Hope

Chapter 6 - Letters of Hope

The last school bell of the day rang, ending the final classes for the high school section. It was late afternoon and the students seemed exhausted after the final longest day of the week. Lucian's and Celia's class was dismissed by the bell as well, but none of them forgot to hand over their letters to Celia so she could give them to Lucian while visiting him.

Celia was at the doorway, her silver backpack already on her back. She was counting the letters, making sure that the whole class wrote Lucian a letter. Hilary approached her taller friend and handed her letter. Celia looked at her for a moment before taking it from her hand.

"Mine should be the last of them. I saw them wrote their letters this morning when I came. Everyone's here today, so I'm sure all the letters are there," Hilary looked at Celia as she continued counting, completely ignoring her, "...Or you can count them all to make sure they're all there."

"...29, 30, 31... Alright, that's all of them! They're all here!" Celia held the letters together before turning to Hilary, "Sorry, did you say something?"

Hilary let out a sigh, "Yes, I did. And now I have an additional 'something' called a question. Don't you think there's one more left to collect? We have 33 students in our class and by counting Lucian out, there should be 32 letters, right?"

"W-Well... Yeah... I actually haven't written one..." Celia turned away out of embarrassment, "I couldn't think of anything, even after staying up all night with only an hour of sleeping..."

"SERIOUSLY!? YOU CAN'T THINK ABOUT ANYTHING TO WRITE FOR YOUR OWN CRUSH!?" Hilary's yelling caught the attention of the few people left in class.

"Hey, what's wrong?" A girl with long brown hair approached along with another girl with long black hair, "Is there something that Amelia and I can help with?"

"Jenna, perfect timing!" Hilary suddenly dragged the brown-haired girl towards the flustered Celia, "Jenna, use your dating experience to help our best friend out!"

"I knew it!" The black-haired girl exclaimed with a grin, "Celia, you do have a crush on Lucian!"

"A-Amelia! I-It's not like that! Well it's... complicated..." Celia replied nervously as the three girls cornered her to the wall.

"Don't worry, I'll wish that you and Lucian will get together someday. Perhaps the sooner, the better!" The black-haired girl, Amelia, winked and made Celia even more embarrassed.

"There's no need to be embarrassed about it!" Jenna said in a reassuring tone, "I mean, look at me! I was quite confident with by boyfriend and we are finally together now!"

"Alright guys, let's just go home," Hilary pushed the two girls out of class, "Let's leave this matter to Celia while we give her some support from the background!"

After seeing her best friends leaving, Celia took a deep breath before getting out of the classroom and headed for the bus stop to go to the hospital. She took a seat on the bus while holding the letters firmly in her hands, deciding not to put them in her backpack. She wanted to give them to him right away as she wanted to know how he would react. She wanted to know if he would be happy by having herself collect the letters from their entire class.

Celia made her way into the hospital and towards Lucian's room, finding him on the bed along with a man in a white lab coat identical to Doctor Li's. Opening the hospital door a little, she peeked in and listened to the important conversation they were both having.

"Please pardon my rudeness, Doctor Harrison, but I am paying the hospital expenses to the person who represent the hospital itself. I promise you, though, that I will pay soon. There is no need for you to keep reminding me about the payment," Lucian's voice was half irritated as he tried to keep himself calm.