•honey• || KookMin

33. Exposed suffering

"Dad...?"

Mr. Park rushes to the gurney and a broken smile emerges. Jimin barely gets a good look at him. The man grabs her head and kisses her forehead. He calls the nurse by touching the button and speaks to the lost dancer who doesn't even understand where she is.

"AH! YOU DID IT! YES YOU DID!" shrieks Hosook with a red face and sudden crying. "MINIE! MY BONITA! I'll let Tae know!" she announces running outside with cell phone in hand.

"Daddy what's wrong?" she asks congested. Her voice hoarse and low. "I... I don't remember here.... I remember..."

"Easy, easy."

She takes a very deep, labored breath, the thoughts causing stitches in her head and pain in areas that have already healed. The nurse leaves after her checkup, promising to bring the doctor in charge of her soon. Jimin gives choked moans and Mr. Park hugs her.

"It's okay. Nothing else is going to happen to you sweetie."

Jimin sobs and her dad pats her back, drowning out the frightened, pained cry of the girl who lost too much weight in just two and a half weeks of being in a coma. He gives her kisses on her head, Hosook returns and helps soothe her.

~ * * * ~

Jeonggoo sinks her hands inside her sweater. The rain is awful and again, she has no umbrella. Jimin's parents' car leaves and Jeonggoo approaches the house. Jeonggoo knocks on the door and waits. She knows Jimin got out of the hospital a couple of days ago. Jeonggoo had been hovering around to find out and it gave her great relief and joy that she was finally okay. The door slowly opens, the teenager peeking out from the small opening. Jeonggoo smiles shyly at her.

"Hello."

There is no reply.

"I wanted to talk to you. To know if you're okay... Maybe... Well, the rain wouldn't let you walk anywhere, but... that." Jeonggoo doesn't know what to say to him. It's strange. Jimin watches her in such a distant and cold way.

"I want you to leave." says Jimin. Jeonggoo stops her from closing the door.

"What happened... I didn't want-I didn't think it could happen."

"You're in Bangtan."

"Yes, but-"

"Get out of here."

"Please listen to me!"

"What do you want me to listen to you!" demands Jimin sharply.

Jeonggoo remains silent. Jimin still has many bandages, she looks thin, haggard and weak. The giant and almost ugly clothes that helps to cover her body even with bandages. What strikes Jeonggoo the most is that her healthy face has a difference: her left eye is swollen. It makes her eyelid look somewhat droopy. Irritated, exhausted and at the limit of what she herself can bear.

"What's their fault, that you had nothing to do with it, that you were going to protect me? I'm sick of you, of your excuses for everything" she confesses in a broken, tearful voice. Jeonggoo's ears are blocked and she can only hear her voice. Not the rain, cars, the very dripping of her hair and clothes. "I'm... I'm tired of making excuses for you. That's all I've done and I can't anymore."

She sniffles and looks up for a moment.

"Tae told me, my parents told me, my own common sense told me, but I always defended you wanting to believe I was important to you and" Jimin drops her arms. "I'm not."

"You are. Too much. I know this is wrong and complicated, but you're-"

"The stupid girl who thought she could help you realize what a shitty life you have Worst of all? You ended up ruining mine...or I did it all by myself," she says, lowering her head. "I'm leaving. I don't care to hear from you. Fuck you however you feel like it, let them beat you to death or whatever; I don't know why I had to take interest in a stranger beaten up in the corner."