Chapter Text
One afternoon session, as Chai was working out the tense, growing muscles reforming in her leg as she lie on her stomach on the treatment table after another rough workout, he asked what she wanted to do once she was back to 100%. She grunted as he’d found a particularly tough spot behind her knee, “Uhh!—“ then softly she said, “ I want to race again…”
Even though she’d finally been discharged, still in the leg brace and crutches, the doctor knew she hadn’t been anywhere near a motorcycle since the accident- almost four months now. Driving a car was out of the question, let alone a superbike. She seemed down- was it due to that?
“You want to get back on the bike?… The thought doesn’t scare you at all?”, he asked gently. He’d personally treated numerous patients who never drove again after major vehicle accidents, a few swore to never even get in a car again. Sometimes the mental trauma of these accidents was worse than the physical.
There was no hesitation, but her voice sounded more like a quiet confession than her normal tone. “No. I could never be afraid of my bike. I need it. I miss it.”
The man had barely heard the last words, but he felt the deeper meaning.
Chai had seen some of his patients go through rough phases during their recovery like this. Sometimes they felt like they weren’t progressing fast enough, sometimes the depression being stuck in the hospital for long stays wore them down, a lack of family and friends around- there were many reasons.
This was a less shimmering side of Star he’d not seen before. Like she was really opening up to him for the first time. Like he’d cracked some outer tough layer and was discovering that this woman was not always the bright, laughing, smiling woman she projected to the world. He felt a strange sense of honor at that thought…
He found himself wanting to get her back to her baby that she loved so much. To see that smile on her face, like in the photos she’d shown him.
Ever since she’d left the hospital, Chai had missed seeing her for their morning coffee meetups and their strolls around the wards. Even his staff had commented on his slightly more melancholic mood, though he was better on days “that patient” was coming in.
He pushed his own issues aside- he needed to buoy her up if he could.
“Well, I think you are making fantastic progress here. If that is your goal- we will make it happen. I will get you back on the Ducati again!” His cheerful voice washed over her as she lie there.
She raised her head and looked over her shoulder to see him in her peripheral. “You aren’t going to try to talk me out of it like everyone else?”
He couldn’t contain his mild shock before the words shot out of his mouth, “Who’s trying to talk you out of it?!”
She turned her head back, putting her chin back down on her folded arms in front of her, “Everyone.”
He relaxed his tone again to match hers, he was afraid she might clam up on him and he wanted to help her if he could. Half of this job was not just listening to the body, but the heart and mind. “Like your father—?“, Chai started. They’d briefly touched on her father’s disapproval in their last session.
Star snorted with disgust. “He has NEVER approved… No, I mean nearly everyone is trying to convince me that I should never ride again. Even Vee… said she wanted me to stop.”
Saying it out loud finally made the feelings Star had been bottling up start to shake and quake within her. She didn’t want to admit how much it hurt that her best friend in the world had asked her to give up the one thing she loved most. Though Star was not one for crying, her face contorted, forcing the liquid building behind her eyes to disperse elsewhere.
She realized that not facing the doc right now helped her in admitting this. If she’d been looking at him, she wasn’t sure she could keep it under control. The minute imperfections in the plain white paint on the wall was studied as if it was the finest painting in any museum.
Chai remembered that Vee was her best friend. If this woman’s best friend and biggest supporter had actually had the courage to ask Star to quit racing, something she loved with every fiber of her being, it might very well feel like her whole world was against her… even if that one friend had been the only one to say it.
Star went quiet for a long time.
Chai finally asked, “When are you hoping to race again?”
Her eyes were closed as the doctor was working out another particularly rough patch of her leg and let out the softest groan. “What do you mean?”
“One month? Two months?”
Star slowly opened her eyes, and looked over her shoulder again.
His professional tone was back. “It’s good for you to have a goal. Let’s set a date. Pick a day you want to get back on the bike. I will get you there.”
A spark started to glow inside Star’s eyes.
After chatting about it together a little bit more, Dr. Chai instructed his staff to schedule Star’s appointments two to three times a week.
As Star made the appointments with the receptionist, she found herself smiling. But the smile speedily left her face— she realized that she wasn’t actually thinking ONLY about the chance to hop back on her cherished baby!
She had been thinking about the fact that she would now get to resume seeing and talk to this man several times a week… She truly enjoyed his company. The realization freaked her out!
Little did she know, Chai was hiding his own joy at the idea of once again getting to see her more often.
But the next session two days later saw Star walk in with her crutches, looking brooding, pensive.
Not starting with his customary questions on her stretching or healing progress, he immediately asked, “What’s going on? You okay?”
