--: Author's POV: --
The hospital hallway was trapped in the dead of night. It was 3:00 AM, and the only light came from the flickering, cold hum of the overhead fluorescents and the faint green glow of the exit signs. Outside, the city was silent, but inside the VIP wing, the air was thick with a suffocating, restless energy.
Keifer sat on the floor, his back against the cold wall. Around him, the other boys had finally succumbed to a shallow, broken sleep in the waiting chairs, but Keifer's eyes remained open, fixed on the closed door of the suite.
He asked a passing nurse for a pen and a piece of hospital stationery. For nearly an hour, he just stared at the blank white page. His hand was shaking so violently he had to grip his wrist to steady it. How could he put three days of hell into ink? How could he explain that the blood on his knuckles was the only way he knew how to save her?
Finally, he leaned the paper against his knee and began to write. The handwriting was jagged, raw, and desperate:
———————
Jay,
I'm sitting right outside this door. I'm not going anywhere. I know your mind is a loud place right now, and I know that bastard tried to tell you that I would look at you differently. He lied. I don't see anything but the girl who is my entire world. I don't care about what you saw. I only care that you're breathing.
Don't be afraid of my hands, baby. These hands only exist to hold you. When you're ready, I'm right here. I'll wait a lifetime.
Yours, always.
Keifer
———————
He folded it carefully, his thumb lingering on her name. He clutched that paper for hours, waiting for the first sign of life from behind that door.
--: Keifer's POV: --
The sky was just beginning to turn a bruised, pre-dawn gray when the soft click of the suite door finally echoed in the hall. I was on my feet instantly. My legs were cramped and numb, but the adrenaline burned through the pain.
"Is she awake?" I rasped. My voice was so dry it felt like I was swallowing glass. "Gorya, talk to me. Is she awake? Did she eat? Can she hear me?"
Gorya stepped out, looking like she hadn't slept in a lifetime. She didn't answer right away. She just stood there, her hand trembling on the doorknob as she looked at me, then at Thyme, Angelo, and the others who were all waking up, their faces frantic.
"She's awake," Gorya said, her voice a broken whisper. "But Keifer... she's not there. She's just staring at the wall. The nurses tried to touch her arm to check her IV, and she almost climbed over the headboard to get away from them."
The silence that followed was heavy. It was the kind of silence that rings in your ears. I looked at the door, then back at Gorya. "Can I just... just one second? I won't speak. I just want her to know I'm the one guarding her. Not him."
"No," Gorya said, a single tear escaping. "She asked the nurses if the 'men from the factory' were gone. She thinks... Keifer, she's associating all of you with the blood. Her heart rate spikes the moment she hears a male voice in the hall."
I felt the air leave my lungs. I held out the crumpled note, my fingers trembling. "Just give her this. Please. If she won't see me, let her see this."
--: Gorya's POV: --
I took the paper. It was damp from his palm. I walked back into the room where Jay Jay lay in the dim, early morning light. Kaning, Freya, Ella, Mica, Raki, and Grace were a silent circle of protection around her bed.
Jay Jay looked like a porcelain doll that had been shattered and glued back together with shaking hands. Her eyes were hollow. When I sat on the edge of the bed, she flinched, her eyes darting to the door.
"It's just me, Jay Jay," I whispered. I held out the note. "Keifer is still outside. He wrote this for you. He's been sitting on the floor all night waiting for you."
--: Jay Jay's POV: --
The mention of his name felt like a physical blow to my chest. I looked at the paper. I could smell him on it—the faint, lingering scent of his cologne mixed with the metallic, sharp tang of the factory.
Keifer.
My heart screamed to reach for it, but my brain showed me the Stepfather's face. "He'll look at you and see what I saw," the monster's voice echoed. I looked at the door and imagined Keifer's hands. All I could see was the blood on them. All I could see was the "lesson."
"I can't," I whispered, my voice trembling. "I can't read it, Gorya. If I read his words, I'll want him to hold me. And if he holds me... I'll remember the shame. I'll remember the woman. I'll see him and see the filth."
"He just wants his Queen, Jay," Kaning whispered, her voice thick with tears.
"The girl he loved... she died in that basement," I said, a single, heavy tear falling onto the white hospital sheets. "There's only this left. This... thing that watched."
I pushed the paper back toward Gorya. I couldn't look at it. Because as much as I loved him, I was terrified that if I saw his love, I would realize just how much of me was truly, irrevocably gone.
--: Author's POV: --
Gorya stepped back out into the hall. The sun was finally beginning to rise, casting long, mocking shadows across the floor. She didn't say a word. She just held the paper out. It was still folded. Unopened.
