SECRETS | 2YEON

Never Forget Who You Are

Nights were eerily quiet on the hill Nayeon's mansion was built. While, in the mornings the sound of birds and other small animals from outside would echo throughout the inside of the mansion, at night suddenly everything fell quiet. Once the sun retired for the day, and the moon came out to play, it felt as if we were in a bubble, where nothing from the outside could ever reach us. No sounds ever sounded at night, only Nayeon's soft snore, as she laid beside me. It was a big contrast to my previous apartment, that laid over one of the busiest roads of Seoul.

I had gotten so used to things being so quiet like this, that when my phone suddenly rang in the middle of the night, I physically flinched. Outside was dark, and I had no idea what time it was, as my phone desperately vibrated against the nightstand.

"Shit, fuck." I mumbled, scrambling to reach the device before the noise woke Nayeon up. Still half-awake, I swiped to take the call without caring to look who was calling me this late, though my limbs trembled slightly. When I actively worked as a detective, I was used to taking late night calls, but it had been so long that I had been awoken by a call like that, and I almost got spooked. Despite all that, I took a breather, and with a raspy voice I spoke into the phone. "Hello?"

From the other side of the line, chaos erupted. As soon as I swiped my fingers, and the call connected, all I could hear was a mixture of screams, cries, and the distant sound of some sort of alarm, or a siren, perhaps. It took a second for the person calling me to utter a word, and the moment they did, my limbs began trembling again.

"Jeong, it's me." my oldest sister's voice sounded, and she sobbed uncontrollably for a moment or two. "You need to hurry home. Something's wrong with dad!"

Without hesitation, or ever notifying Nayeon, I jumped up from the bed. In no time, I was behind the wheel of some expensive car from my partner's collections, and on my way to Suwon; my birthplace. Yoo Jeongyeon's birthplace. I had driven the roads back to my hometown from Seoul so many times, that I knew, if I stepped on the gas enough, I could be at my parents' house in forty minutes. Though, a second phone call from my sister was enough to inform me that I would in fact not need to drive all the way to Suwon, but to a hospital around twenty minutes away. I could not, for the life of me, ever tell you how those minutes passed, or how I even got to the hospital, parked my car, and entered the building.

The only thing I remember was running through the halls of the hospital in my white velvet pajamas, disoriented by the groans and cries of the injured and their families. The faces of the nurses who tried to help me were blurry, and their words sounded muffled in my ears. I'm still not exactly sure how I was able to locate my family, that was gathered outside the hybrid room, in shock.

"What happened? What's going on?!" I asked, hyperventilating, while my mother hid her face in the embrace of my sisters. None of them spoke, but my mother sobbed in a way I had never heard someone sob before, not even the families of the deceased people in a morgue, getting questioned about their dead loved one. Maybe it was because it was my mother that was crying, but I had never felt so sick to my stomach before by the sound of a cry. I had never been this sick by the distinct smell of a hospital. All I could think of was crawling up into a ball, or tipping over and puking all over the floor. And I had yet to see what was happening into the hybrid room.

Inside, a team of four doctors assisted my father, who was laid on his back. His eyes were opened, though he barely seemed to be aware of his surroundings. His arms slid off the hospital bed and just hung there, IV lines supplying him with fluids and blood. The sight of his blood dripping copiously onto the hospital floor made me feel like I could almost taste it. Though, despite my strong emotions, I had yet to see what had happened to him. The team of doctors that were assisting him were placed in such a way, that I could barely see what was happening. One of them had even gotten up on the bed, legs propped by my father's sides.

The doctors looked distressed, and as the time passed, more and more people crowded the room. Different types of doctors, nurses with bags of blood, students, too, were gathered around to take a look. Everyone was looking, everyone knew what was going on except from me.

At that moment, I realized; Wow, everyone knows what's going on apart from me. Everyone is moving forward, living their lives, apart from me. I had failed to even care about my family up until this point, being with Nayeon became my only priority, and Ι quickly lost track of what's important. I had lost track of what's real and what's not, and what could even become real. Falling in love with a suspected criminal, and living my life as someone who doesn't even exist, isn't something that could ever become real; Bang's personality is just a show, a novel created by underpaid detectives and tired specialists. Loosing my life over this... it should've never became real. I shouldn't have let it happen.

Was I late? Was my father fighting for his life on a hospital bed the way of the universe to punish me for my ungratefulness? How bad must have I fucked up to only be brought to my sense by my dying father?

Somehow, I had stumbled into the hybrid room. In my confused state, dazed and delirious, I found myself squeezed between the doctors, who seemed anxious and confused. From the way they began scattering around, returning to their previously assigned tasks, I could tell that there was not much more they could do. And my father was just laying there, eyes barely open, oxygen mask over his mouth, while his chest struggled to expand. He was helpless, his blood pouring copiously over the hybrid room's floors, as the doctors looked between him and me with pathetic expressions on their faces.

"Daddy." I muttered, but he couldn't speak a word.

The doctor that stood over his head tried to get my attention and speak to me, push me away, so that the remaining doctors could continue saving my father's life, to no avail. I knew they had given up, I knew there was nothing they could do, so I didn't move an inch. They wouldn't help him, just let him bleed out, after some reckless drives had somehow completely run him over, outside our family's restaurant, and left him there.

"Talk to me," I tried again, and again. The machines hooked to him beeped so loudly, that I could almost feel them vibrating inside my chest. "Say something, anything."

His hand, that was hanging off the bed, slowly inched towards mine, struggling to grab it. My father's eyes were shuttering close, but he used the rest of his strength to just squeeze my hand one last time. Outside the hybrid room, nurses rushed to help my mother off the ground, while my sisters continued sobbing, too weak to join me on our father's last moments.

"Never forget who you are," he whispered, breathlessly. Never in my life had I seen him this powerless, this pale, this tired, this...ugly. The sight right before my eyes was so disgustingly ugly, that I could feel my insides twisting and turning. I needed to throw up, cough up all this ugliness and spit it out onto the already stained by blood floor. "Yoo Jeongyeon. My daughter."

The machines beeped frantically and the hands of a surprisingly strong nurse, pushed me away, throwing me on the ground, and on my father's blood puddles. The doctors began CPR, sweating, huffing, and puffing, to bring my father back again. But nothing could ever bring him back.

And I was forced to watch, stained by my own father's blood, as I remained on the floor. At that moment, when the machines stopped beeping, and all the cords that had been hooked into my father were removed, everything turned black. All I could hear was his voice. I couldn't see him or feel him, just listen to him.  Listen to his breathless whisper, his desperate calling for me to get some fucking sense into my big ass head.

"Never forget who you are."

How could I have let this happen?

"Yoo Jeongyeon."

How could I have been this careless and ruined everything?

"My daughter."

Why was I so late to realize? No police case should ever have me losing myself. Ever.

I'm Yoo Jeongyeon. This is who I am. A pathetic detective, who was so cocky that let a suspected criminal take control over her life. A pathetic daughter, that only returned home because her father was dying. A pathetic human being, who pushed everyone away and gaslit herself into living a fake life, as a fake person, because she was too weak and fell for a killer.

I'm flawed. I fucked up.

But, I'm Yoo Jeongyeon, nevertheless.