My Bloody Valentine - 62

Taeshin hurriedly stepped back, passing by Myeongseop who had moved his body aside, and walked step by step towards Han.

Myeongseop, who had glanced at Taeshin’s face as he passed in front of him, froze on the spot.

No emotion could be found on Taeshin’s face. There was neither fear, nor sadness, nor anger, nor a fighting spirit; it was just calm. But it wasn’t hard to guess that something tremendous was boiling beneath that surface.

His face looked so cool that it seemed as if the temperature around him had dropped, but that appearance only made him seem more filled with anger.

Blue flames may look cold to the eye, but they have a fiercer and hotter heat than red flames. The reason flames are red is that they haven’t completely burned the combustible material. When red flames consume everything and reach their peak, they finally turn blue.

Those blue flames were burning in Taeshin’s eyes. His head was cooled, but his chest was boiling with heat.

Slowly bending his body, Taeshin sat down in front of Han, meeting his eyes. Han’s unfocused gaze was still fixed on the spot where Yujung had been lying.

Taeshin’s hand gently stroked Han’s hair and cheek. Only then did Han’s hazy eyes turn towards Taeshin.

“Jang Taeshin…?”

“Yeah.”

Han was still not in his right mind.

Taeshin began carefully examining Han’s body. A police officer tried to enter the room with a statement form, but Myeongseop blocked him, stopping him.

“Can’t you see he’s hurt! Let’s go to the hospital first! We can take statements or whatever after he’s treated!”

Meanwhile, Taeshin grasped and released each of Han’s limbs, checking for injuries.

Han’s palm and knee on one side were full of glass shards, probably from pressing on the floor covered with broken glass. A deep wrinkle formed between Taeshin’s eyebrows.

Han grabbed Taeshin’s collar with his bleeding hand.

“Ja, Jang Taeshin…”

“Yeah.”

“Yujung… Yujung…”

“…Yes.”

Although a name he never wanted to hear came out of Han’s mouth, Taeshin quietly responded. Han was looking at Taeshin like a child who had woken up from a nightmare and clung to their parents.

“She lost a lot of blood… So much.”

“…”

As Han stared at Taeshin, his eyes seemed to lose focus again, and his pupils rolled up under his eyelids.

As Han lost consciousness, letting go of the collar he was holding, Taeshin quickly caught his body. He put his arms under Han’s neck and knees, lifted him up, and Han’s limp head touched Taeshin’s chest.

Han, immediately moved to the hospital, had several glass shards removed from his palm and knee, and took an X-ray.

After confirming there were no remaining glass shards, they stitched the deep wounds on his palm in a couple of places. Fortunately, thanks to the bottle shattering into small pieces, the shards weren’t big, and no additional sutures were needed.

Only after Han fell into a deep sleep after receiving a vitamin and a mild sedative did Taeshin let out a sigh of relief.

The small face he looked down at was pale, without a trace of blood.

“Fuck.”

The murderous intent contained in the quietly uttered curse made Myeongseop, standing a few steps behind, flinch.

In the moment when the compressed anger he had pushed down finally burst out, there was only one thought in Taeshin’s mind.

He would catch them no matter what, bring them before him, and kill them in the most horrific way he could imagine.

This was also a promise to himself. If this unilateral decision meant falling out with Chairman Bae, that too was an unavoidable consequence.

“Bring them in. All the bastards involved.”

Taeshin’s voice, giving instructions to the person standing behind, had sunk back into calmness without any hint of excitement or anger.

“Make sure to bring them in alive.”

Because I’ll kill them with my own hands.

Myeongseop gulped down dry saliva in tension. It was as if he could hear the words Taeshin hadn’t spoken.

❖ ❖ ❖

Han’s eyes snapped open before the first IV drip was even empty. Then, like someone who had just escaped a nightmare and lost their mind, he looked around with a dazed expression.

As soon as Han realized he was in a hospital and lying down wearing a patient’s gown, he abruptly sat up.

Taeshin, who had been standing by the window receiving situation reports over the phone, felt the movement and turned around.

“Yujung…”

With a dazed expression, Han lowered his two legs from the bed and tried to rip out the needle stuck in his arm. Taeshin quickly approached and firmly grasped Han’s hands to stop him.

“Yujung… I have to go to Yujung…”

“Yujung is in surgery.”

“…Surgery?”

Only then did a faint light return to Han’s clouded eyes.

“She’s alive, she’s alive?”

“Yes.”

Han’s trembling eyes, looking at Taeshin, became transparently swollen.

The person in front of him was no longer the Jang Taeshin who used to comfort him when he was young, but at this moment, just his presence felt like a great comfort.

“Stay calm and still. I’ll take you to her once you’ve finished this drip.”

When Taeshin slowly released Han’s hands that had tried to pull out the needle, Han obediently nodded. In doing so, the tears that had welled up in his eyes grazed his cheeks and fell onto his knees, creating round marks on his patient’s gown.

Soon after, Taeshin instructed his subordinate guarding the door to bring a wheelchair. Then, after removing the empty IV needle, he swiftly lifted Han into the wheelchair and came out into the corridor.

Han arrived in front of the operating room three hours after Yujung had gone in for emergency surgery.

