April seemed to have fallen asleep by the time Sungmin arrived.  She hadn’t slept at all in more than a day and it was now night.  Yesung filled Sungmin in.

            “She did what? That’s fantastic.”  Sungmin was excited. 

            “Don’t get too excited, she hasn’t spoken or moved at all.  To be honest, I’m concerned that she might not get back to normal.” 

            “Healing takes time and patience,” Sungmin said.  “We need to stay positive and treat her normally if we want her to come through.  It’s only been five days; some people take much longer to even open their eyes after such traumatic accidents.” 

            “Kyuhyun didn’t.”

            “Kyu is Kyu, April is April.  You can’t compare the two.” 

            Yesung sighed and left, Sungmin sat quietly.  It was progress, he thought to himself, progress. 

 

            Ryeowook and Eunhyuk came overnight and in the early morning while April slept.  Shindong came in the morning to start off day six, April was still sleeping.  At around 10AM April woke up.  She squinted in the bright light and it took a few minutes for her to get her eyes all the way open.  She looked left and right as if surveying the area.  Her gaze landed on Shindong.  He smiled and said good morning. 

 

            ‘Another Asian guy, do I know these people?’ April thought to herself.

 

            Shindong got no response, but he felt that her stare was warming a little.  Her expression no longer seemed icy and hard but was rather more wide eyed and incredulous like an infant seeing the world for the first time.  “Yesung said you wouldn’t talk to him, he’s a little strange I wouldn’t talk to him either if I were you.  I thought maybe you’d talk to me though.”  Her wide eyes seemed to be scrutinizing his every facial feature but yet her expression did change.  “No, huh?  I guess you’ll just be stuck listening to me go on and on and on.  I’ll just sit here and tell you lame jokes, the worst ones you’ve ever heard.”

            Twenty minutes of lame jokes later it seemed as if no time had passed and they were exactly as they had been when April first woke up.  “Okay, okay, you win.  Remind me never to enter a staring contest against you.” 

            When Siwon came in he crossed himself and took April’s hand.  She watched his movements and looked at their hands before looking back at his face.  Siwon was taking extra care in being calm and gentle.  They were strangers to her after all and he understood that their presence could also seem threatening.  He spoke softly and tried to sound reassuring. 

            Kangin came in the afternoon.  He sat with her as she watched him and told her about the weather and some current events.  He had even looked up some news about New York but only told her about happy things.  “I learned today that New York has two baseball teams.  Do you like baseball?  Both teams seem to be doing well.  The weather has been really nice but it’s going to get hot soon.  I wonder if this will be your first Korean summer.” 

            Leeteuk and Sungmin spent the rest of the day with her and Yesung came again at night.  April had slept some more during the day and had missed Sungmin entirely.  She woke up just in time to see Yesung leave.  Donghae was with her now.  It was 2AM and he thought she would be sleeping.  She was watching him and he hadn’t really prepared anything to talk about or show her.  He thought for a while and then remembered that Ryeowook had once told her about each of the members.  He took out his phone and thought, he could do one better than that.  On his phone he had lots of pictures of group just messing around.  He used to pictures to tell her about each of the members, their personalities and some funny stories.  He was careful to skip any photos from concerts or stages, as far as he could tell; she didn’t know who they were.  She looked at the phone as he talked, he couldn’t tell if she was interested or not but he felt like she was. 

            He had been sitting forward with the phone so that she could see and when he ran out of pictures he leaned back in the chair out of sight.  Her eyes followed him and the phone as far as they could but the chair was too far behind to be seen in her peripheral vision.  Donghae was still looking through his phone for more pictures when April slowly turned her head to see him.  It was very slight but she had moved enough for him to notice it.  He gasped briefly and then realized that that probably wasn’t a reassuring reaction. “Do you want to see more pictures?”  She blinked but continued to stare.  He showed her more with her head turned to him and then got up and slowly walked around the bed.  First her eyes followed him then her head, slowly and maybe painfully around to the other side of the room.  Donghae was pleased but cautious knowing that she was probably still in quite some pain.  After watching him on her right side for a few moments she breathed deeply and closed her eyes as if that small movement had used up all her energy. 

            It was obviously a struggle to move.  Donghae tried to imagine the type of pain and exhaustion that would drain a person like that.  He was moved to sadness and felt his eyes get hot.  He reminded himself that this was improvement and that he should feel relief and not sadness.

            During the following day April waned in and out of sleep as the boys came and went.  She saw Shindong, Eunhyuk and Ryeowook and moved her head a little more for each one, though every time seeming more fatigued than the last.        

 

            Back at the dorm Leeteuk got a phone call from Kangin.  “Hyung I’ve got a bit of a problem with the schedule.  I’m supposed to be with April at 8 tonight but something just got added to the work schedule, is there anyone who can take my place?”

            “Tonight is a busy night, I think everyone already has schedules but I’ll see what I can do.  If you have to work than that’s what you have to do, I’ll make something happen for tonight.” 

            Leeteuk looked at the schedule.  Out of the nine people who were rotating no one had any free time tonight.  He would have to call in reinforcements, but he didn’t even know where to begin.