YB Quote #4:‘If Tae-Kyung does not return, I will never eat pork again!’ – President Ahn

Chapter 4 – Cure Number Two: A Healthy Diet

Tae-Kyung knocked on the door and entered Mi-Nyeo’s room, expecting that she’d be eating dinner like the rest of the patients.  However, her tray was pushed aside, uneaten, and Mi-Nyeo was out of her bed, digging through her closet, one hand feeling around in the pockets of a pair of black pants.

Tae-Kyung dropped the box of food he’d taken from Mi Nam on the bedside table and walked up behind her.

“Ya!” he barked, planning to order her back to bed just like his Abeoji used to do with him.

Taken by surprise, Mi-Nyeo jerked her hand out of the closet, formed a fist, and slammed it into the cartilage of his nose.

Thwack!

Pain of the dull, tear-jerking kind sent Tae-Kyung reeling backwards and onto the floor.  Stunned by her precision, he stared up at the ceiling, wondering if she’d hit him on purpose.

“I’m sorry!” squeaked Mi-Nyeo, bending over him but hesitant to touch him.  The fluorescent light made it seem like there was a halo around her shaggy hair.  “Hyung-nim...Hwang Tae-Kyung-ssi.  I’m sorry.  It’s my reflexes.  Seongsaengnim trained me so that I could react in less than a second.”

“Ahh-ch!”  He tried to remember if he had any public events that week.  “I’ll have to thank ‘Seongsaengnim’ for making you an ever bigger hazard to the human race than you were as Go Mi Nam.”

Mi-Nyeo struggled to hide a smile that was growing on her pig-rabbit mouth, and Tae-Kyung could feel his great wall of willpower against her starting to crumble.

“Ice,” he bit out, refusing to smile.  “Lots of it.”

“...Yeh.”  To his relief, Mi-Nyeo turned away and thundered out of the room.

While she was gone, he used the bed-frame to climb back up onto his feet.  There was a small mirror embedded in the opposite wall, and he used it to examine the damage.

“She didn’t break it,” he said to himself, touching his bloodied nose and wincing.  “Go Mi Nam will be disappointed that his twin didn’t hit me harder when she had the chance.”

The reflection sighed with him as he dabbed the blood away with a tissue.  “She’s evolved into a pig-rabbit with superhero powers.  How am I supposed to keep her out of trouble now?”

The sound of feet pounding on the hard floor signalled Mi-Nyeo’s return.  “I brought you ice, and the nurse said to go and see her if you need anything else, Hyung...Hwang Tae-Kyung-ssi.”

He snatched the plastic bag of ice-chips out of her hands and placed it on the bridge of his nose.  “I left some food next to the bed.  Eat it before it gets cold.”

He snuck a side-glance at her, wanting to see her reaction.

Mi-Nyeo looked around and walked over to the box on the table.  Her face brightened, just as he'd hoped.  “Hwang Tae-Kyung-ssi.  You went to all the trouble of bringing me food?”

“What?  Can’t your Oppa bring you food?” he said, meaning Go Mi Nam, but realising too late that it sounded like he meant himself.

Mi-Nyeo stared at him, aghast that he’d addressed himself as her: “Op-pa?”

“Yes,” he snapped, feeling stung by her reaction.  “Your caring Mi Nam Oppa who I think has gone to check on his demanding girlfriend.  Why?  Do you have so many ‘Oppas’ these days that you can’t keep track of your own twin?”

“N-no.  It’s just that he’s never done anything like this for me before and I thought...”  Mi-Nyeo pursed her lips, climbed on the bed and pulled out the neat packets of cooked vegetables and rice.  “It’s nice that Oppa thought of me when He Yi Eonni was the one that had her premiere ruined.  Hwang Tae-Kyung-ssi, did you want some?”

“No.  I only brought you the food because I want to talk to you.”

Tae-Kyung leapt out of danger just as Mi-Nyeo ‘impulse-spat’ out a mouthful of rice.  “Y-you want to talk to me?”

“Aish.”  Embarrassed, the vocalist cleared his throat.  “Yes.  Is that so unbelievable?”

“Last year...y-you said you didn’t want to see me again.” Her face drooped before his eyes.

He flinched at her words.  That hadn’t been all he’d said.  She was being generous.

“That was a long time ago,” he lied.  For him, it could have been yesterday.  He wasn't afraid to admit to himself that all the time without her had been meaningless to him.  “I can be civil to you now.  However, if it is too difficult for you, then I’ll leave.”

Not planning to carry out his offer, he waited while Mi-Nyeo picked out the bean sprouts from her food and arranged them into a frowny face.  After a long tense silence, she managed to give him a strained smile.  “What did you want to talk about, Hwang Tae-Kyung-ssi?”

The pain written on her face made him hesitate, but he pulled himself together and pressed on.  “That person who injured you tonight; why didn’t you shoot him, disarm him, or do something to stop him from firing at you?”

Mi-Nyeo’s eyes widened.  “Why do you want to know a thing like this?”

