"Don't be too worried, I'm sure he'll be fine," Hyunwon said as he sped down the streets towards the hospital.

Beside him, Hyejin was staring straight ahead in a daze, her hands tightly clenching onto the edges of her blouse as her mind kept thinking of the worst scenarios that could happen. Her father had never been in good health and he frequently went in and out of hospitals for check-ups, but never before had she received a call from the hospital with news as serious as this. Although he had high cholesterol, the doctor had said that the risk of an acute heart attack was low, so there was no reason for something like this to be happening. Even though she grumbled from time to time about how her father always showed favouritism towards her older brother, he was still pretty much the closest family that she had and the thought of possibly losing him just like that scared her.

"They say that there's a high chance for a person to die from a sudden heart attack," she whispered. "There have been several cases in the news of people in their twenties just collapsing without warning because of it, and they were all still young and healthy. My father is already in his fifties and he's always had a bad cholesterol problem..."

Hyunwon reached over his free hand and took hold of hers, slowly prying her fingers apart so that she would stop wringing her own clothes. "There are even more people who survive these incidents, so stop being so pessimistic. It's not like you. We're almost at the hospital, once we're there we'll know what the situation is," he said, stepping on the acceleration.

Minutes later, the local hospital came into view and Hyejin leapt out of the car the minute it pulled to a stop in front of the hospital doors. Running up to the information counter at A&E, she frantically asked the nurse for her father's whereabouts, following the direction signs towards the emergency operating theatres.

Standing in front of the doors of the operating theatre, she looked up at the lit sign that told her that the surgery was still in progress.

She had been here before, a very long time ago. Back then, she had arrived home from school to find her mother collapsed on the ground—they called the ambulance and had her brought here, to this very same hospital. When they rolled into the operating theatre, she had just regained her consciousness. Hyejin remembered her mother holding onto her hand, saying, "Everything will be alright. Don't worry." But that was the last thing her mother ever said to her.

She hated the hospital. She hated this place.

As her legs began to buckle under her own weight, Hyejin felt someone catch hold of her from behind. "Sit down," Hyunwon said, leading her over to a row of chairs. He frowned when he saw how pale her face looked, asking, "Are you feeling unwell?" Placing a hand against her forehead, he checked whether or not she was running a temperature—thankfully the result was a negative.

Hyejin shook her head, her gaze still worriedly fixated upon the double doors. "My father will be alright, won't he?" she asked. The overpowering smell of antiseptic in the hallways was making her feel nauseous. She clutched onto Hyunwon's hand, using him to stabilise herself just so she wouldn't collapse.

Hyunwon didn't answer her question because he knew that anything thing he said would just be an empty promise—he had no means of guaranteeing that her father would be alright. Life was fragile and unpredictable that way. Instead, he just put an arm around her and patted her gently across the shoulder, just to let her know that she wasn't alone. That was as much as he could do for her right now.

Half an hour later, the light on the operating theatre sign went off and a nurse in scrubs emerged through the double doors.

Hyejin immediately got up on her feet and ran over to the nurse. "How is my father? Is he ok?" she asked.

"The patient is still in unconscious because of a lack of oxygen to the brain for an extended period of time, but the operation was a success. We've managed to overcome the most critical period so the patient's life is no longer in danger. It's a good thing that he was sent to the hospital quickly, else his condition would have been much worse. We'll be transferring him to a normal ward shortly, you can ask the doctors for more details when they come out."

Heaving a sigh of relief, Hyejin felt like the heavy burden weighing down upon her shoulders had been lifted. "Thank goodness," she said, a smile finally breaking out across her face.

They moved her father to a standard six-patient ward, where he remained peacefully asleep on the hospital bed. The doctors explained that his high cholesterol levels coupled with some form of provocation could have triggered the unexpected heart attack—if he had not been sent to the hospital almost immediately, his condition could have been much worse. If there had been any delay, the disruption of blood flow to his brain could have resulted in him becoming a vegetable even if he survived. Right now he was still unconscious, but the doctors expected that he should awake by tomorrow morning if there were no further complications.

