All the Unsaid Things (enhypen)

|| If only the stars align ||

Xiao is a kind soul. She quickly helped me up and out to an Uber and somehow, I was conscious throughout the hospital visit, but as I lay uncomfortably in one of the blue-spread emergency room beds, the throbbing in my head did not stop. I'm not sure if it was the fall or the particularly discomforting dream, but it was a terrible time to get injured.

Xiao and our other friend, Xia, held their breaths for the doctor's analysis of my injury as they hovered around my bed. It didn't click right away that whatever the doctor said in the next few minutes could either make or break my dream, but it seemed to have for my friends. The wound however had been sterilized and bandaged loosely around my head, with no obvious sign of any serious damage but the scans were yet to be revealed.

The clacking of shoes against the hard floor tile snapped me out of my thoughts, as I tried my best attempt at sitting up, immediately earning complaints from my friends but they eventually eased me into a position so that I could see the doctor at the feet of my bed.

The doctor addressed me first, "Hi...Meilin," she said, looking at the file to remember my name. No one had called me that in a long time. 

I gave my friends a sharp glare and they smiled sheepishly, as I corrected the doctor, "I...I usually go by Rue now,"
"Sorry dear, but the hospital requires us to address patients with the registered names on government documents," the doctor informed me with a sad smile, "Now, how are you feeling?"
"My head hurts a little but I'm fine," I mumbled, and she nodded attentively.

"Expected, I will prescribe you some medicine for that, but the injury is minor. Head injuries could normally feature losing consciousness, nausea and amnesia to a certain extent, but it should be nothing to worry about. If you experience any of these, come back here and inform us. For now, I think you should be free to go. I do not recommend tiring yourself out or involving in any intense physical or mental exercise for the next few days,"

My eyes widened at 'physical exercise' so I glanced at my friends who also seemed to be in a similar state. Xiao looked at me in a pleading sort of way to tell the doctor about the performance, but I nodded a warning 'no'. The doctor stayed oblivious as she told the nurse beside her to give me some medicine and prepare for my discharge. From previous experiences, discharge processes weren't fun and could take up to 3 hours to properly organize even if it was just from the emergency room.

And as things usually were in the last month, the performance didn't leave my mind for even a second. More and more words imagined themselves in my head as hallucination-like replays show me a future where I miss the biggest opportunity in my life because of one bad dream. Reality feels like a bad dream on a daily basis, but what if it happens? I chicken out on what I worked so hard for because of the gorgeous, condescending face of Yang Jungwon suddenly appearing after years of having forgotten what that had felt like.

There is no single point in my life where I have not regretted something I said or did not say to Jungwon that tangles the tubes in my gut into fashionable knots of nervousness. As I shoved the thought away like the rest of my problems, Xiao walked in, holding a folder stacked with papers. Apparently, the discharge procedure had passed by while I dove into an endless sea of thoughts I couldn't control.

"Come on, cheer up. We won't be mentioning your performance," Xiao's sweet voice jolted me into a fit of coughing. Are you alright?"
She hurried to my side, leaving the papers at the foot of the bed to hand me what looked like a bottle of beer filled to the brim as I gave her a suspicious look.
"It's water, I was running low on water bottle options. Recycle for the win!" she cheered while handing the thick glass over to me, carelessly splattering drops of water on the mattress and around the equipment. She laughed nervously as we both reached for the tissues to clean up.
"Oh right, I came to say that we can leave now,"
"Why didn't you say sooner?" I jumped out of bed with newfound excitement and motivation to move further away from my haunting nightmares, but the force of Xiao holding my shoulders tight stopped me.

"You are not leaving the hospital until you do as I say,"
"As if, I'll be the judge of that," I tried to wiggle out of her grasp but she held her ground and her grip had tightened so much that her long nails dug into my shoulder blades and I pictured the little red marks all over them, shrugging at the thought. I had a vague feeling that I knew where she would be going with this conversation but I decided to let it come from her.
"You need to make me a promise,"
"And what promise would that be?"
"That you will always take care of your health,"
"That's it?" I shrugged off the promise like I would a coat, "OK, promise, now let's go,"

"Not so fast, and now that you've already promised, you have to tell the producers at the channel that you had a head injury early this morning and you might experience side effects that affect the quality of your performance,"

"What? No!" I gasped, realizing that I had fallen into her trap in the dumbest way possible.
"Yes, you will. You promised, remember?" she painfully reminded me, as she eased the damage of my shoulders by holding up her little finger in front of me. My eyes flickered from her finger to her eyes back and forth, as they held a silent plea for me to take her hand.

The 'OK' that I had muttered came out as a squeak as I placed my hand on hers, finding the time to analyse each finger, massage her knuckles, and finally entwine my finger with hers.

"There, now you can't break it,"
"What happens if I do?"
"It will bring me great unhappiness,"
I chuckled as we walked around to exit the room and finally, the hospital and somehow I found the courage to say, "I don't need to promise to keep you happy," 

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