"I told you I knew her from somewhere."

"Shut up, Baekbeom."

"Baekhyun! Behave!"

"But mom, he's just... he's..."

I blinked a few times, startled when instead of the second part of the sentence, I heard a loud slam of the door, followed by a not any less quiet 'forget it', probably thrown at Mrs. Byun and little Baekbeom. Baekhyun's sudden rage was something that made me snap from the amok, making Mr Byun curse angrily under his nose in the same time.

Swallowing hard, I dropped my gaze to Mr. Byun's face, seeing him looking shortly through the window to examine the situation inside the restaurant. You could tell he was torn between rushing inside to call his older son to order and leaving me alone.

"Mr. Byun, you can go in," I finally spoke, looking for the zipper of my jacket when another blow of the wind sent chills down my spine. Mr. Byun had ped it when I had my sudden panic attack, afraid when I'd told him I couldn't breathe. "I'm better now, really."

Baekhyun's father only shook his head, his eyes back on me, focused with concern as he studied my face. "I can't leave you alone."

"I have to call my mom," I reasoned but made no effort to look for my phone, still sitting on the restaurant's stairs like a concrete monument. Now the reason of her afternoon calls was obvious, and I knew she was alone in this, waiting for a close person to hug her and tell her that everything was going to be okay, but I was terrified to make the move and call her. I was so scared to hear it from her, because it would turn the man's words from the news into reality.

I didn't want that kind of reality.

"Mira," Mr. Byun suddenly spoke, taking my hands in his to make me look at him. And when I did, he smiled reassuringly and with so much understanding that I almost started crying again. "They only said that he had an accident--"

"A very bad one," I interrupted him, feeling the tears already clogging my throat again.

Mr. Byun squeezed my hands slightly, nodding his head as to show me that he heard it too. "But he's still alive. You have to believe that he's going to make it. He's a Karate Champion, you think a few bruises from a car accident can kill him?"

"He won in 1999," I said bitterly,"and only once." Just because of me, but I didn't say it out loud.

"But it doesn't mean he isn't strong and amazing person," Mr. Byun argued back and I dropped my gaze to the ground, not able to say anything more. I bit my lip, fighting the urge to just cry out loud in presence of Mr. Byun, and he probably saw it because moment later he sat next to me on the stairs, letting out a long, exhausted sigh.

"You probably think that I have no idea what I'm saying and it's just some useless cheer-up talk, but trust me, I went through something similar and know exactly how you feel," he said, throwing his arm around my shoulders to give me a little side-hug. I looked up at him, blinking the tears away.

"Did your parents have an accident too?" I asked, surprised when my voice cracked at the end.

"No," he shook his head. "It was Baekbeom."

It took me several moments of staring back at Mr. Byun before I registered the name and connected it with the same fourteen-year-old teenager I knew. Seeing my reaction, Mr. Byun only laughed warmly. "See? And he's still alive, pissing off everyone around."

I smiled weakly at his comment, tightly hugging my knees. "What happened to him?"

"Baekbeom has a weak heart." Mr. Byun explained, looking somewhere ahead of him, recalling the memories he had from that time. "It's a lot better now because he went through a surgery six years ago but when he was little we had to watch out for him all the time. He couldn't run and play with other kids because any kind of exertion was wearing him off too quickly."

My mind went back to the day when Baekhyun had come to my apartment, panting and fighting for breath as he'd looked for his younger brother. Now his behaviour and that fear in his eyes I'd seen back then made much more sense to me.

"No matter how horrible it sounds, you can get tired of always being there for someone, always protecting that person," Baekhyun's father said and I looked back at him, hearing the accusation in his voice. He smiled down at me, mimicking my pose. "So we left our sons together to have some fun after five years of constant nursing. Baekhyun was ten back then and we left Baekbeom with him..."

I waited for Mr. Byun to continue but he stopped talking, his eyes focused on something before him. I followed his stare just to see Baekhyun slowly going in our direction, hands in pockets and a hood on his head, covering half of his face. Since we were occupying the main stairs, Baekhyun had probably gotten out of the restaurant using a different way, and judging from his father's slightly irritated expression, it most likely wasn't a door.

Mr. Byun took a long breath before he stood up, shoving his hands in pockets himself, saying something I had a hard time to understand.

"I guess we were so obsessed with taking care of Baekbeom that we forgot we have two sons, not only one," Mr. Byun muttered, more to himself than me but I heard his every word clearly. He looked down at me, smiling warmly as he took the key out of his left pocket and threw it at me. "Tell him to take you to the hospital."

I caught it in the last moment, barely saving my face from getting hit by the metallic key. "Mr. Byun, I appreciate it but my parents' home is a four-hour drive from here." I explained, trying to give the key back to him but Mr. Byun took my hand in his and closed my fingers around the metallic thing.

"Baekhyun, take her home." He instructed his son, speaking louder to him as Baekhyun didn't yet reach us. Then Mr. Byun looked back at me once again, "We will keep our fingers crossed for your father. Don't forget to keep us updated."

* * * * *

"Did you call your mom?"

I left Baekhyun's question to hung in the air unanswered for a moment, debating whatever excuse I should tell him. I knew it was bad of me to avoid calling my own mother in a situation like this, but I couldn't find any strength in myself to do something as simple as that. Apparently, the person sitting next to me in the driver's seat couldn't understand that.

Baekhyun sighed, looking for a second at the rear-view mirror before he reached to the glove compartment to open it. I jumped startled by his sudden move, observing carefully his every move and making sure to avoid touching his hand with my knees.

"Here," he took out a cellphone and put it on my lap. "Call her."