Chapter II  

“Oh my baby!” Victory cried when they finally wheeled out her son from the operating room. She had arrived five hours prior and found her sister in a blundering mess. “It’s all my fault unnie,” Sulli kept repeating until the nurses gave her a strong dose of sedatives.

Sulli had begged her older sister over the phone to go to the fansign event early in the morning. She had promised to go to her house to look after Ryung right after school ended since they only had a class for two hours. Victoria relented, knowing that her sister deserves some happiness, and asked their neighbors to look after her son for a couple of hours.

When Sulli arrived, Ryung had been crying for half an hour already. Her sister’s elderly neighbor didn’t know what to do and left as soon as Sulli knocked on the door.

“Aigoo, auntie’s here, baby,” she cooed. The boy ignored her and continued to bury his head into the pillow and scream. Sulli walked from the door and set her binder on the white marble countertop in the kitchen. “Let’s go get ice cream, ne?” Ryung looked up from his pillow, but he was still screaming hysterically. The poor baby couldn’t stop the unexplainable pain he was feeling. Sulli took his position shift as a good sign and opened the door. “Let’s go Ryung and buy- Oh wait. Auntie has to go use the restroom,” she said as she dashed towards the bathroom.

Ryung got up from the couch, still crying, and walked outside. He was holding his head between his palms and kept screaming. The entire neighborhood was filled with his anguished screams, his hopeless confusion and of a honking, speeding car, its driver laughing maniacally. Then, there was silence.

Sulli walked out, saw the door she left open, and bolted outside. She nearly fainted from seeing her nephew sprawled against the sidewalk, his head and body bleeding. The car that had hit him was nowhere in sight. Sulli ran blindly back in the house and dialed 119.

Victoria held onto her son’s little hand as they wheeled his gurney to the ICU where he would have to stay for about a month to allow his head and leg surg