Page 47 of Tell Me Where It Ends

Something in me twists, loosening painfully. “I wish I could tell you my dad was good once. But he… he never was. He drank, he disappeared, and my mom… she finally left.”

A streak of tears slips down my cheek. “And yet… I still feel guilty for thinking he’s a terrible father.”

“Because he’s still your dad,” Suho finishes quietly. “It’s easier to hate the man who was never there than to reconcile with the man who was there, but only caused pain.”

The words sit between us, fragile and real.

“Let’s go,” he says finally. “Not because it’s the right thing. Just because you deserve to walk out of there knowing you tried.”

“And I’m coming with you,” he adds.

“You can’t,” I snap. “You, Kim Suho, are going to waltz into a hospital with me, Yoon Min-hee, in the middle of a national scandal? What is this, a death wish?”

He walks to the closet, grabs my coat, and tosses it at me like we’re going on a hike, not into a war zone.

“No one will see us. You’ll see him for five minutes. No cameras. No headlines. Just in and out. A covert op.”

He gives me an impatient look. “And I’m not asking. I’m telling you.”

It’s messy. It’s reckless. But for the first time ever, he hasn’t chosen to run from my problem; he’s chosen to jump into the fire with me.

“This is a terrible idea,” I whisper, my voice almost lost under the thrum of my own racing heart.

“I know,” he says. “Now get your shoes.”

***

The hospital smells of antiseptic and recycled bad memories. Outside, Suho waits in the car. His assistant and bodyguard—recruited into this bizarre, high-stakes mission—flank me as we enter, moving with the quiet, tense efficiency of a security detail smuggling state secrets.

I could feel their collective professional discomfort radiating off them, annoyed to be pulled into a messy family drama.

I pause at the door to my father’s room, my hand hovering over the handle. My entire life, myrelationship with my father has felt like a script with a massive plot hole; a story full of dramatic scenes that never added up to anything meaningful. I take a breath that does nothing to calm me and step inside, leaving Suho’s assistant and bodyguard on quiet watch just outside the door.

Dad looks… smaller. Grey and shrunken against the white sheets, a stark contrast to the looming, red-faced man who haunts my teenage memories.

He’s hooked to an IV, his eyes half-lidded, but when he sees me, he perks up with the manufactured energy of a C-list celebrity at a fan meet.

“Min-hee!” His voice is a raspy, overly enthusiastic burst. “You came!”

I freeze, my practiced smile failing to form. “Hey,Appa.”

“You look so… famous.” He grins, as if that’s the highest compliment in the universe.

My brother is slouched in the visitor’s chair, radiating the specific, simmering resentment of a man deeply inconvenienced by someone else’s crisis. I glance his way, but he refuses to meet my eyes, suddenly engrossed in a scuff mark on thelinoleum floor as if it holds the secrets to cold fusion.

“How long have you been here?” I ask him, the words clipped.

“Long enough,” he mutters to the floor.

“Still blaming me for everything?” The question slips out, acidic and reflexive.

He finally looks up, and his scoff is a weapon. “You act like you’ve been around to be blamed for anything.”

“I’m here now.”

“Yeah,” he sneers, gesturing at my own masked-and-hatted disguise. “Ready for your close-up. So proud.”

Dad lets out a loud, attention-grabbing cough. “Enough,” he rasps. “Don’t fight. Please. It’s good to see both my kids. Together.”