awaken | hyunjin. [🗸]

01. easter of hyunjin

[August 11, 2018]

"What are you talking about? I was 'clinically dead?'"

Dr. Seo sympathized with Hyunjin by sighing and allowing himself to take a seat on the edge of the confused teen's bed. "Yes, but we're glad to have you back. As soon as you're ready, I'd love to go over your reports and see what you remember."

"I remember everything," Hyunjin huffed, slumping against his too-flat pillow while the doctor forked through a manilla folder. His right hand drifted upwards to his chin and stroked it thoughtfully, but Hyunjin was skeptical as to why Dr. Seo and company were making such a big deal of his awakening.

"So I take it you're comfortable with sharing?" Dr. Seo assumed, touching the rim of his glasses as he stared down at the moody teen.

"Well, no," Hyunjin blushed. The images of his friends, Chris and Felix, flashed in his brain before he continued, "I don't want to talk. I'm too tired."

"That's okay. After a coma as long as yours, we should get to physical therapy as soon as possible, but I'll let you catch up with things until tomorrow. Be up and at 'em, okay?"

A coma as long as yours... What was that supposed to mean? Hyunjin reached for the magazine on his bedside table as Dr. Seo made his way out of the room. He couldn't focus on any of the words printed on its fine pages, however, because everything became blurrier the harder he thought about Dr. Seo's strange attitude. There were circles and lines, no legible words. It all of a sudden felt like he had emerged from an underwater stay and was just handed back his old life, only he didn't know how long he had been without it and he didn't remember how to live it. The magazine, smothered in new brands and slang words, wasn't helping.

The words on the pages looked foreign to him even when he started thinking straight; it didn't take long for him to realize this wasn't his language, and out of sheer confusion, he groped along the wall behind him for a help wire. It was instinct. He regretfully clicked the red button on it several times and sat up as fast as he could without pulling a muscle, hoping no one would come to his room just to learn of his stupidity.

"What is it?" the nurse, rushing to Hyunjin's bedside, asked, eyeing him up and down to try and figure out the problem.

"Nothing," he grumbled.

She tilted her head to the side as though she were looking at a child, reaching her hand up to pat his shoulder. "Oh, honey, that button isn't a toy, it's so that you can get help without having to move anywhere. Are you bored?"

"I know it's not a toy."

"Poor kid still thinks he's ten years old," she murmured, backing up as if to leave the room. Hyunjin found this rude, as he was obviously older by at least a couple of months, and gained just enough confidence to disclose the issue to her, just so he wouldn't seem so naive:

"We're in Sydney," he gulped halfheartedly as the nurse loosened up sympathetically, "aren't we?" Everything on the magazine was written in a foreign language that Hyunjin wasn't in on.

"We're in Seoul," she informed the boy. "You shouldn't lie to your doctor, all right? I'll call him back and let him know your memory is off."

"It's not," he insisted.

"You must've dreamed you were in Australia," she explained, tightening her ponytail as she had nothing better to do with her hands. "It's common for coma patients to wake up thinking their dreams or hallucinations were real occurrences. In fact, your dream is probably what caused you to stir so much over the years."

His heart stopped. "Years?"

The nurse froze in her position, arms still held behind her head as she didn't realize she would have to be the one to tell Hyunjin how long he had been in the hospital.

"Yes," she confirmed, slowly and shamefully bringing her hands to her sides. "You've been here eight years. You turned eighteen a couple months ago."

"That's impossible," Hyunjin laughed. "You wouldn't have let me stay here for eight whole years. I'd be underground."

The nurse was hesitant and antsy now, refusing to look Hyunjin in the eye in case he became hysterical at the shocking news. "Let me go get Dr. Seo. He'll explain it better than I can."

With that, Hyunjin sunk deeper into his mattress, the one he had been stuck lying on for longer than he could imagine, terrified that he might in fact be an 18-year-old boy with imaginary friends; he couldn't read the language he was speaking and had been under the illusion that the latest block of his life took place in Sydney, Australia. He was done living in oblivion yet still overbearingly oblivious to everything.

- 천천히 -

No words could come out of his mouth. There wasn't one to describe what he was seeing: it was everything from familiar to bittersweet to nightmarish, but he couldn't place why no matter how deep in his brain he searched. His mother returned the cold glare, doubting that this really was her son.

"He's so much taller," she muttered, fusing her palm to the ball of Dr. Seo's shoulder so he wouldn't leave her alone with this teenager. "Why's he so skinny? Did you starve my son?"

"Mrs. Hwang, we've been feeding him every day."

"And what about his arms? There are marks," she pointed out, nodding at the line of dots and bruises on the inside of Hyunjin's elbows. This prompted the skeptical boy to peer down at the dots, tuning out of Dr. Seo and his mother's conversation. His hand began to cramp the longer he leaned on his cane, so he sat on the bed again, using only slow movements (Dr. Seo told him that because he had been bedridden for years, physical therapy was imperative). It was difficult just standing, as his knees were jelly-like and sore.

"Dr. Seo," he said suddenly, interrupting the two seniors unknowingly. "I would like to stay here for a while."

"You don't want to go home?"

"With all due respect, this is my home." Hyunjin forced his leaden legs back onto his bed and lay down, stretching before Dr. Seo or his mother had a chance to change his mind.

"Yes, it may seem that way, but because you're up again, we must send you home. Your mother will regularly take you to physical therapy and make sure you can see your friends again."

The woman frowned at the word friends and shifted her weight, crossing her arms across her chest so they pushed into her pudgy core. She turned to Dr. Seo and forcefully whispered, "You think he still has friends? After eight years, you think anyone stayed by his side?"

Hyunjin suddenly remembered why he felt uneasy around his mother. She was faking her sentiment. She didn't even recognize him--she never came to visit?

"I sincerely apologize, Mrs. Hwang, but perhaps you should be a little more sensitive," Dr. Seo reasoned. His eyes were desperate.

"I'm sorry," she sighed, shaking her head as she peered between Dr. Seo and Hyunjin. She suddenly asked her son, "You remember me, don't you?" The adults turned their attention to the careless Hyunjin whose arms were folded up behind his head like a pillow and whose eyes were trained on the ceiling. He was rather entertained by the discussion between his mother and Dr. Seo, but despite this, he didn't want to force himself to acknowledge that there was a time in his life where his mother neglected him.

"Hmm?" he asked, pretending to be preoccupied.

Mrs. Hwang gently smiled--it gave Hyunjin the impression that she was, in fact, pretty in the past but had long since been corrupted--and sat on the edge of Hyunjin's bed, placing her sinewy hand on his thigh. She leaned towards him and whispered, "You're my scrap now," and that smile became a smirk. "Goodbye, Dr. Seo." She strutted out of the room with her stained purse and tattered sweatpants equipped.

"She hasn't always been like this, has she?" Dr. Seo asked innocently, his eyes wide in concern. He must have seen through Mrs. Hwang's act too. All Hyunjin could do was shrug--the answer was no, she was much different a while ago, but her transformation had happened long before Hyunjin's coma. It was too late.