I can't breathe. I'm not allowed to, and I'm not able to deviate from the being that disabled me from breathing. I can't.

Dark. Four in the morning. Never mind that I'd fell asleep at 12 last night. It's always like this. It is like the day will not come if I don't endure a nightmare first. I cherish the sunlight, and I curse the sunset, for it is the source of night. For night is the time I should be sleeping. For sleeping is the time when my past haunts me, when it comes and bites me in the back. Reminding me of my fault, of my eternal sin. I've committed a crime. I held back something that I had no right on holding in the first place. I've known, and I still hadn't told those that deserve to know of that. Silence is my crime, and I've been imprisoned in the nightmares it brought for the last twenty years.

With self-brewed espresso in right hand and my briefcase in my left hand, I stroll through the hallway to the office. Actually, the office consists of a wide, open area with rows of cubicles, enough to let you hide your head if you bow but not enough to cover you when you don't. It is to that place where I am heading right now. Although with the way my assistant, also a close hoobae of mine, running in my direction, it'll take longer to reach my cubicle.

"Sunbae, it's chaos right now! Why are you coming just now?"

"What do you mean?"

"The Chief wants to speak to you. In her office. Like right now. It looks like this time they won't let it go easily."

It seems that they're still hung up on my insistence to speak of the burned man from Soo Sun Company who was unjustly fired. Well, I can't exactly let him down. The man burned himself, for God's sake, just to be heard. His wife even stated that he waited for me to speak up, even if speaking consists of changing questions and answers on papers. My conscience wouldn't let me rest if I let that unaired. It's enough that I got ONE thing occupying my nightmares, I don't need another matter to plague me down for another twenty years. I do want the first matter to be resolved in a close time, picturing myself sending an email to a certain email address last night.

I hurry myself to Min Jae office, or should I say the Chief's office. We go a long way back, she and I.

"Moon Ho, here." She spoke to me whilst handing a can of beer.

"Ah, my dear Min Jae. What am I going to do without you?" I answered, taking the can she offered.

"You would be so thin, you would no longer be attractive."

"You think of me highly huh? I'm so flattered, the flower of ABS trainees this year thought of me as attractive."

"There you go again, wiggling your eyebrows. I'm not going to fall for that. Where's the script you want to present?"

We fell into easy routine only after meeting for the first time. It is THAT easy. Not that there was anything that prevented us from being the opposite way with each other, but it is not everyday stuff where you can found someone you can click with on the first meeting.

"Min-Jae yaaa. To what do I owe you this pleasure?" I said, turning my aegyo full force.

"I'm your Chief."

"Alright, Chief Kang. I heard you were calling for me."

"Look at what you've done." She said that while turning the laptop to my side.

I see. Now she is going to reprimand me for going off-script.

"Chief Kang, I have spent three months of my time for the research in this matter. You do know as well as I do that it would have been a waste to not use the result in a broadcast."

"Reporter Moon, you must have also known as well as I do that despite all that, when your Chief stated that it should not be aired or it should be aired in a certain way, you should have complied."

Alright, she got me there.

"Whatever your reason is, the fact remains that you've overstepped your boundaries, again, and this time it's not going to be good for both you and I."

"Min Jae-ya-"

"From now on, you'll be under my direct supervision. Everything you're speaking on the show will be scripted, and each result of your research will have to be going to me before it will be aired."

"But where's the fun in that? And need I remind you that it is a live show?"

"That's because you won't be in a live show anymore."

"Come on, Min Jae-Chief…It's such a thrill to be going on air in a live show. I like it so much."

"You should have thought more before spouting off whatever floats your boat. You should have remembered that it is not only you that matters in that show. My credibility, and the show's credibility even the station's is not looking so good right now. It is downright bad. This is my damage control." When she looks at me with those grounded, yet shining eyes of hers, I can't help but thinking to what had gone wrong between us in the first place. She was, and still is, beautiful.

"Min Jae ya…I'm-"

"Your brother's here, in the President's room."

A sudden flash of dread fills my chest.

"What do you mean?"

"Huh, how come you look paler when you heard that compared to the possibility of being fired?"

I don't think it's prudent to tell her that the mere mention of my brother has never been good news. My brother. HUH. I understand where she comes from, it is not like it is a common thing around that whenever you hear your brother's name, you got your nerve stroked. No, it has never been a good thing.

I hope that she's not too offended by the fact that I wrote my resignation on her coffee cardboard holder. I'll have to make a formal one later, after I finish this. I spotted my brother with his secretary and his chauffeur whilst I leaned against the pillar. There's no need to call him out as he had turned to me, smiling. That smile of him, how different it feels now that I'm aware of what he is capable of.

"I heard you've met my company's President." I give him an opening while the car's rushing through the Seoul's road.

"I told him, I need Reporter Kim Moon Ho. Please give him to me."

"What do you mean?"

"It is been high time for you to cross the water to me."

"What are you doing, hyung? I thought we swim on different water. Don't tell me, you want me to inherit your newspaper company? This is life, hyung, not a drama. I'm not your son."

"You are my son. You know that Myung Hee and I don't have a child of our own. To us, you are like our son."

His delusion apparently has gone sky high.

"Hyung, I'm not your son." I said in my low, no-nonsense tone. "I'm also not Myung Hee nuna's son. Don't tempt me. I'm not, and never will be one. You know what will happen if you keep on doing that right?"

"Imma."

"I'll rebel, hyung. It's not going to be pretty."

I don't need to glance at him to know that he's frustrated. Unconsciously, I spot myself sporting a smirk in the window's reflection. It feels nice to know that I have the upper hand for once, and I swear to myself, if this is what it takes to keep my nightmare at bay, I would. Even if it means crossing hyung. Even if it means digging old wounds. Even if it means…letting go of the safety net I've held for so long.

A slice of Kim Moon Ho, Healer, Episode 3