6. Chapter Six #5
Ryowoon’s head turns toward me from where he’s propped against the pillows, and relief crashes through me so hard my knees almost give out. He’s awake. Alive. But as I step into the room the relief curdles and grows cold.
He looks like he lost a fight with a truck.
The left side of his face is a mottled canvas of purple and black, the eye swollen shut, skin stretched tight.
His lip is split in two places, crusted with dried blood.
Bandages wrap around his torso where his hospital gown hangs open at the shoulders.
His left arm is encased in a cast from wrist to elbow, propped on a pillow beside him.
Mrs. Nam sits in the chair beside the bed, peeling an apple with careful strokes of a paring knife. She glances up when I enter, her expression unchanging.
“About time you got here.”
Her tone could be scolding me for being late to restock shelves. But I see how pale she is, the way the knife trembles slightly in her grip. The way her eyes linger on Ryowoon’s face when he turns his head away from her.
I drop onto the edge of the hospital bed, my jaw aches from how hard I’m clenching my teeth.
Ryowoon shifts against the pillows, the eye that isn’t swollen shut scanning my face. His mouth curves, it would look like a smirk if his lip wasn’t split in two places.
“Stop looking like you want to cry.”
I swallow and glance away, fix my gaze on the IV stand beside the bed. I clear my throat and nod at the cast propped on the pillow beside him. “What’s with that?”
“Broke my wrist.” He says casually. “Few ribs for good measure too.”
I stare at the ceiling tiles, forcing myself to breathe slowly through my nose. If I look at him right now he’ll see everything on my face and that’ll only make this worse. He doesn’t need my anger or my helplessness on top of his own.
I lower my gaze back to him. “Does it hurt?”
“What do you think?”
“How long are they keeping you?”
“Few days. Have to make sure nothing shifts or whatever.” He shifts against the pillows and winces, stopping himself halfway through the movement.
Mrs. Nam sets the apple down, already peeled and sectioned, on the tray beside the bed. She doesn’t say anything but her hands are shaking when she folds them in her lap.
I stay. Ryowoon talks about the nurse who came in earlier, complaining she poked him three times before finding a vein.
About the food they served him that tasted like cardboard.
Normal things, his voice even, but there’s a hollowness in his good eye I can’t ignore.
Like someone reached inside and scooped out the life inside him.
Eventually his eyelid starts drooping. The pain meds are kicking in. His sentences trail off mid-thought and his head tips sideways against the pillow, the tension draining from his shoulders as sleep pulls him under.
I stay where I am on the edge of the bed, watching his chest rise and fall beneath the hospital gown, the bandages peeking out. Mrs. Nam stands, gathering her things slowly.
“Come sit with me in the hall,” she says quietly.
I follow her out, the door clicking shut behind us. Mrs. Nam lowers herself onto the bench against the wall and I drop down beside her, my hands clasped between my knees.
“He nearly gave me a heart attack when he dragged himself to the store this morning,” Mrs. Nam says flatly.
“Could barely stand upright. Kept saying he was fine, he just needed to sit down for a minute.” She shakes her head, lips pressed into a bloodless line.
“Cha Sungkyu will have deities to answer to someday for what he’s done to that boy. Mark my words.”
I stare at the scuffed linoleum between my feet. My hands curl into fists, nails digging into my palms.
“Does he have to go back?”
Mrs. Nam sighs heavily. “Ryowoon is his father’s responsibility until he’s of age. There’s nowhere for him to go. Even if we tried to take him somewhere, the police would just bring him back. He can’t make decisions about where he goes, he’s a minor.”
My throat tightens. “Don’t they see this?” I gesture back toward the room, toward the closed door hiding Ryowoon’s battered body. “How can they just let it happen?”
“I reported it, obviously.” Mrs. Nam’s hands twist in her lap.
“But by the time the police got there Sungkyu had sobered up enough to talk his way out of it. Said it was a family dispute, a misunderstanding. Promised it wouldn’t happen again.
” She looks at me with sad eyes. “You know by now how these things go.”
My eyes sting. I blink hard, forcing the wetness back.
“He’s going to kill him,” I say. “One of these days he’s really going to kill him.”
Mrs. Nam reaches over and squeezes my hand, her fingers cold and papery thin.
“Ryowoon’s tough. And he’s smart. He’ll make it through this.” She squeezes harder, like she’s trying to transfer her conviction into me through touch alone. “The only thing we can do is be there for him. Until he can leave on his own someday.”
I nod and we sit there in silence, and I think about the years stretching ahead until Ryowoon turns eighteen. Three more years of this. Three more years of watching him show up bruised and hollow-eyed, of patching him up and sending him back into that house.
But how much worse will it get as Ryowoon gets older, bigger, less breakable, and his dad has even less reason to hold back?
Nothing comes of it.
Ryowoon leaves the hospital after four days.
His face is still a patchwork of fading bruises when he shows up at school the following Monday, the cast bright white against the dark sleeve of his uniform jacket.
Kids stare in the hallways, whisper behind their hands, but no one asks outright.
By lunch the story going around is that he got into a fight with some older guys from Yeonsan. Ryowoon doesn’t correct them.
I know better. So does Haeil, Jinwon, Sihyung, Yoohan. But none of us say a word.
The cast stays on for six weeks. When it finally comes off his wrist is stiff, the movement limited.
He flexes his fingers, testing the range of motion, and I watch his mouth tighten when they don’t curl all the way.
Mrs. Nam gives him a stress ball to squeeze, tells him the doctor said he needs to exercise the joint to get mobility back.
Ryowoon tries for a few days then stops carrying it around.
I see it every time he reaches for things with his right hand now instead of his left.
The way he fumbles opening bottles or gripping his pencil too loosely.
One afternoon at Mrs. Nam’s he drops a bowl reaching for it with his left hand and it shatters across the courtyard stone.
He stares at the pieces scattered around his feet, his jaw working, then crouches to pick them up without a word.
I help him clean it up and never bring it up again.
Every time I see him struggle with something simple my stomach knots up. I grit my teeth and look away before he catches me watching.
I keep dating Sohee. She’s easy to be with, doesn’t ask too many questions, laughs when I make terrible jokes. We sit together at lunch, walk home after school holding hands and kiss on the playground we’ve long since outgrown.