{34 days to go…}

Taeyeon sat down on the chairs provided. Hospitals had always irked her. She didn’t like them in general because the sterilised smell always made her nauseous and the white walls always made her feel as though it wasn’t alright to be here, like there was something absolutely wrong with her, like she was an mental patient. Either way, hospitals had always irked her, ever since she was born.

She looked around to see that there were quite a few people here at the hospital, and Taeyeon supposed that she would have to wait a while before it was her turn to see the doctor. She leaned back into her chair, apprehension constantly gripping her as her head went through all the possibilities. The doctor had said that it was easy to treat it now that it was found in its early stages. She would be cured of syphilis and there would be nothing to worry about but Taeyeon had done some research. There were possibilities that women could no longer have children or they could never have again. What if that happened to her? What happened if the disease reoccurred after a few years when she thought that she had gotten rid of it?

She needed a distraction, desperately. She watched as the hands of the clock ticked by but that only made it worse for her. She looked at the magazines, sifting through the pile to find something to pass away the time – nothing. There was nothing on her phone either that she could use to occupy her time. The television in the high corner was showing some news program that seemed utterly boring and wouldn’t be able to distract her from the jitteriness that was swirling inside her stomach. She resigned to making tapping noises on her jeans which got some annoyed looks from other people, which prompted her to quickly stop.

She was so caught up in the endless negative thoughts that seemed to only get worse every second, she had not realised that someone had seated themselves beside her. She was aware that there were plenty of other seats around so she didn’t understand why a stranger would sit next to her. When she took a look at the stranger next to her, her jaw could not stop itself from dropping. She thought that Wooyoung, the man seated next to her, generally fitted into the category of drunken, playboy heirs who would never take her advice seriously. Even if he did, his family must probably have a private doctor of their own. It made no sense why he would go to a public one. Who was to say that he was here because she told him to? He could be here for a completely different reason.

Why was he here? It made no sense to her at all. She wanted to ask him. She felt like she had a need to know, to quench her curiosity. She opened , ready to speak. Would Wooyoung appreciate someone going through his business? She closed . He wouldn’t because she wouldn’t either and that was just general human nature. But why was he sitting next to her? That was something she could ask without appearing to be rude.

She opened once more to speak but was stopped when she heard the doctor calling out her name, “Kim Taeyeon!” She looked up immediately as the doctor sea