Second Overtime | JENSOO & CHAELISA

Chapter XLVII

Jennie fell asleep with her face turned toward the window, the glass casting shadows across her cheek. Her brows stayed drawn together even in unconsciousness, a faint crease between them that spoke of dreams she couldn't escape. Her fingers remained curled around the edge of the blanket, gripping the thin cotton as if even sleep required vigilance, as if letting go might mean falling somewhere she couldn't climb back from.

But her breathing evened out. The monitor stopped its anxious staccato and settled into a slower, steadier rhythm, the kind the nurses liked to see. The kind that meant her body was finally, reluctantly, allowing itself to rest.

Jiyong stayed in the visitor's chair, afraid that if he moved too quickly, the fragile peace of Jennie's sleep would shatter, and she would wake to find him here, and she would remember that he had never stayed before.

He watched his daughter sleep. He had watched her sleep when she was an infant many years ago, in a different lifetime, when fatherhood had felt simple enough to fit in the palm of his hand. Back then, watching had felt like protection. Standing guard over something precious and helpless, keeping the dark at bay with nothing but his presence. Now watching felt like cataloguing evidence at a crime scene he had arrived at seventeen years too late.

The bruise on her cheek had darkened since he'd first seen it, the red deepening into something that would probably be purple by morning. It spread along her cheekbone in a mottled bloom, stark against the pallor of her skin, and Jiyong looked at it until his vision blurred. 

Near the foot of the bed, Ms. Jung checked her phone. The movement was small, a quick glance at the screen, her thumb pausing mid-scroll, but Jiyong had spent his life reading the tiny tells that preceded bad news. Ms. Jung's expression shifted by a fraction, her jaw tightening almost imperceptibly before she slid the phone back into her pocket.

"Mr. Kim," she said, her voice pitched low enough not to wake Jennie. "May I speak with you outside for a moment?"

Every muscle in Jiyong's body resisted. "I just told her I wouldn't leave."

"She's asleep. Nurse Park will remain at the door. Security is still posted outside." Ms. Jung's voice was gentle but firm. "I'm not asking you to go far. Just outside the door."

Jiyong looked at Jennie. Her lashes lay dark against her skin. The IV tape pulled slightly when her fingers twitched in her sleep, a small, reflexive movement that made his chest ache. "I'll be right outside," he murmured, though she couldn't hear him. "I'll be right back. I promise."

He rose carefully, the chair giving a soft scrape against the linoleum. Jennie's face tightened at the sound, and Jiyong froze. She didn't wake. After a long moment, her expression smoothed again, her grip on the blanket loosening by a fraction.

The hallway was colder than the room, the fluorescent lights harsher, the air thinner. Everything looked unfinished under that clinical glow: the waxed floor reflecting pale rectangles of light, the beige walls stretching toward the nurses' station, the guard standing near Jennie's door with his hands clasped in front of him. Ms. Jung pulled the door until it was mostly closed, leaving just enough space to see the line of Jennie's bed through the gap.

"What is it?" Jiyong asked.

Before Ms. Jung could answer, footsteps approached from the far end of the corridor. An older man in a grey suit was walking toward them with two hospital staff members trailing behind him like ducklings. He carried a tablet under one arm and wore a visitor's smile that did not belong anywhere near a hospital at two-thirty in the morning. It was too polished. Too practiced. The smile of a man who had been sent to manage something inconvenient.