Something That Eases My Heart

Finally. Tomorrow I can finally get rid of this sickening smell of hospital. I sighed as I stared at the curtain that separates the hospital beds beside mine. I was actually looking forward to get out of this hospital. I was sick of the entire hospital thing. The painkillers, the scans, the whole ‘you can’t be too tired’ thing, no this, no that. The foods were the worst of all.

I’ve been ‘resting’ in this hospital for 3 days. They said they have to make sure that there was nothing wrong with me—my whole body—since I was said that I hit pretty hard, especially on my head. So I’ve been doing this whole scans thing since the day I’ve been brought here. It’s a relief that there was nothing wrong with my head—except for that mind reading thing and a little wound—but they actually found something wrong with something else.

They said that I actually fractured my right radius bone. It’s maybe because I unconsciously put the pressure of my body on my arm when I fell, and it hit a rock, that caused the fractured bone. But I guess it didn’t really disadvantage me because I used my left hand to write. Yeah, so maybe some little inconveniences, but I think I can handle it for the healing time. I will have to use a cast for some while now, but I hope my bone heal fast though.

The whole ‘resting’ thing was really boring. I literally couldn’t do anything! For heaven’s sake, the one that was fractured is my arm bone! Not the whole body! And the other patients were not helping to ease my boredom either. There were 6 beds here in this room—including mine—and 4 of the patients were elders. I’m actually not socially active especially toward elders—I didn’t really know what to say in front of elders—they were always sleeping anyway—and one bed—the bed beside mine—was left empty. So I usually took a walk around the hospital to spend some time.

But Jung Soojung, ever since that day, always visited me at the hospital—despite that she was once scared when I asked her where she lives—and spent some of her time with me, playing some games, talking about something, and others. Technically, she’s a friend—someone I could call a friend. In other words, I survived.

I was so close to sleep until someone softly shook my shoulder. I opened my eyes lazily and slowly turned my head to the person.

“As always. You never reply whenever I call you.” Soojung said as she crossed her arms and frowned.

“Is it that hard to just reply when someone calls you?! At least just hum or something to verify that you’re still alive!”

It’s almost every time she came to visit me, she frowned because the same reason. And I felt really sorry for her because of that. “Sorry. Didn’t hear you. I was almost asleep.” I replied as I sat on my bed slowly, trying not to damage my right arm. She scoffed and rolled her eyes at my reply. She still didn’t know about my ‘condition’ right now—being deaf and can read people’s mind.

“He always uses that for excuse! That is too much, Oh Sehun! I won’t fell for that excuse now!”

She grumpily sat on the chair next to my bed and just played with her phone. I chuckled softly. “Don’t you come here because you want to tell me something? Someone’s bothering you today? Or someone’s bringing down your mood?” I asked her as I smiled.

“Obviously someone’s bringing down my mood!” She said, emphasizing ‘someone’. I chuckled in amusement of her failed act. “Yeah keep doing that Sehun!” she thought.

“Oh yeah, I know that very well, Soojung. And you should know too that you’re bad at acting mad right?” I said and shook my head.

“I am not mad! I’m just not in the mood to talk to you!” she said and turned her head to the side. She mumbled something that I couldn’t really saw, so I grew a bit frustrated.

“Yah. Drop the act Jung Soojung. I know you want to tell me something about your day. Just tell me already.”

“Oh yeah! Tomorrow you will be discharged!” Soojung suddenly interrupted.

“Finally he will be discharged! He won’t have to eat hospital foods! I won’t have to smell the smell of medicine! He can go anywhere he wants!” She looked so excited. She smiled really wide and her eyes sparkled at the thought. She looked like she was the one who will be discharged.

“Yeah. You sound really excited. Even more than me, the one who will be discharged.” I said and rolled my eyes. She just smiled in response.

“Ah! I finally can show him where I live! I can finally show him my university and show him the one who always bullies me!”

I smiled at her thoughts. She sure had many plans for us after I discharge. “Hey Soojung, I really want to buy a new album. Will you come with me tomorrow after I discharge?” I asked her.

Yeah. Album. Music album. I know I couldn’t hear any single thing from the CD, I know that very well. But I always want to believe that I can hear the songs. I used to really love listening to music, so I had a really hard time adjusting that I won’t be able to hear any music again, forever.

I once was really lonely and depressed and shocked from the accident and just really want to hear some music to relieve my stress. So I played a hip hop CD using a boom box and keep on increasing the volume, until my neighbor had to barge in to my house to calm me down and turned off the music.

