“Come on, 4 lifts and it’s still so slow,” Nayeon grumbled under her breath, index finger spamming the up button. Her eyes watched the numbers as it descends. One of the lifts dinged and opened. Passengers alighted as Nayeon waited impatiently. Once the lift cleared, she entered as she looked for the number 8 and pressed it. However, she wasn’t the only one visiting. The lift filled with other visitors as they pressed their respective levels.

Seeing almost every level selected, Nayeon’s annoyance grew. She rolled her eyes every time the lift stopped till it reached the 8th level. The moment she stepped out of the lift, she was overwhelmed by the number of people. Patients who were seated by the lift turned to look at her. So did the nurses, but they resumed their duty.

“822,” the numbers ran through Nayeon’s mind as she scanned through the directory. The amount of numbers was too much for her to comprehend as her vision blurred a little, making it a little harder to read. She decided that asking would be much faster and approached the nurse at the desk. The nurse kindly gave her the directions as she thanked her and ran towards the ward.

Her right hand tightly gripped the handle while her left was clenched into a fist. Nayeon stood in front of the closed door of ward 822. Her mom wasn’t exactly her closes kin, to her mom, money was more important than family. To crudely put it, Nayeon’s mom to her was like an ATM that keeps ejecting money even when she doesn’t need it. Money to Nayeon was the last of her concerns and all she wanted was to spend time with her mom.

Nayeon inhaled and readied herself before sliding the door open. What revealed before her, was a woman on the cold, hard, hospital bed. A lady with a white coat, had a flashlight in her hand as she shined it into the eye of her patient. She spoke words that Nayeon couldn’t understand to the nurse beside her. The sound of the door opening had led them to stop their duty and turned to look at Nayeon. However, the patient lying down made no movement.

“You must be Im Nayeon,” the doctor finished her job and kept her flashlight in her pocket as she beckoned Nayeon to follow her. Nayeon took a quick look at her as the nurse closed the door and left to run her other errands. Nayeon quietly followed behind the doctor into her office as the doctor pointed at the chair for her to sit.  

“How’s my mom?” Nayeon watched the doctor pour her a cup of water and placed it on the table. The doctor went back to her seat and begin telling Nayeon her mom’s condition.

“Your mom is suffering from a hemorrhagic . She just slipped into a coma not long ago, we’ll be observing her in the ICU.” Nayeon was dazed. Whatever the doctor was saying had been drowned out until the doctor had snapped her back to reality.

“Thank you for taking care of my mom,” Nayeon bowed and dragged her feet towards the exit. Her whole body had lost the energy she had before she received the news. She leaned her weight onto the wall as she made her way towards her mom’s ward once again. She didn’t bother to hesitate and just pushed open the door and plopped herself down on the armchair beside the bed.

She looked towards her mom, afraid to show any signs of affection. It was something they never introduced into their relationship. It was always about money and fights. Nayeon reached out her hands only to retract it as she sighed and fall back into the chair.

-

“I don’t want your money! All I want is for you to come to my competition and cheer for me like all moms would!” Nayeon’s voice echoed through the house.

“I’m busy, don’t you understand that?” Her mom shoves back the stack of cash to her.

“No, I don’t! You are always busy, you never have time for me, money is always more important than me. More important than anything else.” Nayeon threw the stack of money on the table and walked away. “Maybe that’s why dad left, you money minded freak.”

A pillow flew towards the back of Nayeon’s head as it bounced off and hit a flower vase causing it to fall and shatter into pieces. “Im Nayeon! How dare you say that about your mom! I’m providing yo-”

Nayeon shot her head back, eyes full of tears and she bit down her jaws, trying her hardest not to cry. “Am I wrong? Since when have you even bothered to ask me how’s school. Everyone hates that phrase, but I crave for it! Don’t even talk about providing, if you’re genuinely sincere about providing, then provide me with some ing love. Everything that comes out from your mouth is always about money. You say I don’t understand but have you tried understanding me? You would always call me a useless child for not accepting your money, but you know what, you are a useless parent for not knowing what your child wants!”

By the time Nayeon ended her speech, the tears in her eyes overflowed, staining her cheeks. She waited for her mom to reply her but all she received was an offended expression.

She shook her head, “you’re hopeless.”

She ran towards her room, stepping across the shattered glass. Her foot leaving behind a trail of red footprints only from her right foot. Entering her room, she slammed the door behind her and fall to the floor, leaning her back on the door.

She brought her knees up to her chest and quietly sobbed. She didn’t even bother about the pool of blood forming by her right foot. She heard the main door close shut and Nayeon scoffed, just as she stood her stand, her mom had proved it.

-

Nayeon watched her mom’s unmoving body and murmured, “not today.”

She grabbed her bag and stood up to leave the room.

“Not staying?” Nayeon turned around to find the doctor pointing towards her mom’s ward. Her eyebrow was raised as though curious but Nayeon just shook her head and continued her way back to the stadium.

-

“Put this on,” the players on the bench looked at Momo. Some of them game her glares while the rest were encouragements. Momo looked towards their leg, most of them were bandaged. Some of their arms were too. She then looked towards the field. Dahyun was playing, along with Jeongyeon, Mina, Brian, Mark, Jinyoung and Jaebum.

“You can do it, Dahyun’s doing great.” Sana stood up with the help of Jihyo. “Just run.”