hugs, smiles, and nods of support on a daily basis. The old men and women who he hated for being such gossips often called out to him and opened their houses so he could share food with them.

It was a totally new experience and he couldn’t help but think that in her own way, it was Dara who paved all of this for him.

Everything would have been wonderful, if only, he didn’t have to act like a criminal just to be able to spend time with Dara in her room.

Jay was there almost 24/7 or if not, it was her Aunt or Chaerin.

Both of Dara’s relations now knew of their story but respect demanded for them to recognize Jay’s claim to Dara.

He knew how torn they both were and he didn’t want that for them anymore. Nor did he want the whole hospital staff feeling like they were on tenterhooks just because of the friction between him and the lawyer.

“She’s always had a crush on you since high school, you know” Chaerin had told him one afternoon two weeks ago as he sat beside Dara, holding her hand, and just looking at her face (now healing from the wounds she had sustained). She was sleeping so peacefully and if not for the equipments attached to her body, Ji could have fooled himself into thinking that this was just like any other time when she fell asleep in his arms and he watched her closely.

God…. how he would give everything to have those days back.

“Really?” he asked “She never told me.”

“Well… she’s always been too shy too” Chaerin answered, swallowing back tears as memories of her cousin began to overwhelm her again.

“Would she have said yes if I asked her to the prom back then?” he asked now. How ironic could it be that sometimes, the one you want to spend your whole life with has been a part of it all along?

If only he had known earlier.

“She would have refused you” her cousin answered with a laugh “She was too scared of your girlfriends.”

He laughed at that too. “I would have found a way to persuade her.”

“I daresay you would have” Chaerin agreed “You’ve never really taken no for an answer, oppa.”

Jiyong smiled at that and kissed Dara’s hand. He’d never take no for an answer… most especially not where she was involved.

So, it wasn’t really a surprise to anyone that it had been his idea to propose to Jay to finally battle out their differences in the Battle of the Kings. Jiyong demanded that should he win, he would be able to see Dara anytime and anyday. Jay demanded that should he win, Jiyong was going to leave Dara for good.

Everyone around them had not agreed to this.

Teddy was very persistent in saying that as Dara was in a coma, no one could even predict the kind of damage the accident might have done to her brain and when she wakes up, no one could say at all how she’d decide.

They laid out all the cards to them – she could suffer from amnesia, she could forever be paralyzed, or she could not even wake up at all.

However, if a man in love was as immovable as a mountain, two men in love with one woman were as headstrong as tornadoes.

Being the great negotiator that he was, Teddy had even tried talking to Jay to dissuade him but it was to no avail.

And now, the day has come for that battle. Other members of the clinic had joined in too for everyone now believed that whoever won as King could be showered with luck for a whole year. However, the rules were clear. He and Jay don’t have to win the whole race. They just have to best one another to see who would win in their wager.

He was going to do his best to win this one. It wouldn’t matter if Dara forgot all about him or if she became a vegetable, Jiyong had decided that he was going to give his all to her – she was worth it. She will forever be worth it.

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From heaven and back