So now, I just collected music albums. Sometimes even music albums of a singer I didn’t know of. I would play the CD in my room, and read the lyrics in the album and imagine the song myself. I would just sing the lyrics with any tone that appears in my head. I wouldn’t really care how good or how bad it turns out because I didn’t really hear it anyways. But I found it interesting now, and enjoyed it in the end.

“Oh really? Sure! I’ll recommend some albums too!” Soojung accepted it wholeheartedly.

“A day with Sehun? It will be fun!” I chuckled at her excitement.

I packed all of my clothes from the little cupboard beside my bed and packed it in my backpack brought by my mother. She was sitting in the bed, waiting for me to be ready. She looked really happy and excited for me too, just like Soojung. I even wondered why they would be more happy and excited than me.

She tapped my shoulder, and I looked at her—her usual gesture when she wanted to talk to me—I smiled at her. “How does it feel?” she asked me.

“Good. The hospital foods were .” I said, but unfortunately, there was a nurse there, and she felt a little offended when I commented about the foods. My mom saw that too and she giggled.

“How is your arm?”

“Its fine, sometimes it aches too but it will be fine with a bit of painkiller. 1 a day is enough though.” I smiled. She smiled warmly, satisfied at my answer.

“Glad he’s okay. I hope he will be more careful from now on. It will actually be better if he don’t walk around late at night anymore. But I couldn’t do anything to help him.” She frowned and sighed sadly.

She knew about my difficulties to sleep. She knew that I couldn’t sleep in absolute silence, so she would just let me took a walk to get myself drowsy since she couldn’t do anything to help me. So she never forbids me to not take a walk or anything. But I never thought that she would be that worry every time I took a walk.

“Mom,” She turned her head to me and slowly smiled to hide her worries. I slowly sat down beside her and continue. “I… Will try to sleep without taking a walk from now on… Maybe I would take some walk, but not too frequently. I will always tell you if I want to take a walk,” she started to smiled wider, but stayed silence to allow me to continue, “So don’t be too worry, okay? I’m 20 already; I can take care of myself better.” I put my hand on her shoulder and smiled.

She smiled and nodded slowly, before a tear dropped from her eye. “You sure are big enough, Sehun. I trust you. I’m really sorry I couldn’t do anything to ease your frustration and depression through this, son,”

I hugged her and patted her back. “I’m used to it already, mom. Don’t need to worry about it.” She nodded on my shoulder and caressed my back.

I tapped my fingers in a rhythm while sipping a glass of water from Mrs. Dam. We promised to meet at Mr. and Mrs. Dam’s bean paste stew house before going to the music store. I was waiting for her in front of the restaurant until Mrs. Dam kindly offered me a drink, telling me that it will be long to wait for a girl to prepare before going somewhere. I looked at the clock on my phone and sighed. It surely is long to wait for her. Its 10 minutes already.  I shook my head and rested my head on my palm.  

I turned my head to the door to saw Soojung walking so comfortably and smiling so brightly. She waved at me in glee. I shook my head in disbelief. She wore a black jeggings with a white oversized tee, and sneakers. She’s not even wearing something surprising to take that long10 minutes. What was she even doing in those 10 minutes?

I just smiled bitterly at her and waved back. “As I thought! This is the perfect outfit! Why would I wear a floral dress to go buy some album?”

I chuckled at her as I just found my answer in just a second. “You surely are fast, Jung Soojung.” I said sarcastically and she just smiled sheepishly.

I finally could hear some music in the music store. It didn’t occur to me before that usually, people think about the songs they are hearing at that time. The music store was not really full. There were only 4 or 5 customers at that time, and I could already hear 6 to 8 songs.

I would purposely walked toward them and pretended to find something just to hear the song they were hearing. It’s nice to finally can hear some music. It eases my mind a bit. Soojung practically dragged me to every shelf and recommended some songs. Sometime she would sing to me some of the songs from the album she recommends.

“Sehun-ah! This song is REALLY good!” She dragged me to a high small table with a CD player and a headphone on it. She inserted the CD and put the headphone on my head. I turned the volume up to the maximum.

She went in front of me and looked at the CD player. She gasped and said, “Sehun! That’s too loud!” I shook my head and waved at her, and said, “It’s okay.”

I usually turned the volume to maximum to feel the beat of the song. That way, I could at least know if it’s a slow beat song—could be ballad, could be Hip hop RnB—or a fast beat song.

For the first time these 5 years, I could finally found something comforting and fresh. I couldn't believe I almost missed this thing if I didn't have the accident 4 days ago. It really washed all my problems and concerns away. Maybe I would come here more often just to hear some good songs for refreshing.

It eases my heart completely.