«Why are you so friendly?» I asked, eyeing him suspiciously.
«I never touched on this part of the work. Therefore, I will help you with pleasure, but… on the condition that you go home with us, and not on your own, so to speak, transport.» Curving his face in a grimace of disgust, he put forward his condition, to which I rose to my feet and stretched blissfully.
«I don’t see any reason to refuse,» I smiled weakly and followed Sung Joon to the door, and then remembered that I had left my things on one of the nightstands, so I returned and suddenly heard something falling, and when I turned around in fright, found Sung Joon lying unconscious on the floor.
«Song Joon!» Frightened, I ran towards him. «Song Joon!» I called, but he did not react at all and at the same time looked so pale that I doubted whether he was alive.
I called our agency’s duty doctor and tried my best to bring Sung Joon back to his senses. At the moment when the male doctor rushed into the office, I was sitting on the floor and begged Sung Joon to regain consciousness.
The doctor, using some liquid from a small bottle, brought Sung Joon back to consciousness, and I breathed a sigh of relief, feeling tears flow down my cheeks.
«The car is already waiting. Can you get there? Are you strong enough?» The doctor addressed him.
«Uh-huh…» Sung Joon breathed out as he struggled to his feet.
I held him by the elbow and helped him finally get into a stable position, after which I led him to the elevator, which took us down to the underground parking.
«Hold on to me,» I suggested, still holding on to his elbow. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and I could feel how weak he was right now.
Not without difficulty, we got to the car, where the door of the minibus was already open for us. I helped Sung Joon into the seat and, despite his feeble attempts to protest, buckled him in with my seat belt, then took my usual seat, keeping my charge in sight.
«Stop staring at me. Burn a hole in me.» He spoke to me in a weak voice.
«Do you want water?» I asked and fussily began to search in my bag for a bottle of water that had been started. I opened the bottle and handed it to Sung Joon. He accepted the bottle and inspected its contents warily, and I could tell from his expression that he was dissatisfied with the fact that they had already drunk from it. «Seriously? Even in this situation, are you squeamish?»
«Only you drank it?» He asked warily.
«Yes, just me. I opened it in the evening and took a couple of sips. I bought it from the machine. Jin-young, do you have any disposable cups?» I turned to the driver, frantically trying to find a way out of this situation.
«Yes, I’ll give it to you now,» the young man began to rustle and after a moment handed me several glasses, while we stopped at a traffic light.
I thanked him, then poured water into glasses, one of which I handed to Sung Joon, and the other I kept for myself and hurried to drain it. Sung Joon waited until I had a drink, after which he himself began to drink water in careful sips.
«How do you feel?» After a long silence, I asked.
«It’s better. You have nothing to worry about. It’s normal.» He exhaled wearily.
«We arrived.» Jin-young announced as he braked smoothly in front of the hospital building.
I got to my feet, after which I helped Sung Joon get out of the car and realized that we had stopped not at the main entrance, but at the service one, where they were already waiting for us. The doctors acted so harmoniously, as if this was not the first time, in addition, Sung Joon was absolutely calm.
Me and Jin-young were left waiting in the room reserved for Sung Joon while he himself was being examined.
«We need to tell the manager,» I reasoned out loud, looking out the window at the city shining with various lights, after which I took my work phone and started typing a message to Min Hyuk, when suddenly someone snatched my smartphone from me.
«No need to tell anyone!» Sung Joon told me, after which he went to the hospital bed and carefully lay down on it.
«I have to report that…»
«Min Hee, just go home. Jin-young, take her home.» Sung Joon spoke indistinctly as if he had no strength left at all.
«No. I’m not going. I’ll stay with you,» I protested and left the room to talk to the doctor, who was just on his way to Sung Joon’s. After greeting him, I asked him to give me a short conclusion regarding Sung Joon’s condition.
I listened attentively to the doctor and felt how with every word he said I was getting more and more angry, and when I received all the information, the doctor and I entered Sung Joon’s room, who was lying with his eyes fixed on the ceiling.
«Mr. Sung Joon,» the doctor addressed him and my ward carefully sat down, «now you will be put on a drip.» After these words, a nurse suddenly appeared, hiding her eyes from our superstar, as if on automatic mode, stuck a needle into a vein on his arm and hurried away. «As soon as the solution is over, you can go home.»
«Thank you,» Sung Joon thanked, after which he returned his head to the small pillow.
I saw the doctor off and went back to the room to sit in the leather chair from which I could look at Sung Joon.
He lifted his head slightly, obviously noticing my gaze.
«Something you want to say?» He exhaled wearily.
«I’m struggling to contain my anger and rage, realizing that now there will be no sense from the fact that I will tell you everything I think.» I answered, nervously tapping my foot on the floor surface.
«And what do you think?» He asked, looking at me point-blank with a look full of sincere interest.
«I’m angry. You lied to me. Yesterday you had a busy day, and you didn’t eat anything at lunch, but only looked at me and said that you were fed on the set. Today you lied when you said that you had lunch. So you Haven’t eaten anything for two days? I summed it up in amazement.
He took a deep, slow breath and nodded his head, confirming my suspicions.
«It’s not the first time, so don’t worry about it. And don’t think that you’re in any way to blame.» He answered in a muffled and still weak voice.
«At a moment like this, you still think about me,» I chuckled sadly, feeling tired and regretting that Sung Joon had to go through this.
Our eyes met again, and I suddenly realized that I felt sympathy for this amazing young man who is trying his best to hide his good heart behind a wounded soul. The sadness in his eyes made my heart clench painfully. And it seems that right now I’m starting to get to know the real Sung Joon. And I was afraid that he was hiding his wounds, the depth of which, it seemed, could not be measured.
I knew I should look away, but I couldn’t control myself until I got a text from Alex on my phone. I blinked in confusion and took out my personal smartphone from the pocket of my denim jacket. A friend wrote that he was preparing a surprise for me, and very soon I will hear from him about this. I couldn’t help but smile and quickly typed out a reply saying that I was looking forward to hearing from him about it.
«Did something good happen?» Sung Joon suggested in a suspicious tone.
«Nothing special. Best friend made himself known,» I replied, returning the phone to its place.
«Are you close to him?» He asked, covering his eyes.
«We have been friends for almost twenty years. My mother and I lived in his parents’ house in America when I was three.»
«And