Chapter 37
Chapter 37
Day and night passed endlessly, like a tape fast-forwarding. Daun lay alone in her hospital room, which no one visited except the doctor and nurse.
Though Isabella was there, she could do nothing to ease the loneliness that gnawed at Daun’s heart all the more because it was so familiar. On the contrary, the emotions Daun felt as Daun sharply pierced Isabella’s own heart.
It happened then.
As always, Daun was staring out the window when she suddenly sat up. Then, for the first time, she opened her mouth.
“Mom! Dad!”
Her voice was hoarse from not speaking for so long, yet it was filled with a joy and anticipation that couldn’t be hidden. It was her parents alone who could move Daun, who had been lying motionless in bed for so long.
But seeing that, Isabella’s face twisted in pain.
‘Ah, so it’s that time…’
Isabella remembered that moment vividly. Cruelly, like a confirmation shot, the ominous feeling unfolded before her eyes.
From the hallway outside the room, a flurry of footsteps could be heard, and the previously quiet doorway became noisy. After a moment, the hospital room door slid open.
The people who entered were the very parents Daun had been yearning for. But right behind them, a crowd of strangers came pouring in.
Click, click, pop, pop!
Camera flashes burst one after another, and loud shutter sounds filled the room.
Daun, who had been waiting for her parents on the bed, instantly tensed at the sudden change. Her mother, the first to spot Daun frozen in place, rushed to her side and hugged her tightly, a sweet smile on her face.
“My baby, you were scared, weren’t you? But there’s no need to be. More importantly, how are you feeling today?”
At the sound of her mother’s gentle inquiry, Daun’s sunken, hollow eyes widened.
Because it was so unfamiliar.
After all, Daun had only ever seen her parents come once a month to check if she was still alive, then leave indifferently. Perhaps because Daun didn’t react as her mother wanted, she leaned in close and whispered in a low voice by Daun’s ear.
“Smile.”
It was a clear command. Her lips smiled, but her eyes did not. Seeing her mother’s face looming over her, forcing her to act, Daun mustered all her strength to pull the corners of her lips up.
“I-I’m fine.”
Then, as if she had turned back into the loving mother she was supposed to be, her mother hugged Daun again. She subtly turned her body so the cameras could get a good shot, and then spoke to the reporters.
“Oh, our poor baby has been ill since she was so little. She had to grow up too fast, always worrying that we might be upset. She’s always saying such mature things.”
Her mother forced a sad smile, as if trying to hide her pain, and gently stroked Daun’s hair as she continued talking to the reporters.
Daun quietly let her mother’s hand rest on her head. She knew all too well that the loving gaze and the gentle touch were nothing but an act, yet she still welcomed it.
It was the first warmth she had ever felt from her parents. Like a brief rainfall on parched ground, it felt sweet.
But watching from the side, Isabella’s heart ached, as though it were being strangled by thorny vines. That was the true, hidden heart of Daun that could not be shown on the surface.
Isabella’s fists clenched tightly of their own accord. But her parents’ cruelty did not end there.
Once her mother had set the tone, the reporters turned their questions to Daun’s father.
“Vice President, we heard that the drug to treat your daughter’s rare disease is in its final stages of development! Is that true?”
“It is. We’re currently working on minimizing the side effects, and in a few years, we’ll be able to release a complete medication.”
“Then is your daughter personally testing the side effects of this drug right now?”
“It’s unfortunate, but yes. Of course, we’ve prioritized safety by first testing the drug on animals using Daun’s DNA, and only then giving her small doses.”
At that moment, Daun, who had been silently listening to the conversation between the reporters and her father, flinched. And her thoughts reached Isabella.
‘Lies…’
Isabella understood exactly why Daun thought that.
The daily medication she had to take back then was far too much for a child to handle. Moreover, the types of medication changed frequently. The side effects were extreme, to say the least.
Vomiting, headaches, high fever, and chills didn’t even scratch the surface. Sometimes she coughed up blood, sometimes she had seizures, sometimes all her hair fell out, or she suffered terrifying hallucinations.
Whether animal testing was really being done or not, she couldn’t say. But the way she had been treated was far from safe; she had been nothing more than a test subject. But at the time, she couldn’t tell the truth.
“As the father of a daughter with a rare disease, my heart goes out to all the other children and parents out there suffering without medicine.”
Daun could only stare blankly at the broad back of her father, who never once looked at her after entering the room.
“Our pharmaceutical company will, for the sake of children like my daughter and their parents, and for the sake of my precious daughter herself, see this drug to completion. I promise that here and now.”
