“I’ll take care of it, omma. I’ll keep reminding Dalbi about it.” Dalbi entered Jonghyun’s room and accidentally overheard him talking to his mom. As usual, it was about her. Jonghyun quickly noticed her presence so he bid farewell to his mom and ended the call.

“Are you feeling better?” Jonghyun asked promptly as if trying to avoid giving Dalbi a chance to talk about his conversation with their mom. “Saeng, I think you should go to the hospital. You’ve been feeling sick for a week now. Look at you, so pale.”

“This is about him again.” Dalbi released an audible sigh and sat on the chair next to Jonghyun completely avoiding his comment about her health. He was sitting on his bed, on the other hand. “You said to forget him, but you always remind me of him.”

“You understand me, right, Dalbi? We’re just afraid that you’ll be in danger.”

Dalbi shook her head and looked at him sourly. “He’s in Seoul now, oppa. With his younger brother. It’s in the news, they’re going to stay here for good and make sure to run the company with their own hands. They’ve completely returned to normal human beings. It was just a curse. It has been lifted up. It’s not coming back anymore.”

“But still-“

“That’s why it hurts me the most to be doing this.” Dalbi started tearing up. Her voice sounding gloomier as she kept going. “It hurts me that my family had already judged him enough to keep me away from him and despise him. He never did anything wrong. He never harmed me, and all I felt the entire time I was with him was love – it’s something that you, dad, and mom never understand. It hurts me, oppa, but I obey you because I love you.”

There was a long pause. Jonghyun couldn’t find the right words to answer his sister. After all, he understood that this situation was the most difficult for her.

“And I love him, too.” Finally, the tears starting to fall on her cheeks. “Every day without him, not hearing his voice, not seeing his face, feels like hell to me. It’s as if my heart’s about to collapse.” She started holding her chest tightly as if she was literally preventing her heart to fall.

“Dalbi-ah…” Jonghyun held her hands right away, pressing it carefully to calm his sister down. She looks at him, her eyes screaming in pain.

“Oppa… believe me, I tried.” She managed to say in between sobs. “But I saw his face. I heard his voice. I realized I was just trying to survive, but it was hell for me, I missed him so much.”

He hugged his sister as she wept, and rubbed her back as he let her release the heartache that was bottled up inside her for over a month.

Jonghyun knew his sister tried hard. She stopped communicating with Jinki. She obeyed all their requests to not talk to him anymore and he knew how she became almost lifeless after that. It was obvious that the usual bright and go-getter kind of Dalbi was gone. She was just… yes… trying to survive.

Just then, Jonghyun felt something was off with how Dalbi was breathing. He released her from his arms and looked at her closely, “Dalbi, are you okay?”

“I’m dizzy, oppa. I can’t b-breathe.”

He picked her up in an instant and laid her on his bed. Jonghyun ran to the kitchen to get a gl