Chapter Text
Much to his relief, she didn’t tell her managers about their breakup. Not on the next day, not on the days following the next. For the first few days, they both tried to strike up casual conversations through texts but somehow, the spark didn’t feel as strong as before. Their messages became shorter and shorter until they stopped responding to each other altogether.
It took another week for them to come to a mutual understanding that until they had completely gotten over the relationship, they should block each other’s number for the time being, in case one of them caved in.
They had been faring well, at least during the first week after cutting all ties. They lived their days as if the other person had never been part of their life.
On the Thursday night of the second week, he might have had one too many beers during his drinking session with his guy friends. While waiting for his driver to fetch him, he decided to take a stroll along the familiar path near the pub. With all the alcohol and bottled-up frustrations clouding his judgements, he spotted a payphone outside the public washroom and made a beeline for it. He didn’t remember when was the last time he used a device like this, neither did he remember dialling her number so naturally, as if it had never left his mind.
“Hey.”
Though still half-asleep, she recognised his voice immediately. “You’ve called the wrong number.”
“I did not… I know your voice,” his voice became shaky. “I just want to hear you talk, please don’t hang up.”
“We shouldn’t be doing this…”
“Fine, you don’t have to talk, just stay on the line.”
With an audible sigh, she stayed on the line as per his request. All he could hear were her soft breaths, but even that was enough. A single coin could only buy him three minutes of talking time, so he had to keep topping up the money to sustain the call even though all that was transmitted through the line was silence. After slotting in the last coin in his wallet, he began to weep.
“Where are you?” She finally broke the silence.
“I don’t know,” his voice cracked.
She sighed again and looked out of the window. It was starting to rain. “Stay where you are, don’t move.” Then, she got out of the house and went to the place she knew he was at.
She thought he would be at the part of hangang where they used to have their midnight strolls, but he wasn’t there. She tried calling him but the call failed to go through. It was then she remembered they had blocked each other’s number.
He was actually at the foot of namsan and waited for her at the payphone for hours, but she didn’t show up. His heart grew cold, realising maybe it was time for him to really wake up and get over her. So, after sobering up, he flagged down the nearest cab and went home.
Little did he know that she was still walking along hangang in the middle of the night, under the heavy rain, desperately trying to look for him.
They were supposed to have a meeting at the agency the next morning, but she never showed up. Her manager couldn’t contact her and asked him for help. That was when he realised she still hadn’t told her managers about them, so he pretended and said he would go to her house to look for her. He drove to her apartment, and parked at the carpark but never went up. He thought he was doing both of them a favour by not getting involved with her problems again.
After an hour, he went back to the office and told everyone she wasn’t feeling well. As if on cue, she texted her manager right at that moment to apologise for her absence as she was ill and overslept.
He was distracted during the entire meeting. He was worried about her but couldn’t ask her manager about her condition because as long as they had not told others about their breakup, he should still be the one to know the most about her.
Later that day, he received another call from her manager. The manager explained he wanted to call her to run through the schedule for the next day but she did not answer the phone. Being the night owl she was, there was no way she could be asleep before midnight. After ending the call and reassuring the worried manager, he, too, became anxious. He tried calling her, and as expected, the call did not go through. Then, he remembered his phone application was still connected to the cat monitor at her house.
Holding on to the sliver of hope, he turned on the app. The first thing he saw was Mangtae, who seemed rather scared. He adjusted the camera to the left, and he froze.
Mangtae was nudging and licking her motionless body.
He couldn’t remember how many red lights he had run during the drive to her place. When he was at her door, he prayed to all the deities in the world that she hadn’t changed her passcode. Fortunately, luck was on his side. He keyed in the code and went in.
Mangtae dashed to him the moment he entered and bit onto the hem of his pants, trying to drag him to where she was. He went to her and scooped her into his arms. The first thing he felt was heat. She was burning, her lips were pale and her forehead was dotted with beads of cold sweat.
“Sweetheart, wake up. Please don’t scare me, wake up, please,” he tried to shake her, but she was still unconscious.
Left with no other choice, he took out his phone and prepared to call for the ambulance. Right at this moment, he heard a small whimper and looked down at the body in his arms. Her eyes gradually fluttered open, and he felt as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders.
“Sweetheart, you fainted. How did you get so sick? Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
She tried to push herself up and away from his embrace, but she was hit with another wave of vertigo so she fell back into his arms.
“I’m fine, just leave.”
“You are burning, I'm bringing you to the hospital.”
“No, we promised to stay away from each other.”
“It’s either I drive you there or I call an ambulance. It’s your choice.”
It was a simple decision.
On the way to the hospital, he kept turning his gaze away from the traffic to check on her. She was in the passenger’s seat, leaning against the window and shivering in obvious discomfort.
“Did you catch a cold?”
She ignored his question.
When they reached the hospital, he told, or rather, commanded, her to wait at the entry while he parked the car. And for once, she was obedient.
He brought her to the A&E department and had to wait outside the curtains while the medical professionals tended to her.
“Guardian of this patient?” The doctor, though professional, knew that it was best for him to not say her name in public.
He shot up from his seat and went to the doctor eagerly.
“Oh, Sir,” the doctor tried to keep a straight face. “As per the hospital’s protocol, may I ask how are you related to the patient?”
“I’m her...” he bit his tongue. Who exactly was he?
“I’m her friend. I was the only one with her when she fainted.”
The doctor nodded.
“Patient is running a high fever and suffering from dehydration. According to her, she was caught in the rain yesterday and has been feeling unwell since the morning. We will keep her under observation and she will be discharged after the IV is finished.”
