𝐢𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐠𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐫 | x1

04

04 — WHO ARE YOU, REALLY?

perhaps the truth's just too overwhelming for the both of them.

—

"would it be a huge burden for you if we decide to transfer hospitals?"

it's clear that dongwook was running out of lies to tell to the student's parents, especially now when he's trying to encourage eunsang's parents to transfer hospitals when it's clearly obvious that asan is the best reviewed hospital within the region. daniel sits beside him to help him form the words, as they tried to keep the conversation as comfortable as possible.

"why, is there a problem there at asan?" eunsang's mother asks gently in the other line of the phone, though from the sounds of his voice it's clear that she has been crying.

"uh yeah, they said that they ran out of rooms to stay," dongwook states a plausible reason, and he wasn't lying because all of the vip rooms were actually already occupied. "the standard rooms which are shared among 4 patients are left, and i don't think it'll be a good idea to have eunsang to stay there anyway."

"we'll be fine with the standard rooms, honestly." his mother replies. "in fact, we actually planned on booking the standard room instead of the private ones. in this state it's obvious that our son will take a long time recovering, and unfortunately we won't be able to pay the expenses if we choose the luxurious rooms."

"that's why we encourage you to transfer hospitals, ma'am." dongwook strikes again with his voice worth to be used for a voiceover in a radio advertisement. "we are planning to move your son into ilnam hospital which is not too far from here, and we guarantee to pay all of the expenses  at full price, you won't need to worry about your son's recovery."

eunsang's mother sounds rather psyched. "you'll be paying for all of it..?"

"yes. we feel responsible for your son's sudden unconsciousness so this is the least that we could do to help."

".. are you sure this is a part of the school's insurance? i mean, i'm truly grateful of your help.. but don't you think this is way out of the line? words can barely express how much we're grateful to have our son enrolled in your school. thank you, dongwook-ssi."

dongwook smiles in satisfaction. i got her. "no, thank you for your overwhelming trust, ma'am. we'll set up the transfer date for tomorrow morning, so don't worry. eunsang will be staying here for the night."

"his father and i could still visit him now, right?"

"he's currently held in quarantine in the icu, but he'll be released this evening. perhaps you could see him by then."

and just like that, their attempt of transferring eunsang to a different hospital that's not owned by daniel's dad was finally successful. thrilled by the results, daniel immediately tips off the amount of money needed to accommodate eunsang to dongwook, the guy who's gonna use the money 'in the name of the school' (when in reality, it's just bits of the surplus daniel got from his company).

dongwook commanded for all of the students to return back to school because they already have the situation well under control. most of them hesitated on leaving, hurdling over mixed arguments like 'i want to be here to make sure eunsang's alright' and to the ones like 'it's better to go home now, my sole purpose was only to skip school', but at the end they all obeyed to his words and left the site, letting the adults do the rest for once. seungwoo and wooseok decide to be the one to take care of the hospital transfer issues, whereas seungyoun decided to stay at the current hospital to be the one to look after eunsang as he undergoes his temporary treatment. to this point it just seems like he wasn't going to let his attention shift away from eunsang any sooner, because to him right now he is his main priority, and unless he suddenly wakes up and returns back to his old self again, seungyoun will never try to stop protecting him.