Ch. [13]
Blue Tomorrow
It wasn’t that late but Hyukjae felt extremely tired. Chaerin was making her homework peacefully in the living room, sitting there calmly as she hummed a slow song and smiled gently.
It had only been some days since she had gone to the psychologist and Hyukjae knew that maybe it was the best idea, that maybe Chaerin wouldn’t be happy with only him by his side. Hyukjae felt useless but he was glad someone could help his little girl.
Kyuhyun hadn’t come home and even if he did, Hyukjae knew it would be really awkward since the last night’s argue they had. It was a lie that he wouldn’t care. Because Hyukjae really liked Kyuhyun and the other’s sudden insults hurt him, not that he hadn’t been insulted like that before. It was just that he knew that behind those words were Kyuhyun’s real thoughts.
The door bell rang and Hyukjae raised an eyebrow, wondering who it could be since aside from the girl the day before, Kyuhyun never received any kind of visit. He looked at the door and waited to hear once more the bell. He pursed his lips in nervousness as the door was knocked now.
Hyukjae walked towards the door and opened it slowly and gasped as soon as he recognized the woman standing outside with a huge frown in her face. “J-Jihyun-shi…,” Hyukjae bowed, still being respectful to the woman. She was his mother in law after all.
Juhyun frowned and clicked her tongue in disgust, stepping inside without any word. She frowned deeply as she saw the small girl now running to where Hyukjae was and hugging his thigh hardly, almost trying to hide from the woman. “This place smells like dump,” she said and Hyukjae wanted so much to talk back to her with a sharp comment like ‘No, it’s you the one that comes from there,’ or ‘You seem used to the smell, maybe because you wear it as perfume’ but he knew it wouldn’t be smart of him.
“How can I help you?” Hyukjae asked coldly then, closing the door behind the woman.
Jihyun looked at him and pursed her lips in disgust. “You will never be of any help, just a family’s breaker,” she said looking down at him. “Where’s my son?”
Hyukjae pursed his lips, trying to restrain himself from comment anything and hiding Chaerin behind him. “Not here, obviously,” he said and the woman snorted from the tone.
“You dare to talk like that to me? You? A low life?” Jihyun asked pointing at Hyukjae with her index finger.
Hyukjae didn’t say anything but he could feel Chaerin trembling behind him as her little arms wrapped around his thigh. Hyukjae knew he had to control himself if he wanted to protect his daughter and keep her with him forever. He looked down and bit his lower lip.
“And now you’re not responding?” Jihyun asked and chuckled. “That’s even better, yes, like a submissive slave, one I wouldn’t even buy of course,” she said and Hyukjae didn’t look up at her.
Hyukjae felt slightly panicked when he heard Chaerin’s respiration getting heavier and he knew the small girl was scared. “Chaerin, go to finish your homework into the room,” he ordered quietly and Chaerin hesitated and looked up at him before nodding and slowly unwrapping her small hands.
Chaerin walked with a low head to the living room to get his things and go to the room. “Ahh!” she cried when Jihyun grabbed her by the hair and pulled her in front of her.
“And you, you were the one who ruined this family the most!” Jihyun exclaimed throwing the now crying Chaerin to the floor with force, making the little girl flinch and cry louder, because never in her short life someone had treated her like that.
“WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!” Hyukjae yelled, suddenly furious.
He walked towards Jihyun and frowned deeply, his fists clenched tightly, his lips pursed, his eyes full of rage because no one was allowed to touch his little girl like that.
“I can treat garbage the way I like!” Jihyun exclaimed angrily as well.
“DON’T DARE TO TOUCH MY DAUGHTER!” Hyukjae exclaimed and for the very first time in his life, he slapped a woman.
Jihyun gasped loudly and opened her eyes widely, taking her hand to her hurt cheek. Clearly, she couldn’t believe that Hyukjae had laid a hand on her. “You !” she yelled hitting Hyukjae back, with so much force that Hyukjae fell to the floor and quickly turned towards Chaerin who was crying there too, making herself into a ball and covering her ears for her not to cry.
