Ji-an, crumpled in the back seat of the taxi, held her breath and shed tears silently.

“Did someone get seriously hurt? Why are you crying in broad daylight?”

The taxi driver, checking the passenger’s condition through the rearview mirror, coughed to attract attention.

He didn’t want to start a conversation, but sometimes changing the route without permission could be troublesome, so he preferred to ask in advance.

“Hmm, miss. The road ahead is quite congested. At the next signal, if we turn right, there’s a shortcut to Seowon Medical Center. Shall we take that route?”

“Yes, yes……. Sob, just take any faster route, please.”

Ji-an, barely responding with a trembling voice, took out a tissue from her bag and wiped her wet cheeks.

“No, I’ll go see the executive director first.”

Seok-won left the office hastily, not waiting for Ji-an, who hesitated, trying to remember.

The last thing he said was that he would visit the executive director since he couldn’t reach him.

Ji-an spent the whole morning doing nothing, waiting for Seok-won’s call.

Her quiet phone rang after more than three hours had passed.

[Dash] Ji-an, please indefinitely postpone all of the executive director’s external appointments scheduled within a month. I’ll attend the unavoidable ones on his behalf.

“The executive director is…….”

[Dash] He’s being hospitalized. He’s currently undergoing tests, but it’s suspected to be peritonitis due to a perforated stomach. If the results confirm, he’ll likely undergo emergency surgery.

After hanging up the phone, at first, she was stunned.

Surgery? Why does he suddenly need surgery?

Kang Hyun seemed perfectly fine when he dropped her off at her house.

They had kissed, truly fine.

His complexion was always pale, and his cold face usually lacked vitality.

So, it was hard to use that as a basis to judge his health.

But her certainty that he was fine turned into a guess that he seemed fine, which soon morphed into a belated worry that he might have been ill.

Since then, her tears hadn’t stopped.

Silly Ji-an.

Kang Hyun had been frowning without reason for a while.

He had lost weight noticeably, even to her eyes.

Especially on the second day of the business trip in the morning, he woke up unusually late and struggled to open his eyes.

The image of him sitting on the bedhead, catching his breath, vividly haunted her.

When she was unaware, everything seemed fine, but once she realized, other overlooked moments kept linking together, one after another.

“Ugh…….”

Even the day she was happy that Kang Hyun finished a bowl of udon seemed off in hindsight.

“The executive director seemed quite unwell. Was he okay during the business trip?”

Seok-won’s question before leaving the office pierced her heart like a dagger.

So, Kang Hyun had been having stomach troubles, couldn’t eat properly, and that’s why he lost weight.

And she had been forcing him to eat each time.

Even at the rest area on the trip, she pushed side dishes at him until he finished a bowl of rice.

Recalling Kang Hyun, who reluctantly accepted the food, claiming it was delicious, brought tears streaming down uncontrollably.
“If you’re in pain, you should say so. What if you ate all of that?”

Ji-an, hunched over with her shoulders tensed, buried her face in her hands as she recalled.

“We’ve arrived, ma’am.”

The taxi driver, who had stopped at the main gate of Seowon Medical Center, turned to Ji-an, who was now openly weeping.

Wiping her tears with her sleeve, Ji-an, with her lips trembling as if about to burst into tears, handed over her card.

She felt heartache, realizing she had been blissfully unaware all this time.

[Star Icon] [Star Icon] [Star Icon]

After about an hour of emergency surgery, Kang Hyun was brought to his room, where Doctor Han and Seok-won took turns sighing deeply.

“How could you let your body get to this state? Were you planning to come to the hospital only after your stomach completely eroded?”

Seok-won, staring at the IV needle in Kang Hyun’s hand and the nasogastric tube inserted deep into his nose, grumbled with a flushed face.

“You used to be so sensitive about your health. What happened to you… Executive Director, a stomach ulcer is not a trivial matter. It can cause perforations like this and lead to peritonitis from leaked food, which could be fatal due to shock. It was a close call; any later and it would have been a disaster.”

Doctor Han added his scolding.

“It’s fortunate that the perforation wasn’t caused by a tumor, but you must be careful as there’s a chance of recurrence.”

“Please rest and do nothing while you’re hospitalized.”

“Okay, okay, I got it.”

Kang Hyun, brushing his bangs off his eyebrows, leaned against the propped-up mattress, irritated.

“You need to change your diet. Stress is a particular problem for you, Executive Director. For the time being, make sure Director Do doesn’t let you get stressed.”

Doctor Han shook his head in disapproval and closed the chart.

“I’ll come back in the evening.”