Koi No Yokan ___ Inevitable Love

13. Keeping secrets

 Third Person's POV:   Han seojun has been thinking a lot about Lim JU gyeoung, which is not a new thing but whenever he thinks about her his mind goes back to another girl Hwang Ji-ah, the things she told him, her words keep playing in his head on loop "Do something for yourself once, Going after a girl who's not into you is self-destruction -he yanked his hair to stop these voices, but to no avail-  I don't want you to get hurt you can't keep pouring your love into a heart that is closed off to it. It will only leave you empty, You have to walk away" " he recalled her words and sighed in frustration, his mind was telling him that all the sweet things she did and said were just because of halmeoni but his heart was telling him otherwise. Her voice was full of concern for him, her eyes didn't seem as cold as they usually are instead he saw warmth in them when she held his hand and asked him to love himself.
It shocked him and relieved him at the same time, he stopped being himself after losing se yeon-ah, it's been so long that he felt barely human anymore, nobody ever noticed his grief, he was also in pain, he also lost a friend but his mother's illness didn't allow him to crumble either he didn't have a shoulder to cry on, nor somebody offered it, but it was all his fault he didn't show anyone that he was in pain then how can he blame others for not comforting him. But she, did she notice? No one cared like that for him except his family but what did he do? in order to portray that he is strong, he hurt her. He looked at his bedside table and saw her cards standing "You are my favorite person" he read the line written on the crumpled card, he yanked open the table drawer and dumped the cards in there "I need some air to clear my head" sighing he went out for a walk.

Ji-ah spent the whole day completing her unfinished artworks, her small business has gotten even smaller since she shifted here. Even in the States, she didn't sell much but here it's almost zero. There's still no response from the crafts shops either.  Scrolling down her social media she replied to a few sweet comments and ignored the hurtful ones, her stomach grumbled and she put her phone aside to go munch on something. She went downstairs and straight into the kitchen to look for some snacks. Ji-ah rarely steps foot into the kitchen it's halmeoni's territory but she didn't want to disturb her it's almost dark outside now and halmeoni needs rest. Ji-ah searched through all the cabinets but couldn't find anything. She opened the cabinets below the sink "Gosh what am I doing, who puts food here anyway?" She was about to shut it when she spotted something, a small glass bottle, she picked it up it was some kind of medication labeled with halmeoni's name on it. She looked through the cabinet and found a few more. She picked them up and carried them to the Living room, she twirled the bottle in between her fingers, eyeing it suspiciously, placing the bottles on the table she typed in Google "Ranex" and the results sucked all the air out of her lungs, she typed in the other meds as well and the results were similar, but she needed to double-check before taking any action so she went to halmeoni's room, the door creaked open at her touch, halmeoni wasn't asleep instead she was knitting something. 'Omma!" Ji-ah called her, halmeoni looked up and smiled at her "What is it?" She asked
'I can't find any snacks in the kitchen can you please give me some?" Ji-ah requested and her grandmother immediately went to the Kitchen. As soon as she left her room, Ji-ah began to search every drawer to find halmeoni's hospital file. She looked everywhere except the closet but didn't find anything, so she opened the closet and looked for the file, she finally found it hidden under a pile of clothes. Squeezing her eyes shut and exhaling deeply, she opened the file, her breath shaky and her hands trembling she read it and she felt like someone pulled the ground away from under her feet she couldn't stand anymore, her legs gave up and she plopped on the floor beside the bed and looked at the file in her lap with a horror-struck face.  She couldn't breathe. she couldn't see, her eyes were clouded with the tears that were about to overflow. She could feel physical pain shooting through her chest. This can't be happening to her. "What is this Ji ah-ya? -halmeoni came back to her room holding the meds in her hand, her tone stern- what are these doing in the living..." But she stopped mid-sentence when she saw Ji-ah sitting down with her hospital file in her lap. Tears streaming down her face, her eyes blood red. Ji-ah turned her head to look at her grandmother, her  throat felt so heavy from all the sobbing, "How could you do this to me?" her voice came out as a whisper, she got up from her position on the floor and walked slowly towards her grandmother, the file gripped fiercely in her hand, "Who gave you the right to keep me in the dark?" She was shouting now, her grip on the file getting harder, almost crumpling it. "Ji-ah yah! Please listen to me" halmeoni said in a broken voice, as she tried to cup her cheeks but Ji-ah backed away from her touch. "Don't, don't act like that you care!" She threw away the file aggressively, the papers flying out and falling everywhere on the floor. Ji-ah read her reports, her grandmother is suffering from Ischemic Cardiac Disease which was diagnosed almost a month ago, it's an incurable heart disease with the highest mortality rate. The meds were written on her prescription and the date on the prescription is 3 days ago. The day she went on the field trip or should she say that she was sent on the trip. "You told Mi Hyang but you didn't tell me? Am I nothing to you??" She hissed " I can't believe this, Just Amazin!"  and walked past her, straight out of the house ignoring halmeoni's calls.