Ye jun
The words hit harder than his hands ever did. I felt them in my chest, like soone had punched straight through my ribs. My eyes burned. My throat felt tight.
"Shut up," I said, but my voice shook.
"You shut up." He grabbed my wrist and twisted. Not enough to break anything. Just enough to remind he could. "You don’t get to push and then act like you’re the victim."
I tried to pull free. He held on. I shoved him with my other hand. He did not let go. I shoved again, harder this ti, putting my whole weight into it.
My foot caught on the edge of the rug.
Everything tilted.
I stumbled. He stumbled back too. My hand flew out, trying to grab sothing to steady myself. I reached for his shirt and missed. I reached again and brushed his phone. No, not his phone. Mine. He had taken it earlier and set it down sowhere. My head was spinning. I saw the couch and lunged for it.
He moved faster.
I crashed into his chest.
We both went down.
Hard.
My elbow slamd into his ribs. I heard the air rush out of him. Then his head hit the corner of the coffee table.
The sound was wet and dull.
Not loud.
Just wrong.
Everything went quiet.
For a second I thought he would swear at . I waited for it. For the insult. For the anger.
It did not co.
I pushed myself up, breathing fast. "Si woo?"
He did not move.
There was blood.
On the table. On the floor. In his hair.
It spread too fast. Too dark.
"Si woo?" My voice went high and thin. "Hey. Hey!"
Nothing.
I dropped to my knees beside him. My hands shook as I grabbed his shoulder. "Wake up. Co on. This isn’t funny."
His eyes were closed. His chest moved, but barely. Blood kept running down the side of his face, soaking into his collar. It dripped onto the floor.
I stared at the red on my fingers. It did not look real.
"Oh God. Oh God. Oh God."
My phone.
I looked around like I had never seen the room before. It was on the couch. The screen was still lit up with Titi’s last ssage.
I grabbed it. My hands were shaking so badly I almost dropped it again. I hit the ergency number. It rang once.
A calm voice answered.
I sounded like soone else. "Ambulance. Now. He hit his head. He’s bleeding. He won’t wake up."
They asked questions. Where are you. What happened. Is he breathing.
I tried to answer. We were fighting. I pushed him. He fell. It was my fault. Please hurry.
They told to press sothing against the wound. To keep him still.
I hung up and dropped the phone beside .
I pressed my hands against the cut on his head. Blood slid between my fingers. It was warm and sticky. I could feel it on my palms, under my nails.
"Don’t you dare die," I whispered. "Do you hear ? Don’t you dare."
His face was pale. Too pale.
The sirens ca after what felt like hours. Maybe it was only minutes. They were too loud. Too slow.
Paradics rushed in. They pulled away from him. I kept saying sorry. Over and over. I did not even know who I was saying it to.
They did not answer.
They worked fast. Bandages. Pressure. Questions. Then they lifted him onto a stretcher.
I followed without thinking.
No one stopped .
The hospital slled like bleach and sothing sharp and cold. Like fear.
They pushed him through double doors. I tried to go with them but a nurse held up a hand.
"You have to wait."
So I waited.
I sat in a plastic chair in the waiting room. My hands were still red. My shirt was stained. My head felt light. My body hurt in places I had forgotten about. My skin still rembered his hands. My bones still rembered the fall.
I stared at the floor. The tiles were scratched. There was an old coffee stain near my shoe.
A nurse ca over. She looked at carefully. "Are you family?"
I let out a short laugh. It sounded bitter. "No. I’m just the idiot who did this."
She frowned. "We need soone to sign consent forms."
"I’m his step brother. I’ll sign. Whatever you need. Just fix him."
She looked at a clipboard. "He needs blood. We are short right now."
I rolled up my sleeve before she finished speaking. "Take mine."
"You are sure?"
"Yes. Just take it. I think we’re the sa."
They led to another room. A needle went into my arm. I watched the bag slowly fill with dark red. My blood. It moved through the clear tube.
I stared at it and thought, great. Now part of will stay inside him forever.
It felt sick and poetic at the sa ti.
When they were done, they sent back to the waiting area.
Surgery. Stitches. Possible concussion. Possible brain injury. They would not say much more.
I sat outside the operating room. The chair was hard. My knees would not stop bouncing. My hands kept shaking even though there was no more blood on them.
I wiped them on my jeans anyway. The blood on my skin had dried. It felt tight and flaky.
My phone buzzed.
Titi.
you alive or did the pork win?
I stared at the ssage. A laugh ca out of but it broke in the middle.
I typed back with stiff thumbs.
he’s in surgery. i ssed up. bad.
She called right away.
I answered.
"What happened?" she asked.
I told her everything. The fight. The words. The shove. The fall. The blood. My voice cracked when I talked about the blood.
"Jesus, Ye jun."
"I know."
"Is he going to be okay?"
"I don’t know. They won’t tell anything."
There was a pause. Then her voice got softer. "Are you okay?"
"No." I laughed again. It sounded ugly. "I’m sitting here crying because I might not get to yell at him again. How sick is that? I want him alive so I can hate him properly. So I can get even. So I can make him pay for every bruise, every ti he called good boy, every ti he made feel small and then kissed it better. I need him alive for revenge. That’s how ssed up I am."
She did not joke. She did not tease. "That’s not ssed up. That’s human."
I wiped my face with my sleeve. Now there was blood and tears and snot all mixed together. I did not care.
"I didn’t call our parents," I said. "They would kill . They would bla . They would be right."
"You do not have to call them right now."
"I know. But if he dies..."
"He will not."
"But if he does..."
"Stop."
I stopped.
"Breathe," she said.
I tried. My chest hurt.
"He is too stubborn to die," she added. "And you are too annoying to let him go."
A weak snort escaped . "I still owe him payback."
"Exactly."
After we hung up, my phone battery died.
Ti stopped making sense. Minutes felt like hours. Hours felt like nothing.
Finally, a doctor walked out. She looked tired. She pulled down her mask.
"He is stable," she said. "He has a concussion and twelve stitches. He lost blood but your donation helped. He is in recovery. You can see him soon, but not for long. He is still unconscious."
I nodded because I could not speak.
When they let in, he looked smaller than usual. Pale. A thick bandage wrapped around his head. There was a tube in his arm. Machines beeped next to him. The sound was steady and annoying and wonderful.
I pulled a chair close to the bed and sat down.
I stared at his face.
"You jerk," I whispered. My voice shook. "You made donate blood. Now I feel dizzy and you are still winning. Even when you are knocked out, you are winning. I hate you."
He did not answer.
I leaned forward and rested my forehead against the cold tal rail of the bed.
"I’m sorry," I said quietly. "I didn’t an for this to happen. I just wanted you to stop talking. I just wanted to push you away. Not like this. Wake up so I can scream at you. Please."
Tears ca fast after that. I could not hold them back. I cried like a child. Loud and ssy. My shoulders shook. My face hurt.
Because he might wake up and hate .
Because he might not wake up at all.
Because even if he did wake up, I still wanted to grab him by the collar and shake him and kiss him and make him say my na like it ant sothing real.
That was the worst part.
It was not just about revenge.
It was not just about hate.
I wanted him.
All of him.
The cruel parts. The soft parts. The parts that broke . The parts that fixed .
I stayed there with my head against the bed, crying into the sheets, waiting for his eyes to open.
Waiting for him to ruin my life all over again.
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