Hyejin woke up in a good mood the next morning, as memories from the previous day replayed in her mind. Many things had happened, but she was glad that it was for the better. Though the burns on her arms still furiously hurt, it didn’t stop a smile from forming. Her parents were already beside her bed, and were delighted to see her already up.

“We wanted to pop in for a while before work,” her mother said. “It’s still quite early so we actually thought we wouldn’t get to talk to you. How are you holding up, dear?”

She slowly pushed herself up before shrugging. “I’m healing.”

“I heard a lot of your friends came to visit you yesterday,” her father remarked with a smile. “I trust that they’re helping you recover as well? The doctor said that you were healing faster than average. That’s good to hear, considering all the stress you were put under lately.”

“Of course. My friends are taking very good care of me.” Hyejin beamed.

Mrs Song sighed. “I wish we could spend more time with you here in the hospital.”

“It’s okay,” she reassured them, trying to get rid of the distressed looks on their faces. They thought that her injuries were the worst thing to happen, but there were further troubling issues to take care of. The first thing being Park Chanyeol. She hoped that the news would unveil at least something to show that Chanyeol was actually sincere when he apologised, because there had been no news of him since his disappearance.

After a quick glance at his wristwatch, Mr Song patted his wife on her back. He looked apologetic. “Sorry sweetie, we have to go now. Get plenty of rest, okay? If there’s anything urgent, don’t hesitate to call me or your mother.”

Hyejin gave both of them reassuring smiles as they leaned in to peck her on the forehead. “I’ll be okay. Don’t worry about me.”

After a few more exchanges of goodbyes, her parents left the ward, and she almost immediately lunged for her phone which was charging on the bedside table. It was a bit of a stretch, but she managed to unplug the charger without hurting more of her body. Her hands shook anxiously as she swiped to unlock her phone.

Much to her chagrin, Hyejin wasn’t connected to the hospital WiFi. Refreshing the page several times didn’t work. Her five gigabytes of mobile data were used up as well. Sighing, she realised that she had no access to the internet when she needed it the most. She almost let out a scream in frustration, but the other patients in the ward would most probably chastise her for making such a fuss over such a trivial matter. Her friends, minus Sehun, were all in school by this hour, and she had to wait for them to arrive and update her, which would most likely happen at three in the afternoon. A quick glance at the clock told her that it was about seven hours away. That is, if the WiFI wouldn’t turn back on the whole day.

The sound of bowls and plates clinking getting closer snapped her out of her thoughts, and soon enough, a nurse pushed the curtains open and wheeled in the breakfast. The sight of Hyejin scowling at her phone was enough to send the nurse into a fit of giggles.

“Miss Song, I regret to inform you that the WiFi in the hospital is down. We called the maintenance last night, and they said that it’ll most probably be back to normal by this evening,” she explained, pulling the mini table open.

Hyejin watched as the nurse set breakfast on her table. “This evening?!”

She laughed. “You can go without the internet for a few hours, I presume? You can just read a book, or talk to the other patients here in the meantime. Enjoy your meal!”

“Thank you.” She tipped her head. The nurse gave one last fond smile before disappearing off to the next ward.

Most of the other patients had heads of grey hair, and she honestly felt awkward to start a conversation with any of them. Plus, they looked like they preferred to spend their time resting. She groaned. There was absolutely nothing to do other than play with a game on her phone, or flip through one of her textbooks. It still mostly hurt to walk, so visiting Sehun was out of the question.

She sent Sehun a text, asking if he had any internet access. He didn’t reply, and when she looked closely, she saw that he was last online at one in the morning. It would take a while before he would wake up.

She begrudgingly dug into her food, the bland taste not helping the situation at all. Eating would most probably be the most exciting thing to happen as of now.

-

“But he wouldn’t…”

Hyejin let out a small groan as she woke up. After getting bored of the game on her phone and looking through her textbooks, she had drifted into dreamland. A nap seemed to let time pass by very quickly, because the voices in her room sounded like they were coming from her friends. She still kept her eyes shut as she listened to what they had to say.

“Shh! Don’t be too loud! She’s sleeping.” She recognised Junmyeon’s voice easily.

“I’m sure she would want to hear the news,” Sehun’s voice sounded. “Why don’t we just wake her up?”

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