Chapter 48

She slept until the sun reached deep into the hospital room. When she opened her eyes, Hayden was nowhere to be seen.

On the coffee table were a laptop and a cell phone, which seemed to have been left behind by him. With staggering steps, Isu sat down on the sofa and picked up the cell phone.

A fluorescent yellow sticky note was attached to the phone screen.

Call me when you wake up.

It looked like a memo he had written and left himself. Looking at the neat and handsome handwriting, just like his appearance, Isu stuck the memo back onto the coffee table. It was because she found it too wasteful to throw away.

After heading straight to the bathroom to shower, she filled her stomach with cereal. She was just about to send a text to Hayden. At that moment, a man’s voice was heard from outside.

“Can I see her today?”

It wasn’t a voice she was perfectly familiar with, but it wasn’t unfamiliar either. Who could it be? As she searched her memory, a thoroughly businesslike reply rang out from in front of the door.

“She hasn’t woken up yet.”

“I came here after hearing that she’s awake, which is strange. Then please let her know that Manuel has arrived as soon as she wakes up.”

Listening closely to the conversation, Isu widened her eyes.

“Manuel?”

She immediately pulled open the hospital room door. Manuel was looking at Isu with his hands shoved into the front pockets of his hospital gown.

“Soo!”

“Manuel! I was actually planning to go look for you.”

“Really?”

“Do you want to come into my room?”

There was a lot she wanted to ask Manuel. However, the security guard guarding the front of the door didn’t look like they welcomed Manuel.

It made sense, since the risk increased as visitors multiplied. Pondering this, Isu spoke to the security guard in a pleading tone.

“He’s someone I spent time with together when we were trapped on the island. He’s a football player and has nothing to do with Graham, so I’d like to have a brief conversation with him.”

Only then did the security guard take out a notebook and ask Manuel.

“What is your name?”

Manuel crossed his arms with a displeased look and replied.

“I’m Manuel Perez.”

Only after completing the sign-in process back and forth was she able to let him inside. Isu tidied up the cluttered coffee table and sat Manuel down in the seat beside her, asking.

“Are your vocal cords doing okay?”

Manuel stroked his freshly shaved chin and replied.

“They’ve gotten a lot better.”

The end of his voice cracked slightly. Had his vocal cords gotten damaged because he was calling for rescue on the day they set fire to the pine forest?

“By the way, how did your vocal cords get damaged? What happened after I ran into the pine forest?”

Manuel leaned back comfortably against the sofa and faced Isu.

“That day, Hayden came running into the burning forest to save you. It was a situation where every second counted, so he told us to keep shouting just in case he got lost inside.”

Isu had thought the person who rescued her from the forest was a rescue team, not Hayden. Because the flames had instantly grown ferocious, she had figured ordinary people without rescue training wouldn’t dare step foot inside.

“Hayden…?”

“Yeah.”

Even after hearing Manuel’s answer, she couldn’t believe those words and clutched the memo Hayden had left behind. Had he really run through that raging inferno? If Manuel had seen it, it must be true, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t imagine the cold-headed Hayden throwing his life away and plunging into the flames.

Isu asked, looking dazed.

“Did Hayden really… save me? Did you injure your vocal cords trying to save me too, Manuel?”

“That guy Jan was slacking off, saying it was too hard, so I was just shouting on behalf of Jan’s share, too, and rested a little.”

Manuel replied as if it were no big deal, but because he had shouted enough to lose his voice, Hayden must have been able to hear that sound and escape the forest safely. If Hayden had lost his way and wandered around… She really didn’t even want to imagine it.

“Thank you, Manuel. You saved me and Hayden.”

At those words, Manuel scratched his head awkwardly.

“No. You saved me, and Hayden saved you.”

Answering thus, he looked somewhat bitter. That was probably because it had reawakened the helplessness he had felt in front of the vicious flames. She changed the subject.

“Are you able to be discharged? Or do you have to keep getting treatment?”

Only then did Manuel erase the shadow cast over his face.

“I can be discharged the day after tomorrow. I’m more worried about you than myself. Is your breathing somewhat okay?”

“Fortunately, there are no problems at all. Just like everyone else, I’m just exhausted from not being able to eat or sleep properly while living on the island.”

Her body felt light enough that she could run right now, so she’d probably be able to be discharged before long. Nodding in agreement with that thought, Manuel gazed toward the hospital room door.

“By the way, are you in a lot of danger? Hayden has security guards plastered all over the entire hospital. It’s because of that guy Graham, right?”

Isu, who had been full of life just a moment ago, grew noticeably dejected.

