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With Jang Yeonhu’s words that he was fine, the spacious office froze as if time had stopped, everyone unable to make a sound. Even the chairman himself, who had thrown the ashtray in a fit of rage, was no exception. He seemed to have thought Yeonhu would skillfully dodge it.
The stream of blood that chillingly stained the viewer’s heart flowed down along his straight forehead and facial line, soaking even his white dress shirt. Jang Yeonhu, whose head seemed quite dizzy as he frowned, slowly lowered his posture and soon sat down awkwardly on the floor. Even during this, no one dared to say anything. Though Han Jaekyung wanted to shout for someone to call an ambulance right away, to go to the hospital, his throat only constricted. He wished he could just faint from the acrid smell piercing his nose and the painfully vivid red color.
From when they first met at age seven until this very day… he had never once seen Jang Yeonhu injured. Occasionally when he had light colds or stomachaches and Madam Yu fussed over nursing him, but such a serious injury that drew blood—and right in front of Han Jaekyung—this was definitely the first time.
Han Jaekyung’s vision spun and he unconsciously staggered backward. It was around then that he heard the shrill cry of “Yeonhu hyung!” again.
“Hyung, what do we do, what do we do? Hyung. Blood, there’s blood…!”
Choi Eunseong, who had been guarding Jang Yeonhu’s side with quite a confident air until Han Jaekyung entered the chairman’s office, was now trembling and could only repeat words like “What do we do, there’s so much blood, Yeonhu hyung.” His pale, drained face looked particularly young. Choi Eunseong tried to somehow stop the flowing blood with the end of his sleeve, but it was woefully inadequate. Even while staggering, Jang Yeonhu calmly soothed Choi Eunseong and took out a handkerchief to press firmly against his forehead.
“I’m fine, I’m okay so don’t be too shocked.”
“B-but… Yeonhu hyung, it must hurt so much…”
“I’m really fine. Don’t cry, okay?”
“Sniff…”
Choi Eunseong finally burst into tears and began crying sadly with his forehead buried in Jang Yeonhu’s arm. Chairman Noh, who had been raising his voice asking why they couldn’t remove that thing immediately, also seemed unable to come to his senses at his precious grandson’s injury that he had raised so preciously all his life. Judging by how he slumped back in his chair, silently trembling only at his fingertips.
“Jaekyung.”
“……”
“Han Jaekyung!”
Han Jaekyung, who had frozen stiff like some ornament, only came to his senses when Jang Yeonhu, frowning, called his name repeatedly. He gasped convulsively and rushed to Jang Yeonhu’s side in one breath. He couldn’t bring himself to ask if he was okay, or to criticize him for deliberately taking the hit when he could have avoided it.
“Sorry, but could you drive instead? I think I need to go to the hospital first.”
Jang Yeonhu, wiping around his eyebrows with uncharacteristically irritated gestures because of the blood that had soaked even around his eyes, asked in a languid tone. It was an attitude no different from his everyday tone when asking “Let’s go eat, is the timing okay?”
As soon as Han Jaekyung nodded, Jang Yeonhu stood up abruptly. Choi Eunseong, clinging tightly to his shoulder, kept sniffling but didn’t let go of supporting him, and the already elderly Chairman Noh seemed to have aged another ten years in the meantime…
“Chairman, are you satisfied with this much?”
Jang Yeonhu’s sharply pointed words were more than sufficient to squeeze out the chairman’s true feelings until the very end.
* * *
“Sob, sniff, ugh… It’s all because of me… Everything, everything…”
“Stop crying and tell me what happened.”
“Waaah, waaah…”
“Hey. Choi Eunseong.”
Despite Han Jaekyung’s repeated calls, Choi Eunseong’s sobbing wouldn’t stop. Well, thinking of Han Jaekyung who couldn’t find stability even while driving to the hospital and only trembled with his hands, the continued sobbing wasn’t incomprehensible either.
“He’ll be okay, right, Lawyer? Our hyung, nothing will happen to him, right?”
“We’ll know when the test results come out… There won’t be anything serious.”
Damn. How did I end up giving such unsuitable comfort. While pulling out several tissues to hand over, Han Jaekyung chewed the tip of his tongue. Choi Eunseong, whose heart seemed to melt even at that clumsy comfort, buried his head deeply into Han Jaekyung’s shoulder while sobbing. The lukewarm moisture transmitted through the shirt fabric was unpleasant.
He didn’t know if this could be called fortunate, but the hospital they usually frequented was only about ten minutes by car from the group headquarters. When they rushed into the emergency room with blood-covered faces without even having time to go up to the VIP window, there weren’t many other patients. The neurosurgery professors came running out barefoot before the emergency room intern had even finished disinfecting the wound. After carefully examining Jang Yeonhu, the doctors said that while they’d need to take a CT scan to be accurate, since there was no nausea or severe headache and his consciousness wasn’t becoming confused, he probably hadn’t suffered brain damage. Han Jaekyung found peace after seeing the relieved faces of the doctors, but Choi Eunseong did not.
Throughout the several hours of roughly treating the trauma in the emergency room, taking the CT scan, and waiting for those results, Choi Eunseong kept sniffling and wearing down Han Jaekyung’s patience. After Jang Yeonhu, who had finished his examination, immediately fell into a comfortable sleep, Han Jaekyung was left to handle that sobbing alone. By temperament, he wanted to shake him off violently and shout at him to pull himself together and tell him what happened today, but…
‘I don’t know how much you know, but Yeonhu’s family… they’re not just at the level of having some money. Also, the adults in that family, no matter how momentary the fooling around, aren’t the type of people who would have so little interest in their child as to just watch Yeonhu date a man.’