Thanking the doctor and nurses for their service, he went to her bed and immediately closed the curtain behind him before anyone else could spot them.
Expecting her to be asleep, he was met with a surprisingly lucid gaze.
“Thank you,” she said while avoiding his eyes. “I owe you one.”
“No, you don’t owe me anything,” he sat next to her bed and held her hands, careful to not dislodge her IV. “Why were you in the rain yester—“ He froze.
Was she out looking for him?
“I told you to stay where you were,” her voice was barely audible.
“I did, for hours,” he swallowed a painful lump in his throat. “I thought you didn’t want to find me anymore.”
“I thought you were at hangang park, the trail we used to take,” she suddenly wondered why she didn’t ask him for his whereabouts before setting off to find him. How complacent had she been for overestimating how much she knew him.
“I was at namsan, the spot where I first asked you out,” he explained, reminiscing that nostalgic day. He suddenly regretted not telling her where he was before hanging up. How naive had he been for assuming that they would always be on the same page.
Shaking the bitter thoughts away, he decided to change the topic. “I called your manager, he’s worried sick.”
She nodded in acknowledgement.
“Are you in pain? Do you need anything? Water? Food?” He asked, his finger unconsciously pinning a stray lock behind her ear, but she did not seem at all surprised by this gesture although their relationship no longer deemed such intimacy appropriate.
Silence hung between them as he stared blankly at the medicine dripping into her veins while, on the other hand, she was looking at him.
“Were you drinking alone yesterday?” She finally broke the silence.
He nodded slightly.
“You shouldn’t do that anymore, it’s dangerous and not good for your health.”
“Sounds funny coming from the person lying in the emergency room,” he chuckled. “Are you still worried about me?”
“I’ve never stopped worrying about you,” that came out easier than she had imagined. “We might not be together anymore but I still want you to be well. How am I going to move on without knowing that you’re taking good care of yourself?”
He felt a squeeze in his heart and tightened his hold on her hand. “Back at you,” he retorted. “How do you expect me to stay away when all you do is to get yourself into situations that worry me?”
The air between them became tense. She felt it, and he could too. They both agreed it would be wiser to stop their argument before it could grow into a storm that would blow them further apart.
“You look tired,” she stated the obvious.
“I guess the fatigue is finally sinking in now that I know you’re fine. I am so tired,” he felt no need to lie.
She shifted to the side of the hospital bed, making a space big enough for him. In a wordless understanding, he hesitated for a moment before succumbing to the silent invitation. He settled next to her, careful to leave a gap between them though they were literally sharing the same pillow.
She couldn’t decide if she was uncomfortable squeezing in a tiny bed with him. There was ample space, yet deep inside she felt suffocated. It felt odd sharing a bed with a man whom she had loved so deeply. The void between them where lust once laid, was now replaced by immense regrets.
“I’m disappointed,” she whispered. “In myself.”
His drowsiness wore off almost immediately at her confession.
“Why so?”
“I always felt like I knew you well. But the fact is I couldn’t comprehend the way you loved me. I couldn’t even figure out where to find you when you were gone,” she retracted her fingers from his hold, and rested her palm over his instead.
He hated it. He hated how she was so comfortable with using the past tense when talking about him, as if she had already erased him from the present and future and compartmentalised him in her history.
“I told you I was waiting. I was never gone,” he tried to not sound desperate.
“But you were waiting at the wrong pl— no, I went looking at the wrong place. It is my fault,” she caressed the tips of his hair and smiled with her tear-stained eyes.
He loved her smiles. But there was one type of smile that he couldn’t bear to see and this was it. He pushed himself off the bed, and she too, propped herself up. He reached for her face, wanting so badly to wipe away the unshed tears but he knew he shouldn’t, and he knew she wouldn’t allow him to.
Right at this moment, her manager arrived.
“Hyung nim, I’m sorry for disturbing you, I didn’t know you already—“ the breathless manager held back his words as he tried to make sense of the scene before him — the two of them, sitting on the same bed, with eyes so red that they looked like they’ve been through immeasurable pain.
“Ah… I told him about us just now,” she explained. “I thought we should just rip off the bandage.”
He felt the sting when the said bandage was ripped off, baring the gaping hole in his chest, leaving his aching heart exposed to the harsh winds. He was grateful she did not tell her managers right after that day, so he thought they could buy some time to salvage their relationship. It had been weeks since then, and yet they were still unable to return to where they started. Maybe she was right. One of them was waiting at the wrong place while the other was searching in all the wrong directions.
He stayed until she was cleared for discharge. Since they no longer had to put up a show, he had decided to let her manager drive her back. At the carpark of the hospital, right before she got in the car, he called her name.
She stopped in her tracks, and for no apparent reason, she felt the sting of tears at the base of her eyes. She turned back to face him, and to her surprise, he opened his arms with a big smile on his face, inviting her for a hug.
God knows how much he had to force himself to hold back his tears and put on a strong facade. He could feel the strain of his fake smile, but he prayed she couldn’t see through his act. He reckoned the best way to end them would be to show acceptance, in the calmest and most composed way.
“Can I at least get a final hug?” He pretended to joke.
She tilted her head slightly with a tiny smile. She stepped forward and accepted his embrace, returning him with the firmest hug she was capable of giving without crumbling herself.
“I’m so glad you are fine,” he rubbed her back.
She bit her lips, trying to keep her tears at bay.
“I promise I’ll take good care of myself, but can you also promise to not make me worry anymore, baewoo nim?” He knew she could hear the strain in his words.
She tightened her hold on him and held back another sniffle.
“Ne, sunbaenim.”
fin.