Falling For The Park Brothers' Sister ⚊ Nishimura Riki

Chapter Fifty Five

Jay's Point Of View

Jiyoo's room still smells like her.

It's faint—just traces of her usual shampoo, the subtle scent of laundry detergent mixed with something distinctly hers. Sunghoon and I had been in here for the past hour, quietly gathering things she might need when she wakes up.

She'd complain, I know she would. She'd hate that we were touching her stuff, messing with the order of her things. But she wasn't here to stop us.

Sunghoon folds one of her oversized hoodies, pressing his lips into a thin line. "She's gonna be mad if she sees we touched this."

I huff a quiet laugh, but it doesn't reach my chest. "Yeah, well, she can yell at us when she wakes up."

She will wake up.

She has to.

I reach for a small bag and start placing some of her things inside—her hoodie, a pair of socks, her lip balm she always forgets but somehow freaks out over when it's missing. These little things, they matter. They make it feel like she's just away for a little while. Like she's going to come back.

I don't know who we're trying to convince. Ourselves, probably.

Sunghoon is quieter than usual, his movements slow, careful, like he's afraid if he moves too fast, he'll have to acknowledge why we're doing this in the first place.

Then my phone rings.

It's shrill in the silence, and I don't know why, but my stomach drops.

I pull it out quickly, glancing at the caller ID. An unknown number. But I already know who it is.

I answer on the second ring. "Hello?"

The voice on the other end is calm—too calm. A nurse.

And then—

"She's in critical condition. We need you to come now."

The bag falls from my hands.

Sunghoon looks up, eyes immediately locking onto mine. "Jay?"

I can't speak.

The words choke in my throat because saying it out loud would make it real.

But I don't have to. He sees it in my face. The way his breath stutters, the way he stands up too fast, hands clenching at his sides—I don't have to say anything.

We don't think. We just move.

We're out the door in seconds, running down the stairs, barely remembering to grab our jackets before we're in the car. I don't even know who's driving. Maybe it's me. Maybe it's Sunghoon. It doesn't matter.

The hospital isn't far, but it feels like the longest drive of my life.

And then we're there.

We don't walk—we run. Through the front doors, down the halls, past the nurses who call out for us to slow down, but we can't.

We have to get to her.

Then I hear it.

A flatline.

Sunghoon stops dead in his tracks.

My blood turns ice cold.

It's loud, too loud, that horrible, drawn-out beep filling every corner of my brain. The sound slams into me, and suddenly, it's hard to breathe.