My eyes flew open with a start.  I bolted upright in my bed and found myself staring at a blank white wall, which was not what I had expected.  Where were the posters on my walls?  Where was my shelf of stuffed animals?  Then I remembered where I was, and my spirits fell.  Not that they had been very high in the first place.

It was just a dream, I reminded myself.  Just a stupid dream.

Just a very realistic and frightening dream, a voice sneered in back of my mind.

“Shut up,” I snapped, trying to stop myself from trembling.

“I didn’t say anything.”  I turned to the left to see Ryeowook’s faint outline on the cot next to mine.  He was still lying on his side, but his eyes were open and they seemed to shimmer in the semi-darkness.  The clock on the wall glowed 3:45 A.M.  Although it was still dark outside, I could still see the room pretty clearly.  The entire place seemed to emit an eerie white glow.  The lights were probably from the nurses’ station down the hall.

“Did I wake you up?  I’m sorry.”
 

“You didn’t.”

I said nothing in reply and lay back down on the cot, which creaked as I did so.  I d around for my stuffed totoro but I couldn’t find it.  Just when I was about to give up, I felt something soft hit my face.

“Agh!”  I yelled in surprise.  I frantically batted it away with my hand but realized that it was my totoro.  “Oh,” I said quietly.  I looked back at Ryeowook, who met my eyes steadily.  “How’d that get over there?”

“You were thrashing around in your sleep.”

“Oh," I said again, feeling embarrassed.  I clutched the stuffed animal in my hands and lay on my side.  I tossed and turned for a few minutes before I gave up trying to fall back asleep.  A small sigh escaped my mouth and Ryeowook spoke again.

“You’re like me, aren’t you?  You can’t fall asleep at night, even with meds."

I glanced over sharply, my defenses rising.

“And how would you know that?  I could just be having a bad night because I've never slept in a place like this before."

Ryeowook emitted a small laugh.

“I just know.  Besides, they’d never let me room with someone that didn’t have sleeping problems as well.  They’ve tried before and it didn’t work."

I looked back at Ryeowook, who was still staring at me with a curious expression.  He must have been here for a long time to know that.  Or maybe it was just common sense, and I was just being clueless as always.

“Ryeowook-ssi, how long have you been here?”

There was a pause.

“Almost a year.”

“How old are you now?”

“16.  You?”

“17.”

“Then drop the ‘-ssi’ because I don't want to be awkward around each other if we're gonna be roommates.  I’ve no idea how long you’re going to be staying here, but I’ve never had a roommate that stayed with me for more than a few hours and it’s a new experience for me.  Do you mind if I call you ‘hyung’?”

I shrugged.  It wasn’t as if I would see him after I got out of this place.

“Nah.  You can call me ‘hyung’ if you want.”

There was a silence.

“So do you wanna talk about it?”

I raised my head up a little.

“About what?”

“The reason you were thrashing around in the first place.”

I clenched the thin blankets with my fist and squeezed my eyes shut.  I took a deep breath and tried to block out the last memories of my nightmare.  Slowly, the images faded.  The car disappeared.  The sidewalk and the streets vanished.  My brother’s bloody, limp body was erased from my mind for the time being

“No, it’s okay,” I muttered, my eyes still closed.  I mentally prepared myself for what I knew was coming.

There was a long silence from his side of the room and I suddenly felt rather uncomfortable.  Something was wrong.  I opened my eyes and narrowed them in suspicion.  Ryeowook’s slight figure was huddled into a ball.

“Well?  Aren’t you going to push me to talk about it?”

Ryeowook’s eyes had been closed, but they opened again at the sound of my voice.

“If you don’t want to, then no.”

It was something I had never experienced before.

“Why do you ask?”

“Nothing.”

There was a silence again.  I turned to face the other side of the room so that I wouldn’t see Ryeowook’s face, but I could still feel his eyes on me.  I knew he was waiting for a real answer.

“It’s just that everyone I’ve ever talked to either doesn’t care about my problems entirely or cares too much to the point where they ask me too much about them.  I’ve always hated that.  And recently it seems like everyone’s doing the latter.  Especially everyone in this ing hospital.  They ask me too many questions and it’s annoying as hell.”

