Under the sky in room 553 I discovered you and I

Part 9

"Yeji! Did you eat?"

"Oh. Hi, Jimin." The girl in question flashed her a small smile from her position by the end of the hospital bed, taking notes on her tab. Jimin slid the door close behind her, dropping her plastic bag of takeout on a nearby coffee table. Approaching her, she stopped by her side and stared at the girl on top of the bed. "How is she?"

Yeji had never known how to properly answer that question. For every single day in the past year, Jimin wouldn't fail to ask every time she came—and Yeji had to struggle with devising a different alternative of the same answer each time. Well, but still no sign of improvement? She's alive, but it's worse than death?

"she's well, as usual. Nothing's going wrong, so that's good news." She tried to spin it in a way that would relieve the older. Instantly, it worked, because Jimin let out a relieved sigh. "That's good. Minjeong, did you hear that? You're not allowed to die on me. Even God himself forbids it. You have to be stuck with me for the rest of your life, remember? You said it first, not me."

Rambling on, the older girl went to plop herself into the chair by the bedside, dropping her backpack by her feet. She was still in his school uniform, indicating that she'd come here straight after class—which had been almost always the case every single day for the past year, Yeji noted.

Pulling the folded built-in food tray out of the hospital bed, Jimin rotated it to face herself before dropping a notebook on top of it. "I brought my math homework, again. You've always been better at math than I was, so you need to help me out this time too, okay? I only got a C last time. You're still mean as always, Kim Minjeong. Scared I'd get a higher grade? Pft."

Yeji was used to Jimin making this kind of conversation by now, yet each time still pained her like the first. She had no idea how Jimin was still able to remain so positive after a solid year. They must have been very close.

Chattering away, Jimin got started on her homework while Yeji finished up adjusting the entries of Minjeong's IV tubes. "Yeji, don't you have homework too?" The older girl was talking to her now as she was about to see herself out, and so she turned to her. "Ah... I do, actually." Yeji sheepishly replied.

A bright smile lifted Jimin's entire face. "Bring it in, let's work on it together! Also that takeout is for you, so you better eat it before it gets cold. Or I'll be mad."

Yeji could only offer her a gentle smile and a meek nod. "Thanks, Jimin. In that case, I'll be right back."

The next few hours went by with Jimin occasionally groaning in frustration at her algebra equations, Yeji chuckling softly as she offered whatever minimal help she could while eating her tomato soup, and the older girl rambling about the tedious details of her school days to Minjeong. Yeji had long finished her history homework; she never knew what it was like to academically struggle, to which Jimin whined at with an envious 'you are too smart it's unfair'.

"Minjeong, I'll have you know that by the time you wake up again you will have a lifetime's worth of homework you'd need to catch up on. Dear God, Miss Kim is the worst math teacher I've ever had in my life. Who gives their students this much work? Ooh, also, Aeri and Ningning are dating now. Can you believe it? Turns out their first kiss wasn't an accident after all. Aeri asked Ning out and they're literally so cute and lovesick it makes me want to throw up!" After stealing a bite from Yeji's tomato soup, she continued. "You are so extremely lucky you don't have to witness it in geography class every day, because yuck." she faked a disgusted gag, to which Yeji silently giggled. If the silence she was met with afterwards pricked her skin, she didn't show it.

They both tried their hardest to ignore the fact that every single exchange ended up with an empty response. That the girl in the bed, sheets swallowing her body, could only hear and not respond. Yet, if she focused more on the former part than the latter—that Minjeong could hear them, and that by keeping her company like she was another high school kid made them happy—it was enough for Jimin.