Three Weeks Later

                Everyday for the past few weeks, I’ve been waking up shortly after my fiancé leaves our home at seven o’clock in the morning. Normally I would try to sleep in, but ever since I found Sehun, I try to be up early to see him. It has to be so scary for him to be in some unfamiliar hospital with no family or friends. Well, now he has Chanyeol and me, though I can tell he still has fear. Today I’m going to bring him a croissant and warm tea just like he asked to have for breakfast.

                I slipped on my jacket and lifted up the fur hood to protect myself from the cold air outside. It’s been very bitter out, though it’s hard for me to even notice because I try to get to the hospital as quickly as possible. Today was no exception to my routine and I ended up inside Room 643 at eight o’ clock sharp. Sehun was busy brushing his teeth in his comfortable pajamas that had black and white stripes all across it. Since I was in the place before visiting my fiancé, I know for a fact that these are not pajamas issued out by the hospital. Someone had to have bought that for him.

“Hey Sehun,” I said taking a sip of my tea. “Where did you get those pajamas? They look really comfortable.”

“Oh these? Chanyeollie bought them for me. He said the ones the hospital gives out are really uncomfortable.”

“Right…”

                Chanyeol has never said anything about Sehun since the day he woke up. As far as I knew, the doctor who takes care of my best friend now isn’t Chanyeol. So why is he spending his own personal money on a patient he took care of for a few hours? What I’m feeling isn’t at all jealousy that Sehun is possibly becoming close to my fiancé. It’s the fact that Chanyeol is hiding something from me, like hanging out with another person when we’re not together. Though that’s exactly what I’m doing to him.

                For three weeks I’ve been secretly visiting Sehun just to talk and hang out, like old times. Doing this has brought back my feelings, the feelings the thirteen year old Baekhyun kept to himself. It’s not okay to be in love with another person when a wedding is thirteen months away. No. I’m not in love at all. Chanyeol is the one who has my heart now. I just have to keep telling myself this.

“Have you told Yeol that I have been coming to visit you every morning?”

“No I haven’t said anything. You told me to keep it a secret and I’m going to. Unless you want me to say something,” he spoke sitting back on his bed.

“No, let’s keep this between us.”

“So many secrets,” he sighed.

                After we ate the small breakfast I had bought at the bakery just before arriving to the hospital, it was time to teach Sehun some things he missed out in school. My concern isn’t to make sure he masters the finding the value of x in an equation. I want Sehun to be up to speed with things such as multiplication or reading long sentences with words he thinks are “big”. He may not go to college like most of the South Korean population, but he will be like every other adult by the time I can teach him everything I know.

                We’ve made great progress with reading and math, but I can tell he just wants to know all this automatically. If Sehun gets too frustrated with learning the “boring” things, I teach him how to write checks or balance his money wisely. That is when I can tell he is the most interested. He’s no longer focused on recovering from his injuries from fourteen years ago. Sehun just wants to be an adult like his body is. The mind will catch up eventually.

                Noon had arrived before we knew it, and it was time for me to go and greet Chanyeol as if I was coming from home. My fiancé really loves it when I visit him right after he finishes checking on his patients. I feel so horrible keeping my friendship a secret, but after all Chanyeol is hiding something from me. Maybe he just passes Sehun in the halls, but if so, why does my best friend like him so much? It’s kind of like Sehun and Chanyeol are hanging out more often than I think.

○○○○○○

                Three in the afternoon arrives yet again. What is supposed to be my forty-five minute lunch break has now turned into accompanying Sehun to his physical therapy sessions, with Dr. Kim. I’ve come to befriend this doctor because quiet frankly we never had to work before. It’s not often that my patient requires some type of physical therapy to other parts of their body. Usually, I can give what is known as psycho therapy, to help improve brain function after traumatic events. Although it’s not often that my patients ask for this expensive therapy session.

                In any case, Sehun has been making great progress with Dr. Kim and is pretty much completely healed. His body is working the way it should when it comes to walking, running, and lifting objects. He even learned how to swim in the pool, which was probably the cutest thing I ever saw. Sehun splashed around in the water first, begging me to come in with him. But I couldn’t risk getting soaked when I was on a break from my job. Instead, I let my feet dip into the water while he swam up to me and rest his head on the tiles in between my knees. We ended up talking for awhile while his legs floated or kicked away. Dr. Kim said he loved to see such great agility in his patient.

                I arrived in Sehun’s room to him to the physical therapy room like I do everyday. He was dressing himself in a pair of loose pants and a t-shirt I had personally purchased for these sessions. It was poor timing on my part because Sehun was just pulling the black t-shirt around his thin frame. He had such small hips and a flat stomach. The color of his skin was almost a milky white, as if he was a porcelain doll. To me, this nineteen year old was growing more and more handsome with each moment.

                Sehun smiled and waved at me, sitting on his bed grabbing the Nike sneakers from under the metal frame. I pulled up a chair in front of him and grabbed the laces he swung around in my face. There was a laugh from him seeing my hands struggle to catch the strings of white fabric. Eventually he stopped seeing me give up and stare at him with frustrated eyes.

“When is Chanyeollie getting married,” Sehun asked randomly.

“What? How do you know I’m going to get married?”

                His question literally froze me in place. There is no way he knows that I’m going to be married soon to Baekhyun. Sehun’s eyes widened shocked that he himself even asked that question. For a few seconds he sat there fiddling his fingers trying to collect thoughts before opening his mouth.

“Look you have a ring on your finger! That means you’re getting married. Duh…”

“Oh that’s right,” I laughed seeing him breathe a sigh of relief. “Well I’m going to be married next February to a guy named Baekhyun.”

“I want to come! My best friend is named Baekhyun too, but I call him Baekkie.”

                I smiled hearing him recall friends from the past. Although it’s been a very long time since he has seen friends or family, the innocence of still remembering them is sweet. I doubt this “Baekkie” of his is my fiancé, because if it was, I’d be very concerned. I don’t want Baekhyun to know that I’ve been spending most of my days with his best friend while working. So many problems could arise from that.

                Sehun grabbed my hand playfully and pulled me out the room towards his physical therapy session. He may be doing this out of the kindness of his heart, but when we interlocked out fingers, I couldn’t help but think maybe he feels something for me. Not as a doctor who took care of him, but as a man he may love. It’s a terrible thought, but I can never shake it. Dr. Kim smiled at the two of us when we entered his therapy room filled with other patients. Neither of us knew what is in store for today’s session, but it was going to shock us all.

“Dr. Park and Sehun,” he smiled. “We met yet again!”

“Am I going to be swimming again, Dr. Kim?”

“In a little bit, but I need to talk to you and Chanyeol first. It’s about your health, which as you can see is now perfect.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being healthy though. That’s what everyone wants me to be.”

“Well it is! The only problem is that a hospital is for sick or injured people, and you’re neither of those. So you’re going to need to find a home soon. Dr. Park you do understand that.”

“A-absolutely,” I said shocked. “I just don’t know what we can do for him. He has no family left or friends who know of him.”

                Sehun grabbed my arm with fear consuming his body. He didn’t want to get kicked out onto the street of Seoul all by himself, but I don’t want that for him either. I don’t want Sehun to leave my side or the hospital because then I won’t see him nearly as much. It was in this moment when a realization came to me. I’m falling for Oh Sehun, against my own will.