04 — WHO ARE YOU, REALLY?

perhaps the truth's just too overwhelming for the both of them.

—

"would it be a huge burden for you if we decide to transfer hospitals?"

it's clear that dongwook was running out of lies to tell to the student's parents, especially now when he's trying to encourage eunsang's parents to transfer hospitals when it's clearly obvious that asan is the best reviewed hospital within the region. daniel sits beside him to help him form the words, as they tried to keep the conversation as comfortable as possible.

"why, is there a problem there at asan?" eunsang's mother asks gently in the other line of the phone, though from the sounds of his voice it's clear that she has been crying.

"uh yeah, they said that they ran out of rooms to stay," dongwook states a plausible reason, and he wasn't lying because all of the vip rooms were actually already occupied. "the standard rooms which are shared among 4 patients are left, and i don't think it'll be a good idea to have eunsang to stay there anyway."

"we'll be fine with the standard rooms, honestly." his mother replies. "in fact, we actually planned on booking the standard room instead of the private ones. in this state it's obvious that our son will take a long time recovering, and unfortunately we won't be able to pay the expenses if we choose the luxurious rooms."

"that's why we encourage you to transfer hospitals, ma'am." dongwook strikes again with his voice worth to be used for a voiceover in a radio advertisement. "we are planning to move your son into ilnam hospital which is not too far from here, and we guarantee to pay all of the expenses  at full price, you won't need to worry about your son's recovery."

eunsang's mother sounds rather psyched. "you'll be paying for all of it..?"

"yes. we feel responsible for your son's sudden unconsciousness so this is the least that we could do to help."

".. are you sure this is a part of the school's insurance? i mean, i'm truly grateful of your help.. but don't you think this is way out of the line? words can barely express how much we're grateful to have our son enrolled in your school. thank you, dongwook-ssi."

dongwook smiles in satisfaction. i got her. "no, thank you for your overwhelming trust, ma'am. we'll set up the transfer date for tomorrow morning, so don't worry. eunsang will be staying here for the night."

"his father and i could still visit him now, right?"

"he's currently held in quarantine in the icu, but he'll be released this evening. perhaps you could see him by then."

and just like that, their attempt of transferring eunsang to a different hospital that's not owned by daniel's dad was finally successful. thrilled by the results, daniel immediately tips off the amount of money needed to accommodate eunsang to dongwook, the guy who's gonna use the money 'in the name of the school' (when in reality, it's just bits of the surplus daniel got from his company).

dongwook commanded for all of the students to return back to school because they already have the situation well under control. most of them hesitated on leaving, hurdling over mixed arguments like 'i want to be here to make sure eunsang's alright' and to the ones like 'it's better to go home now, my sole purpose was only to skip school', but at the end they all obeyed to his words and left the site, letting the adults do the rest for once. seungwoo and wooseok decide to be the one to take care of the hospital transfer issues, whereas seungyoun decided to stay at the current hospital to be the one to look after eunsang as he undergoes his temporary treatment. to this point it just seems like he wasn't going to let his attention shift away from eunsang any sooner, because to him right now he is his main priority, and unless he suddenly wakes up and returns back to his old self again, seungyoun will never try to stop protecting him.

so he stayed at the hospital alongside with daniel, who looked like he already had his attention torn apart because of a bunch of love calls from work. because of his busyness, seungyoun ends up sitting alone in the waiting room, his eyes staring at the bleeping, red icu sign that could hurt his eyes if he stared at it too much. previously it was daniel's turn to look after eunsang as seungyoun went out to grab lunch for himself, but now it's seungyoun's turn, and he already felt the loneliness creeping in only moments after.

daniel told him that eunsang's parents had already entered the icu room the time he was on shift, but the both of them haven't gotten out even until now. seungyoun was starting to think that they were doing something else other than mourning for their child, but his overthinking immediately withered away once he catches the sight of the door bursting open, startling him to pieces.

the man and the woman who looked most likely to be eunsang's parents because of their visible similarities were arguing at ease, with their voices both loud enough to wake up the whole hospital. the man took his steps aggressively, his hands both wrapped tightly in a fist. "it's your fault that you enrolled eunsang at that horrid school in the first place."

the woman turns her head to him, looking rather quite offended. "oh, so you're blaming me now?!"

