More Than Coincidence, Fate (3)
The next day, Do-hyun really did come to Jung Hee-sung’s hospital room.
The child, who had shyly found his way there, seemed as though his only purpose really had been to “come visit.” He stood awkwardly in front of the bed and simply stared at him.
That strange exchange of gazes continued until Hee-sung begged him, please, to make himself comfortable.
The child graciously granted his request.
The problem was that he granted it a little too well.
He scurried out of the hospital room, then returned with a book in his hands and settled into a chair. And just like that, he comfortably began reading.
Jung Hee-sung looked at Do-hyun with bewildered eyes.
He had spent the entire previous night awake, worrying about how he should play with the child if he came.
What would he like?
There’s nothing in the hospital room a kid can play with. What should I do?
Should I put on a cartoon or something?
Because of the endless thoughts popping into his head, it had been hard to fall asleep. After tossing and turning under the blanket all night, the dawn sky was already beginning to brighten.
As he watched the sky grow pale, he thought he was taking something a child had said casually far too seriously.
And yet, his tired eyes kept drifting toward the door.
Half resigned, he waited for the child.
But then, the child really did appear.
He hid his surprise and worried inwardly.
He really came, but what am I supposed to do now? I still haven’t figured out how to play with him.
In the end, his worries were useless.
The child played very well on his own.
On top of that, he was so quiet and well-behaved that sometimes he felt like part of the room’s pattern. He would come in quietly, read his book, and leave.
But Hee-sung was not bored.
He moved closer again.
Jung Hee-sung checked the distance between the chair and himself with a strange look.
At first, the child had sat far away. But as each day passed, he dragged the chair a little closer to the bed before sitting down.
Yesterday, a little closer than the day before.
Today, a little closer than yesterday.
On top of that, perhaps because Hee-sung had looked bored on the first day, from the next day onward, Do-hyun brought two books with him and handed one to him.
Thanks to that, Hee-sung was suddenly forced to nourish his mind.
It wasn’t as if he hated reading, so it wasn’t a problem, but still….
He flipped open the cover of the book Do-hyun had lent him, saying he had finished it the day before.
When he saw the title, Siddhartha, the man could not hide his subtle expression.
Did kids these days normally read books like this?
Back in my day, we didn’t… No, never mind.
Besides, no matter how much he didn’t hate reading, spending an entire week reading books in silence was starting to make him restless.
Jung Hee-sung looked at Do-hyun, who was sitting upright as if he had been copied from a textbook and reading a book, with an unconsciously fed-up gaze.
In the end, he opened his mouth.
“…Kid. Do you only read books?”
The black crown of the child’s head flinched, then slowly lifted.
“Is reading books not fun?”
Jung Hee-sung lowered his gaze to the book in his hand.
It’s not fun.
It’s very not fun.
Maybe for a day or two, sure.
But after reading nothing but books for an entire week, he was starting to get sick of it. But when the child asked him with that kind of expression, how was he supposed to tell the truth?
“No…. It’s fun. Wow, it’s fun. Wooow….”
At the answer he barely squeezed out, Do-hyun smiled faintly. He even looked a little shy.
Jung Hee-sung swallowed a sigh and asked,
“Why do you like books so much?”
“Because they’re fun.”
Do-hyun, who had never played with anyone else before, did not know how to play.
Books were the only “fun thing” Do-hyun knew.
And so, Do-hyun was sharing the most enjoyable thing he knew with the man.
Jung Hee-sung, who did not know that hidden circumstance, simply found Do-hyun fascinating.
His younger sibling was the same age as Do-hyun, but instead of sitting quietly and reading books, that child preferred going outside to play.
Wasn’t it the same for all children, not just Jung Hee-woon?
“My younger sibling hates books.”
“You have a younger sibling?”
At Jung Hee-sung’s words, Do-hyun showed interest. It was the first interest he had shown in something other than books, and Jung Hee-sung’s face brightened.
“Yeah. He should be around your age…. Right, how old are you?”
Do-hyun thought back to the small cake that had come with his hospital meal two months ago and counted his age.
“My birthday passed, so I’m eight.”
