A Day Without You

Point Of No Return

We had had a tip about a stolen vehicle which belonged to a dealer. He was caught but no matter how much we questioned him, he kept saying he didn’t know where his car went. Of course we didn’t believe him back then because we had no reason to. His car contained all the money he had from selling drugs over the course of a month. We needed to find the money in order to get a hold of the buyers but it took us a while to find the car.

I kept my touch with hyung as usual but we never spoke about the guys again. I knew that he hadn’t told Shinwon anything about our encounter and so, it kind of ended there… for then. It only started getting worse from right after. It had been weeks since we had met the guy and I guess… it was time to see him again. I was working late, as usual and I suddenly got a phone call from hyung. It didn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary but when I heard his voice, I knew something awful had happened. His voice kept shaking throughout the time he spoke and when came to the point, I could hear he had lost it.

“He’s not opening his eyes Hongseokaa… he’s not-“

He wasn’t speaking clearly at all but I understood the gravity of it. I asked him quickly “Tell me the name of the hospital you guys are going to” and I didn’t waste much time after that. They were in a different district so I knew it’d take a while for me to get there. I drove as fast as I could and when I reached the hospital, I saw both hyung and Hwitaek-shi sitting in front of the OT, all bloodied up and both of them were shaking. Hwitaek had his head down between his hands and sunbae kept looking at the red light above the door. All I could do was call out to him saying, “Sunbae” and that was when he realized I was standing behind him. The other guy didn’t even move at my voice. I didn’t know exactly what had happened but I knew that him being involved in this meant no good. I was quite mad at him at that moment. Hyung was in no condition to be sitting there as well and he was the only person there I could blame. I ended up saying, “What did you do you piece of sh-“, in a very angry voice before hyung stopped me midway saying, “It’s not his fault… leave him be” and all I could do was look keep looking at hyung. “How was this not his fault”, I wondered to myself but I couldn’t find the answer till later on. The light suddenly turned green a few minutes after and hyung almost leaped up from his seat. I could see Hwitaek take his face out from his hands and look at the door before finally getting up himself.

He looked like hell.

He was in a worse position than hyung.“How is he even standing…”, that’s the first thing that came to my mind. He didn’t look like he was in any position to be even sitting there. My attention diverted from him when the doctor came out of the OT door. What she said was, “He had been beaten up pretty badly. He lost a lot of blood. We’ll keep him under surveillance tonight… he has to make it through tonight otherwise things can get more critical” and none of us could even move afterwards. I could see hyung’s face getting distorted and I couldn’t imagine how he was feeling back then. He kept holding on to me in order to stand straight… and I couldn’t even speak. But when the both of us heard a loud thud right behind us, we came back to our senses. When I turned around, I saw the guy on the floor. I let go of hyung to go to him but he wasn’t opening his eyes even when I moved his shoulders. I tried waking him up but it was no use. “Hyung”, I said turning around to look at him and his reply was obviously “Take him, I’ll be fine” and I carried him on my back before basically making a run for it. I asked a nurse midway to ask where to go and she pointed me to the emergency room. The doctor asked, “How long has it been since he’s like this?” to which I answered, “He’s been in this condition for more than hour I think but he fainted just now” and I could see the doctor getting quite irritated at my words and hurrying even more than he was before. “Get him in” was all he said before they left with him on the bed. I went back to hyung afterwards to help him out with what he needed.