Death and Dependence (1/1)

Chapter 11 I opened up more to Yunho after that. I don’t know what had changed, but I felt closer to him, especially after Ms. Lee got sick. At first, she was just tired a lot, but then the coughing started, then the fainting. No one knew what it was, but it kept getting worse and no one knew what to do about it. Personally, I wondered if my father had anything to do with it. However, there was nothing to back up my accusation. ________________ Another sleepless night spent by her side in the hospital. Another night that would only darken the already black circles under my eyes. I rarely moved by her side. I would have ditched school too, but she insisted that I go. I rarely went home anymore. From the hospital to school, from school to the house for a fresh change of clothes and a shower, and then back to the hospital I went. I grew accustomed to sleeping in the chair near the hospital bed. I grew accustomed to the coughing and the periodical beeps of the heart monitor. I prayed every night that she would get better, even if on the inside I knew she wouldn’t.  The day she died ruined me. I remember being woken by the sudden change in the heart monitor. The beeps had become normal to me, mundane. It had become easy to ignore them, to sleep despite the noise. However, what woke me was the change from a beep to a sudden prolonged drone. My eyes popped open in fear and I rushed over to the “Call Nurse” button, pressing it repeatedly. When no one was there within the instant, I ran towards to the door and yelled. “We need a nurse in here! Hurry!” Then, remembering my cell phone, I dialed Ms. Lee’s son, Donghae. He picked up, but before he could say anything I butted in. “Get over here. Now. There is an emergency.” Hanging up, I rushed to her bed side where there were two nurses, frantically attempting to resurrect the fallen woman. I was holding her hand, whispering over and over that everything was going to be okay. I leaned down to hug her when one of the nurses decided that I was interfering too much and led me out of the room. I would have tried to re-enter the room, but I knew that it would not help whatsoever. It might have actually decreased her chances of living. So I reluctantly sat down in one of the waiting room’s chairs. It wasn’t two minutes before Donghae crashed through the doors and rushed to my side. “What happened?” “Her heart stopped...They’re attempting to revive her now..” I said, blinking back tears.  His eyes widened before tears fell shamelessly down his cheeks. In a fit of denial and fear, he attempted to push past me to reach his mother. Stopping him, I told him, “they kicked me out for just trying to hug her. We just have to wait until they come back. Everything will be okay. I promise.” I knew it was a false promise, but what could I honestly do? I was just as scared as him.  We both waited restlessly in the waiting room for hours, until past two in the morning. It was then that a doctor calmly entered the waiting room, with the practiced hopeful smile that all doctors seem to wear. Both Donghae and I stood as the doctor entered, hoping for the best, yet prepared for the worst.  “She is stable for now, but her heart is weak and we had to put her on oxygen. I suggest that you say your goodbyes now. If she is lucky, she will last until tomorrow morning. I’m sorry.” Donghae and I stared at the physician in utter shock until we both realized that we were wasting time and raced towards the hospital door. Mrs. Lee was lying on the bed weakly, her eyes closed and skin pale. Her black wiry hair was messy and unruly and her skin’s imperfections were highlighted in the fluorescent lighting. I might have thought that she was dead already if her hand hadn’t twitched. Donghae walked over and held it, squeezing it gently to signal that he was there. I managed to dumbly walk towards her bedside, but my mind was racing with wonder as I attempted to comprehend how she had deteriorated so quickly. “It’s going to be okay,” I murmured. I knew it was a lie, the doctor had said it himself. Yet I needed to convince myself. I can’t live without her, I thought.  Numbly, I started to send off a text to my friends, yet my fingers even found this difficult, and it took multiple attempts to spell each word correctly. Eventually I sent the message asking them to come to the hospital. I looked away and returned to comforting the woman who had become my mother. Eventually my phone started to vibrate repeatedly as I received replies. However, my eyebrows furrowed in confusion and disgust as I read the replies. Yoochun answered for both himself and Junsu as he blew off the request, essentially stating that he and the other were on a date, and that he couldn’t come. Changmin was playing a new video game, and Heechul and Key were busy shopping. All of them refused to come.  Why? I found myself thinking. She is always so kind to them, but once she is sick and dying, they all leave. What Heechul had said was particularly awful, stating that she was “only a maid, so why does it matter that she’s sick?” I couldn’t stand it, and was about to turn off my phone when I received another message. “Oh my god, I’ll be there as soon as I can. Stay strong Jae.—Yunho” I smiled slightly and murmured to her that someone else is coming. I then turned to Donghae. “Is there anyone else that could come to be with her? ...A brother or sister maybe? Cousins? Any family or friends?” He shook his head sadly. “Everyone is either dead or has moved away.”  “Ah...” And so we stayed there, holding her hands and trying to keep her awake (and therefore alive) as we waited for the other to arrive. It hadn’t been five minutes before Yunho quietly crept into the room, flowers in hand. As quiet as his entry was, his cheeks were flushed and breath ragged, indicating that he had been in a rush. He had most likely slowed down his pace as he entered as not to disturb the sick woman. I smiled sadly as he placed the blue azaleas down next to her bedside.  “Thanks for coming,” I murmured as I glanced briefly at him. “It was the right thing to do. She means a lot to me, and you. She helped you a lot.” He whispered back to me.  “Hey, how are you doing?” He addressed her, wanting to treat her as a person even this late in her life. She eventually managed to get the words out, though they were racked by coughs and wheezing. “I’ll be...fine. You don’t have to be here...” “We’re staying, don’t worry” reassured Yunho. The night passed fearfully, and as the doctor had said, she passed away gently around three thirty in the morning. She squeezed our hands faintly, trying to get out some words in her last breaths, but they were droned out by the sound of the heart monitor flat-lining.  The tears from our last fits of crying had dried; we hadn’t wanted to upset her with our tears. Yet the minute that noise once more sounded and the doctors rushed in to attempt to resuscitate the fallen women, we all knew that the hope was gone. And so it was then that the tears re-carved their paths into our cheeks, any words covered by hiccups and whimpers. Yunho pulled me close as we cried into each other, trying to calm each other down though we both knew it was impossible. The warmth of his body which had once been soothing now only reminded me that her body was growing cold, that the life that we had was no longer possessed by her. The three of us managed to stumble out of the hospital, hair disheveled and eyes sunken from lack of sleep. Donghae and I bid our goodbyes, and Yunho led me to his car. He had settled faster than I had, not having known her as well. To me, she was the mother I had never grown up with. The fact that she was gone destroyed me. I would have nothing if not her.  Yunho opened the car door for me and I smiled sadly before collapsing into the seat, most likely looking broken from the emotional blow I had taken. “Where are we going?” I mumbled. “My house,” he replied. “I don’t trust your house to be safe now that she is gone. She protected you and I owe her for that.” “She was like my mother...” My voice faded out as my mind collapsed into memories. “Jaejoong.” I looked up at him, tears threatening to spill though I was no longer crying.  “I know this sounds cliché, but I need to distract you for this. It isn’t healthy to dwell on the past, and she would want you to be happy.” I sighed and nodded, knowing that he was right, yet every smile I tried to wear felt fake—more like a mask than my own face. “What would you like to do? Today is your day.” “I just want to curl up in bed and cry...” I mumbled, sniffling at the memories. “Then that is exactly what we’ll do,” he stated as he pulled into the driveway of his house. Confused, yet too numb to say anything, I followed Yunho into his house. Kicking his shoes off, he motioned for me to follow him towards his room. Now, his room wasn’t anything new or special to me, but as I entered the room that day, a sense of calm seemed to come over me. He tugged lightly on my hand as he moved towards the bed. He got under the covers and pulled me into his arms. Tilting my head up to look at him, he spoke gently. “Now cry as much as you want. I’ll be here to keep you safe and warm.” I smiled then, the first real smile since Ms. Lee had been admitted to the hospital. There was no tangible, no real reason as to why I was smiling; I just was. “Thank you,” I murmured, “but I won’t cry anymore. Like you said, it is best to remember her the way she should be.” I took a deep breath, and then began my memories, telling the other of my experiences with her: how she smiled and praised me, encouraged me when I was feeling down. I spoke of the happy times and the sad, the funny and the angry. I told him how my mother had passed and what she had left for me. I recounted how I met Ms. Lee and of my surprise when she was my new housekeeper. I guiltily told Yunho how I had broken my promise to go to the cooking school with her years ago, and even of my suspicion that my father had something to do with Ms. Lee’s death. And after I had spoken, the words hanging through the air as a curtain of memories, I smiled. Because Ms. Lee would not die with her body. She would die with her memory, and I swore to myself that I would never let that happen. Even if she was gone, the impact that she left would live on for a long time.  After the silence had begun to linger, I looked back up to Yunho, whose eyes were intently trained on me. Of course, when I was speaking I had felt his reactions, squeezing me tighter during a sad or particularly scary memory, resting his head on mine gently as I remembered the good. Yet he had said nothing the entire time, just letting me speak and let my emotions and thoughts and feelings out into the open.   It was then, as I looked into his searching eyes, that some part, deep inside of me, clicked. That part of me knew that I was meant to be here, in his arms. That no matter what happened, even if every one I knew left, that he would always be here for me. I suppose that it was then that I honestly realized that I liked the other as more than a friend. After Valentine’s Day, I had formed a new outlook on love. Yet it was here that I decided that the light-hearted feeling I acquired around him was love, that I liked him and liked him a lot. Yet I knew that I would not admit that to him. At least, not yet. The happiness that would light up his face when I would confess to him had no place in a day so utterly vile and sorrowful. No, surely I would tell him some other time. But as it was, I felt more relaxed having admitted it to myself.  And so with the emotions and fear lifted from my chest, I managed to close my eyes and let the sleep which had long eluded me take over my body. And as I physically fell limp in Yunho’s arms, I mentally drifted down the rabbit hole towards my dreams.

[A/N]