Sitting by his bedside, Hyejin held on to her father's hand, thankful that it felt warm to the touch. She could still remember how cold her mother's hand had felt when they wheeled her out of the operating theatre and it was not a memory that she wanted to reprise anytime soon.

"Sorry to disturb," one of the nurses said as she walked into the ward and came over to Hyejin and Hyunwon. Looking at Hyunwon, she asked, "Are you Mr Song Hyukjin?"

Hyunwon shook his head, and Hyejin immediately interjected. "Song Hyukjin is my brother. Is something the matter?" she asked.

"Mr Song Hyukjin was the one who called for the ambulance and did the paperwork for the surgery. However, we realised that he left some blanks in the form. Is he still around? If not, could we have another next-of-kin to help fill in the gaps in the form please?" the nurse explained. She placed a clipboard which had a couple of forms onto the table, leaving the ward once she had given instructions on how to return them.

"Hyukjin was the one who sent Dad to the hospital?" Hyejin murmured in disbelief. The messy scrawls on the forms were undoubtedly her brother's handwriting—it still hadn't improved over the years. After the debacle he created with the Cutting Edge contract, Hyukjin had disappeared for such a long time that she had almost forgotten that he existed.

"You have a brother?" Hyunwon asked, sensing that her expression didn't look quite right.

Hyejin nodded. "He was the reason why I was forced to enter the Cutting Edge," she said. "He took the money that Gina gave him and vanished after that. All he does is create trouble, why on earth did he come back?" And if he was back, where was he now? Ever since arriving at the hospital, she had seen neither head nor tail of that awful brother of hers. If he even cared about their father in the slightest, he should be here right now by his bedside instead of missing in action as usual.

A sudden thought struck her.

There was no reason for her father to have suddenly had a heart attack, not unless something had agitated him enough to have triggered it. With Hyukjin in the picture, a plausible cause for their father's collapse came to mind. She walked over to the door and peered left and right down the corridor, searching for any sign of that jinx. He was still nowhere to be seen.

"It has to be him!" she muttered angrily. If he showed up in front of her right now, she would definitely strangle him there and then.

Hyunwon poured a glass of water and handed it over to her. "Have some water and cool yourself down. Is there any use in being angry right now? Your brother isn't here anyway," he said calmly, sitting down beside her. "What's more important is that your father is alright and that his life isn't in danger anymore."

Hyejin took a gulp of water and let the liquid cool down her rising temperature. Hyunwon was right, there was no point in being angry with Hyukjin because he wasn't here to be her punching bag anyway. So what if he was the cause of this? The likelihood was that when their father awoke, he would say that none of it was Hyukjin's fault anyway.

"I'm sorry you couldn't attend the awards ceremony because of me," Hyejin said.

Shrugging his shoulders, Hyunwon replied, "Nothing to be sorry about. I never wanted to attend that event anyway. If it weren't for Ryu insisting that I attend one each year, I wouldn't even bother with any of them. I'm not a celebrity."

Hyejin laughed at the irony of that statement. Although Hyunwon technically wasn't a celebrity, he could be considered to be even more famous than many of the so-called celebrities there were out there. Even the most famous actors and actresses needed to line up to get an appointment with him and once they walked into the Cutting Edge, they had to abide by his rules.

"Why are you laughing?" he asked, staring at her in surprise.

"No reason," she replied. Under her breath, she mumbled, "Because you're more of a diva than any celebrity."

"I heard that."

"Seriously speaking, I really admire you," Hyejin said, turning to look at the man who was sitting beside her, "because you've achieved everything that I can only dream about. I grew up in Gongja, watching my grandfather and father give haircuts to anyone who walked in through the doors. It was fascinating really, watching how their scissors move, transforming a person into someone else altogether within a matter of minutes. I wanted to go to vocational school to learn the trade, to get proper training so that I could one day be a qualified stylist just like the ones I would see through the glass windows of the high-end salons, but that never happened. Even now, although I'm in the Cutting Edge, I'm still bringing up the rear compared to all the other trainees. I suppose that's why dreams are just that—dreams."

