Blaze

The Go-Betweens

The exhaustion overlaying her expression had darkened the bags around her eyes. The tone on her face surrounding her like a shadow was of utter misery. To him, she'd never looked so weak before. At once he missed the eager annoyance she'd express when coming across him. Right now she didn't even look like she could scream at him.

He hated it. Yet, he wanted so much to comfort her.

"Don't come near me," a breath shakily eased out of her throat when he took a step toward her. Underneath the warning he heard something else, resentment.

"Nam..." he tried.

"Get out!" Namjoo screamed, curling her hands up into fists, even shutting her eyes to call up the energy. "I said get out! Get out!"

It pained his wretched soul to hear her screaming at him so angrily, so dishearteningly. Yet, he still wanted to hold her. His mind refused to budge, gluing his feet like a fool to the ground.

"I said get out!" Namjoo raised her voice to an even higher level, her frail body trembling as she cried.

The pillow she flung out hit him along with the plastic cup for water on the bedside table.

"Get out! Get out! Get out!"

She must hate him to the point where she wished he didn't exist. To know so hurt him to a greater level. He hadn't meant for things to turn out like this. Even though he cared for her she would never accept his feelings now. The door had closed on him.

His eyes shut when Namjoo flung the hospital phone toward him. And he thought he might as well deserve her wrath.

The door abruptly opened behind him and he heard Suho gasp before running inside with a water bottle he'd received from one of the nurses.

"Make him leave Suho. Tell him to get out," Namjoo cried when Suho tried to get her to lay down.

The way in which her face bitterly contorted up struck his heart with another hammer.

"Ok, ok," Suho repeatedly nodded before turning his way. "I think you should go."

When Kris glanced back at Suho he didn't think he'd ever felt so helpless before.

~_____~

Suho started picking up the thrown items on the ground when Kris finally left.

"You might open up the stitches if you move too much," Suho spoke as he straightened up. "Next time just scream and yell and maybe choke him in your head."

He hoped to make Namjoo laugh, but upon turning around found her quietly sitting like earlier. Trying not to sigh he replaced the phone and cup before placing the pillow onto the bed. His heart really went out to her. As a friend and colleague, he'd never heard Namjoo talk about wanting a family of her own. Perhaps her own disposition from her family had made her that way, but he wondered if she had wanted to keep the baby she lost.

Quietly sitting down on the bed he peered at the tears still spilling down her cheeks. Had she hated Kris that much?

"Are you ok?" He gently questioned.

There was a mental debate about whether to mention Kris or not. The last thing he wanted to do was make her even more angry. If she bottled up all her negative emotions she probably would never get better from this. He'd hate to see her go through what he had when he'd accidentally pulled the trigger on his friend, keeping to himself and meeting up with a psychiatrist every week. That image didn't suit her, it didn't suit anyone.

"He just wanted to see how you were doing," Suho explained. "He cares about you, you know?"

Namjoo's lips immediately grew downward and she started crying harder as if he'd just broken unwanted news to her.