Tae-Kyung turned his attention to the wall.  “I...saw some of what happened, and it would...bother me less if you could explain to me a little about it.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, looking troubled.  “It must have been hard for you to see.  It would have bothered a lot of people to see what happened tonight.  For me, I’m used to it now because it is my job.”

He could feel himself getting angry.  “Your job?  Was getting shot tonight your job?”

Mi-Nyeo played with her bean sprouts.  “Don’t tell the others, but this isn’t the first time that I have gotten hurt like that.  I am only telling you this because it might make you feel better.”

“This isn’t the first time?” he said in a faint voice, not feeling better at all.

“Hwang Tae-Kyung-ssi, my job tonight was to protect National Fairy Yoo He Yi.  As long as the Ahjusshi was aiming at me, and no one else, it didn’t matter what I did.  As for shooting him, I thought about it very carefully, but I don’t like to use violence...many things can go wrong when you choose violence, and he looked like such a sad and desperate man.  What kind of person would I be if I didn’t give him a chance to do the right thing?  I think he would have done the right thing if I had been more careful about what I said to him.”

Overwhelmed with a sickening feeling of horror at what she was saying, Tae-Kyung held up his hand.  “Stop!  Stop there.”

Without another word to her, he walked out into the corridor, shut the door behind him and looked around for some type of relief...anything to take his frustration out on.  Not far from where he stood was a stuffed bear that someone had left near a row of visitor’s chairs.  He walked over to it, picked it up and hurled the toy as far as it would go.  The ball of fur went flying down the hall, and hit the ground not far from a set of lifts.

Not done yet, Tae-Kyung strolled over to where it had fallen, and jumped on it over and over.

“Stupid.Innocent.Pig.Rabbit.Always.Putting.Herself.In-Danger!”

He stumbled forwards and kicked at the wall.  “Arrrrrrghh!” he yelled in frustration, drawing attention from a couple of visitors.

Ignoring them, he turned and made to do another running kick at the wall, when he noticed a small dent in his shoe.

As he bent down to run a thumb over the crease, he wondered how he, of all people, could protect an innocent superhero.

“Ah.”  He tilted his head sideways when an idea occurred to him, and switched on his phone.

A few minutes later, after ending the call, he picked up the bear and walked back.  When he reached the visitors chairs, he held the toy in front of him and tried to squash it back into it former shape.

“About before,” he said to it.  “It’s nothing personal, understand?  I have a plan now.”

He placed the bear down on the chair, bending its legs so that it could sit properly, and he entered Mi-Nyeo’s room.

The food had once again been placed to the side, and Mi-Nyeo was hiding under the sheets, creating a tent effect with her head and shoulders.

The vocalist cleared his throat.  “Mount Halla-san, were you planning on eating something tonight?”

The mountain let out a loud gasp, twisted around into strange shapes and toppled over the other side of bed, hitting the ground with a crash.

“Was that a ‘no’?” he murmured, coming around to her side.

“Don’t look at me!” she called.

He froze at the foot of the bed.

“Could you...could you walk over to the door and turn off the lights, Hyung-nim...I mean...Hwang Tae-Kyung-ssi?”

Annoyed at her rejection of the honorific that she only used for him, Tae-Kyung stayed where he was.  “Why?  Were you doing something you weren’t supposed to?”

“N-no.  I wasn’t doing anything.  There’s nothing to see.”

His lips twitched.  “Oh yeah?  Well you won’t mind if I look then...”

He stopped, and felt a twinge of guilt.  Mi-Nyeo was wiping the tears off her face with the sheet as she lay on the floor.  From the look of her eyes and nose, she’d been crying a lot.  Seeing her like that hit him hard, and he was tempted to leave the room...now...before he became irrational and did something stupid like hug her.

“I fell,” she said lamely.  Her eyes were trained on the floor.

Wondering if it was somehow his fault that she’d been crying, Tae-Kyung crouched down and said in a gentle tone, “I’m going to pick you up.”

“I’m okay.  I can get up by myself,” she replied, shrinking back from his hands and trying his patience.

“Don’t make a fuss.  I won’t hurt you,” he said, even though he knew it was a lie.  He had already hurt her, many times. “I’m just going to put you straight on the bed, okay?”

He wanted to do so much more for her, but it was better this way.

Mi-Nyeo sighed and gave him a defeated look.  It was clear that she didn’t want him near her.  “Okay.”

He wrapped one hand around her back and the other under her knees, and hauled her off the ground together with the twisted sheet.  For two blissful seconds he cradled her in his arms, and all of his senses were reeling from how good it felt.  He’d missed her so much.

It ended all too soon.  Tae-Kyung placed her down on the bed, and then withdrew his hands.

Mi-Nyeo watched him as he tucked the linen back over her, used the remote control to lift the head of the bed, and pulled the food tray over so that it was below her chin.

“Eat,” he ordered, meeting her eyes with a not-quite-cool gaze.  “Or I will tell your Mi Nam Oppa that you did not like his food.”