Hyunwon smiled wryly. "You admire me for being where I am, but being a top stylist in the industry—that's not my dream," he said. "I became a stylist to fulfil someone else's dream, not my own. My dream was to own my very own vineyard so that I could produce the world's best wines. My grandparents used to own a small one in Gwacheon, but they had to sell it because the business became unsustainable. I intend to buy it back someday."

"A vineyard?" Hyejin wasn't quite sure whether to believe him, because it seemed like such a far cry from what she had expected. For someone who was so good at what he did, to think that he didn't aspire towards it at all seemed like a contradiction. "If that's the case then why did you even become a stylist?" she asked.

"There was a girl that I grew up with," he said, "whose dream was to become a star. She was very beautiful, and she had an equally beautiful singing voice, but no one would give her a chance because she came from the countryside. There were too many talented people out there for her to be noticed. By chance I discovered that I seemed to have some talent in styling, so I made the decision to take it up professionally just so that I could help her get one step closer to achieving her dream, because this was the only thing that I could do for her."

"Ah," Hyejin mused, suddenly feeling a little dejected. Whoever this girl was, she knew that Hyunwon must have loved her a lot to have given up his own dream to help her chase hers. She had never seen any girl appear around Hyunwon's vicinity before, so she had automatically assumed that there wasn't one, but on hindsight it didn't seem possible that someone as outstanding as Hyunwon would still be unattached. And even if he was unattached, it would never be her turn. "Who is she?" she asked, just out of curiosity; part of her wanted to find out, yet the other part would rather not know.

"Doesn't matter," Hyunwon replied. "That's all in the past. The point is that sometimes our circumstances force us down paths that we may not have expected, but it's not necessarily a bad thing. We just need to make the best of where we're at."

He sat there quietly staring into the distance, thinking about the past and all the memories that he had accumulated throughout the years. There were times when he would wonder about what Seorin was doing right now—whether she was doing well over in the States and whether she was looking after herself without him there beside her—but he realised that those instances were becoming far and few between now. Perhaps they were right when they said that time could heal all wounds, because the hurt and betrayal that he had felt when Seorin left him had begun to fade away, so much so that when he spoke about her he didn't even feel the heartache anymore.

He didn't realise just how long he was sitting there lost in his own thoughts until he felt something knock against his shoulder, snapping him out of his own little bubble. Hyejin had dozed off with her head lolling from side to side, and she was now resting it comfortably against his right shoulder. Using one finger, he tried to push her away, but within seconds her head would bob back in his direction, coming to rest in the exact same position.

"How is it that she can sleep anywhere..." he muttered to himself. Picking up the jacket that he had set down on the chair beside him, he carefully laid it across her shoulders so that she wouldn't catch a cold from the air-conditioning in the room. Sighing, he folded his arms and continued sitting there, resigning himself to the fate of being someone else's pillow for the night.

Hyejin slept all the way till the break of dawn and she was still fast asleep when Ares walked in through the doors of the ward at around six the next morning. When he stepped in, his gaze met with Hyunwon's, who was still sitting there stiff as a board acting as Hyejin's makeshift pillow.

"How did you find out that we were here?" Hyunwon whispered, keeping his volume low so that he wouldn't wake her.

"I heard about what happened from Remington," Ares replied. When he couldn't find Hyejin anywhere after the awards ceremony, he had tried calling her to find out where she had gone but all he got was her phone's auto-reply. If not for the fact that Hyunwon had sent Remington a text to explain why he had gone missing, he would not have known where the two of them had vanished to. "Is everything alright?"

"Everything's fine now," Hyunwon replied, stifling a yawn. Unlike Hyejin, he wasn't accustomed to sleeping in an upright position, which meant that he had been awake all the way up till now. "The doctor said that her father's condition is no longer critical, and he should awake later today."

"I'll take over from here, you should go back to get some rest," Ares said. He sat down on the other side of Hyejin, using his hand to gently adjust her head over to his side, until she was resting on his shoulder instead.

Hyunwon frowned, though he didn't say anything in response. He stood up from his seat and paused fora moment, looking down at the sleeping girl, her messy fringe partially obscuring her eyes as she continued to dawdle in dreamland. "When she wakes up, tell her that she can take the next few days off until her father gets better and can be discharged from the hospital," he said to Ares. Stuffing his hands into his pockets, he picked up his phone and car keys and made his way out of the ward.

