Chapter Four

Every time I had to go to the hospital, I kept thinking to myself morbidly that one day, I would be taking my last breath there. Which wasn’t a very good thought, but at least there would be trained professionals to take care of me during the final hours or something. Otherwise, who knows how painful it can be?

Actually, I did know how painful it was. I had been there. Almost.

When my mum told me I had to be admitted to the hospital – again – so they could run some tests and conduct experiments with new medicines, I tried to talk my way out of it, although I didn’t know why I bothered anyway. I never seemed to win.

“Sehun, please,” she sighed, rubbing her temples and probably dying to know what sort of evil deed she had done in her past life to have such burden weighing on her shoulders. Honestly, I would much rather know what I did in my previous life.

“We’ve talked about this before,” she continued. “You have to go for treatments.”

“For what? So that they can stick needles in me and drown my lungs in weird chemicals?” I said, angrily. I was too tired for this. My fight was over as I knew it.

But parents just don’t know when or how to give up, do they?

“You’re our son, Sehun. You’re not giving up. I won’t allow it. I am not watching you die while doing nothing, okay? And that’s final.”

I hadn’t pointed out that the doctors were the ones doing something so technically they were still doing nothing. But considering how actually saying that to my mum would lead to dire consequences, I just shut up.

“She’s right, you know?” Luhan said to me firmly. We were in the hospital waiting room, where we first met. I was there because of my appointment, and although Luhan didn’t have an appointment until a month later, he tagged along. Apparently he seemed to think I would run away and escape if I was left alone to my own devices.

My mum had thought the same, which was why she intended to come with me as well. It would be nice had it been just me, but with Luhan around… I just didn’t feel comfortable being with him and with someone else I knew at the same time. At least, not yet. So I told her I wouldn’t be alone and that Kai would accompany me.

It wasn’t really a huge lie. I wouldn’t call it a lie at all. Especially since all I had initially said was that “my friend is coming with me”, no mention of any names whatsoever, and she was the one who followed up with “oh, Kai?” I just didn’t correct her.

Kai was busy. Too busy juggling girls and school work and partying – stuff I would do if only I didn’t have cancer. He didn’t even bother to call or drop by to see if I wanted to hang out or just to talk. As far as I could tell, he might have forgotten about me, now that he met more people in college.

It might be a good thing that he didn’t try to call, because I didn’t feel like talking to him when all I could think about was that he was living the kind of life I wanted while I was too sick and tired to even feel jealous. Still, I did hope that one of these days he would call, just so I could hang up on him.

“The treatment , but it’s for your own good. We all want the best for you,” Luhan said again, prompting an exaggerated groan from me. Knowing him, I should have guessed he would side with my mum.

“I know,” I snapped, because I did. “But this is stupid. It’s useless. I’ve already accepted that as a fact, why won’t you all?”

“We love you too much to let you go without a fight. Do you know how heartbreaking it is to be doing nothing while your loved ones are suffering?”

“Not half as depressing as to do everything but still see them die in the end.” I was only muttering, but Luhan heard it. His head jerked up in shock and he frowned at me, looking like he ate something bitter.

“It’s not like that,” he said softly, looking away from me and instead staring at his fingers. “When someone you love is sick, you don’t want him to die. You want him to get better, at any cost. That’s just how it is.”

Sometimes I think I ought to keep quiet because only hurtful nonsense seemed to come out from my mouth. I didn’t know if it was because I was becoming more and more morbid as a side effect of being a dying person, or because I was spending a lot of time around Luhan, and most of what I said would somehow depress him. I hoped it was because he was an oversensitive person and not because I was insensitive.

Sighing, I reclined in my seat and shook my head in dismay. “I know what you mean. But you can’t change the fact that we’re all going to die someday.”

Luhan glared at me and shot a fleeting glance to the little girl sitting nearby. She didn’t look like she paid much attention to our conversation about death, so Luhan, relieved, turned back to me. “Will you stop thinking about all that stuff?” His voice was soft and gentle. “It’s not going to happen.”

“Yet.”

“Exactly! Do you know how young you are, Sehun? You’re 20. The average healthy person lives up to 65 years old. Do you really want to worry for the next 45 years?”

“I’m not healthy…”

He gave me that look again. The kind a puppy would show you when it wants to play and you say ‘no’. Only, he made it ten times more adorable. “For now,” he corrected me. “But you will be soon enough.”

“Oh Sehun?”

I glanced up to the nurse. She had a clipboard in her hands and was flipping through the papers clasped onto it. “Yes?” I squeaked.

“The doctor will see you now.”

My muscles suddenly tensed up and I barely managed to let out a meek ‘okay’ to let the nurse know I was ready. But I really wasn’t. I felt sick in the stomach, although what the doctor would tell me later on couldn’t possibly be worse than what I already knew.

Luhan touched my hand and squeezed it encouragingly. He looked me in the eye and smiled. “You’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

I nodded.

“I’ll be out here waiting for you. Okay?”

I panicked. “You’re not coming with me?” There was no way I could go through this all on my own. I needed someone to make sure I wouldn’t bite off the doctor’s hand if and when he pokes too many needles in me, and mostly, to give me strength. I wasn’t that much of a crybaby but the medical stuff was horrifying.

“Trust me, I want to, but I can’t. Family only,” Luhan said, sounding sadder than I was. Whoever made than stupid rule should be fired. “You can do this, Sehun. You’re strong.”

I smiled back weakly, stood up and started to head for Doctor Kim’s room, pulling my hand away from Luhan’s. A sudden emptiness shook me but I willed myself to brush away the uncomfortable feeling. I wondered how long it was going to take this time, and how Luhan was going to entertain himself out there on his own.

He never seemed to have that problem, though. He was always smiling.

The MRI scan was possibly one of the procedures I hated the most. You have to lie completely still for it, while the machine whirs above and around you and just makes you feel like you’re in your coffin waiting to be cremated.

Once, I said this to my mum and she freaked. No wonder.

After it was over, they pumped me up with some drugs that made my eyelids heavy so I dozed off while they got to work with their experiments. I made it sound so bad but it was actually rather tolerable, especially since I was knocked out the entire time.

When I woke up, I gave myself quite a scare because there was a person sitting in the chair next to my bed, and I couldn’t quite see who it was because I was still groggy from the drugs, but it sounded so much like Luhan. Then I realized it really was Luhan, and I immediately shot up.

“Luhan? What the heck?”

He grinned. “Hey, don’t look so happy to see me.”

“How did you get in here?” I asked, my gaze darting around to see if there were any nurses nearby. He wasn’t supposed to be in here.

“Well, there was a door.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do.”

Swallowing hard, I asked again, cautiously and softly so no one would hear me. “You didn’t break in, did you?”

He broke into laughter and shook his head. “Of course not! But would you believe they actually bought it when I said I was your brother?”

“Doctor Kim knows I’m the only child,” I pointed out.

“Well, he’s not the only doctor in the hospital, my dear,” Luhan said. He took my hand and smiled at me. “How’re you feeling?”

I massaged the back of my head, coughed twice, and shrugged. “Like crap. But what else is new?”

Luhan released my hand and went to pour me a glass