Detached | Seungjin

Thirty-Two

Minji contemplated whether she should be approaching the man or not. She knows she should be minding her business but she just can't remove the fact that the man seemed too familiar to him.

And so she followed her instinct and approached him slowly, taking a seat beside him. The man didn't seem to notice, as his head was still lowered, not caring about anything or anyone around him. Minji straightened her body and cleared her throat, catching the man's attention.

"Hi." She greeted.

He looked up, and Minji saw the races of tears in his cheeks, his eyes were covered in tears. "Oh, hey there." He replied, quickly wiping his tears.

"Is something stressing you out, Mister?"

"What? No, I'm fine." He defended.

Minji utters a quiet sigh, you don't look fine though."

He chuckled, "You're still young, you probably won't understand."

She shrugged, "Papa always told me to listen attentively on people's problems." She told him before having a smile curve into her lips, "I'm all ears."

He gave her a smile before breathing out heavily and looking at the ground again. "My grandfather— he's in a critical condition right now. Just now, he was rushed here in the hospital. It was such a stressful situation. The doctors in United States did their best but were not able to find a cure. They weren't even confident in conducting such an operation. And so we went back to Korea yesterday. And just now... he was— rushed to this hospital."

"What is... your grandfather's sickness?"

He gulped, shutting his eyes for a few seconds before saying, "Heart cancer." He utters a low chuckle, "It's alarming, honestly. We couldn't even find the right surgeon in America, will we be able to find the right surgeon here in Korea?"

"Heart cancer..." Minji repeated.

Papa is a cardiothoracic surgeon...

"My papa is actually—"

Minji was cut off as the phone in the man's pocket suddenly rang. He answered it and had a conversation with the other line for a few seconds before putting the phone down.

He turned to Minji, giving her a smile as he pat her head. "Thank you for listening to my problem, little girl. But unfortunately, I have to go."

Minji nodded, "Take care, Mister. Everything will be okay."

* * * * *

"Hyunjin." She was leaning against the wall with her arms crossed.

Hyunjin walked to her and stood beside her, also leaning his back against the wall. "Where's grandfather?"

Dasom pointed at the room beside them, "He's confined inside."

"Oh, I see."

She raised a brow at him, "Aren't you gonna go inside?"

Hyunjin shook his head, "I just— can't right now."

Dasom suddenly chuckled, making Hyunjin raised his brows at her in confusion. "What's so funny?"

Dasom shook her head, "I just found it funny how our wedding was never even held."

"Oh, that."

"We were so close to getting married. We only had a week before the ceremony, but then grandfather suddenly had a cardiac arrest." Dasom said. "And since then, his conditioned had worsened every single day, until it got to this point." She then sighed, "Sometimes... I wonder if the wedding is even gonna be held someday, you know?"