"this is the second time it happened this week, our kid getting rushed into the hospital. thankfully he woke up immediately the first time, but he barely survived in this one, god knows what'll happen on his third try?"

"still, i don't see the school as a recurring factor to all of this,"

"not to mention his trackrecord; honey, do you really think i didn't know about all of the reports of our son skipping classes? do you really think that you could hide something so important from me?" the man sighs. "this is the result of bad influence, i'm sure of it. i don't know why it's all so troubling for him, his sister seems to be coping with her chosen environment very well."

"well maybe he isn't like his sister, maybe he has his own ways of coping with life." the woman snaps. "you can't expect your children to be perfect all the time, just like how i shouldn't be expecting everything from you. eunsang, he looks certainly different after he moved here, his responses were different that when he was in any other places. he has friends, friends who care for him."

she pauses to take a breath. "he's happy. happier than he's ever been before. isn't that the most important thing? to ensure happiness to your child?"

the man takes a deep breath, genuinely confused as to how he's going to answer this particular question. as his eyes trails over his surroundings, he finally catches the sight of seungyoun sitting on the chair across him. the latter looked like he had been trying to avoid eye contact, but judging from the distance they were with each other, it's obvious that he was able to eavesdrop the most of their conversation earlier.

bolted by the sudden glance, seungyoun immediate turns away, hoping that the man and the woman don't start with any false assumptions. his wish however did not reflect the actual reality, because the next thing he knows the father was already on his way towards him, his breaths hitched and sturdy.

"y-you!" the man points at him, his voice stuttering relentlessly.

seungyoun's eyes widen in shock. wait, he's talking to me?

"how dare you?! after all the things i've done for you, you decided to come to my son instead.." he sobs. "i did everything that your father said, was it always never enough? why can't you just let me live in peace?" he turns to his wife. "see? i told you that the school's the problem. just see what we got here!"

the woman pulls him over in the hopes to shut him up. "stop it, this is unnecessary."

"i told you, but you just never listen! because of you, our poor child's life is on the risk, as he's barely coping. because of you—" he points at seungyoun again, "whatever plan you have on my family, stop it. i've done everything i've been told and i've tried my best to stay away from you and your company, and this is how you  return the good deed? by sabotaging the life of my own child-"

the woman slaps him on his cheek. he winces. seungyoun was only able to stare at the both of them cluelessly.

"get yourself together, will you?" she snarls furiously. "do you really plan on losing your job again because of your atrocious temper?"

"what are you so scared of? his father is not even my boss anymore." he sneers. "i'm not scared of him, he doesn't have anything to be put against me anymore."

"think again, genius. he has close relations with your current boss." she emphasizes the word 'boss', hoping that the specific word could finally punch the latter in the guts. "what do you think will daniel do if he discovers that you screamed the hell out of his business partner?"

"were you referring to me?"

they were stopped by the sudden interruption that wasn't from someone within them. daniel enters the scene casually, his eyes shifting their way towards the two new individuals he was actually unfamiliar of. he clears his throat. "i'm sorry, but i'm not sure if i know who you are— ah, you're eunsang's parents, are you?"

"we're no one!" the woman exclaims as she slowly backs away, bringing his husband alongside with her. "i mean.. yes, we're eunsang's parents." she rigidly clears her throat. "it's been nice talking to you, seungyoun-ssi... we'll get going now."

the two leave the scene before daniel could even ask them of what happened. daniel turns to seungyoun who clearly looked very affected by what happened when there was no him. ".. what did those assholes do to you?" he asks earnestly.

"daniel,"

"hm?"

"please tell me," he turns to the other boy, his eyes watery. "tell me what happened afterwards."

"after you ran away?"

he nods.

daniel sighs. "you might not like what i'm about to tell you."

—

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