I'm Engaged?? (#12)

Chapter 55

TaeNa

I am on my rounds, checking on my patients with a heavy heart. It has been a while ever since I brawled my eyes out to JungAh that day and I haven't been crying, I just feel so empty inside and I am just moving by instinct. I am lucky that I haven't made any huge mistakes that could result in a patient's death but I am still alerted in this kind of things.

I sighed again as I heard loud footsteps in the corridor and it is in the opposite direction that I am heading towards and I heard my name being called, it is my older brother and my mother is here as well. "Oppa, why are you here with Omma?" I asked him.

"Drop everything right down and come with me, you don't have a choice." He said to me, he looked desperate and I have no idea why he is reacting like this. Is one of the patients in trouble? Am I the cause of it?

"Can you explain to me why? Because I can't leave my job unattended and
I need to check up on my patients." I told him and I turned towards my mother. "What is happening exactly?"

"Your father, your birth father is on his deathbed and you need to be there before it is too late." My mother said the words but I can't seem to register in my mind, it is the words that I will think that I would ever hear. My birth father dying? My mother will never talk about her ex-husband no matter what and she would avoid the topic every time it comes up but she is mentioning him, things must be serious.

My older brother grabbed me by the wrist and headed for the elevator that doctors and nurses take. "Come on, we don't have much time."

It turned out that my birth father who is also known as Mr Nam is also staying in the hospital that my older brother and I worked at and he has been admitted ever since the day after the wedding, and his condition had become worsened ever since. And now he might die from his cancer, I knew that it was something terminal but it had never occurred to me that it would be this soon.

It is barely a month since I found out that he had last stage cancer and now he is on his deathbed, he must have delayed his treatment for so long that he doesn't have much time left to survive. And I am going to lose my birth father today, to lung cancer and I am not prepared for it at all.

Neither is my older brother nor my mother who loved him so deeply 23 years ago and now we are going to see him for the last time. We arrived at his ward and the doctors and nurses were leaving the room, my older brother approached one of them and they said that my birth father survived the cardiac arrest and he is currently resting.

I felt so relieved when I heard that, he is not gone yet and I still have a chance to see him before he would leave. We entered his room and there were people in the room, Nam Daehwan and his mother were in the room and they all turned to look at the three of us.

I looked towards him and I have an urge to run towards him and cry in his arms but my mother is here and I know that she will never allow me to do that, she would disown me if I ever did that so I pretended that I didn't see him at all.

"Go on." My mother said to Taewoon and TaeNa. "Your father must have missed you two so much, talk to him and make him happy."

My birth father is lying in his bed, he looked drastically different from the wedding, he seemed to have aged a lot in the past month and he has lost a lot of weight as well. This is what last stage cancer does to people and it is heartbreaking to both the patient and the people around the patient.

I looked back towards my mother and she gave the nod, she wouldn't be dragging me and my older here if she didn't want us to meet our birth father before it is too late. I made the first step towards my father and he looked at me when I stood next to his bed, he couldn't utter a word and only looked at me with his sad eyes. "Abeoji, I am here."

He coughed violently and I patted his back for him, it must be so hard for him. "TaeNa, my eldest daughter... Thank you for being here, I like that." He turned towards my older brother who is now standing next to me. "And Taewoon, thank you for inviting me to your wedding. Your wife is really beautiful but sadly I won't get to see her but you have to tell her that I like her a lot and I would like to be her father-in-law, cherish her and never let her go."

"I will, Abeoji..." My older brother smiled bitterly and his eyes are filled with tears, he is the only Lee sibling who has seen our birth father before they got divorced and he must miss him so much to not detest him after what he had done to our mother.

"Youngji," He called for my mother. "I know that you still hate me but I want to tell you that you were a good wife and you were a good mother to Taewoon and TaeNa but sadly I let you go to marry the person you are with now. I wish you good health and happiness, could you also do me a favour and makeup with BitNa, it has been 23 years and it is time to let it go."

And lastly, he turned towards his current wife and Nam Daehwan. "BitNa, I would entrust you to take care of the family and never crumble down because of me." He kissed his wife's hand and he grabbed Daehwan's hand.

"Marry the one that you love and achieve happiness and a happy family with her, you can't marry anyone else but her. Did you get it? Don't make me so disappointed when I am in heaven, I will come back as a ghost just to haunt you for the things that you have done wrong." He smiled for the final time and it was a happy one, he closed his eyes shut and he never opened them again.