Need You

Love is messy.

It isn't something you can hold, or touch, or feel on your skin. It was just something you knew was there, hidden behind your heart, growing slowly as time progressed. You know what they say. If someone gives you an inch, you take a mile. Or in Shin-ae's case, when someone gives you a mile, you take an inch. Because she wasn't used to love. She wasn't used to being valued in that tender way by anyone other than her father.

Then he came along. With his stupid smile, and his pretty green eyes, and his fiery red hair. He was perfect. One of those people who's kind for no reason, just because they can be, because they have that ability to give and give and give and ask for nothing in return. Shin-ae hated that she loved that so much.

Despite how much she built up her walls and blocked everything out, he somehow completely disarmed her with that silly grin. It was infuriating. And at the same time, the warmth he radiated was welcomed in the dark little corner of the world she'd sectioned off for herself. No matter how hard she tried to block it out.

It didn't matter how long she stayed awake at night wondering why. It didn't change anything. It didn't change that, in spite of the fact that she promised herself that she wouldn't let anyone in, he somehow did exactly that all on his own. It was like her carefully built defenses had never even existed at all.

And she loved it as much she hated it. That she'd let someone into her closed off heart after such a short time.

And love was something that she felt for Yeong-Gi.

And that night, after everything that had happened, as she sat in her father's room, her phone rang. She tugged her jacket more tightly around herself, but withdrew her phone from her pocket.

It was Yeong-Gi. At least it wasn't his brother, the one who forced her to accept a ride. She waited for a second as "Yeong-Gi Stalker" flashed across the screen before pressing the "yes" button to accept the call.

"Hello?" She said. Her own voice surprised her. It was stretched thin with exhaustion, and she closed her eyes, pinching at the bridge of her nose.

"We need to talk face to face."

He sounded tired, too. Shin-ae's eyes popped open at his implication, and she chewed her lip. "Now?"

"Preferably. I'm sorry, Shin-ae, I need you to know something and it would be meaningless for me to do it over the phone."

"Um... okay."

Silence. Dread welled in the pit of her stomach.

"I don't want to make you... leave wherever you are, so I'll come to you. Where are you?"

"I'll find another time to talk to—"

"No. Shin-ae, it needs to be soon."

"City Medical Center," she said quietly, his determination surprising her. As much as she wanted to avoid pity, Shin-ae also didn't want to leave her father. "Room 107."

"Another hospital? Why? Is it your head? Were you not treated well enough?"

"No. It... it isn't me," she looked to the motionless figure of her father on the bed, and tore her gaze away, "just come and tell me whatever you need to tell me."

Before he could say anything else, she hung up, burying her face in her hands. Why she'd just told him, she didn't know. But the urgency in his voice was enough to peak her curiosity. She did wonder what he had to say so badly. And she knew he wouldn't go around spreading that her father was in the hospital, giving her one of his few serious looks paired with the phrase; "you have my word."