.
Watching the two girls with a grin, it seemed like they were already having a good time, so I decided to step back and study with my workbook. As soon as I took out the book from my backpack, Eunmi shouted, “Eh, unnie, are you gonna study?”
“Huh? Uh, yeah… since I’m already in my sophomore year in high school…” I replied hesitantly.
Eunmi uttered, “Are you here just because of me while you have so many things to do?”
“What? No, no,” I denied while quickly waving my hand in the air, but I pricked at my conscience. Recently, I was behind my homework, so if I procrastinated it even today, I would have to finish my workbook until three in the morning tonight.
‘But…’ I scratched the back of my head with my hand holding a pencil. When either Eun Hyung or Yoo Chun Young’s father woke up, I would like to stay beside them too. Being in this hospital, I could do things concurrently, so Eunmi didn’t have to be concerned about me. While I had those thoughts in my head, Eunmi flung a question.
“Ah, if you’re okay, may I help you?”
“Huh?” I opened my mouth in wonder and then closed while thinking, ‘Let’ see… Eun Hyung said his sister was two years younger than him, so Eunmi would have turned just sixteen, senior in middle school. However, did she just say she would help me with my homework?’
Tilting my head in suspicion, I opened my workbook meekly. After a second, my lingering doubt was finally dispelled. I murmured blankly, “Ah, right…”
This girl was EUN HYUNG’S SISTER…
‘I’ve had to, of course, expect that she’d be super smart…’ I spoke to myself in a daze.
Eunmi, sitting beside me, asked me nervously, “Um, oh, Lord… It’s my first time to teach someone else, so… did I explain it really strangely?”
“No, not at all…” I replied. Scratching the back of my head for a second, I soon put down my workbook and got up from my seat. Pointing outside the door, I said, “Let me just get some fresh air.”
“Huh? Uh, sure…”
Feeling Eunmi and Ban Yeo Ryung’s doubtful gaze chasing the back of my head, I opened the door and went outside. Once I stepped into the hallway, the silence of the hospital, which now I got quite used to, surrounded me. Nurses who pulled the cart didn’t show indications of their existence being around like ghosts in horror movies; the lights went out already at some part of the hallway.
‘Now I come to think of it… what time is it now?’ I wondered. Taking out my phone, I became surprised at the time on the screen. It was already close to ten at night.
‘Before the last bus is gone, I should get ready to return home,’ thinking that way, I, on the other hand, heaved a deep sigh. I murmured, “Why on earth isn’t there anyone around me who has just an average intelligence?”
Whenever something like this happened, I got to think that I wished I was born to one of the main character’s little sister. Having that thought in my mind, suddenly, someone flashed through my head.
Ban Hwee Hyul.
I took out my phone from the pocket again.
“Should I make a call?” I wondered. Although we exchanged our numbers, we didn’t keep in touch at all.
Honestly, it was true that I felt familiar to him at that moment; however, when thinking about his title of the nationwide Number 1, he was a fearful person to me at the same time.
‘Hmm…’ Rubbing my chin while being lost in thought, I didn’t notice that someone was dashing toward this direction. With a loud noise, my body was pushed against the wall. Opening my eyes wide, I turned to look at that side.
“Ah, sorry! I’m so sorry…”
A petite girl spoke that way while lowering her head in a rush. I also wasn’t that tall, but she was about ten centimeters shorter than me. She probably seemed like one hundred fifty centimeters tall.
The girl even pulled her hat over her eyes with her hoodie over her head in the hospital. Thus, her face wasn’t visible. Even her voice sounded young too.
‘Maybe she’s about thirteen or fourteen… Is she one of the patient’s families here? She’s wearing a hat maybe because she didn’t wash her hair,’ I thought while nodding my head.
The girl stared at me vacantly. Her shiny black eyes twinkled in the light.
I asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Ham Donnie?”
“What?” I uttered with a frown then checked my chest area instinctively. However, since I wasn’t wearing my school uniform, there won’t be any nametag on. How would she know my face then?
I became frightened all of a sudden. I was aware that reporters had been wandering around the hospital lately. Did one of them recognize me as Yoo Chun Young’s friend and leak my information? However, I was still just a civilian, not a member of the conglomerate family.
Lifting my head, I asked her urgently, “How did you know my name?”
At that moment, something weird took place. The person who had to become startled should be me, but the girl’s face turned paler instead.
“Ham Donnie… so you’re Ham Donnie, huh?”
Murmuring that way, the girl turned around abruptly then suddenly began to run. A human figure as small as a bunny receded from me hurriedly in the dark hallway. She looked like a girl in a fairy tale diving into a mysterious adventure.
‘Who the heck was she?’ I wondered. Being left alone in the hallway, I looked in her direction absentmindedly. Suddenly, there was a loud noise. Once I turned my head back to the opposite side of the hallway where the girl first jumped out, several bodyguards came running toward my side. Looking in this direction, they shrugged.
As soon as they found me standing here, they shouted at the same time, “Young master’s friend!”
“Huh? Uh, yes…”
The female bodyguard in the lead asked while gasping, “Didn’t someone suspicious just pass by in the hallway? A girl covering all her body who looked like a middle school student…”
That was when I pulled myself together and replied stammeringly, “Uh… yeah, she did just now!”
“Which way was it!?”
“That way.”
As I pointed at the dark staircase, they said thanks and ran toward that side all of a sudden. One person fell behind them and was walking toward this side ploddingly. Maybe his strength had already declined.
Staring at him, I asked, “What’s going on?” His response then bewildered me.
“That kid is an intruder,” he replied.
“Excuse me!?”
“Maybe they didn’t run a security check on her since she was young. They might have considered her as a patient’s family. Geez, how bold was she to stop by at the chairman and Driver Kwon’s patient room.”
‘What?!!’ I flung a question in fear, “How’s it going there? Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine. That’s why it’s strange.”
“Huh?”
The bodyguard enunciated his response with a grimace, “To consider it as a coincidence, she only stopped by weirdly at Mr. Chairman and Driver Kwon’s patient room. How dare can a little kid do something like that? Maybe someone allured her with money or she might have been very determined to behave that way. However, she just went inside the patient’s room, did nothing, and just left. That’s what we feel strange about.”
“Oh…”
“She isn’t that young to not understand what she has to do; besides, she’s very clever enough to escape like that.”
The bodyguard stopped explaining at some point and murmured alone. He then got up from his seat and pointed at the patient room where Eunmi was staying.
“Anyway, nothing’s going on there, right?” he asked.
“Ah, yeah. Everything’s well there,” I replied.
“Good. If something like this happens again, we can arrange people here too.”
Speaking that way, the bodyguard turned around and went to the direction where the mysterious girl had disappeared earlier. It seemed like a storm had swept the space. Looking at the sight, I murmured to myself, ‘What the heck is going on?’
Tracing my memories, I tried to recall the girl’s face as much as possible. Perhaps, she could be a kid who had some special ability like Yi Ruda or Lucas. However, the girl was too run-of-the-mill to say so. Her face, voice, atmosphere, and even her running pace wasn’t extraordinary.
How did she break into the chairman’s patient room, which was under a heavy guard, in the first place? I turned my head and looked at the hallway. Yoo Chun Young and Eun Hyung would be there too.
At that moment, my phone began to ring. Once I checked the phone screen, it was Eun Hyung. I quickly opened my flip phone.
Soon after, I almost shouted, “What? Did you say they woke up?”
Like a miracle, both Yoo Chun Young and Eun Hyung’s father awoke from a coma at the same time.
