Bring It On! - Chapter 80

Chapter 80.

I don’t know how I even made it to the hospital. From the moment I got the call, a ringing filled my ears and my vision was nothing but a blur. It felt as though I’d been struck on the head with something heavy. 

An overwhelming shock clung to me all the way here. I rushed blindly across the hospital lobby, always packed with people. I could feel faces scrunching in irritation as they brushed past me, but I didn’t have the presence of mind to care.

—“We’ll need to schedule surgery.”

The nurse, who had been explaining Suho’s earlier examination results, suddenly brought up surgery. For a moment, my mind went blank.

—“Guardian?” 

She called, and I tightened my grip on my phone, asking again,

“Surgery… what do you mean?”

—“We’ll have to put in an artificial heart.”

The moment I heard I needed to come to the hospital right away, I ran without a second thought. All through the doctor’s explanation, I could barely stay composed. My hands and feet grew colder and colder, my mouth parched.

Suho had been born with a congenital heart defect. Before I met him, back when he was little, he’d had to undergo repeated surgeries to insert a conduit into his heart. 

When the doctor asked if I hadn’t known, I couldn’t say anything. Seeing the doctor’s gaze chill with surprise made me shrink into myself. Even so, he continued his explanation without pause.

The gist was this. Because Suho had gone without treatment for so long, and because of malnutrition, his heart had weakened even further. 

After opening his chest, they would implant an artificial heart and if his condition still didn’t improve, they’d have to start looking for a donor heart for transplant.

Every word that came out of the doctor’s dry voice felt like a bolt of lightning from a clear sky. To someone ignorant of medicine like me, it was unbearably heavy, terrifying. If it was this crushing for me as an adult, how could Suho, so much smaller and younger than me, possibly endure such a major surgery?

All the way up to Suho’s hospital room, my chest felt knotted, like I had indigestion. I pounded at it, but it only made breathing harder.

“…What have I been doing.”

The guilt pressed down on me as though to smother me.

I was utterly ashamed of how I’d put off the person who needed me most, chasing after Cha Yoon instead, wasting myself.

Obsessed with getting Jay back, I’d shoved Suho aside. What madness had that been? I had completely forgotten the reason Suho still hadn’t been discharged, thinking only of Jay. Only Jay.

“Ha…”

I had never found myself so wretched, so pathetic, as I did today.

“The headaches must have been severe, and breathing wasn’t easy either. Even adults struggle with that, so how did a child endure it….”

The doctor’s words circled my ears, tearing me apart. I was too worthless to even face Suho. I squeezed my tear-blurred eyes shut, then opened them again.

With trembling hands, I opened the hospital room door. Suho, absorbed in his tablet PC, glanced up briefly at me.

“Noona, wait a sec!”

His glossy black eyes flicked back down to the screen. Lips pursed in concentration, he looked like any other nine-year-old boy lost in his game. If I had paid just a little more attention, maybe we could have avoided surgery. 

If I’d insisted on more tests or even earlier, back on the deserted island, if I had made sure he ate properly, wouldn’t things have turned out differently? Regret after regret piled up inside me.

With a heavy heart, I stepped closer. As I reached his bedside, Suho dropped his tablet with a thud.

“What the heck!”

He suddenly shouted and pinched his nose.

“Noona, you stink!”

“…Huh?”

“You came from hyung’s place without washing?”

Embarrassed, I stumbled back. If even Suho, who had been hardened to smells on the deserted island, was recoiling this badly, then I could imagine what a mess I must have been.

When Suho pointed at the bathroom door, I bolted inside as if to escape.

“……”

Only after standing in front of the mirror did I realize what a state I was in. I had thrown on clothes still damp and half-dried, looking no better than a vagrant. 

My sweat-soaked hair was tied up messily, my face was swollen, and for some reason, bite marks were visible above the stretched collar of my T-shirt.

Was someone like this even allowed to walk around in broad daylight? No wonder. The taxi driver had kept clicking his tongue, glaring at me through the rearview mirror, and people had avoided me. 

It was all starting to make sense. The doctor’s constant frown while explaining things hadn’t been because of my indifference… most likely, it had been because of my shabby appearance.

I hurriedly turned on the water.

As the cold stream poured over me from head to toe, the fog that had dulled my mind finally cleared.

***

Self-reproach, regret, and remorse could wait. Now it was time to face reality.

The most important thing was Suho’s treatment. Strictly speaking, Suho and I were complete strangers, with no blood ties. 

His parents had long been out of contact, and since his older brother had passed away, my number had been listed as guardian, but a mere contact number didn’t necessarily grant all the rights of a legal guardian.

I couldn’t be sure I was qualified to sign a surgical consent form. Even if a problem arose, I could sign as a legal custodian, which wasn’t overly complicated to arrange. 

So I immediately set things in motion. First, I asked the administration office about the surgery costs. But the reply that came back was….

“The entire surgery fee for patient Lee Suho has already been paid.”

“…Sorry, what?”

“It’s all settled under the name Cha Yoon.”

The surgery cost was 23 million won, and I hadn’t paid a single penny. What’s more, without my knowledge, I had already been designated as Suho’s guardian. When I spoke with the doctor about the surgery and signed the consent form, everything went smoothly without issue.

I couldn’t help but think of Cha Yoon.

Even now, my phone kept buzzing nonstop. There was only one person who would be calling me. Cha Yoon.

I bit my lower lip hard before finally answering.

“Darling…”

—“Isn’t it a bit too soon to be calling me ‘darling’ or ‘honey’ just because we slept together once?”

I pulled the phone away and rubbed my ear. It was hard to adjust to his ridiculous words, thrown at me as though he’d been waiting for this chance.

—“Sun Woori.”

“…Yeah. I’m at the hospital.”

—“Good girl. Answering before I even asked.”

He didn’t sound the least bit surprised. True, I had nowhere else to go besides his place or the hospital, but the way he spoke made it sound like he already had my every move figured out.

“Why did you call? You tried more than twenty times, I saw.”

I thought you were crazy. When I added that, I heard a faint chuckle of breath from him.

—“If you hadn’t answered this time, I was about to drag you back.”

“Why would you drag me? You already know why I’m at the hospital.”

—“Come home. Someone lost sleep because a certain someone suddenly disappeared.”

“……”

—“I sent a car. Take it and come back.”

I didn’t answer. The old me would have gone straight back without question, but not now. I had someone here at the hospital who needed me, and the one calling wasn’t Jay. 

It was Cha Yoon. But ignoring him completely wasn’t an option either. After all, he was the one paying all of Suho’s hospital bills.

“I’ll come at ten.”

—“…What?”

I hung up before he could say more. The Woori who used to rush back at his beck and call, who used to anxiously obey his dictated schedules, was gone.

***

I spent time with Suho at the arcade and ate dinner with him. Park Jong-hoo hovered around me like a restless shadow, muttering, “You should head home now. I’ll stay with Suho,” dropping hints. 

But I smiled to the end and brushed off his forced kindness with a light, “It’s fine.”

Only after Suho had fallen asleep did I finally leave the hospital. While riding the elevator down, the hair tie holding my hair snapped with a sharp snap. 

I picked it up off the floor, staring at it for a moment, then impulsively headed straight for a hair salon.

“Please cut it short.”

“Your hair is in such good condition. Don’t you think it’s a waste?”

“It’s fine.”