Note: Originally posted at my LiveJournal (username folle-et-folie) 26 Jan 2012. Original notes and links located there.
It's the third day he hasn't shown up to school, and Queen is surprised to find she feels uneasy about it. (Though it seems like everything about Jae Gu makes her uneasy these days.)
It's the talk of the school, the one male student who hasn't shown up in three days. Somehow (does the man have no pride, no self-respect?) everyone knows about his scholarship, contingent on attendance, and everyone is wondering if he quit, if he gave up, if he got kicked out.
Queen can't escape it—the speculation follows her to her locker, through the halls, crowds the edges of the gym and hisses in the corners of the shower stalls.
She knows how important it is to him, this school, because it means a future for the twins, and he'd do anything for them. Has done everything for them.
Is he hurt? Sick? Did those two-bit bullies from his middle school rough him up so badly he can't get to school? (She burns when she thinks of them, threatening him in front of the school, and swears next time they meet she won't hold back.)
Or maybe… Maybe he really gave up, threw in the towel.
That thought sinks into the pit of her stomach and stays there, weighing her down, dragging her under.
He wouldn't, would he? He can't, he just can't.
She won't let him.
She always wears the same facie except for when she's alone with her brother or Moon Young. And then only occasionally do her real feelings show through.
So she knows that when he finally answers her fist pounding on his door, she doesn't look worried or angry or frightened like she feels, just indifferent.
His color is all wrong and he makes no fuss when she follows him in, just turns from the door.
It's a bad sign. Her insides twist around themselves and her throat closes up.
Jae Gu kneels next to his family's overused and under-padded futon where the twins lay, their little faces wan and drawn, and sluggishly applies wet rags to their foreheads. Queen is quiet, brittle. She kneels opposite him to inspect—the twins are hot to the touch.
She doesn't ask him why he hasn't called a doctor or gone to the hospital—it's too obvious in the ragged edges of their blankets, the paint peeling off the walls in strips. She wonders if her shoes are worth more than a year's rent here.
He doesn't speak. Doesn't ask why she's here or how she knew or why she cares. He's just looking at his hands as if to blame them for not being stronger, faster, smarter. Hopeless.
Everything is breaking. She is breaking, shattering like glass, watching him hate himself.
She makes the necessary phone calls amidst his silence. He barely protests when she informs him they are leaving and even tries to help carry the twins to her waiting limousine.
He's out almost the moment they start driving, and she doesn't mind his three-days'-sweaty head on her shoulder.
Her brother is young, but he's not a child like the twins. She'd called him and let him ready the house for them, let him contact the pediatrician on their family's payroll, let him handle their parents and the staff.
Because he is their family's future, unlike her, and he gets what he wants.
And she can count on him; he'll do for her what no one else in her family will.
She waits with Jae Gu—he still hasn't woken—while the doctor sees to the twins. It's the longest wait of her life, wanting to know he's okay, but she knows he would be livid if she put his welfare above his brother and sister's.
When the doctor finishes with the twins, who have bad colds, he looks Jae Gu over and concludes that although the young man is slightly mal-nourished, he's only exhausted. No fever. After several hours of good rest, he should wake normally—it's likely just the stress of taking care of Jae Hyung and Jae Som.
Queen nods in relief and carts him off to her rooms after making sure the twins are medicated and monitored, leaving instructions for the maids to notify her if their condition worsens, and leaves them in the capable care of her own brother, who has watched everything with his young-too-old eyes.
Jae Gu won't like being away from the twins, but Queen needs this. To know he is okay. That he will be okay.
Her bathroom is connected to her bedroom, both of which are spacious and private. She fills up her tub with comfortably warm water and strips Jae Gu of his sweat soaked clothes.
He is beautiful. The line of his shoulders, the haphazard fall of his hair, the feel of his skin…
She deposits him in the tub and he wakes slightly at the feel of the water, but he never fully regains consciousness even as she soaps him down. She washes his hair last, gingerly holding him with one arm to make sure his head doesn't droop below the water and to keep the soap off his face.
When she's satisfied he's clean, she lifts him from the tub, not caring about the water that splashes over the sides or her own soaked clothes. She towels him off and dresses him in a pair of navy sweat pants, thankful he has narrow hips and she has a habit of buying sweat pants a few sizes too big. She lays him on her bed, adjusting the pillows to support his head, and covers him with the comforter. After she removes her own wet clothes, she puts on an overly large shirt and climbs in after him.
Then Queen wraps herself around him, her ear on his bare chest to listen to his heart beat beneath his ribs.
She wakes only moments before he does. Holds him tight as his muscles tense.
I need you, she tries to say. I'll take care of you. Stay, stay, stay. Her fingers press into his abdomen even as her face pushes further into his chest.
Queen doesn't realize it at first, but tears trickle off her cheeks to run along the fine lines of his very lean musculature, and then she's sobbing, heaving, bursting.
This man, this gentle, soft, pacifistic man, is her heart, the one she'd thought she'd killed long ago. Her weakness.
She feels him hesitate before lightly placing a hand on her head, but he leaves it there until she cries herself out.
Sniffling, she finally lets Jae Gu go, sits up, leaves the bed. He sits up, too, slowly. Queen moves around the mattress to stand before him though he doesn't say a word, barely looks up. She turns, angling away, and offers him her hand. Peripherally she sees him stare at it before taking it. She pulls him up and out of the room. Down the hall.
He'll need to see the twins.
She doesn't care how they look: her in only a shirt and underwear and him in only sweatpants, bare feet slapping against the floor as they fly down the hall hand in hand.
Because he's hers and she's keeping him.
Because he doesn't ask her to let go.