“Birthday? Ah, international age. Hmm, then he’s probably the same age as you. His name is Jung Hee-woon.”
Do-hyun blinked.
“I didn’t know you had a younger sibling, hyung.”
Hyung’s younger sibling.
Does he look like hyung?
Do-hyun tried imagining what hyung must have looked like as a child. He imagined him much smaller and younger than he was now, and then imagined that boy standing beside hyung.
“He’s seriously cute.”
His chest throbbed.
Do-hyun frowned at the pain he could not explain, then blurted out,
“If he looks like you, hyung, I don’t think he’d be that cute.”
Then he froze in shock at the words he himself had spoken.
“What? Aren’t you being too harsh?”
If the playful scolding had not come back, he might have stayed frozen like that. Once the tension left him, Do-hyun exhaled in relief.
But that relief lasted only for a moment.
Once the floodgates opened, Jung Hee-sung poured out so many words that it was hard to believe he had managed to hold them back until now.
Ninety percent of those words were bragging about his younger sibling.
The remaining ten percent were bragging about himself for having such a younger sibling.
At first, Do-hyun tried to respond awkwardly and go along with him, but by the time thirty minutes had passed, he could not help but grow pale.
“Hyung….”
“And then Hee-woon…. Yeah, what is it?”
“I understand now, so please stop….”
Do-hyun’s face, which had already been pale to begin with, had turned even whiter.
Jung Hee-sung rubbed the back of his neck with an embarrassed look.
“Did I talk too much?”
Do-hyun carefully watched his expression, then cautiously nodded. Jung Hee-sung looked even more embarrassed.
“Sorry. When my younger sibling comes up, it’s hard for me to stop.”
Do-hyun quickly changed the nodding of his head up and down into a shake from side to side.
“No. You must be really close with your younger sibling.”
That was when it happened.
The face that had been sparkling brightly while shamelessly fussing over his younger sibling instantly grew gloomy.
At that dramatic change, Do-hyun became flustered.
“W-what’s wrong?”
“My younger sibling hates me.”
Do-hyun could not understand his words at all.
His younger sibling hated him?
Why?
Even if he was a little childish, he was still a good person.
“Why on earth?”
If he were my real hyung, I could never hate him.
“That… No. There’s just something like that.”
Jung Hee-sung mumbled vaguely. Do-hyun found it bothersome, but he could not ask any further. He did not know whether that was a part he was allowed to enter.
These days, the biggest concern on Do-hyun’s mind was how far he was allowed to approach this hyung.
Instead of stretching one foot farther, Do-hyun asked another question.
“But why do you like your younger sibling so much, hyung? Even though he….”
Doesn’t even like you.
He swallowed the rest before he made a mistake.
Even without thinking deeply about it, he knew that was something he should not say. Do-hyun pressed his lips tightly together.
Why do I keep doing this?
Since earlier, bad words kept slipping out without warning.
Before he made another mistake, he kept his mouth shut and lifted his head. Jung Hee-sung was smiling.
It was not his usual mischievous smile, but a smile so warm and affectionate that even Do-hyun felt ticklish watching it.
“Have you ever seen a newborn baby?”
“No.”
“I didn’t originally like babies. I thought they cried loudly and were noisy. But when I heard my younger sibling had been born, I went to see him without thinking much.”
Jung Hee-sung paused for a moment before continuing.
“That was the first time I’d ever seen something so beautiful in the world. Of course, the baby had just been born, so he was red, tiny, wrinkled, and honestly just ugly, but his soul was so pretty.”
At the sudden word, Do-hyun frowned slightly.
Soul?
A soul was immaterial, an abstract concept whose existence could not be confirmed.
At the claim that he had seen such a soul, Do-hyun’s expression clouded with concern.
Is hyung very sick?
Jung Hee-sung hurriedly said,
“I know it sounds strange, but it’s true! At that moment, I really saw his soul. Something small and sparkling in a forsythia-yellow color was shimmering there. If that wasn’t a soul, then how else could I explain it?”
At his serious explanation, Do-hyun also nodded seriously.
It seemed he was not sick, but had experienced a temporary visual illusion caused by his brain.
