Chapter 8: To School (1)

Chapter 8: To School (1)

“Where have you been?!”

"Mm " Kang Jin-Ho tilted his head the moment he stepped into his hospital room. That was because there was a a teenage girl in the room who immediately started shouting at him. She looked to be around fifteen, maybe sixteen. She wasn't the prettiest girl in the world, but with her facial features, she certainly could qualify as a cutie. "Who are you "

The girl cocked her head and walked up to him. “Did you really lose your mind?”

“...?”

“You can't even recognize your own little sister now? You've really lost your mind, haven't you?!”

"My little sister " Kang Jin-Ho slightly tilted his head. A younger sibling, was it? He indeed had a younger sister in the past. His memories could still faintly recall that, but...

'Did she really look like this '

Her face seemed somewhat different from what he could remember, so this... The last memory Kang Jin-Ho had of her was from when she was older, but that still couldn't explain the inexplicable difference between this girl and the younger sister in his recollections.

He muttered quietly, “Your face is a bit...”

She almost blew her top just then. "What? You can't even recognize your own sister because she got some make-up on?!"

Her yell made him take a closer look, and he finally noticed some stuff plastered on her face. “I see.”

That wasn't the important part of this conversation, of course. No, the actual bit of importance was this girl being his little sister. She frequented the offices of talent agencies, hoping to become an idol one day—only for the car accident to cut her life short.

'Could she have become one if it hadn't been for that accident '

Kang Jin-Ho's family had already fallen into financial trouble by the time she lost her life. That was why he thought that it would have been unlikely for her to become an idol even if that accident never happened. Money was necessary, lots of it, for someone to achieve their dream. Money also happened to be one of the things that the Kang Jin-Ho of the past never possessed.

He nonchalantly asked her, "What brings you here "

“Wha...? Maybe you've really gone crazy?”

His sister crossed her arms in front of her chest. "You thought that I won't come and see you when my one and only big brother got into an accident? Mom should've just told me about what happened, but she didn't do that so I’m here now."

“You weren't at home?”

"The group was going to Japan for a tour and told me to come with them, kinda like a field trip or something. But it was a field trip only in name, you know! They totally used me as a tour staff! Basically, I worked as an unpaid gopher."

“I see.”

"Eh-whew! I was so depressed, you know. But when I got home, I found out that the dude also known as my older brother got himself into a car accident! I came running here in shock, but I only stumbled upon an empty room here!"

Kang Jin-Ho chuckled wryly. It seemed that the ability to nag was hereditary. "What about your school "

She shot back. “My dreams are more important than school, you know!”

Kang Jin-Ho shook his head. “Even so, you should attend school.”

“We have already talked about this, so what's gotten into you?”

"Go back to school."

“...”

Kang Jin-Ho's younger sister, Kang Eun-Yeong, stared weirdly at her older brother. It was weird for him to not immediately recognize her, but it was even weirder for him to bring up a topic that the family had already discussed. But the weirdest part about this whole thing was how he spoke. Her older brother had never been a man of many words, but after the accident, he... His manner of speech seemed to have gotten very strange.

“Oppa, are you really okay?”

"You'll regret it later on." Kang Jin-Ho's expression hardened. "Whatever your dream is, treading a different path from everyone else will result in you losing so many things. Reaching your dream depends on you, but if it's possible, try to go for both."

“M-mhm...” Kang Eun-Yeong inadvertently nodded in agreement. Something unexplainable and heavy in her brother's voice made it impossible to talk back to him.

'This is so weird...'

Mom had said that Kang Jin-Ho's memories had become wonky for some reason, and that observation seemed to be spot-on. Otherwise, it would be difficult to explain how anyone could change this much practically overnight.

"Eun-Yeong, you were here " Kang Jin-Ho's mother stepped inside the room and greeted her daughter.

“Yes, Mom.”

“It's good that you're here, Eun-Yeong.”

Kang Eun-Yeong pointed at her older brother. “Mom, there's something strange about Oppa!"

Mother hurriedly yelled at her. “Watch what you say, Eun-Yeong!”

“But, Mom!”

"Keep your mouth shut, will you!" His mother's sharp voice was effective in shutting Kang Eun-Yeong up. Her experiences told her that trying to argue back now would only grant her the taste of hell later.