“I don’t do that type of stuff,” Ryeowook said quietly.  “Neither does any of the others in our ward.  Besides, why would I push you to do something you don’t want to do?”

I shrugged again and looked back at him.

“Why do you keep staring at me all the time?  Do I have something on my face or what?”

“You intrigue me, Sungmin hyung.”

I raised my eyebrows and scoffed, the sound echoing slightly in the small room.

“I’m serious,” he said, sounding a bit annoyed now.

“How so and in what way?”  After all, there was absolutely nothing about me that was interesting.  The people around me had never thought anything about me was worth knowing about except for my wealth and future influence over my father’s company.  No one had cared, except for Sungjin.  But then again, he wasn’t here right now.

“I haven’t heard you talk much yet, but it always sounds like and looks like you need a hug,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Can you even see me right now?”  I rolled my eyes.

“Of course.  It’s not like it’s pitch-black or anything.  There’s also something in your voice.  You sound…” He hesitated.  “Lonely.”

“Why do you care?”

There was a pause.

“Because I want to try and be friends with you.”  His voice was quiet.

I froze for a minute, processing his words.  He wanted to be friends with me?  I remembered what my mother had told me.  Don’t try and make friends while you’re here.  You’re not here to make friends and have a social life.  You’re here to get over your stupid disease and right after that, you’re coming straight home, understand?  I winced at the memory of her glaring at me furiously and burrowed my face into the fur of the stuffed animal.  Suddenly, Ryeowook shifted in his covers.

“Quiet.  The nurses are coming.”

I bolted upright again.

“What?”

“Get down,” he hissed, his eyes closing.

I wasted five seconds wondering what he meant until I heard faint footsteps approach the door.  I fell back onto the cot and closed my eyes as well.  I couldn’t see what was going on, so I just kept my eyes closed.  A minute later, I heard a voice close to my ear.

“You can look now.”

My eyes sprang open and I flinched backwards as I realized Ryeowook was only a foot away from me.  I could see every little detail of his face, from the small mole on his cheek to the heavy bags under his eyes.  He cocked his head at my instinctive reaction.

“They come every hour to make sure we’re all asleep.  Hospital regulations, that’s all.  Do you mind?”  He motioned for me to allow him to get on my cot.

I gave him a strange look but scooted over to make room for him.  He sat down next to me and crossed his legs.

“So do you need a hug?”

I shrugged.

“You can if you want to.”

“That’s no answer.  Yes or no?  It’s a simple enough question.”

“Yeah.”  What harm could it do?  “Sure.”

“Then sit up a bit so I can actually reach you.”  I wondered for a brief moment why he couldn’t just pull me up, since he was already insisting on touching me.  But I got up anyways and Ryeowook’s stick-thin arms wrapped around me.

It was strange.  It felt weird because Ryeowook was probably half the size I was, even though we were the same height.  But at the same time, it felt nice.  Comforting, even.  When I had touched his wrist before we went to sleep, he had been freezing.  But now he felt warm.

“When was the last time someone hugged you, hyung?”  He said out of the blue.  I shrugged, and his arms wrapped around me tighter.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Hugging you?”  I nodded and he rested his head on my shoulder, causing me to get a faceful of his soft brown hair.  “Because while you were asleep, you were holding onto your stuffed animal so tightly I thought you were going to squeeze the stuffing out of it.”

I didn’t say anything in response.

“You know, it would be nice if you could hug me back,” he said, looking up at me.  I was still getting used to the feeling of someone touching me, but I slowly put my arms up to his waist and hugged his skinny frame.  “It’s a start.”  I looked up to see him grinning slightly.

We stayed like that for a few minutes.  He was a lot like Sungjin, I thought.  A bit quiet, but nice to hug.  And his presence is strangely calming.  But as the thought of Sungjin crossed my mind, I tensed up.  Ryeowook registered the sudden movement and looked up.

“What is it?”

I bit my lip and summoned a massive amount of strength, trying to push the thought of him from my mind.  My eyes remained closed for a few minutes before I opened them again to look at Ryeowook.

“Nothing.”

To my slight disappointment, he let go of me and walked back to his cot, climbing underneath his own blankets once again.

“Alright.”