‘Don’t be too disappointed and just think you had a few months of good dreams. Even calculated hourly, it’s not an amount where you’d be at a loss.’
After that meeting he hadn’t fully digested yet, Han Jaekyung couldn’t bring himself to be sharp toward Choi Eunseong, as if an uncomfortable thorn was stuck in his throat. Regardless of how resentful he found him, how… achingly envious he was of him.
The problem was what would happen afterward. Han Jaekyung sighed deeply while looking down at Jang Yeonhu lying comfortably on the wide bed in the VIP hospital room. More than a few eyes had seen Jang Yeonhu coming out of the elevator directly connected to the chairman’s office, dripping blood. Except for a few executives who had known Jang Yeonhu since childhood, no one in the company knew his background, but with this incident, the young master’s commoner play was essentially over as of today. Anyway, he had probably learned the practical work atmosphere to some degree by now, so even if his ‘ordinary employee play’ was exposed it wouldn’t matter much, but the problem lay in the reason for the exposure itself.
Since his head was cracked by the chairman, it was a given fact that there had been an unpleasant incident. A sobbing intern had even followed after him. For people with good instincts or busybodies who enjoyed spreading gossip, it wouldn’t be difficult to already start sketching the outline of events.
Really, why am I even worrying about this… Han Jaekyung frowned deeply. Then the image caught in his vision became even clearer. Jang Yeonhu lying with his eyes closed, wearing a patient gown. The bandage on his forehead that didn’t suit the preciously raised young master at all. It was annoying and grating on his nerves, making it hard to endure.
That’s why he should have just continued living as before, chasing after my tail, instead of meeting some other guy for no reason, tsk. The irritation in his touch as he straightened the wrinkled blanket kept growing.
Knock knock.
“Excuse me.”
“Ah, Dr. Park.”
In the midst of endless grumbling, the hospital room door opened slightly with a knock. The woman with a bob cut who poked her head in was an internal medicine doctor who had been exclusively in charge of examining Jang Yeonhu’s overall health condition. She was the daughter of the chairman who oversaw this hospital’s medical foundation and was also a distant relative of Jang Yeonhu on his mother’s side. She was someone Han Jaekyung was quite familiar with.
“It’s been a while, Jaekyung. The test results came out and I thought it would be better if I explained them, so I came in. Have you been well?”
“…Yes.”
At her languid expression as she smiled and spoke, Han Jaekyung let go of all his tension. If there had been even the slightest abnormality in the test results, she definitely wouldn’t have spoken so casually.
“Well, the skin was torn so there was a lot of bleeding, but the bone wasn’t damaged and the cerebral blood vessels weren’t injured. We’ll still need to monitor him for a few days, but there are no particular abnormalities at present.”
She flipped through the chart she had tucked under her arm while explaining, then even chuckled, saying “Anyway, our chairman’s temper is still the same as ever.”
“I thought he might have lost his vigor with age, but apparently not. You must have been very shocked too, Jaekyung.”
“Well, I…”
“By the way, is this the rumored ‘that’ friend?”
She pointed with just her chin at Choi Eunseong, who was busy alternately looking between Jaekyung and herself, blinking his eyes and forgetting even to squeeze out tears. Somehow the nuance seemed ominous.
“Has that rumor already reached your ears, Doctor?”
“You bet. Yeonhu even brought him to the alumni gathering, didn’t he? Among our age group, the rumor spread right from the day after the alumni gathering. It’s actually amazing that the chairman only found out now.”
She chattered on with an amused expression and disappeared back out of the hospital room after saying he could be discharged tomorrow. She earnestly urged that even after discharge, if there were headaches or dizziness, he should come back to the hospital immediately. Choi Eunseong, who had been sitting blankly like a borrowed barley sack, hesitantly opened his mouth again only after the doctor left.
“She seemed to be someone you already knew…”
“Yes, well.”
“What did she mean by rumors spreading…”
“What do you think it means? Now everyone who should know about you and Jang Yeonhu’s relationship knows.”
It seemed like inexplicable defiance was surging at that innocent expression with tears clinging to it. Han Jaekyung suddenly wanted to pour harsh criticism on Choi Eunseong, saying this was all because of him, that he had spoken clearly enough for him to understand, didn’t he know this would happen? So give up like I gave up. Since I couldn’t have him, you won’t be able to have him either. Do you think… Do you think it was easy for me to give up Jang Yeonhu? He wanted to pour out all the words he had suppressed like a downpour.
“So. What do you plan to do now?”
Instead, Han Jaekyung asked coldly. Suppressing his boiling inner feelings and disguising them as sharp thorns was more natural to him than breathing. What, what should I do…? Facing that tearful voice, Han Jaekyung’s expression grew even more coldly distant.
“With such a commotion today, the company people will roughly catch on now too. Do you have the confidence to keep working at the company? As you saw with the chairman… I told you, didn’t I? It’s not an ordinary family.”
As it went on, Han Jaekyung’s tone became clearly closer to accusatory. Everything was a mess, and Han Jaekyung needed someone to blame. Really, anyone at all.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
