“It’s time for you to wake-up.” She was surrounded by empty blackness but she could still hear his voice low and rasping.

“Wake-up!” His voice was loud but it sounded strange, almost urgent now.

Hot water was dripping on her face, she tried to turn away from it but she was unable to move.

“Wake-up!” The voice was deep but it didn’t sound like him; though it was familiar.

“Please, Chaerin wake-up!” She was sure of it now, it was not Yong Guk who was calling her.

Her eyes fluttered open even with her vision blurred she knew who it was. “Himchan.”

Her mind was in a fog and the sudden rush of activity around her didn’t help. Himchan disappeared from her line of vision as people swarmed her and flashed light in her eyes, they pushed back her sleeve to squeeze her wrist though she did not feel it.

They lifted her from the ground and hauled her onto a stretcher shouting in code and telling people to get back. She thought she could hear Himchan hollering back though she did not see him. The ambulance doors closed and the paramedics cut away at her wet and icy clothes.

Slipping in and out of consciousness was something she was vaguely aware of as it seemed every time she closed her eyes everything changed.

 She blinked and she was being carted into the hospital with doctors asking her more questions than she could answer, blinding her with their flashlights. Blinked again and she was in a hospital room and nurses were jabbing needles in her veins.

Whatever they injected her with burned like fire yet she still could not move, they swathed her in blankets which she didn’t understand because she did not feel very cold. When she tried to tell them this they did not listen so she gave up.

After a time she begged them to take the blankets away she felt like her body was on fire and when she was screaming in pain she couldn’t understand why they weren’t helping her.

Then the nurse came back with another needle, and she fell into blackness once more.

---February 26, 2012---

Her mother guided her in the house never releasing her arm no matter how many times Chaerin said she could walk on her own. When she finally settled on the couch her mother scuttled off muttering about grabbing her a blanket.

Minzy settled next to her watching her carefully as if she was expecting her head to roll off any second. Though Chaerin was much too tired to reassure her that she was okay, throwing a fit that would put Dara’s to shame in the hospital so they would release her had been tiring.

She did not feel bad about it as she would be damned if anyone thought she was going to spend her birthday in a hospital bed. Her parents tried everything to get her to stay but in the end it wasn’t in their power to make her stay any longer.

Being home she felt better still she would have like not to be watched like a hawk every second. She could hear her father rummaging around in the fridge, he had been insistent on her going to stay with him to which her mother vehemently opposed.

In the end Chaerin stopped them before they started and suggested the all just spend the night at her mother’s house since that was where she was living. However as her mother started piling on blanket after blanket and drowning her in steaming cups of cocoa and tea with the heater cranked up to make it sweltering she was beginning to regret not just going with her father.

It was irritating the way everyone was treating her like she had been the one who had the episode. She may have been the reason they ended up in the river but the alternatives would have been mowing down a couple of teenagers or getting them both wrapped around a tree.

“And here I thought everyone would be happy they wouldn’t have to plan our funerals.” She muttered bitterly.

“That’s not funny. Everyone’s worried about you.” Minzy frowned her face was drawn.

“The way you all are acting it’s like you think I tried to kill us both!” She snapped back heatedly.

Minzy’s eyes flashed angrily and she stood abruptly. “I have to go to work.”

The short haired girl stormed from the house slamming the door behind her. Chaerin stared at the blank TV screen not caring enough to turn it on.

She hadn’t meant to snap at her friend but she wasn’t sorry either. Everyone that had come to see her kept playing coy even her parents, all of them refuse to tell her anything about what happened to Dara.

The only thing they told her was that Himchan was looking after her and that she would be alright, as if that solved everything. Her best friend had nearly killed them both and full on tried to cut her fiancés throat with a set of car keys and they simply expected her to act like that hadn’t happened, to not worry for her.

They hadn’t even let her make any phone calls because they claimed it would only stress her further. It hadn’t been a full twenty four hours since it happened and yet it felt like years, there was so much she had to do but everyone seemed to be standing in her way it was frustrating.

Eventually by evening after hours of her dour silence and snapping at her parents every time they so much as glanced at her they finally took the hint and left her alone. Her father went home assuring that he would be back in the morning to which she gave a grunt and her mother stole away to her room.

She sat in the dark with the faint ticking of the clock being the only audible sound to permeate the silence until there was a knocking at the door.

Glancing at the clock she wondered who was banging on her door at three in the morning. Kicking off the blankets she peered through the peephole and pulled the door open for her friend.

“Himchan?!” Her whole face lit up and she threw herself at him.

He chuckled holding her gently, “Thank God you’re alright CL you scared the hell out of me.”

“From what I’ve heard I have you to thank for that.” Stepping aside so he could enter she led him to the living room.

“I wasn’t just going to let you drown without doing something.” He plopped down on the couch his eyes closed as he leaned back.

“We both could have drowned.” She sat opposite him, “I am grateful for what you did for me.”

“I wish you would have stayed in the hospital for a little longer, you were under the water for too long.” He looked at her his eyes dark with worry. “They didn’t even have time to finish all the tests.”

