Taking Turns
The Things They Learned A hushed meeting was concluding in the hall outside of April’s room. “It was really frightening,” Eunhyuk said. “It was like she was a wild animal.”
Eunhyuk was going to go home for the night even though his shift wasn’t up and Kangin was going to stay in his place. “She won’t wake up again tonight, they’ve heavily sedated her.”
Kangin wasn’t thoroughly satisfied, Eunhyuk had described her as a feral animal and he wondered what torture she was feeling to react like that. He kept his distance in the room lest she did wake up again; he didn’t want her to feel threatened.
Leeteuk came in the morning and brought with him a hand written schedule. He had taken the group’s activities as well as everyone’s personal schedules into account and created a short shift schedule for the next couple of days; though once comeback activities started it was going to be a lot more difficult.
That morning Leeteuk watched a nurse change an IV bag. “We’re going to start lowering the sedative little by little, but since it’s already in her system it will take a few hours before it has any effect.” April still seemed completely unconscious to Leeteuk the whole time he was there.
Donghae came after Leeteuk, short shifts, no more than three hours were already working out much better. Donghae thought April looked really peaceful and had trouble picturing the scene that Eunhyuk had described. Although he had desperately wanted her to wake up so that he could know that she was going to be okay he now felt conflicted not sure that he wanted her to wake while he was there as he was afraid of experiencing a situation similar to that of Eunhyuk.
Donghae held her hand again, every once and a while he gave it a little squeeze. He was thinking about dramas and movies when they always say ‘if you can hear me, squeeze my hand’. He felt corny doing it, but he tried it anyway. Of course nothing happened; he didn’t expect it to, although he was curious.
He was two and a half hours out of three when something finally happened. He had given her hand another little squeeze but this time he felt something in response. It was only the slightest little wiggle but her hand definitely did move. He took his hand away quickly and backed up unsure of what was going to happen next. He waited a few seconds but nothing more happened. He went out of the room briefly to tell a nurse. “That’s good,” the nurse said. “It means she’s coming out slowly just as we want.” He thought the nurse was done but then she asked, “now you said she didn’t respond when you spoke to her right?”
“Right.”
“Okay, thanks for letting us know. You and your friends are taking good care of her.”
Donghae didn’t know what that meant. Was she supposed to do something when he spoke to her? He felt like all the nurses here were very cryptic and wondered if there was something they weren’t telling them.
Sungmin was having a hard time at home. He couldn’t sleep and he couldn’t eat. He was driving Kyuhyun crazy with his tossing and turning all night. Finally Kyuhyun couldn’t take it anymore and went upstairs to sleep on Heechul’s floor.
Heechul wasn’t happy to be woken up. “If you snore I’ll kill you.” Kyuhyun was used to Heechul’s threats and knew that at most he’d get a swift kick; even that was better than staying with Sungmin and not sleeping at all. Heechul went right back to sleep and Kyuhyun finally got some much needed peace even though he was sleeping on the cold hard floor.
In the morning Ryeowook brought breakfast down to Sungmin. “You’ve barely eaten anything in the last two days. You really need to eat, I made your favorite.”
“Thank you, I really appreciate your concern but I’m not hungry.”
Ryeowook sat down in Sungmin’s doorway. “I’m not leaving until you eat.”
“You really can be a nag sometimes.”
Ryeowook smiled, “Yes, I pride myself on it.”
Sungmin gave in, Ryeowook didn’t give up easily and would just keep making more food if he didn’t eat. He didn’t realize how hungry he actually was, it wasn’t difficult to finish all of it. Ryeowook was satisfied. “You have a schedule later, do well. –Oh and take a shower, you smell awful.”
Sungmin smelled himself, yeah he did smell awful. He realized then that he needed to pull it together. He took a long hot shower and some vitamins. He had a schedule in the early afternoon and then he was due for a shift with April in the early evening. It had been at least two days since he’d been there; he both felt the need to go but was also dreading it. He looked at the schedule Leeteuk made, Donghae was there right now and Siwon was going next. Sungmin would go after Siwon. He wanted to talk to Donghae but they wouldn’t see each other until they were back at the dorms at night and it would only be a short while before Sungmin would have to leave again for the radio show.
Here we go, sorry for the delay. It's been a series of unfortunate events over here with storms and power outages, mulitiple event days at work, and final projects assigned by professors who have no sense of the time required to complete them. After next week things should start to calm down and then hopefully I'll be able to update more frequently and with longer chapters. Thanks for reading!
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