Hyukjae ignored his own pain and crawled to her daughter, ignoring completely that Jihyun was there because Chaerin was way more important. “Chaerin, ba-“
But Hyukjae couldn’t get to finish his sentence and reach his daughter because something fell hard on his head and when he fell flatly on the floor from the impact.
“How can someone as you dare to even touch me?! You deserve to die!” Jihyun exclaimed and Hyukjae slowly got up, flinching because his head hurt so much he couldn’t even see clearly and he couldn’t feel his arms.
When Hyukjae’s eyes could see slightly better, he saw the book he remembers Kyuhyun reading on the floor and drops of blood there as well.
For a moment, Hyukjae panicked thinking Chaerin could be hurt but it didn’t take long for him to realize it was his own and unexpectedly, he felt slightly better. “Go,” he mumbled looking down, not having enough energy as to raise his eyes to look at the woman in front of him. “Go before I call the police.”
Jihyun smirked and chuckled. “This is my son’s house, I can come here whenever I wish and do whatever I want,” she said.
Hyukjae finally got the strength to look up and frowned. “Go,” he repeated, glancing at his daughter who kept crying uncontrollably.
“Of course I’ll go, I need to shower to take off the dirty I just got from you,” Jihyun said and turned around, leaving with her head up and slamming the door close.
Hyukjae didn’t even wait for the woman to leave completely when he fell on his knees by his daughter’s side. “Chaerin, it’s okay… calm down baby… everything is alright…,” he whispered bringing the girl into his embrace and squeezing her small body gently.
“M-Mommy…,” the girl cried with a shaky voice, hiding her wet face against Hyukjae’s chest.
Hyukjae ignored his own pain and his daughter’s back gently. “It’s okay baby,” he repeated. “I won’t let her hurt you again… I’ll protect you…”
And Hyukjae felt how the small girl clenched on his shirt tightly with her small hands and he continued hugging her tightly.
Some minutes passed and Chaerin was almost completely quiet, not even moving so much. The only sensation made Hyukjae shiver and he pushed the girl from him slightly when he felt a sudden spasm. Hiccup? He asked himself but he knew it wasn’t when he saw Chaerin’s eyes.
Hyukjae panicked when he felt another sudden spasm and another one coming almost instantly. He looked into his daughter’s eyes and he could see nothing. They were empty and it was as if she couldn’t see, as if her soul had gone away from her body. “Chaerin!” Hyukjae called moving his daughter slightly. “CHAERIN!” he yelled, hoping for the girl to hear him and respond, come back to him.
The sudden spasms became a long one and the girl started to convulse, her small body trembling and shaking and falling down the floor.
Hyukjae yelled and quickly ripped a piece of cloth from his shirt, stuffing his daughter’s mouth with it and trying to calm her down, making her stay against the floor. “CHAERIN!” he cried loudly, realizing how stiff his daughter’s body was and how, even if he tried, he could do nothing. “CHAERIN!” he called again desperately.
It took some seconds for Hyukjae to stumble towards the phone and call an ambulance, desperately telling the girl to coma quickly because he didn’t know what was happening and his daughter had never been like that before.
Hyukjae threw the phone away as the convulsion became more intense and Hyukjae went to his daughter, crying loudly and letting his tears fall down his face while his hand took Chaerin’s. “Chaerin!” he called uselessly and he flinched when he could feel the girl gripping on his finger tightly, as if she wanted to rip it apart. Her small hand had wrapped around Kyuhyun’s index finger and the force of the convulsion made her extremely strong.
As he could, Hyukjae took his finger away and panted hardly, tired and worried for his daughter.
•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•
Kyuhyun sighed as he drove home tiredly. He was almost reaching his neighbor and he jumped slightly when his phone rang. “Hello?” he asked without seeing who the caller was.
“Kyuhyun,” it was his mother.