Star’s dark and graceful eyebrows and mouth were fixed in parallel straight lines on her face. “Can we just-… work first?”
"Sure." Chai had to respect that. He wondered if Star needed more time to process something or to formulate what she wanted to say. So he quickly laid out his new plan for her remaining treatment, including dates, goals, and landmarks. She nodded occasionally and once more when he finished.
Then he put her physically through the wringer, pushing her to the utmost limits.
She never once complained. Normally, she’d crack jokes about the doctor being paid to torture her or something- but she was unusually quiet.
She silently endured the intense exercises designed to stimulate the growth of muscles in her leg and renew the flexibility of her torso. Only a few quiet grunts being forced from her throat, and only talking when he asked her questions and even then only one or two word answers.
Star watched Chai’s face closely as he tried to rouse her with positive words and encouragement. But what she saw underneath the handsome face was - pride?
There was no disapproval, no anger, no disappointment. When she made progress, he looked proud of her. The words that came unbidden and unrestrained from his mouth, encouraging her. When she struggled, he still encouraged her- said he believed in her.
She wondered if he said these things to all of his clients. Was he just using a script?
She tugged on the earrings in her ear.
It wasn’t until he was massaging out her leg at the end that she finally seemed to speak for the first time since the start of their appointment. It was the quietest hour he could remember.
“Today my father demanded that I never race again.” Flat and emotionless.
So that was why!…
Chai sensed that she needed to speak so he said nothing and waited, continuing to massage the calf.
“But I don’t care what he wants. He could make me do anything but give up racing. That was the deal…”
Chai was unfamiliar with a “deal”- she’d never mentioned it before.
Star slowly opened up that her father had visited her that day, as well as her fiancé.
Dr. Chai’s warm hands halted momentarily at that word. Something else she’d never mentioned before. Chai felt— left out.
All the chats they’d shared over coffee and chai, all the sessions they’d had, was there really so much about this woman he still didn’t know? But he had to chide himself- of course there was. What were they to each other? Just a physical therapist and his patient. Nothing more. Why had he thought he knew her so well?
Star kept talking- found herself admitting things that she normally would only share with Vee, when bitching about her father. She told him about the deal, the dual life she led to appease her father in exchange for her freedom to race, everything. She even brought up a photo of herself in the wig for him.
Chai didn’t recognize the woman with long black straight bangs covering half her face. The makeup on her face, while tasteful, seemed fake. Finally, he figured out what about it bothered him so much about that woman- her eyes looked dead. No luster, no life. Like a doll.
She even admitted that she had entered into an agreement to marry the CEO her father wanted for his business connections. She laughed at her folly, calling herself a “sacrifice” for her father’s endeavors and ambitions. She’d been dating him for so long, dragging that engagement out for so long- why? Sure, mostly it was to appear as demure as Shin Yoo-Beom liked, but— she finally had to admit to herself- she didn’t want to marry him. She didn’t even LIKE that man…. Vee had been right from the start.
That man- her “fiancé” (the word dripped with malice and hatred from her lips)- had finally found out that she was not, in fact, vacationing in Europe. The lies devised and spread by her father had been uncovered and he had come and stood in front of her that afternoon.
Her irate father had called her at home earlier that day, telling her to quickly cover herself- her fiancé was on his way!
Instead, Star had immediately called Saifah at the shop.
When he picked up, she blurted out, “Ai’Saifah- I don’t have time to explain! Bring Phayu, come to my place right now and drive my bike to the shop! Hide it there! Do this for me?! PLEASE?!”
Saifah was at a loss for words. Was Star seriously panicking?! He stammered an agreement and said they’d be there soon.
Star said she’d leave the key under the tire and texted him her address rather than wait for him to pull it from her bike’s records. Time was of the essence!
Before hanging up, she begged him again to please watch after her baby! She’d explain everything later!… Even if the twins only arrived moments before her fiancé and father, it was enough time to hide her baby!
Forty minutes later, she had stood silently in the living room of her father’s house and listened as her fiancé tore her apart and her father made the most heinous apologies for her, swearing that she would never disobey the seething CEO again.
That “개새끼” had stood there and forbade her from ever sitting on a bike again. (Chai didn’t know much Korean, but he knew that word!)
The wig that her father had put on her head before forcing her downstairs had been violently yanked off and thrown in her face. Her dear sweet fiancé insulted her hair, saying they would shave it off so he’d never have to see it again. He’d even grabbed her ears, criticizing the piercings. He berated her for the unsightly scars on her legs, complaining that she would be forced to wear long dresses at all functions. No bathing suits ever.