The sound that came out of Keifer wasn't a sob; it was a low, guttural moan of absolute defeat. He took the paper back, his fingers trembling, and leaned his head against the glass.
Angelo suddenly snapped. He stood up, his eyes flashing with a dangerous, unstable light. "This is enough! She's my sister! I'm going in there. I don't care what the doctors say!"
"Kuya, sit down," Aries commanded, grabbing his arm with a grip like iron. "You'll cause her to have a heart attack. Look at her—she's fragile. One wrong move and she'll never come back."
"Let go of me!" Angelo snarled, shoving Aries back against the wall. Thyme and MJ had to step between them as the hallway erupted into a tense, hushed argument.
--: Keifer's POV: --
I didn't join the fight. I didn't even look at them. I just looked at the unopened letter in my hand.
"I'm going home," I whispered.
Thyme looked at me, shocked.
"What? You said you weren't leaving."
"I need to wash," I said, looking at the dried blood under my fingernails—his blood. "I'm covered in him. No wonder she's scared. I'm covered in the man who broke her. How can I ask her to see me when I'm still wearing her nightmare?"
I walked away without looking back. The drive to my apartment was a daze. When I walked through the door, the silence of the penthouse was deafening. I walked into my bedroom and stopped.
On the armchair by the window was Jay Jay's favorite hoodie. On the nightstand was her hair tie and a half-finished book. The room smelled like her—lavender and home, the place where we live in Bangkok .
I fell to my knees in the middle of the room. I grabbed her hoodie and pressed it to my face, inhaling the scent of the girl who couldn't even look at my letter. The first sob tore out of me, a raw, primal sound of agony, until I was shaking on the floor, surrounded by the ghosts of a relationship that had been stolen by a dead man.
--: Author's POV: --
Hours had passed since Keifer left, but the tension in the VIP wing hadn't faded—it had only fermented into something volatile. Angelo was pacing the small hallway like a caged predator, his eyes fixed on the double doors. Every time a nurse entered or exited, he caught a glimpse of the sterile white room where his sister lay, and every time, his heart twisted with a fresh surge of helpless rage.
The doctors had been firm: No men. But Angelo wasn't just any man. He was the brother who had promised to protect her since they were children, and seeing her treat him like a stranger in the factory yard was a wound that wouldn't stop bleeding.
"Angelo, sit down," Kavin muttered, his voice weary. "You're vibrating. The nurses are getting nervous."
"I don't give a damn about the nurses," Angelo snapped, his voice dangerously low. "She's my blood. My sister. And she's in there convinced she's alone in the dark. I'm not letting that monster win another minute of her life."
--: Angelo's POV: --
I didn't care about the protocols. I didn't care about the F4's warnings or the security guards at the end of the hall. I looked at Aries, who was watching me with a calculating stare. He knew what I was about to do. He didn't move to stop me.
A female nurse stepped out of the room, turning to close the door.
Now.
I lunged. I didn't wait for her to move out of the way; I caught the door with my shoulder before the lock could click.
"Sir! You can't be in here!" the nurse shrieked, grabbing my arm.
I ignored her. I pushed past, my boots heavy on the linoleum, my heart slamming against my ribs. I heard Thyme and MJ calling my name from the hall, heard the scuffle as security tried to intervene, but I was already inside.
--: Author's POV: --
The room went deathly silent the second Angelo crossed the threshold. Gorya, Freya, and the girls scrambled to their feet, forming a human wall in front of the bed.
"Angelo, get out!" Gorya hissed, her eyes wide with fear. "You're going to trigger her!"
But it was too late.
Jay Jay was huddled against the headboard, the white sheets pulled up to her chin. The moment she saw a male figure—tall, broad-shouldered, and radiating intense energy—her eyes glazed over with a familiar, paralyzing terror. She didn't see her brother. She saw a silhouette from the basement.
"No..." she whimpered, her voice a tiny, broken thing. "No, no, no... please. Not again. I'll watch, I'll watch, just don't touch me.. please..."
--: Angelo's POV: --
Hearing those words—I'll watch—felt like a bucket of ice water over my head. I stopped dead in the middle of the room. My hands, which had been balled into fists of rage, began to shake.
"Jay... it's me," I choked out, dropping to my knees right there on the hospital floor so I wouldn't look so tall, so threatening. "It's Angelo. Your brother. Remember? It's just me."
She was hyperventilating now, her small frame jolting with every gasp for air. Mica and Raki were holding her hands, trying to ground her, but she was staring right through me.
"Go away," she sobbed, burying her face in Gorya's side. "Please make him go away. I'm dirty. Tell him I'm dirty. I don't want him to see what he did to me."
