Just A Friend

#54

“You said you wouldn’t cause any worry, so I trusted you and left him in your care, but what is this! What is it! How dare you come in here after doing this to my child!”

Kang Jihan couldn’t do anything even as she grabbed his collar and shook him. He couldn’t even bring himself to ask what had happened to Nam Seonwoo, why he wasn’t waking up. He felt paralyzed by guilt, just like that time.

“Seonwoo, save our Seonwoo. Save my son-!”

Nurses came running at the commotion. The body that had been screaming relentlessly collapsed to the floor, powerless against the nurse’s touch that separated her from Kang Jihan. Unable to approach her as she beat the floor and burst into tears, Kang Jihan just kept mumbling apologies.

A nurse roughly grabbed Kang Jihan. As he was about to drag him out to the corridor, saying outsiders weren’t allowed, he suddenly stopped and tilted his head. As the nurse scrutinized Kang Jihan’s face and was about to speak, a composed voice cut between them.

“He’s not an outsider, he’s our son.”

Son. Kang Jihan’s neck stiffened at that word. Only Nam Seonwoo’s father called him that.

“I apologize for the disturbance. I’ll take him with me.”

But even now, he couldn’t understand why he was being called that. Park Gyuhyeon’s voice shouting “murderer” and the mother’s sobs from inside the room swirled confusingly in his head.

Nam Seonwoo’s father, Nam Cheolmin, quietly led Kang Jihan to the end of the corridor. In the small space around the corner were a vending machine and chairs. Amidst the humming of the machine, Nam Cheolmin, who had been standing with his back turned silently, turned to look at Kang Jihan after a while.

The dark shadows under his eyes, unfocused pupils, and a voice that kept mumbling something. Nam Cheolmin looked for a while at the unfamiliar face that seemed unlike the young man he knew, then spoke.

“It’s been a while.”

“…Father.”

“I’m sorry. You must be in shock too. I apologize on behalf of my wife.”

Kang Jihan barely raised his pale face. Keeping his mouth shut, feeling that even saying “It’s alright” would be deceitful, Nam Cheolmin asked.

“But why did you come? I heard from Gyuhyeon that you two had broken up.”

Had he been under some illusion because he was still called “son”? Kang Jihan, frozen in shock, once again realized his position.

The glimpse he had caught of the hospital room was full of traces of many people. A rolling paper seemingly written by students, a placard that looked like it was sent from work, postcards from friends. Among all those many visitors, only “Kang Jihan” was missing.

An outsider. Not even registered as an emergency contact, receiving the news later than even Park Gyuhyeon, a complete stranger. Despite fifteen years together, he was now unable to be associated as a colleague, friend, or family.

“…I’m sorry.”

Under the calm gaze fixed on him, he could only lower his head. He couldn’t bring himself to insist to Nam Seonwoo’s father that they hadn’t broken up, as he had done with Park Gyuhyeon.

He had many questions he wanted to ask. What exactly had happened to Nam Seonwoo, what was his current condition, why wasn’t he waking up, and what was the prognosis… But the fact that he didn’t even have the right to ask weighed heavily on his throat.

After a brief silence, Nam Cheolmin spoke heavily.

“I heard it was a rear-end collision.”

So it was a traffic accident. His heart started pounding as if having a seizure. Suppressing the nausea that felt like it might burst out of his mouth at any moment, Kang Jihan listened to Nam Cheolmin’s story, frozen in place.

“They said he suffered a severe head injury, the surgery took so long. After an excruciatingly long time, the child finally came out, but…”

Nam Cheolmin, trailing off, relayed exactly what the medical staff had told him. They said the head injury was severe. After a long surgery, his pulse and breathing barely returned to normal, but his voice trembled slightly as he said that in the end, he couldn’t regain consciousness.

“…They say everything else is fine, but for some reason, he just won’t wake up.”

Following that voice, Kang Jihan’s fist trembled finely. Realizing that while he had been acting like an idiot for the past few days, Nam Seonwoo had been hovering between life and death, he felt like smashing his head against the wall right then and there.

“The doctors say there’s nothing more they can do, that it’s up to the patient’s will now. Isn’t it ridiculous? Talking about willpower for a child who’s unconscious.”

“……”

“Jihan. Is there really no other way?”

Faced with a gaze full of hope and expectation asking if he didn’t know something, Kang Jihan couldn’t say anything.

