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He looked at her with sad eyes. “Can you really not tell us what happened? Not even to help Jihoon and his halmeoni?”

Miyoung shook her head silently.

His face fell and his voice became flat. “You should go home. We’ll be with Jihoon tonight.”

Changwan left Miyoung alone in the waiting room. She’d never heard such a harsh tone from him. And it was his disappointment that finally broke her.

•••

Miyoung didn’t leave, but she didn’t go into the room, giving Somin and Changwan time with Jihoon. Even after they left to visit Halmeoni, she stayed on the uncomfortable chairs in the cold waiting room.

A night-shift nurse gave her a cup of water.

Miyoung accepted it with a nod of thanks.

“You should sit with him,” the nurse said. “It helps to have loved ones sit with patients.”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s good for loved ones, too. Go talk to him. He can hear you.”

She wanted to say she didn’t know if she was a loved one, but the nurse’s kindness was too much for her to resist.

The sound of machines filled the small hospital room. Jihoon lay so still, Miyoung almost panicked until she saw the shallow rise and fall of his chest.

She sat and gripped Jihoon’s hand in her newly bandaged ones. For some reason the burns on her hands weren’t healing. And no matter her protests, the nurses had insisted on wrapping her wounds.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “For my mother, for your halmeoni. For everything.” She gripped his hand tightly until her wounds burned and her knuckles turned white.

“You have to wake up, you have to.” Shame blazed through her until she thought it would burn her to nothing but ash.

Jihoon’s hand jerked in hers, and her eyes flew to his face. He convulsed so violently that Miyoung jumped back. The machines beeped rapidly, as if screaming at her to do something.

Nurses raced through the door. Miyoung was pushed aside as they pulled the bed rails down.

“You should leave.” It was the same kind nurse who’d spoken to her before.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“He’s seizing; it can happen after a trauma,” the nurse said. But Miyoung was an experienced liar; she knew when someone was only telling her part of the truth.

She retreated to the hall, where her legs gave out as she sank onto a bench along the wall. Something wasn’t right. She’d felt an energy in Jihoon, something familiar, something strong.

Miyoung knew now that the bead wasn’t gone.

It was inside of Jihoon.

•••

“He didn’t die.” Yena sat next to Miyoung in the waiting room. Even though the medical team had revived Jihoon, she hadn’t dared return to his room.

“No,” Miyoung confirmed.

“What did you do?”

“I used the bead.” It wasn’t worth lying. Her mother would find out eventually.

“Stupid girl.”