Sleeping Beauty Syndrome

34

Two more months went by without our Sleeping Beautys showing any change. Lee was busy in the lab at the hospital the whole time and had a couple of scientists at her side when she was able to confirm that I was indeed immune. Mingi often sat around sulking in the living room at first, as he hardly ever got to see his wife, but at some point he had started to spend time with Sunny and relieve San a little. This had the positive side effect that, firstly, he was distracted and no longer whined to Lee that she always left him alone, no, he now accepted and supported her work, as he desperately wanted a baby with her and she had said that she would only have one when there was a safe vaccine so that her child would not fall into a coma immediately after birth. That had convinced Mingi. And that was what she was now trying to do, to extract from my blood the exact particle, gene or whatever it was that made me immune and to develop an antidote and a vaccine from it.

Over the last few weeks, Seonghwa seemed to have noticed that I was behaving strangely towards him. No matter how hard I tried to distance myself from him, I still ended up constantly hugging him, sniffing his neck when he fell asleep next to me again and constantly watching him when he wasn't looking... Needless to say, he caught me staring more than once and smiled for half the day afterwards.

He just had to do mundane things like stand in the kitchen and drink from a water bottle and I just stood there, absorbed in the sight of the muscles on his neck moving.

The muscles in his neck moved with every sip he took. Oh god... Why was he so damn sexy? More than once afterwards, I had taken refuge under the covers with Wooyoung to distract myself. By now I wasn't even trying to fool myself anymore, I was head over heels in love with my best friend, yet I remained loyal to my boyfriend because I loved him too.

Some days I hated myself for loving both of them, I didn't understand how this could happen to me, but then I remembered that no one chooses who they fall in love with and as long as I remained loyal to my boyfriend... Even though Wooyoung remained silent as always, I told him about it, poured my heart out to him and hoped that he knew how much I was struggling for our relationship.

Since he couldn't work on it with me, I had to do it alone, but it was hard, I often felt so abandoned by him, even though he couldn't help it.

Then came the day that brought new hope. Lee came home with a bag with the hospital emblem on it and was beaming.

"The antidote is ready, the vaccine isn't yet, but we've had a few test runs and one of my professor's theories has been confirmed. Everyone in the coma had a fever that was not combated by the old vaccine, but was suppressed, which led to the coma... 5 of our 10 test subjects have woken up!" she exclaimed excitedly.

"Do you have anything for the boys?" I asked hopefully and she nodded.

"Is it safe?" Seonghwa asked anxiously, as he didn't want his members to become guinea pigs.

"Yes, it is," she said and went straight to the sleeping people, injected each of them with a dose and then sat down with us in the living room.

"Shouldn't we watch them?" asked San, nervously shifting back and forth on the couch, but Lee shook her head.

"It won't be that quick, the first one woke up after 5 hours, I think it will take at least that long." she explained, but nothing could stop me... I went to Wooyoung and sat down next to him so as not to miss the slightest movement.

I stared at him for 3 hours, then Seonghwa came and hugged me from behind.

"Yunho just woke up..."