.

“She has a rare disease. What was it? Hemo…phagocytic… lympho… something…”

“Ah, I’ve heard that name too.”

“Yeah, anyway, she repeatedly has been hospitalized and discharged from the hospital, but I heard she’s now a long-stay patient due to developing a complication.”

The guys were chitchatting those stories nonchalantly, which terrified me; however, on the other hand, I could understand where Eun Hyung had disappeared every holiday and why he had been so used to the structure of the hospital.

Eun Hyung was staying there for the whole time every holiday with his little sister Kwon Eunmi, who couldn’t leave the hospital due to her fatal illness.

I bit my lips. The guys kept on talking.

“I heard the medical expenses are insane. If Balhae Group doesn’t support those fees, isn’t he going bankrupt?”

“He couldn’t even blame anyone. Mr. Chairman has been generous enough to support all those expenses in the first place, but his father drove the car and caused the accident you know.”

“I’ve wanted to sympathize with him for how distressful the situations are, but look at his face. He’s just keeping that look on his face…”

“Honestly, he’s been so lucky you know.”

Eun Hyung, on the other hand, didn’t show any change in his facial expression while he would be clearly listening to their words. The only time he shortly lifted his head and looked in their direction was when the guys said, ‘He’s been so lucky.’ I could guess, at least, a little of his feelings.

‘Has been so lucky? Who on earth are they talking about?’ I shouted in my thoughts.

If I were put in Eun Hyung’s situation, I couldn’t even imagine how I could stand the circumstances. Would I be able to grow up properly and rightmindedly like him? I would have considered some strangers as a cause of the problem, blamed those people, and ruined my own life in the end while doing nothing. The easiest way to endure big trouble or misfortune was to behave and react that way.

However, Eun Hyung didn’t take that option. He ate his meals regularly, went to school, acted thoughtfully to others, and studied hard. He had been performing all his life tasks earnestly and diligently without any complaints. As from the lines in the student awards he had been receiving, Eun Hyung was a role model and an excellent example to others.

I thought he was born that way until now, but wouldn’t he ever want to give up everything, at least, once?

Eun Hyung tried his best to save himself. How could they dare to blurt out only like, ‘He has been lucky,’ to that boy?

Turning my head again toward Yeo Ryung, I had eye contact with her. We nodded at each other while reading our minds only through the look in our eyes then walked straight toward the front wordlessly.

Eun Hyung, who was still leaning against the wall until then, showed a look of bewilderment when he saw us bending our steps resolutely.

“Donnie? Yeo Ryung? What are you doing here…?”

Regardless of his question, we walked past by him with big strides then stopped walking in front of the guys. Looking at us––perhaps, they would have seen Yeo Ryung––the guys soon turned blank at the moment.

The guy, who was smoking, just stared at us in a daze even until his cigarette became too short enough that the ashes flicked to his wrist. Suddenly, dusting off his hand, he shouted, ‘Ouch!’ in pain.

Aiming at that timing, I uttered abruptly, “Sir, please apologize to Eun Hyung about what you have just said in front of him.”

“What?”

“You said, Eun Hyung has been lucky or whatsoever, but if you’re in his position, can you speak that way to yourself? Please watch what you say about other people’s life.”

As soon as I dropped that remark, their facial expressions changed. Some revealed a dirty look on their faces. One of the guys stepped forward and flung a question.

“Who are you? Why are you in this house…?”

“Ah, hold on.”

Another guy blocked his way from beside him. He then whispered in a low voice, “She’s the friend of the youngest master.”

His words didn’t sound that good. It felt like I became a wretch behaving wildly while having Yoo Chun Young as my back-up when it was them who had been blatantly humiliating Eun Hyung.

Biting my lips tightly, I repeated the same word.

“Please apologize to Eun Hyung. I won’t mind if something good has happened to him, but how dare can you say such things when he isn’t…?”

Yeo Ryung, who was standing beside me, suddenly opened her mouth.

