❝𝗦𝗧𝗥𝗘𝗘𝗧𝗦𝗜𝗗𝗘. ── 𝗞.𝗡𝗝✔️

xiii

╰─▸ ❝ @[chapter thirteen] has

. . . . logged on

THEY WERE TAKING TOO LONG. Far too long. Namjoon had been waiting in the emergency room for 4 hours now. It was getting late and most, if not all the people who were once there had gone.

He understood that there were people being rushed in from life-threatening situations and that she wasn't the top priority but he was dying over here, to know if she was okay.

At some point, he had dozed off, not even realizing he had until he was woken up by a woman standing in front of him. "Sir, sir, please wake up." He jolted, sitting up from his slouched position. He didn't expect to be awoken so suddenly. But the moment he saw the doctor he sighed. "Is she okay?"

The doctor clutched her clipboard in her hands and sighed almost pitifully. "Can you tell me who you are to her? Family? A friend?"

"A friend." He's almost too quick with his choice of words. "I'm a friend. Please tell me if she's okay." He pleads desperately with her. The anxiety is far too much for him to handle. The way the woman hesitates doesn't help with the drowning like he can't breathe.

"Sir, I'm afraid that the details may upset you."

"Just tell me!"

Finally, she gave in. "Well, it seems like she has subacute hypothermia from being exposed to the cold for an extended period of time, blunt force trauma to the head which caused bleeding, and...we found traces of semen on her legs. It's not completely suggesting of anything, seeing her occupation."

Namjoon stood up abruptly. "What does her job have anything to do with this? You don't think she was raped because she's a prostitute?" Outrage would've been a better word.

"No one's saying that. I just mean that it's harder to tell." Her brows furrowed at him. "She hasn't said anything to anyone since she was brought here. We can't confirm anything until she tells us what happened."

Namjoon fell silent. Maybe he was jumping to conclusions. He could only think of every worst possibility. He couldn't be sure either until she said something. He ran his fingers through his disheveled hair and tiresomely sighed. "What room is she in?"

"273. The elevator is around the corner."

Namjoon wasted no more time. All these hours waiting built a tension within him that couldn't be released until he made sure she was okay with his own eyes. It took him a moment to bring himself together and for his vision to clear but by then he was already at the elevator, jamming at the call button impatiently.

Room 273. It seemed like a maze in the hospital as he tries to find the right room number. He finds dead ends and room numbering that don't even make any sense. Like the room didn't exist at all. But he found it, finally, he found it.

For a moment there he just stared at the number, terrified to go in, to see Rose, his pretty Rose, laying in a hospital bed with IVs and a heart rate monitor hooked up to her. He dragged his tongue over his dry lips and carefully reaches for the cold metal handle of the door.

"Rose?" He knocked softly on the door before opening it to check on her.

She was sitting at the top of the bed with her legs pulled up to her chest. She had her arms wrapped around herself with her chin resting on top of her knee. The first thing Namjoon noticed was how blank her eyes were, void of any real emotion, looking distantly at nothing at all. Her mind was lost, wandering, floating around but not here.

Namjoon closed the door gently behind himself. "Rose, are you okay?" Does she look okay? She wasn't trembling anymore, but it seems as though a piece of her psyche was taken, left back in that alley where the act had occurred.

She had learned not to fight back for this exact reason. If only she had gone limp, let the action get done so she could've simply gone back to work. Now she was in the hospital, wracking up a bill more than this was worth.

Namjoon took a chair from the corner of the room and placed it down beside the bed before sitting with her, right in front of her line of sight. His worried face was the first thing she saw, and his warm voice was the first to envelop her.

"Do you need anything?" His tender voice gave her something to grasp on to, to bring her to reality. The light came back into her eyes, like she was finally present in her own mind. She blinked, once, twice, and then shook her head.

"Do you want me to call your uncle?" It seemed to be the only family she had. He deserved to be here with her. But once again, Rose shook her head. The last thing she wanted was to worry him. He'd rush over immediately, shove all the money he had into her hands to help her back off the bill.

She didn't tell him about the other times. No one needed to know. They were her own dirty secrets that she kept locked away within her.

This was the...5th time it's happened. At this point it's commonplace.

Namjoon didn't know what more to say. He wanted to comfort her, to tell her she was okay. That it wasn't her fault, but he felt that maybe words weren't the best way to go about this. He was careful when reaching out for her. Touching her hand like delicate, thin glass as he cups her hand in his.

"I'm here for you." He pressed a kiss to her hand.

Rose doesn't know what to say to that. She just stares at him. His head is low and his hair covers his face too much for her to see that he was trying to not cry. Namjoon wasn't too much of an overly emotional person. But the stress of the situation crushed him. The fact that something so horrific had happened to her.

"You shouldn't have brought me here." She finally says to him. Her voice is nothing above a whisper. Namjoon looks up at her and once again her eyes are blank. "What do you mean? Of course, I should have. You were freezing."

"I would've been fine if I just sat in the heat for a little while. It's not that big of a deal." She shrugged carelessly before rolling over on the bed. "I'm tired." She just wanted to sleep, to forget about what happened. She'd be up and at'em tomorrow. She didn't need to waste her time here and wrack up a bill.

She took her hand from Namjoon's, retracting entirely from him as she curled up into a ball under the thin blankets of the bed.

Namjoon didn't know what more to do. Why wasn't she making a big deal out of this? Was she not assaulted? Maybe she was so desensitized to it at this point, so many years of abuse have worn her down.

He sighed softly. "Okay, sleep well. If you need me, I'll be right here." He didn't want to leave her alone. Anything could happen. He'd be right by her side until she checked out of the hospital, even if that meant missing work.

Rose said nothing in response. She really was tired. Maybe the pain would go away if she just slept. It could all be rendered as a bad dream.

Just a bad dream.

*.✧ Kᴀʏs Eɴᴅɪɴɢ Nᴏᴛᴇs

Tomorrow's chapter is the last chapter of Streetside sadly. I know it was short but I suppose that it's better this way as to not drag everything out. It works better as a short story. Cuts straight to the point while also developing characters.

Thank you all for reading. I hope you guys enjoyed and I wish you all a wonderful day/night.

사랑해

~Kay ▼・ᴥ・▼