Chai’s heart ached at the thought of such rough treatment at the hands of her father and the man she was going to marry.
He slowly nodded and tried to focus on the muscles of her leg in his hands.
He found the scars on Star’s leg utterly beautiful. The surgical doctors had done excellent work and they’d come a long way with the cream he’d prescribed. Star had obviously taken great care on her own as well. They were really only noticeable up close, when you pushed or pulled the skin- like he was at this moment. Her warm, pliable skin moved like a large ripple over a smooth, watery surface from the deep pressure of his fingers.
She was still unloading this burden.
Her bastard fiancé swore that if she ever touched a bike again, he’d leave her without so much as a second glance. Her father had practically fallen to the floor at the jerk’s feet when he heard that.
Chai thought to himself- Of course she would have to obey her father and fiancé… - and waited for her to continue.
“So I told him to kiss my ass.”
Chai’s hands froze mid-movement and his chin dropped. “You WHAT?!”
“I dumped him.” She said it like it was the most obvious conclusion in the world.
The shocked man could barely process everything she said, Star explained it as if she were summarizing a drama series— she’d discovered that while she and her father had been “not quite truthful” about her appearance, her fiancé had lied about much, much more.
It wasn’t her father’s company who needed him- he needed them! That was why, even with all his complaints about her appearance, lifestyle, and hobbies, he hadn’t dumped her or called off the engagement!
Without revealing quite how she’d accomplished it, she explained that she’d uncovered proof that his company was on the verge of collapse (also conveniently leaving out the little fact that she herself had greatly contributed to that situation!), and that not only was he corrupt in business, he’d also been keeping not one- but TWO mistresses.
She was the chosen “wife” for her connections and her father’s company, while he got his rocks off with the others.
Dr. Chai gaped.
Star had sent the proof of his business misdealing and embezzlement to the police and the proof of infidelity to both women- one of whom was pregnant. She concluded by saying that the scumbag was “finished”.
Her father had also received a copy of everything and had been rushed to the hospital after he had suffered a mild heart attack.
“When did you discover all of this?!”
Star looked almost embarrassed- “Actually, I only got the last bit before our last appointment… I’d known about the business stuff for a while.”
But it wasn’t truly embarrassment (unless you count being blindsided by the mistresses they’d located in Korea), but more mild guilt- mixed with victory!…
Star swung herself out of the office on her crutches at the end of their session and it wasn’t until he was typing up her progress report 25 minutes later that he stopped- Wait. She seemed so pleased with herself for getting rid of her fiancé… So— nonchalant. Then why did she have that look on her face when she came in?
Dr. Chai knew she wasn’t so fond of her father as to be upset about his heart attack… So- why that face?
—
But the look on her face had not reappeared and her usual smile had returned by the following appointment.
The news outlets reported that her former fiancé had been arrested and multiple lawsuits were being filed against him. His company’s stocks tanked- Star had been right: He was finished.
Star’s father was currently hiding in his hospital room from the press, unable to face anyone as he’d been touting his close relationship with the Korean CEO all over town. There were even quiet mummers in the business world that the old man might be forced to step down from his position and “retire”.
The victorious woman burst into the medical office the day the news of the disgraced Korean CEO broke, bringing the whole staff coffee, sandwiches, and sweets to celebrate her “liberation”! The ladies in the office had no idea what exactly she meant by that, but had they known Star had just thrown her own fiancé to the wolves, they might not have congratulated her so wholeheartedly.
The physical therapist stood off, watching the woman who seemed to glow again, quietly sipping his coffee. His heart didn’t seem to know what to do… He knew he was elated at the idea that she was- well… single! There was no denying that!
But internally, he started to worry- the news had revealed some information about the woman engaged to the humiliated CEO. Star had never really talked about her wealth and status when chatting to him, at least not in those words. He’d always thought she was just slightly well-off.
Chai was forced to reevaluate everything she’d ever said in their sessions, now seeing the hints that had been there all along. This woman was a little out of his league…
He debated with himself if that lessened the way he felt about her.
Whatever he felt, it certainly didn’t change the way Star treated him. Their sessions, while dwindling, continued and she still brought light and laughter to his office.
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Author's Note: Bad news, babies! This story is kind of winding down!
I think the next chapter is the last full chapter. Then I have kind of an epilogue and at least one (possibly two) "deleted scenes"/special chapters- including Gun's actual demise!
I think I fulfilled everything I wanted with this little "novella" of mine. I got my happy Prapai & Sky, I got rid of Gun, & there was some motorcycle racing! Overall, I feel pretty happy with it.
I hope someone- anyone!- is looking forward to the end of Star's tale.