24. Take Responsibility?

(Note: The characters speak Korean, so the listener cannot tell the sex of the person being spoken about, from just their pronouns unlike how it is in English.)

Who? And from which part of their country? What will her family and society even say about that?

Even if she wants to overlook it, the pressure from their society, and her family would eventually make her leave him.

No, he can't lose her. She is the love of his love, who has been his friend since their childhood.

He leaned the back of his head on the bathroom wall, in deep thoughts.

But soon an idea occurred to him. He has to shut that guy's mouth and stop him from ever telling anyone about what had happened between them.

Yes. He must do all he can to make that happen. Lucky it is for him that, the person is just some poor guy. It makes it easier to solve this problem with just some chicken change.

"Hmhmm." He heaved a heavy sigh again before leaving the bathroom.

***

Knock. Knock. Knock. "Oppa, can I come in?" Kim Areum asked from outside the door, Byeongho was already dressed up and fixing his hair.

"Hm..." Areum went in even before her twin finished answering.

"What is it?"

Areum thought of how best to bring up her concern.

"Oppa, you went out since last night, and came back this morning with a fever, and all these red marks. Is everything okay with you?

I'm told that you even forgot about your visitor that you yourself had called over. What happened?

Did you get a new girlfriend? Is she the one that did this to you? What about Jiah? How do you think she would feel if she were to find out?" She asked her twin brother with concern.

"Areum a, stop with the nonsensical speculations, or leave if that's all you wanted to talk about."

"Mhm. Okay. I came to ask you if you know the number that kept calling your second private line. I thought you might want to check that in case you know the person.

If not, then I'll suggest that you let them know that it's a wrong number, for they seemed worried for whoever they thought they had called."

Byeongho quickly took his second private phone, he checked and saw the countless texts and missed calls from that strange boy.

"Do you know them?" Areum asked, once she saw him check the phone. She noticed his bad mood dissolving.

"No. It's a wrong number." Byeongho lied.

Well, his twin didn't believe him. She knew him like the back of her palm.

He subconsciously sat back on his bed and leaned against the headboard, while his eyes stayed glued to the phone.

He was reading Doyun's texts, one by one, all basically saying the same thing. The boy was asking Byeongho a chance to meet up again.

The texts were something along the lines of, last night being his fault, and that he wanted meet with him and apologise properly and take responsibility for him.

"Hahaha...cute." Byeongho chortled. His apprehensive mood has subsided and he started to relax, after reading the funny texts.

Areum watched him quietly, watched how he seemed this happy, reading the texts from the supposed, "wrong number"

Byeongho finds the boy cute because he seems more worried, blowing things out of proportion. Having to send all these texts as apologies, and asking to take responsibility for Byeongho.

Responsibility? What did he mean by that? Does he think that he is some girl, that needs to be taken responsibility for, after sex? 'Huh.'

But what caught his attention most, once he checked his call log, was the answered calls.

He wonders if he was the one who had answered them or his twin sister perhaps.

Stevie would not answer any calls of his especially from this private phone. He turned to his sister who stood watching him.

"Was it you? You answered the calls right?"

Areum shrugged. "Mhm. I wanted to tell them that you're asleep but I couldn't say anything in the end."

Byeong Ho was both amused and confused with her statement.

"You? Couldn't say anything? Why? Were they more rude and louder than you or you've just met your match?" He teased.

Kim Areum folded he arms on her chest. "Mhm. I don't know, but I just couldn't say anything the moment his voice came into phone.

He sounded worried, so I couldn't react." Areum said, remembering how she couldn't speak as planned, because of how the person already sounded anxious.

She didn't realise it then but now that she thinks about it, could this have been the one her brother went to see?

Is that why his mood seems to have changed to a better one, than when she had first reentered.

Who is he? He didn't sound like anyone she knew from her brother's circle of friends. Her eyes trailed off to his body, covered in those red marks.

Areum started to get a weird hunch. "Oppa, is he someone that you know or is it truly a wrong line?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Did you get an episode yesterday?" Areum continued with her questions, she was quite afraid of what his answers will be, and her more afraid of her hunch turning out to be correct.

But she has to get to the bottom of this, otherwise, it will keep niggling at the back of her mind.

Byeongho stayed silent.

"Oppa!"

"What?!" Byeongho shouted at her too, for prying into his private life.

"Oppa, I am asking, did you happen to get an episode yesterday?"

"Drop it, Areum a."

"Did you?!"

"Yes! Why?!" Byeongho snapped at her angrily. It's only his twin sister that can make him this worked up.

"What?!" Areum became apprehensive, as she thought deeply. "Wait, then, was he the one that did this to you?" Areum pointed to the bite mark on his neck.

"No. I don't know whom you're talking about, but no."