A short while later, her parents went out into the hallway to see off the reporters.
Daun listened to her parents’ voices fading beyond the closed door, waiting patiently for them to return to her. But the door never opened again.
What had she even been expecting?
Even though she knew she was nothing more than a tool for her parents’ honor and the success of their company, she had refused to accept it until the moment she died.
On that night, full of wounds, Daun did not cry. And neither did Isabella, who watched her. It was then she learned that tears do not flow when the pain is truly unbearable.
The tears that should have fallen instead welled up and rotted in her heart. Perhaps it was from that moment that her illness deepened beyond control. Doctors and researchers began visiting more frequently, and with each visit, the side effects worsened.
She could barely cling to life, gasping for breath amidst the mounting pain. Yet even then, Daun’s gaze was always fixed on the closed door of the hospital room.
It was the faint hope that maybe, just maybe, her parents would come through that door to see her.
How many days passed like that?
Then, one day, something strange happened.
Her body, which had felt heavy as a waterlogged sponge, suddenly felt light, and her dry coughs subsided, making it easier to breathe. That day, the door that had been shut finally slid open and she met, for the first time, a girl her own age.
The girl, with her hair neatly braided, peeked through the gap in the door and shouted excitedly.
“Wow! There are so many toys in here!”
Maybe she hadn’t noticed Daun at first, because she squealed with delight at the piles of toys like decorations. Then she tiptoed in through the doorway.
“Oh?”
Only then did the girl see Daun in the room. She looked a little embarrassed, but then she scampered over to the bed and greeted her.
“Hi! I’m Sehee! The nurses told me there were lots of toys in here.”
“…Hi.”
“Um, so, can I look at them?”
Sehee shuffled her feet, glancing at Daun as she asked.
Daun’s gaze lingered on the toys for a moment, then she nodded. Sehee’s face lit up.
“Wow! Thanks!”
Daun quietly watched Sehee, who was brimming with excitement as she explored the toys.
“It’s like a toy village in here!”
Sehee’s eyes sparkled as she played among the mountain of toys, a brightness Daun’s eyes could never hold. Daun, watching her, quietly spoke.
“If you want, you can take some.”
“R-really? I can really have them?”
Sehee, surprised by the unexpected offer, looked at her in disbelief. Daun nodded.
She couldn’t even walk, let alone get out of bed. She couldn’t play with the toys anymore, so she wanted someone who could to enjoy them.
But she had one condition.
“But I have a favor to ask.”
“A favor?”
“Yeah.”
“What is it?”
“You can’t carry them all at once, so… can you come back to visit me tomorrow?”
Daun didn’t want lifeless toys. She wanted a friend – a friend she could talk to.
“Sure! I’ll come back tomorrow!”
Sehee agreed right away, and from then on, she really did visit Daun every day.
Over time, Daun learned that Sehee had a heart condition and was waiting for a transplant, which kept getting delayed because there was no suitable donor. On the fourth day after they met, Sehee sat by the bed with a gloomy expression.
“Haah… I really wanted to go to the amusement park on Children’s Day, but my surgery got postponed again.”
“…”
Daun listened quietly, then glanced out the window at the bright, sunny day before looking down at the teddy bear in her arms. After a long moment of thought, she finally spoke.
“Sehee, everything’s going to be okay.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
When Sehee asked, Daun simply smiled and gently held out the teddy bear she had been hugging.
“Huh? Isn’t that your treasure?”
“Yeah. My precious friend.”
“Then why are you giving it to me?”
Daun hesitated briefly, then forced the teddy bear into Sehee’s hands and answered.
“I don’t need it anymore. So I want you to take good care of it for me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Daun, it’s time for your medication. Sehee, you should head back to your room now.”
Sehee tried to ask what Daun meant, but a nurse came into the room at that moment, so she didn’t get an answer.
That night, lying in the empty hospital room with no toys or dolls, Daun asked the nurse who came to check her IV line, “Mom and Dad didn’t come today either, did they?”
The nurse stammered as she answered.
“Oh? Oh… They must be really busy. I’m sure they’ll come see you after you’ve had ten more sleeps. So don’t worry, and get some rest.”
“…Okay.”
After the nurse left, Daun took in the dark, lonely hospital room. It was so unbearably empty. For the first and last time, she whispered her true feelings.
“I miss them…”
But soon, her eyelids grew heavy, and she quietly closed her eyes. And the next day, morning never came for Daun again.
……
T/N: I cried in this chapter 😭. How can they do that to a child, their own daughter by blood no less. Isabella deserve her new parents in this life, always worried about her well-being 😭