--: Author's POV: --
The security guards finally reached the room, grabbing Angelo by the shoulders to drag him out. For the first time in his life, the fierce, untouchable Angelo didn't fight back. He let them pull him. He stayed on his knees as they dragged him toward the door, his eyes never leaving his sister's shaking form.
"I love you, Jay!" he roared as the door began to swing shut. "You aren't dirty! You're my sister! You're my fighter baby! Don't let that dead man stay in your head!"
The door slammed shut.
Outside in the hall, the boys watched as Angelo was dumped onto the floor by security. He didn't get up. He just sat there, gasping for air, the weight of his failure finally breaking him.
--: Keifer's POV: --
I walked back into the wing just as the echoes of Angelo's shouting died down. I was clean. I had showered until my skin was raw, changed into a fresh black suit, and the scent of the factory was gone. I was carrying a single, white rose—the one thing she always loved.
But I stopped when I saw the scene. Angelo was on the floor, head in his hands. Thyme was looking at the door with a look of pure horror.
"What happened?" I asked, my voice trembling.
"He barged in," Aries said, his voice flat. "He tried to force her to see him. It... it didn't go well, Keifer."
I looked at the door. I looked at the rose in my hand. If her own brother couldn't reach her—if her own blood made her scream—what chance did I have? I was the one she loved most, which meant I was the one who could hurt her the deepest.
"She's not ready," I whispered to the empty air. "And the more we push, the further she runs."
———————————
--: Author's POV: --
Four days.
Four days of agonizing silence, sterile hallways, and gradual healing. Jay Jay had been moved to a private recovery suite—one with large windows that let in the soft amber glow of the sunset. She had spent those days surrounded by the girls, who had stayed by her side like a protectors.
But the silence was beginning to weigh on her more than the trauma. Every time she closed her eyes, she didn't just see the "lessons"; she saw the look on Keifer's face as he sat on the hospital floor. She realized that while she was trying to scrub the filth off her soul, she was starving her heart. She needed the only person who truly understood the darkness she carried.
As the sun began to dip below the horizon on the fourth evening, Jay Jay sat by the window. She looked down at her hands—clean and pale.
"Gorya?" Jay Jay whispered.
Gorya looked up from the chair where she'd been dozing. "Yeah?"
"Can you please help me??" Jay Jay asked..
"Ofcourse, I will, tell me what you want?"
"Tell him... tell him he can come in. But tell him to leave the lights off. I just want him and the sunset. And tell him to come alone."
--: Keifer's POV: --
I was leaning against the wall in the hallway, staring at the floor, when Gorya walked out. My heart did a slow, painful roll in my chest. I expected the usual "she's sleeping" or "not today."
"Keifer," Gorya said softly.
I looked up. My heart skipped a beat at the look on her face. It wasn't pity anymore. It was a small, hopeful smile. "She's ready. Go in. But keep the lights off."
I didn't move for a heartbeat. My hands started to shake. I was terrified that the moment she saw me, the wall would go back up. I took a deep breath, pushed open the door, and stepped into the room.
The suite was bathed in a deep, warm orange. The scent of lavender was everywhere. And there she was – sitting in a chair by the window, looking so small and so beautiful it made my lungs ache.
--: Jay Jay's POV: --
The door opened. I didn't jump. I recognized the sound of his footsteps – the heavy, steady rhythm that had been my heartbeat for years.
He didn't rush. He stayed by the door, a dark silhouette against the twilight.
"Jay Jay?" he whispered. His voice was trembling, filled with so much raw relief it made my throat tighten.
"Don't stay over there," I said, my voice barely a breath. "Come closer, Keifer."
He moved slowly, cautiously. He stopped a few feet away, his hands shoved deep into his pockets as if he were afraid they were still stained with the factory's blood.
"I missed you," he said. "Every second felt like an eternity. I felt like the world was ending out there without you."
"I missed you too," I whispered. I looked at his face in the orange light. He looked exhausted. The sharp lines of his jaw were shadowed with stubble, and his eyes were hollow. "I'm sorry I made you stay in the hall. I'm sorry I couldn't look at you."
--: Keifer's POV: --
I couldn't help it. I took a step closer, sinking to my knees beside her chair so I was looking up at her. "Don't ever apologize for that. He did this to us, Jay Jay. Not you. I would have waited a century if it meant you'd look at me again."
I tentatively reached out, my hand hovering in the air. I wanted to touch her so badly I was vibrating, but I waited. I waited for her to decide.
Jay Jay looked at my hand. She didn't see the factory anymore. She didn't see the Stepfather. She saw the boy who had once promised to be her shield.
Slowly, she reached out and slid her hand into mine. Her skin was cool, but her grip was desperate.