Or… perhaps he believed in a slightly unusual religion.
Maybe I shouldn’t have given him Siddhartha. What if he has negative feelings toward Buddhism?
To Do-hyun, who had no religion, a novel was just a novel. But for someone with a different kind of… religion, it might not be the same.
Do-hyun decided that from now on, he should avoid novels related to religion.
Not knowing Do-hyun’s thoughts, Jung Hee-sung was a little moved by the sight of Do-hyun listening carefully without treating his words as strange.
He became a little more honest and said,
“The moment I faced it, I realized it. I had no choice but to love this child.”
At the desperate affection contained in those words, Do-hyun forgot what he had been thinking and stared at him blankly.
“I haven’t seen it once since then, though. Honestly, even if I hadn’t seen that, I think I still would have ended up loving him.”
The more his words continued, the more Do-hyun’s tightly sealed lips slowly pushed forward.
Do-hyun frowned without even realizing his lips had jutted out, then, unable to hold back the sudden surge of emotion, said,
“But you said he hates you, hyung.”
He should have held it in anyway.
In the end, after spitting out those words, Do-hyun bit the flesh inside his mouth.
He should have held back a little longer.
Do-hyun’s head gradually lowered.
I shouldn’t have come here in the first place.
If he was going to ruin things like this, it would have been better to know nothing at all. When he thought that even this person might hate him, it became hard to breathe.
“It’s fine. I have a younger sibling here who likes me too.”
Do-hyun lifted his head one beat late.
“What?”
Jung Hee-sung smiled calmly.
“You’re my younger sibling too. Aren’t you?”
His heart began pounding loudly.
His face heated up, as if he had been caught being jealous, and yet he did not want to avoid his gaze at all.
“…Yes.”
He was happy.
It was strange, but this was a person he had been drawn to from the very first moment he saw him.
That had not changed the next day either.
If anything, the longer he spent time with him, the more he wanted to become closer.
Even though they had not known each other long, being with him felt comfortable and good.
I thought I was the only one.
Do-hyun’s heart swelled.
Hyung likes me too. Even if he doesn’t like me as much as his real younger sibling, he still called me his younger sibling.
That fact alone made his chest feel so full it might burst with a pop.
That emotion rose plainly onto his face.
Jung Hee-sung looked surprised at Do-hyun, who was smiling so brightly it seemed to light up the surroundings.
Soon, he too smiled, looking happy and a little embarrassed.
At that moment,
A clear bond and intimacy flowed between the two of them.
As if proving it, the atmosphere eased into something much more comfortable.
Do-hyun pressed his chair so close to the bed that there was hardly any gap left.
Seeing that, Jung Hee-sung burst into laughter.
He laughed for a long while, shoulders trembling, then said in a voice still full of laughter,
“So, does my little brother want to do anything besides reading?”
At the words my little brother, Do-hyun smiled reflexively before asking back,
“Like what?”
“Just something you normally play.”
“Ah. There is one thing.”
Jung Hee-sung’s eyes sparkled.
Could he finally escape from reading?
“With Kaylee, from the book….”
“No, not something related to books!”
Afraid that reading would come up again, Jung Hee-sung interrupted Do-hyun. Do-hyun closed his mouth again.
“Then there isn’t anything.”
“No, why? There are lots of other games.”
Do-hyun shook his head.
Jung Hee-sung’s face became thoughtful.
“Hm. Then what did you play before you were hospitalized?”
Do-hyun hesitated.
Jung Hee-sung thought Do-hyun was searching through his memories.
But the words that came out of Do-hyun’s mouth were completely different from what he had expected.
“I’ve lived in the hospital until now.”
Jung Hee-sung, who had not understood those words at first, belatedly grasped their meaning and looked at Do-hyun with a stiff face.
“What…?”
“I heard I stayed at home for about a month when I was two, but I don’t remember it, so I don’t really know. Other than that, I’ve always been in the hospital.”
Do-hyun looked calm as he said that.
The shadowed eyes beneath his long eyelashes looked so indifferent that Jung Hee-sung was at a loss for words.
He slowly repeated Do-hyun’s words.