Kang Jin-Ho's mother turned her attention to him. “Jin-Ho, nothing happened while I was gone, yes?”

“Yes, Mother.”

"By the way..." His mother's glare instantly sharpened. "What happened to your arm "

“I got injured a little.”

“How come?”

His discharge was scheduled to be on the following day. His wound was almost fully healed now, while the knife cut to his arm wasn't serious enough to warrant an extension to his stay in the hospital. Meaning, he had no reason to stay here.

“Outer Space Oppa!”

Kang Jin-Ho heard a familiar voice and turned his head to find Ji-Eun jogging toward him.

She called out to him again, “Oppa!”

“Mm?”

“Ah! I forgot to bring you cola this time. You don't mind, right?”

Kang Jin-Ho shook his head. "No, it's fine."

From the sound of it, Ji-Eun must've viewed Kang Jin-Ho as some kind of a robot with cola as his energy source.

Ji-Eun continued. "Anyway, what a relief that I ran into you, Oppa."

“What do you mean?”

“I'm moving to another hospital tomorrow, you see.”

“...”

"Mom said that we'll have to move somewhere else, even though I don't wanna..." Ji-Eun muttered with a dejected face. She seemed less than enthusiastic about moving hospitals. Then again, trying to get used to new nurses and doctors would be difficult for a young girl like her even at the best of times.

Kang Jin-Ho tilted his head. “Isn't it fine to just not go?”

“Apparently not. I cried and said no, but Mom scolded me with a smack.”

"I see," Kang Jin-Ho replied as a faint smile crept up on his face without him realizing it. It seemed that all mothers were the same, no matter who they were.

“What about you, Oppa? Aren't you gonna get discharged?”

“Tomorrow.”

Ji-Eun replied with a grin, "Really? That's good since I'm leaving tomorrow, too. I mean, if I'm gone, and you're left behind by yourself, it's kinda uncool, right? You'll get lonely without me, too."

She seemed to be under some sort of misunderstanding, but Kang Jin-Ho didn't try to correct her.

“Oppa, I...” Ji-Eun suddenly stopped talking and clutched her chest.

Kang Jin-Ho's expression hardened. “Does it hurt?”

"...No, it's fine." She pretended to be fine, but even a blind could tell that she was in trouble. She definitely was in pain.

Kang Jin-Ho reached out. “Let me see.”

“What are you doing?!”

"..."

Kang Jin-Ho's extended hand was about to pull up her shirt, but Ji-Eun's sharp yell jolted him awake. He quickly pulled his hand back.

She cried out, "Pervert!"

“It's a misunderstanding.”

"Never mind! I'm fine. This happens now and then. But it's getting more frequent lately..."

"Mm..." Kang Jin-Ho slightly nodded and focused his senses on Ji-Eun's figure. He noticed that the qi flow near her chest was clogged. Placing his hand on her chest would get him a clearer picture of her condition, but he didn't want to attract unnecessary attention right now.

“Okay, Oppa. I'm going back to my room now.”

“Okay.”

“Doctors get mad at me if I wander around for too long, you see... My condition got worse lately, and if I try to leave my room, they’ll start nagging the heck out of me.”

“I see.”

“Okay, then. Oppa, bye.”

"Mm..." Kang Jin-Ho watched Ji-Eun walk away but he suddenly called out to her. "Wait."

“Hmm?”

“...What would you like to do if your illness is cured?”

Ji-Eun burst into a peal of laughter. “That's so obvious! I wanna go back to school like everyone else, you know? I wanna go out and have fun, too!”

“I see.”

“Okay! I'm going for real now, Oppa.”

Kang Jin-Ho wordlessly watched Ji-Eun's back in the distance, then slowly nodded his head. “Like everyone else... An ordinary life...”

He knew better than anyone how painful it was to be unable to lead an ordinary life. Kang Jin-Ho reaffirmed his resolve, then turned around to leave. However, his steps suddenly came to a halt as his head shifted back to Ji-Eun in the distance. A quiet little murmur escaped from his lips. "What happened to the honorifics, though "

It seemed that the two of them had become friends without him noticing it.