Minutes after Hyunwon left, Hyejin slowly stirred from her sleep, rubbing her weary eyes.

"You're awake? It's still early, you can close your eyes for a bit longer."

Hyejin lifted her head and looked up at the person who had just spoken, surprised to find herself looking at Ares instead of Hyunwon. "What are you doing here?" she asked. "How long have I been asleep?" The last thing she remembered was talking to Hyunwon in the middle of the night and watching him as he stared into space, lost in his own thoughts—how did that person turn into Ares all of a sudden? She looked around the ward, searching for some sign of Hyunwon but to no avail. Removing his blazer from her shoulders, she held it tightly in her hands.

"He's gone," Ares said, anticipating the question in her mind. "He just left not long ago. I was worried when I couldn't find you after the awards ceremony. It was Remington who eventually told me where you had gone. You should have called me, I could have sent you down to the hospital."

"It's alright, Hyunwon drove me down," Hyejin replied, shaking her head. "I would have felt really bad if you had to miss the awards ceremony because of me. You didn't need to come all the way down really, my dad is alright now. The doctors said that he should be able to be discharged in a couple of days."

Ares smiled, though there was a slight tinge of disappointment in his smile. "Shall we go grab something to eat?" he asked. "You must be hungry."

Hyejin followed Ares down to the hospital cafeteria where they bought two sandwiches and bottles of juice, before heading out to the back garden. Sitting down on an empty bench, they munched on their breakfast as they watched the sun rise from behind the buildings. Hyejin stretched out her arms and took a deep breath of the fresh morning air, letting it revitalise her.

"So did you win any awards?" she asked cheerily, her mood lifted by the good weather and food in her belly.

Ares nodded. "Just one," he said. "I was going to show it to you, but I left it at home because I left in a rush." He hadn't even had the time to celebrate his win because he had spent the entire night trying to get through to her, worried that something untoward had happened. He had even awoken Gina and Remington at the wee hours of the morning to enlist their help to locate her whereabouts and received a tongue-lashing from his manager in return. He grimaced at the thought of how Gina was going to whip him into shape the next time she saw him.

"You can show it to me next time," Hyejin said. "You should probably go on home after breakfast, else you won't have enough energy for your schedules later on. I'll be staying here to look after my dad, at least until he wakes up."

"Oh right, Hyunwon said that he's giving you a few days off so that you can take care of your father until he gets discharged." After he was done relaying the message, Ares hesitated for a moment before he turned to her and said, "Hyejin, can I ask you something?"

"Hmm?"

"I know this is probably not the best moment to be asking you this, but I just thought I should get it out of my system or else I probably won't be able to do anything today. Will you," he suddenly took hold of her hand, looking intently into her eyes, "go out with me?"

Hyejin almost choked on the juice that she had been drinking. Spluttering, she quickly extricated her hand from his grip and said, "Excuse me?" Perhaps it was too early in the morning and she was still half-dreaming, but did Ares just ask her to go out with him? She stared at him in disbelief, trying her best to reconcile fantasy with reality.

Ares looked at her for a moment, then he sighed and said, "I'm one step too late, aren't I?"

"What?"

"I'm one step too late, because someone else already got there before me. Just like how someone else sent you to the hospital last night before I could," Ares replied. "I know I'm not the best guy that you could find and my celebrity status only serves to complicate matters, but I was still hoping that you could give me a chance. After all, we get along pretty well, don't we? But I guess that's not enough. I'm not sure what will ever be enough, to be honest." He paused for a second, staring down at his own feet. "Hyunwon has quite a history. I would be careful if I were you."

Before Hyejin had a chance to sort out her own thoughts and give him a response, Ares got up to his feet and smiled. "You know what, just forget everything that I just said, alright? We should head back to the ward, your father might already be awake." Picking up all the rubbish, he stuffed everything into a plastic bag and sauntered back towards the hospital building.

Hyejin watched him walk further and further away from her, and then she looked down at the white blazer that she had brought along with her down from the ward, thinking about the man that it belonged to.

"Sorry Ares," she whispered. Because you're right. You're just one step too late.

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