“…So you’ve lived in the hospital your whole life.”
The words he spoke himself settled on his heart like a heavy stone.
Do-hyun, who nodded as if confirming it, looked completely fine.
Even though there was no way he could be.
Suddenly, a thought flashed through his mind.
During the week he had spent with the child, he had not once met his guardian.
Caregivers and nurses occasionally showed their faces, but he had never seen the child’s parents.
He had not even heard the child talk about his parents.
He tried thinking that one week was too short to carelessly guess a child’s circumstances, that it must simply be a coincidence.
But the unpleasant sense of déjà vu did not fade.
The discomfort rising from within him resembled familiarity.
A complicated light appeared in Jung Hee-sung’s eyes.
He moved his lips as if trying to say something, but before he could, the sound of knocking interrupted him.
Knock, knock.
At the sudden knock, both of them turned their heads.
The person who opened the door and appeared was Benjamin, who had come for his rounds.
Benjamin looked surprised when he saw Do-hyun.
“Do-hyun?”
“Doctor Benjamin?”
Benjamin looked astonished to meet Do-hyun in an unexpected place, then turned his gaze toward Jung Hee-sung in front of him.
Soon, a smile appeared on Benjamin’s face.
“So you wanted to meet Do-hyun too?”
At Benjamin’s words, Jung Hee-sung looked puzzled.
“That was a good decision. Having someone around who has experienced the same pain gives more strength than you might think.”
The same pain?
Jung Hee-sung quietly repeated Benjamin’s words, then stared in shock before whipping his head around to look at Do-hyun.
“You!”
Do-hyun made a slightly awkward expression.
His attitude made it obvious to anyone that he had already known, and Jung Hee-sung’s mouth fell open.
Benjamin tilted his head as he observed the situation.
“Hmm? Did you perhaps not know?”
Jung Hee-sung glared at Do-hyun with wide eyes.
At that answer, clearer than any words, Benjamin became slightly troubled.
“It seems Do-hyun knew… Oh dear. I was thoughtless. I’m sorry, Do-hyun.”
Jung Hee-sung also knew that there was a patient in this hospital who had the same illness as him.
Come to think of it, the doctor who had been in charge of him in Korea had said that the patient was Korean like him and a young boy.
But that child was Do-hyun!
Seeing Jung Hee-sung’s unusual mood, Do-hyun spoke as if making an excuse.
“I didn’t hide it on purpose.”
“You call that an explanation?”
“There just wasn’t a good time to say it. I was going to tell you if you asked….”
Do-hyun’s resentful eyes turned toward Benjamin.
Benjamin, caught between the two of them, smiled awkwardly.
Do-hyun looked at Jung Hee-sung again.
Has he calmed down a little?
After carefully checking his mood, Do-hyun cautiously explained.
“Actually, it’s not a big deal. I thought it was something you didn’t need to know.”
Do-hyun was sincere.
What was there to go around announcing just because they had the same illness?
“Huh.”
When Jung Hee-sung saw Do-hyun’s eyes shining with sincerity, he became even more dumbfounded.
He tried to say something, but then wiped his face with an expression that looked as if he had aged several years.
It would be ridiculous to point things out to a little child who did not even seem to know what he had done wrong.
His insides were boiling, but he forced himself to calm down.
“Um, then, is everything settled between you two?”
“Yes.”
“…Yes.”
At Benjamin’s words, Do-hyun answered like a good child, and Jung Hee-sung answered reluctantly.
Benjamin smiled.
“As your attending physician, I came to check whether Mr. Jung Hee-sung is having any discomfort while staying here, but it seems you’re doing all right.”
After asking several other questions, including whether anything was causing him stress, Benjamin said a nurse would come to replace his IV and then left.
The moment Benjamin left, Jung Hee-sung turned back to Do-hyun.
“You’re not hiding anything else, are you?”
“No.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I’m only in the hospital, so what more secrets could I have?”
Jung Hee-sung did not know what kind of expression he should make.
“What about you, hyung?”
Jung Hee-sung closed his eyes deeply, opened them again, and then puffed out his chest exaggeratedly.
At his extremely confident attitude, Do-hyun asked again.
