Oasis (A KaiSoo Fanfic)

Chapter 34 | Free

After the sedative wore off, I woke up in a clouded haze with no idea of where I was. (In all actuality, I was brought up to the recovery ward, but that's an unnecessary detail.) This was one of those moments when it would have been nice to wake up with someone in the room who was anxiously waiting for you to open your eyes, but, as it turns out, I was just as alone as I had been since the day I lost Kyungsoo. And honestly, it hurt a lot to come to that realization, that realization that there's no one by your side when you need someone the most. But I guess when you have Cancer living inside of you and live in a cancer hospital stuff like that is inevitable because Cancer has the power to end someone's life at any given second. You'll never know when someone you were having a conversation with yesterday will drop dead; they'll just be there one day and then gone the next. Huh. Don't I know it. 

Waking up with Kyungsoo's journal on the nightstand was where the little comfort I was feeling came from. I was still feeling a bit dizzy and lethargic, but I managed to reach it from where I was in bed. Once it was securely placed in my hands, I rubbed my thumbs against the material, trying to imagine what his touch felt like every time he picked it up. Sometimes I would do that, not necessarily read it but just hold it in my hands as if I was using it to summon his spirit. I don't remember if I ever was able to feel him with me, but each time I did that I would smile. He probably handled it with the utmost care and gentleness, I always thought, just how a mother would carry her child in her arms. It made me chuckle at times, too. It's funny to think that a simple book could be so vital to someone's existence. But it's also funny to think that one person's life could be so dependent on another's. Life's just crazy like that.

A knock resonated on the door and I turned my head in time to see the head surgeon of the hospital walk in with a nurse. "Good morning, Jongin," he said with a light sigh and a brief extension of his voice. He pulled out a pen from his coat pocket and clicked it open before taking the clipboard with my information out from the plastic pocket attached to the front of the bed. "How are you feeling today?" he inquired, looking at me with a smile. 

"Fine," I answered, shifting my legs from underneath the covers. "I still feel a little drowsy, though. Is that normal?"

"Yeah, it is very common in patients," he said, glancing at me and nodding as he jotted down notes of some sort. "The medicine wore off, but there are still traces of it in your body, so that explains why you're still a bit languid." I nodded my head in understanding, sighing afterward. "Alright, now," he said, clicking his pen shut and laying it back in his pocket before he took the stethoscope off of his neck, "I'm just going to check your vitals, and then we'll get you something to eat, okay? I'm sure you're probably starved after being in surgery for three and a half hours."

"I was in surgery for three and a half hours?" I said, shock abruptly coming over my face. 

He chortled and walked over to me. "Yeah, there were some complications, but that's mostly just doctor talk for the new resident doctors slowed the process down by about an hour," he explained, earning a faint smile from me in response. "Alright, first I'll start with your pulse and then we'll go from there," he said. 

"Okay," I said in a somewhat quiet voice. After placing the black ends in his ears, he pressed the flat, metal part to my chest right over my heart and left it there for about 10 seconds or so before moving to my back. 

"Just breathe in and out like you normally would," he instructed, one hand on the stethoscope and the other on my stomach. That lasted another 20 or so seconds and then he did away with that tool altogether. He took my temperature next, sticking the thermometer in each of my ears and chucking the ends in the trash once he was done. Lastly was blood pressure and I hated whenever I had to have my blood pressure taken even before I was diagnosed. I always tried to brave through the consistent squeezing and tightening of the patch around my bicep, but I had to squeeze my eyes shut and wince nearly every time. Even as an 18-year-old. "Good job," he said, removing the patch, which allowed me to exhale in relief. "Now, I think it's still best if you stay in bed until your drowsiness starts to officially go away, but I'll have one of the nurses bring you something from the cafeteria. Is there anything special you want?"