Patients in a coma did regain consciousness very rarely, but those were just a few cases that could be counted on one’s fingers. If they didn’t wake up within a few days, the chances of recovery became slim, and most never woke up. That’s how it was in the many cases he had actually seen.

Back then, his colleagues would tell the patients’ families: It’s difficult, but please talk to them a lot. You need to awaken the patient’s will. Their ears are open, so please talk to them a lot. But even those speaking knew. That it was no longer in the realm of medicine.

That’s why Kang Jihan hadn’t said such meaningless things. Instead, he had told the families about the worst-case scenario. He thought it would be better for the remaining family to face reality rather than wasting time clinging to false hope.

But now he couldn’t do that.

“…I see.”

Understanding Kang Jihan’s silence, Nam Cheolmin nodded.

“Everyone believes he’ll wake up soon, but… well. I think I need to prepare myself mentally to some extent.”

“No.”

Kang Jihan hastily spoke.

“He can… wake up. If we talk to him… if we keep stimulating him…”

The words flowing out incoherently sounded terrible even to himself. To the point where he doubted if he was really a doctor.

Nam Cheolmin smiled weakly.

“I don’t blame you, Jihan. It’s an accident, so it’s ridiculous to blame anyone. My wife is having a hard time, so please understand.”

“No, I…”

“You must have had your reasons for separating. Since Gyuhyeon was so adamant, you probably didn’t even get contacted. But Jihan.”

Kang Jihan blankly watched his mouth open.

“We’ll take care of Seonwoo now.”

The hand patting his shoulder was kind, but the message it conveyed was infinitely cold.

“Don’t feel unnecessary guilt and please go home now. That’s what Seonwoo would want.”

Being outside the “we” was this chilling and powerless.

Kang Jihan, who had been staring blankly into space, desperately grabbed Nam Cheolmin as he was about to leave.

He didn’t want to not see Nam Seonwoo like this. It was unacceptable. It didn’t make sense that he couldn’t touch Nam Seonwoo when he was just beyond this wall. The fact that “Kang Jihan” the outsider had to withdraw now was unbearably difficult.

So he knelt down, just like that time. He begged, saying he was sorry, please give him the right to stay by Nam Seonwoo’s side.

The plea from over a decade ago asking not to chase Nam Seonwoo away had now, after a long time, changed into a plea not to chase himself away.

* * *

The single room where Nam Seonwoo was staying was limited to one guardian who could stay overnight. However, there were cases where guardians could alternate depending on the patient’s condition, and since Nam Seonwoo required 24-hour continuous observation, Nam Cheolmin and Park Jayoung took turns. When both were unavoidably absent, Park Gyuhyeon would fill in.

Naturally, Park Jayoung and Park Gyuhyeon did not allow Kang Jihan to set foot in the hospital room. But Kang Jihan stubbornly refused to leave the front of the room. Because in that brief moment when the shift changed, he could see Nam Seonwoo through the opening door.

Eventually, after Nam Cheolmin’s long persuasion, Kang Jihan was allowed to spend a few minutes each day. It wasn’t as a guardian but in the form of a visit, and even then, he would just stand there without saying anything, but Kang Jihan filled that time faithfully.

Sometimes, when Park Gyuhyeon couldn’t come, he could stay by Nam Seonwoo’s side in his place. This was possible because he had been waiting in front of the room all day. Park Gyuhyeon, who used to give him disgusted looks, at some point stopped raising his voice when he saw Kang Jihan, and Park Jayoung even set up a heater outside the corridor.

As such times accumulated, Kang Jihan’s time guarding the hospital room gradually increased. The few minutes a day he was allowed became a few hours, and those few hours soon exceeded twenty hours. The hospital was already implicitly treating him as Nam Seonwoo’s primary guardian.

Kang Jihan’s phone, which had been ringing incessantly, was now quiet. The hospital had been in turmoil for a while due to the sudden disappearance of Director Kang, but the head nurse, who had anticipated such a situation from various signs, handled it flexibly. Apart from occasionally replying when she or the deputy director asked something, Kang Jihan didn’t touch his phone. His gaze was always fixed on one place.

Kang Jihan’s daily routine was always the same. He would change Nam Seonwoo’s nasogastric tube, raise his upper body to help with meals, massage his entire body to prevent stiffness, and meticulously clean him from head to toe to ensure there wasn’t even a slightly uncomfortable spot.