“Yeah… I have no idea how I ended up in a plight like this.”

If it felt unfair, it certainly was. She had probably just been doing her job as a journalist, yet her memories had been erased and she was even facing threats to her life.

Furthermore, she might have been in a romantic relationship with Graham, and Hayden might have found out about that fact. Just how terrible must her eye for men be if she dated a guy like that…

As her eyes grew increasingly gloomy, Manuel, reading the mood, changed the subject.

“Oh, is that a cell phone? That’s yours, right?”

“……”

“I’ll enter my number for you.”

Soon picking up the cell phone, he entered his own phone number. Then he pressed the call button. A ringtone rang from Manuel’s cell phone.

Manuel smiled, his eyes softening like a puppy’s.

“I’ll send you a season pass as soon as the league opens. Make sure to answer and tell me your address.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

Receiving the cell phone and saving Manuel’s number, Isu replied. Watching her neat and delicate profile, Manuel asked gently.

“You’re going to go to London following Hayden, right?”

It was a reasonable guess. Because she lost her memories, she didn’t know where her home was, nor did she have anything. So it made sense to follow someone who had more than enough to share without a dent, right…?

She answered with a troubled mind.

“Yeah. I believe that while living in London and gradually recovering my memories, I’ll be able to get my family and job back, too.”

Manuel smiled kindly.

“Well, anyway, I’m glad I got to meet you before being discharged. I was worried what I’d do if I had to leave without even seeing your face since I’m getting discharged the day after tomorrow. You’re my lifesaver, after all, so I at least need to get your contact info.”

Isu tucked a gorgeous strand of jet-black hair behind her ear and shook her head.

“No. I just happened to be next to Manuel when you fell into trouble, so you don’t need to try hard to repay me. I’d just like us to stay as friends who can comfortably keep in touch.”

The faint sunlight grew clear and shone upon her face. Her face with its clean-cut features strangely drew Manuel’s gaze.

Yet, there wasn’t a fitting word to perfectly describe her. Should he call her desolate yet beautiful? Though the impulse to knock her down and endlessly distort her was certainly there.

Manuel wiped the cold sweat gathered on his hands onto his hospital gown. Looking into empty space to find something to say, Isu recalled a part she had been curious about.

“By the way, did they find Declan and Jenna?”

Hearing the frail question, Manuel touched his earlobe and replied.

“Ah, you must not have heard the news yet.”

“News?”

“They found both of them.”

“Really? The nurse told me there were only six patients who came off the island.”

“Declan and Jenna were transferred straight away. To the graveyard.”

“A graveyard?”

Transferred to a graveyard? While Isu widened her eyes, Manuel opened his mouth.

“Even after we left the island, the rescue team searched the island for a few days. Then they found Declan, who had drowned with his hand wedged between rocks in a lake, and Jenna’s body, which had fallen off a cliff on the backside of the island.”

Hearing that Declan and Jenna had died, Isu was left speechless. Reading her mood, Manuel carefully continued.

“I heard Hayden was investigated because of that, but I’m not really sure how it turned out.”

Hayden was investigated…? Since she had no way of knowing how the situation was turning, Isu arched her eyebrows upward.

“Hayden was investigated?”

Manuel poured drinking water into a paper cup prepared on the coffee table and replied.

“It seems Jenna saw Hayden plunge Declan into the water at dawn on the day after Declan tried to commit atrocities against you. Jenna told Nate about that story and then died, you see.”

So, according to Manuel’s story, Jenna had seen Hayden plunge Declan into the water, told Nate about that fact, and then fallen off a cliff. If so, did that mean Hayden had even killed Declan and Jenna?

Isu couldn’t speak for a while. She didn’t know what on earth had happened behind her back, but she knew that Hayden wasn’t an abnormal human being crazy enough to commit murder.

“But Hayden was with me the whole time. Jenna might have said those things out of spite, so it’s best not to frame him unless there’s concrete evidence.”

There was also a probability that Jenna, having made advances toward Hayden and been coldly rejected, had attempted to frame him. She didn’t want to speak ill of the dead, but an innocent person shouldn’t be falsely accused… As she nodded, Manuel replied.

“Yeah, I know. The police seemed to think Jenna was the one who pushed Declan underwater. The laptop Declan said he’d sell to Graham was found near Jenna’s body.”

“A laptop…?”

“Yeah. Jenna might have killed Declan, aiming to get rich quick, and tried to hide the laptop before falling off the cliff. Since there are various possibilities, we’ll just have to wait until the investigation is over.”

Fiddling with her lips as she listened to the story, Isu grew curious about the whereabouts of the laptop.