"You're not dirty, Jay Jay," I whispered, pressing my forehead against the side of her knee. "You're the purest thing I've ever known. And I'm never letting you go again."
--: Author's POV: --
In the quiet of the dim room, the distance finally vanished. Jay Jay didn't stay in the chair. She slid down onto the floor with him, wrapping her arms around his neck and burying her face in the crook of his shoulder.
Keifer let out a broken, shuddering breath, his arms finally wrapping around her waist, pulling her flush against him. He didn't just hold her; he clung to her, his face buried in her hair as he wept silent, relieved tears.
Outside in the hall, the F4 and the girls and others stood by the window. Thyme put an arm around Gorya, and Angelo finally let out the breath he'd been holding for four days.
The Queen was slowly getting back. And for the first time since the nightmare began, the darkness was finally being pushed back by the light.
—————————
--: Author's POV: --
The discharge from Paramaanantra International was not a quiet affair. Despite the heavy security, the atmosphere felt like a victory march. Thyme had cleared the entire underground parking level to ensure no prying eyes could see Jay Jay leave.
The girls—Gorya, Kaning, Freya, Ella, Mica, Raki, and Grace—walked in a tight formation around Jay Jay as she exited the elevator. She was dressed in one of Keifer's oversized hoodies and soft leggings, looking fragile but steady. Keifer walked a half-step behind her, his hand hovering near the small of her back, never touching unless she leaned into him, but always there as an invisible net.
Angelo and Aries were already at the lead car, their eyes scanning the area with lethal intensity.
"Everything is clear," Aries muttered into his radio. He looked at Jay Jay and gave her a rare, soft nod. "Welcome back, Princess."
Angelo stepped forward, his eyes searching hers for any sign of the fear from the day he barged in. When Jay Jay gave him a small, tired smile, he let out a breath that sounded like a prayer. He pulled her into a brief, gentle hug. "The penthouse is locked down, Jay Jay. You're safe now. I promise."
Keifer opened the door of the blacked-out SUV. As Jay Jay slid inside, the rest of the F4 and the girls watched the car pull away. The recovery was beginning, but the battlefield was shifting from the hospital to the place they called home.
--: Keifer's POV: --
The elevator ride up to the penthouse was the longest thirty seconds of my life. Jay Jay stood in the corner, her eyes fixed on the floor numbers as they flickered upward. The silence wasn't awkward—it was heavy with the memory of the last time we were here, before the world broke.
The doors chimed and opened. As we stepped into the foyer, the automatic lights hummed to life. Jay Jay stopped. She stood in the center of the living room, looking around at the floor-to-ceiling windows.
"I'm going to take a shower," she whispered. "I want to wash the hospital off me."
"I'll be right here," I said. "I'll be sitting on the bed. I won't come in, but I'll be right outside, okay?"
I sat on the edge of the mattress, my head in my hands. The adrenaline that had kept me upright for days was finally evaporating, leaving behind a bone-deep exhaustion. My eyes felt like they were full of sand, and my heart was heavy with the strain of everything. I was swaying slightly, my body pleading for a rest I didn't think I deserved yet.
--: Jay Jay's POV: --
When I stepped out of the bathroom, wrapped in a thick robe, I saw Keifer. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, his shoulders slumped and his chin nearly touching his chest. He looked like he was about to fall over.
The sight of him so hollowed out by worry for me hurt more than my own scars.
"Keifer?" I called softly.
He jolted, his eyes snapping open as he forced himself to stand. "I'm awake. I'm right here, Jay Jay. Do you... do you want me to sit in the chair? I can stay by the door."
I walked over and took his hand. It was cold. "No. I want you to sleep with me, Keifer. You look so tired it's breaking my heart. Please... stay right here with me."
--: Keifer's POV: --
I hesitated, my mind foggy. "I don't want to crowd you. The doctor said space —"
"I don't want space," she interrupted, her fingers tightening around mine. "I want you. Sleep with me. Please."
I couldn't refuse her. I climbed into the bed, intending to stay on the far edge, but Jay Jay didn't allow it. She crawled toward me, tucking her head into the space between my shoulder and chest.
"Close your eyes, Keifer," she whispered. "I'm safe. We're home. You don't have to guard me tonight."
--: Author's POV: --
The penthouse grew silent. Keifer's arm wound around Jay Jay instinctively, his hand splayed across her back as if checking her breathing. For the first time in a week, his heart rate finally slowed. Surrounded by her scent and the warmth of her body, the exhaustion finally won.
He didn't just sleep; he fell into a deep, dreamless darkness, finally at peace because he could feel her heart beating against his own. They slept through the night, a single unit of shared recovery, as the shadows of the factory finally began to fade.