“Yes mother?” Kyuhyun asked sighing loudly.
“I just went to your house and you weren’t there, what are you doing so late?” Jihyun scolded and Kyuhyun opened his eyes widely.
“You went to my house?!” Kyuhyun exclaimed.
“Why? I can’t?” His mother asked in a tone that said that she was insulted by the question.
“No… it’s just that… well… you usually don’t go…,” Kyuhyun trailed, hissing loudly when an ambulance opened its way through the traffic and almost hit Kyuhyun’s car. He cursed in his mind and for a second, he forgot about his mother in the phone.
“But I wanted to surprise you and guess who took the surprise instead?” Jihyun asked angrily. “We have to destroy him Kyuhyun, I can’t allow him to ruin us even more.”
Kyuhyun sighed. “Mom, I’m driving, let’s talk later…,” he said softly.
“No!” Jihyun yelled. “You always say we should talk later and you promise to visit me but you never do!” she exclaimed and Kyuhyun could imagine her almost crying. “You’re becoming Siwon! Splitting from me because of him!”
Kyuhyun gasped. “Mother, how can you say that?” he frowned, because if there was something he was sure of, it was that Siwon and him were completely the opposite. All those stories Hyukjae had told him just made him reassure his theory.
“It’s true! You don’t visit me so often and you’re there with him!” Jihyun cried.
Kyuhyun hissed again when he almost hit a car. “Mom, I’ll call you later, I can’t talk like this,” he said and hung up, turning right when he had to and finally reaching his street.
Kyuhyun didn’t expect to see the ambulance outside his house, and much less seeing Chaerin being carried inside with a desperate Hyukjae following up.
He had never felt that knot in his chest as he used to hear. Kyuhyun had never felt so scared to the point of feeling his breath away. He felt his body stiff, unable to do anything as the sirens started to sound loudly and his heart was beating extremely hard.
It took Kyuhyun almost a minute to turn the steering wheel quickly and following the ambulance as fast as he could, going just right behind to be able to follow it through the opened path of the cars that moved aside.
The ambulance went to the emergency room and Kyuhyun went to park his car, cursing loudly because there was no free space for him and he decided he could pay anything later and left his car somewhere he shouldn’t.
Kyuhyun didn’t notice he was trembling until he tried to get his key back and he couldn’t get it. He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration and went out from his car as soon as possible, running until he reached the emergency room and looked around desperately for Hyukjae and Chaerin.
He finally spotted Hyukjae, crying desperately and trying to reach for Chaerin while the nurses held him back. “CHAERIN!” he yelled with tears running down his eyes, arms spread as if trying to still have his daughter in his arms.
“Hyukjae!” Kyuhyun exclaimed running towards the man and making him turn towards him, grabbing his shoulders tightly to make him stop.
The nurses sighed relieved and went away when another ambulance came. It took Hyukjae a few seconds to realize it was Kyuhyun the one if front of him. “Kyuhyun…,” he mumbled with his broken lip.
“Hyukjae, what’s wrong? What’s happening?” Kyuhyun asked scared, terrified of not knowing, shaking Hyukjae’s body lightly because he needed the other to calm down.
“Kyuhyun…,” Hyukjae mumbled clenching Kyuhyun’s shirt over his chest. “C-Chaerin… she-”
But Hyukjae didn’t finish his sentence because he passed out, his body falling limply against Kyuhyun’s.
Kyuhyun gasped and held Hyukjae firmly, one hand in the smaller’s waist to keep him up and the other in the other’s nape to keep him close. “Hyuk-”
He couldn’t even call for Hyukjae, because he felt in his hand something wet and when he saw what it was, he felt even more scared. Blood.
“Help!” Kyuhyun yelled terrified. “I need help!” he yelled and it wasn’t long for two nurses to go and help him, taking Hyukjae up to another bed and dragging him away.
Kyuhyun could only stand there, with wide open eyes, looking at his hand stained with blood.
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