Balcony [KTH] [COMING EVENTUALLY]

II

When Na-Rae woke up, her awareness returned to her in phases. It was not a pleasant experience. She was the kind of person who came to when someone ten feet away from her breathed, and as soon as her eyes opened, she was wide awake. So it bothered her, this sluggish, dragging process of figuring out where she was and what was happening and why.

The first information she was able to process was that she felt... rested. Not refreshed or energetic or anything, but it was one of the only times in the last several years where she didn't feel slightly nauseous in the morning from lack of sleep.

The second thing she was able to figure out was rather frightening. She was in a hospital room, and her body wasn't responding. The only thing she had control over was her eyes. She was breathing, but when she tried to hold it, nothing happened. She strained her eyes toward her wrist, where she could see half a dozen tubes disappearing through her skin.

One of them was probably pumping some sort of paralysis medicine through her bloodstream. Na-Rae tried to scowl, but her face didn't work.

The third thing to register at least eased her confusion about why she was there. Her face warmed with a tint of pink as she remembered the events of the night- falling off her balcony, the way her mental state had been reduced to that of a three-year-old (had she WHINED?), the handsome stranger who had talked her out of it named Taehyung.

At thought of him, the shade of rose brushing her cheeks turned to vivid, burning scarlet. She hoped she never had to see him again because she didn't think she could face that face, and those eyes, and that strength, and that gentle concern and that soft, deep voice without turning into a puddle of goo on the floor.

A nurse walked into the room, startling the princess out of her trance of extreme embarrassment. "Ah, you're awake!" she said with a bright smile. "You've been out like a rock for several days now, although you'd started to get restless the last time I checked on you. Don't worry, you'll be able to leave later this week. We'd let you go earlier, except there are pills you're going to have to take on a daily basis after this, and we want to monitor you for side effects before we let you go."

Pills? Anti-depressants, most likely. Father had tried to get her to start taking something like that when she was a young teen, but it didn't take very many weeks of her refusing for him to just give up. This time, there was no way he'd let it slide.

Na-Rae had many questions for this irritating woman but no way to ask them. More than anything, she just wanted to be able to release a heavy sigh. But she couldn't, because she couldn't even control her inhaling and exhaling.

She hated not being in control.

The nurse left soon after, probably able to interpret the look of intense hatred her patient was trying to convey with her eyes. But it didn't take long for the girl to regret scaring her away. Any kind of environmental stimulation was better than nothing, even if it was someone taking away her ability to move without permission and then having the nerve to grin at her like a lovesick teenager.

She passed the time by looking around the room. It was coated in expensive technology. A bit overdone, if you asked her. The posters on the walls changed their dumb messages along with her thoughts, and she felt like she was being scolded. Right on cue, one of them shimmered,  replacing its old slogan with neon letters saying, ";) CRITICISM IS JUST PEOPLE WHO CARE TRYING TO HELP!!!!!"

Hanging above her head from the ceiling was a dream monitor, meant to alter your brainwaves during sleep to ward off nightmares. A robot was perched on a stool next to the bed, snoring softly. And speaking of the bed, she could feel it constantly changing, growing warmer or softer or slightly higher in places.