The surgery took longer than expected, and a nurse carrying blood packs was hurrying towards the operating room. Han’s eyes were filled with panic as he watched.

If he hadn’t tried to save me, would Yujung have been unhurt? His insides were burning, on the verge of turning into black ashes.

Not long after, the operating room door opened. The doctor who came out first recited the surgical results. One police officer who had come to understand the victim’s situation and Taeshin listened to his briefing.

The surgery was successful, but the abdominal stab wound was deeper than thought, damaging part of the lung and liver. Moreover, due to the significant blood loss, it was unclear when she would regain consciousness.

After the doctor finished his brief explanation and disappeared, the operating room door opened, and Yujung’s bed, relying on an oxygen respirator, came out. As the doctor had said about the massive blood loss, Yujung’s face was as pale as a corpse.

Even after everyone had left, Han couldn’t leave the corridor in front of the operating room. He just hung his head weakly and kept dropping big tears.

And Taeshin was quietly watching Han’s condition. After a long silence, Han spoke as if to himself.
“If it weren’t for me…”

If only he’d been a bit quicker-witted and had run away. If not, if he’d just obediently given the man his finger or wrist as asked.

The belated regrets were endless.

“This is all… all because of me…”

“It’s not because of you.”

Taeshin’s tone, cutting off the end of Han’s words, was quite resolute.

“It’s because of me.”

Taeshin continued in a tone without inflection.

“I don’t know how they found out about you, but they approached you to use as a bargaining chip in negotiations with me.”

“…”

“So you can’t say it’s because of you. It’s because of me.”

Even as he said everything was his fault, there was no sign of guilt or apology in Taeshin’s voice or expression.

He was simply indignant. That Han was crying because of something other than him. That someone had dared to enter his territory and try to harm Han.

They couldn’t go to the intensive care unit where Yujung was except at set times. Taeshin carefully lifted Han, who had returned to his original hospital room, and laid him on the bed.

Han was so exhausted in body and mind that he couldn’t move, as if struck by lethargy. Curled up with his back to Taesin, Han would fall asleep as if collapsing from crying, then wake up and cry again, repeating this cycle.

Due to exhaustion from repeating this several times, Han had to be hospitalized for three days. Even during this time, he never missed the twice-daily visiting hours for the intensive care unit to see Yujung.

However, even by the day Han was discharged, Yujung hadn’t regained consciousness.

After completing discharge procedures, Han fell asleep as soon as he got into the back seat of Taesin’s car, either because of the sedatives included in his oral medication or because his body was weakened.

Han’s condition was still not good. When awake, he consistently stared blankly out the window, and even in sleep, scenes drenched in blood visited him in dreams.

Taesin, leaning against the window, carefully rested Han’s sleeping head on his own shoulder.

Quietly looking down at the bandages covering Han’s white, slender fingers, Taesin turned his gaze out the window, exhaling a long, thin breath. As if suppressing a rising anger.

“Han.”

A large hand gently shook Han’s shoulder.

“Han-ah.”

He opened his eyes groggily, feeling Taesin’s familiar scent enveloping his body deeply along with his low voice. Taesin’s face filled his view.

Han, startled, sat up and looked around. The car had stopped somewhere with the engine off, and outside the window was an ominously familiar scene.

It was the very construction site where he had been caught on his way back from his part-time job, where he had been caught again by strange men in Angol village after running away, and where he had been pinned down by Taesin.

“Wh-what? Why, why did you…”

As if he had returned to the past, Han lost his mind. He tried to escape to the corner, flailing his arms.

“You’re going to… kill me.”

“It’s not like that. Just come with me for a moment.”

“No… No…!”

“It’ll only take a moment.”

Taesin picked up Han, who was thrashing about as if having a fit, and pulled him out of the car. Han clawed at Taesin’s nape and collar, making a fuss to break free.

Taesin couldn’t understand why he was resisting so fiercely.

Was he thinking Taesin would kill him now? Even if you were to put a knife to me now, I’ve become unable to touch even a hair on your head because you’re too precious to me.

Han was carried into the construction site, held up at Taesin’s side.

This place, which he had visited twice before, was still the same, with construction not proceeding. To Han’s eyes, this place was like a tomb made of gray concrete.

“Urgh… Kuuugh!”

Horrific screams began to be heard, gradually getting louder. Han buried his face in Taesin’s chest like a bird hiding its head in the bushes and squeezed his eyes shut.

Soon, Taesin’s steps stopped, and he put Han down beside him. But Han was still trembling, eyes closed.

“Open your eyes.”

At Taesin’s words, Han shook his head vigorously in refusal. Nothing he had witnessed here had been anything but horrific.

“No, no…”

“Don’t you feel sorry for your friend?”

“…”

Only then did Han’s trembling somewhat subside.

Since childhood, he had been trapped by the worthlessness of being an abandoned existence before his umbilical cord had even dried up, and the helplessness caused by it. For the first time, a small flame ignited in Han’s consistently weak inner self.

“You should get revenge. Right?”

He heard the voice of a sweet devil in his ear. Empowered by the voice that clung to his ear like sticky chocolate, Han slowly opened his eyes.