“You really don’t have even one?”
“No!”
“Really?”
“Really!”
“Truly?”
“Truly… No, wait. Why does it feel like I’m the one being interrogated now?”
Jung Hee-sung was dumbfounded.
He had clearly been questioning Do-hyun because Do-hyun had deceived him, but before he knew it, the positions had been reversed.
“I was just curious…. Is that not allowed?”
Jung Hee-sung discovered Do-hyun’s talent.
It was the ability to make him speechless.
Just as he froze, unable to say that it was not allowed, the door suddenly burst open without a knock.
“I’ll change your IV!”
A nurse with neatly tied brown hair approached with brisk steps and skillfully replaced the IV.
Her gaze briefly touched the child swinging his feet that did not reach the floor, then dropped away.
A flash of contempt passed through her eyes.
Do-hyun’s legs slowed.
The nurse pretended not to see the child and spoke to Jung Hee-sung.
“Nothing feels uncomfortable, right?”
“Thanks to you.”
“That’s good.”
Unlike when she had looked at Do-hyun, the nurse’s face as she looked at Jung Hee-sung held light goodwill and curiosity.
As if she still had something more to say, she glanced around the hospital room.
“Jung, but I don’t see your violin?”
Violin?
At the story he was hearing for the first time, Do-hyun’s ears perked up.
Jung Hee-sung looked somewhat troubled.
“Mm, that’s right.”
“Did you not bring it because you were worried there wouldn’t be a place to play? If that’s the case, there’s a separate space in the center for patients’ cultural activities. If you’re uncomfortable being with several people, there are other options too.”
Very kindly, she said that if he needed a space to use alone, he could even borrow a classroom for child patients. If it was during a time when there were no classes, the center would likely allow it too.
Do-hyun became curious as to why the center was trying to accommodate him this much.
And he soon learned the reason.
“For an amazing violinist like you, Jung, I’m sure the center will actively cooperate!”
His feet, which had been swaying slowly, stopped completely.
Jung Hee-sung gave an awkward smile at the black eyes staring steadily at him.
Do-hyun did not smile.
Cold sweat ran down his spine.
After dropping a bomb without any malice, the nurse hummed to herself and left the hospital room.
Cleaning up the aftermath was entirely his responsibility.
Do-hyun stared straight at him with eyes demanding an explanation.
Jung Hee-sung knew it too.
He had to give an explanation, or at least an excuse.
He was aware of that.
But his mouth would not open.
Do-hyun stared at him for a long while, as if giving him a chance, then slowly lowered his head.
And without saying anything, he began reading his book.
Flip. Flip.
The sound of pages turning rang out at regular intervals.
If it sounded exactly like the ticking of a stopwatch, then he must have been losing his mind.
“Do-hyun, listen. I wasn’t trying to trick you.”
“…….”
“Do-hyun. Little brother? Excuse me?”
Do-hyun said nothing and only read his book.
He was usually quiet in a way that did not suit a child, but not to this extent.
Unable to withstand the anxiety, Hee-sung made a bad move.
“You were hiding your illness too, so how about we call it even?”
The gaze that had been buried in the book the whole time lifted.
“I didn’t lie.”
How did he always say only the correct things?
Until Do-hyun finished reading the book, Hee-sung could not think of anything to say back.
Do-hyun neatly closed the book and rose from the chair.
“You’re leaving?”
“Yes.”
Hee-sung became shamelessly pathetic.
“Already? Stay a little longer.”
The child was calm.
“I always leave at this time.”
“That’s true, but….”
The child looked at him for a moment, his lips moving slightly, then said in a slightly smaller voice,
“I’ll come tomorrow too.”
Struck right where it hurt, Jung Hee-sung eventually let Do-hyun go.
And immediately regretted it.
What if he’s really angry? What if he’s disappointed?
What if that clever child realized I’m nothing special as an adult, and because of that, he never comes to visit again?
At that moment, Jung Hee-sung’s eyes widened.
It had only been one week.
And yet, the hospital room without that small breathing sound was far too quiet.
“Ah… seriously.”
Before anyone could see his troubled face, he covered it with both hands.