“And sir, you all acted like very good people while saying you wanted to sympathize with him, but in my point of view, you guys are more like psychopaths!”

She struck them hard twice continuously with a coldhearted voice and glance. Listening to her remark about apology and psychopath, the guys looked like they got smashed in their napes.

“What did you say?”

“You all spoke about his mother’s accident and his little sister in front of a kid whose father has just been involved in an accident. What’s wrong with you guys? What do you want me to say? Huh?”

“Ah… that’s not what we’re thinking, young lady…”

As if they knew she was a friend of their youngest master, the guys had a gentle attitude. However, they didn’t look like they had contemplated our words or reflected on their remarks.

Turning their heads to glance at Eun Hyung, they continued to speak nonchalantly as if Eun Hyung was like a scarecrow to them.

“Young lady, you won’t even know, but we have been working in this house for a decade, so we got to know the true colors of your friends that you aren’t aware of.”

“It’s just that you guys know each other differently. You don’t have to be that mad.”

“Correct, but it isn’t just once or twice. He’s reacting that way ever since the accident occurred.”

Yeo Ryung flew into a rage again, “How did he react? What’s so wrong about it?!”

“Ah, as you can see, he’s not even crying…”

“If he isn’t crying, you can pour salt on his wound?!”

As Yeo Ryung didn’t step back at all, the guys seemed to look angry. One of them asked her while furrowing his brows, “Hey, young lady, if you speak that way, we seem like we’ve become bad people. It is us who took care of someone outside this family without saying something unnecessary.”

“It’s Chun Young’s father who took care of him, not you guys.”

As soon as I intervened in the conversation with a small voice, the guys diverted their gaze onto me fiercely.

Yikes! I took a step behind while thinking, ‘Did I interfere uselessly? Actually, Eun Hyung would have not wanted us to step in, of course, but they have been talking bull**s…”

Those guys might have definitely willing to provoke Eun Hyung while using offensive words. Deep inside their minds, they would have justified themselves by thinking, ‘He doesn’t cry at all,’ or ‘He doesn’t seem to know the reality, so we must let him get aware of it.’ Having such thoughts in my head, I couldn’t just tolerate this situation without saying something.

However, it was indeed a frightening sight when three or four guys were scowling at us. The moment when Yeo Ryung and I took a step back, a hand that suddenly stretched out from behind grabbed us.

Looking back in astonishment, Yeo Ryung and I uttered at the same time, “Eun Hyung!”

He was standing there in a very exhausted face. He looked too pale that the angel of death seemed to take him away from us immediately; however, as soon as our eyes met, he, surprisingly, showed us something like a grin.

Eun Hyung spoke in his usual tone, “Yeo Ryung, Donnie, let’s go in.”

When Yeo Ryung scowled at him with red eyes, Eun Hyung added whisperingly, “It’s cold out here.”

In fact, he was telling us to stop. His remark made the guys loosen up the strained look on their faces into something like a relief. Well, it wouldn’t be a delightful experience for them to quarrel with teenagers, especially when they were their employer’s friends.

However, they should have not said such words in the first place. While I stared at them coldheartedly in silence, they whispered to each other for a moment then turned around and left the space.

Only the sounds of snowy footsteps and birds chirping came along in the garden. Once the silence returned in the end, Eun Hyung threw a question calmly.

“Why are you two outside here? It’s so cold.”

I opened my mouth.

“Um, we… came outside to bring you back and…” Watching the guys receding from us, I soon concluded, “… Sorry, we heard everything…”

Eun Hyung didn’t ask about what we had heard. He just glanced our faces with a small nod then blurted out, “It doesn’t matter.”

“What?”

“It doesn’t matter whether you get aware of it or not. I wasn’t trying to leave it unspoken on purpose, but…”

Speaking to that extent, Eun Hyung suddenly kept his mouth shut and revealed a perplexed look on his face.