“Forgot TS owns the hospital too.” She rolled her eyes, “I am fine. I can wiggle on ten fingers and toes, go to sleep, wake up, the whole nine yards.”

“Your heart stopped!” He leaned forward his eyes boring into hers. “You were dead for 15 minutes and you are going to look me in the eye and tell me that you’re all good! Do you think I’m some kind of idiot?”

She paused. “Was that a rhetorical question?”

His face fell before he burst out laughing, “You are so infuriating just like—”

He cut himself off rubbing at his temples. “You know you can say his name around me, it’s only a taboo for Dara.”

“Right, sorry I am just a little worn out.” He replied softly.

For the first time since she let him in she took a good look at him. There were bags starting to form under his almond shaped eyes, his hair was unkempt, his clothes rumpled. He was a mess.

She had never seen him so worn down, his eyes were dark and filled with anguish she wanted to reach out and touch him. It was moments like this when she was alone with him that she realized even though she had known him for so long she didn’t truly know him at all.

Out of everyone in their little group the two of them shared the least intimate of any’s relationship. Though they had both been Yong Guk’s best friend and both close with Dara their adjacent relationships were the only thing they shared.

Yet he risked his life for hers and had the situation been reversed there was no doubt in her mind she would do the same. That was what really brought and held them together, all of them no matter how close any which one of them was with the other would risk life and limb for each other because they were more than just friends they were a family.

“I can’t believe I forgot that.” She shook her head smiling fondly.

“Forgot what?”

“We’re family.” She stared back solemnly, “You were the only one who didn’t forget.”

He opened his mouth as if he were about to speak, then closed it again.

“I saw him.” Crossing her legs she rested her hands on her knees. “I talked to him. I don’t know if it was real or a hallucination, but either way it doesn’t matter because it was all true.”

“What was?” He gave a small smile with faint light glinting in his eyes.

“Everyone was using his death as an excuse not to live their lives to the fullest.” She let out a large breath, “We were just going through the motions, wallowing in our grief.”

He nodded appreciatively, “Well, that is definitely true so what do you intend to do about this revelation of yours?”

“Try and do what he really would have wanted.” She rocked back against the cushions, gazing up at the ceiling. “I am going to get on with my life, for real this time.”

“That’s good, I’m happy for you.” He gave a weary smile, “At least some good came out of all this.”

She jolted upright, “Hey, what the hell happened to Dara?!”

He scratched his head thoughtfully. “Well after they carted you away I was able to jump in the ambulance with Dara, she was practically catatonic.”

“When the doctors were looking at her I went to check up on you but they had already knocked you out with some heavy sedatives. After checking on you I went back, I was only gone for fifteen minutes tops, and she was gone.”

“She left the hospital, no actually they let her walk out, even after I had told them how out of it she was no one was keeping watch on her. Needless to say there are some more people at the unemployment office today.” He scowled bitterly. “I found her wandering around a few blocks away still in the hospital gown mumbling incoherently.”

Chaerin gaped at him at a loss for words barely managing to ask, “What is wrong with her?”

“She had a manic psychotic break.” He buried his face in his hands, “Also called psychosis, it can cause hallucinations or delusions that a person believes are real, impaired function, and radical changes in personality.

“I have several doctors both in-home and flown in to look at her and they say it’s the most viable cause.” He chuckled dourly, “They said that contributing factors could have been both biological and psychosocial, so basically anything could have caused it.”

“All this time it’s just been building up.” Chaerin grasped a handful of her hair in frustration. ”I knew something was wrong with her for years now and I never did anything.”

“Hey!” He reached across the table to tap her knee, “This is not your fault, alright? We all knew something was wrong, we all chose to ignore it.”

“What’s going to happen to her now?”

“She is going to go to a rehabilitation center where they can monitor and treat her, get her on the proper medications, give her therapy.”

“A mental hospital!” She exclaimed incredulous, “Locking her up with a bunch of crazy people will make her less crazy?”

“I honestly don’t see how different it would be from being around all of us because in case you haven’t noticed, none of us are right in the head!” He bit back and she looked away defiantly but said nothing. “Inpatient treatment is the best thing for her. Right now she is a danger to not only herself but other people.”

Chaerin couldn’t argue because she knew he was right. Dara was beyond any help they could give her and there was no denying the risk she posed to everyone with her random violent outbursts. She could tell just by looking at him that the hospital was not his idea but like her he knew that this was not within his power to fix.

“And this place, it’s good at helping people with her condition?” She eyed him skeptically.

“The best money can buy.” He nodded solemnly, “She will have every comfort, that’s all I can give her now.”

Chaerin stood up and moved to knee beside him on the sofa wrapping her arms around his shoulders. His back was to her and she could not see his face though she felt his hands gripping her arms across his chest and she could feel the tears dripping onto her bare forearm.

His shoulders shook but he made no sound, she laid her head against his back wishing desperately she had the power to take his pain away.