I checked the clock again.  If Ryeowook was right and the nurses really did come every hour, there were only three more minutes until they would be back.  We were silent again until the nurses finished checking on us and left the corridor.  I kept my eyes closed.  Ryeowook’s touch had somehow relaxed me slightly, and I began to nod off.  As if he somehow knew what I was thinking, I heard his voice again.

“Good night.  Sungmin hyung,” he added as an afterthought.

I turned back to him to see him lying on his cot.

“You’re going to sleep too?”

I saw him shake his head slightly.

“I don’t sleep,” he almost whispered.

“Oh.”

“But you should,” he said after a while.  “If you can.  I still want to talk to you later on.  Is that okay with you?”

I closed my eyes.

“Sure.”

“I’d like to help you if I can,” he said in a barely audible voice, even though the room was completely silent.  “And maybe you could help me.  And maybe then I can do at least one good thing in this lifetime…”  His voice trailed off.

“What?”  I asked, starting to sit up again.  Had I heard him right?

“Nothing, Sungmin.  Good night.”

I furrowed my eyebrows together slightly.  What did he mean by that?  But I was feeling something I rarely felt these days.  I was sleepy.  I decided to take advantage of that and sleep.  Maybe I could get a good night’s sleep for once.  After all, Ryeowook would still be there in the morning, right?

“Good night, Ryeowook.”

But when I woke up the next morning to the sound of a social worker knocking on the door to tell us that breakfast was in thirty minutes, Ryeowook seemed like an entirely different person.  He grunted whenever I said something to him and he barely looked at me.  It was as if the conversation from the night before had never occurred.  Then I remembered something from the night before: breakfast.  And Ryeowook was anorexic.

While Ryeowook paced back and forth across the room, I put on a hoodie and jeans, slipped on a pair of house slippers over my pink bunny socks, and went out the room to find the nearest bathroom, where I brushed my teeth and my hair and washed my face.  I came back ten minutes later to find Ryeowook looking even more stressed out.  It was 7:25.

“Ryeowook?”

“What?”  He almost growled, his eyes dark with annoyance.  I almost cringed away from him.  His hair was sticking up at odd angles and his eyes were more sunken than ever, giving him a hollow look.  The Ryeowook right now was so different from the Ryeowook from the night before.  But I took a deep breath.  Maybe I hadn’t heard him right, but it never hurt to ask, right?  Despite everything my mother had told me, I wanted to help him too.

“Why is it that you don’t like eating?”

“Because I don’t want to eat,” he snapped.  “I’m not hungry.”

“But you need to eat to survive.”

Ryeowook scoffed loudly.

“You sound like all the other therapists.  Everyone tells me that.”

I stopped.  I didn’t know what to do in these types of situations and I didn’t want to say the wrong thing like I had done last night.

“Is there anything I can do to make you feel better?”  I said at last.

Ryeowook stopped pacing and tilted his head to his side.  Then he shook his head.

“I’ll be fine once I take my meds,” he muttered.  Before I could say another word, the buzzer sounded and Ryeowook hurried out the door, leaving me alone.

Breakfast consisted of beef noodle soup with a small bowl of white rice to go with it.  I sat down at an empty table and started on the rice, which was sprinkled with sesame seeds.  Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Ryeowook at the separate table with TOP and Sooyoung.  They had been served the same things the rest of us were eating, but they also had fruit to go with it.  I observed Ryeowook for a few minutes.  He was eating, just very slowly.  At least he wasn’t crying this time, I thought to myself.

A minute later, I spotted Heechul.  He waved and sat down across from me, balancing his tray on one hand while scratching his nose with the other.

“Hey again.  So how did you sleep?”

I shrugged.

“It was alright.”  I didn’t tell him how I had sleeping problems.  “You?”

“Okay, I guess.”  He began to scarf down the noodles and the rest of the meal was pretty much silent while we ate.

After breakfast, we all went our separate ways.  After asking Heechul about it, I met up with CL and Sunny in the room we had been in the previous day.  We made small talk while Sunny took our vitals like she did yesterday, but CL was curter and quieter than I had last seen her.  She ignored Sunny and acted more even more coldly towards her than she had been yesterday.  She didn’t even say ‘thank you’ when Sunny handed us our bags with the necessary pills we had to take.  As I washed down the capsules with a glass of water, I decided that CL wasn’t a morning person.  Or maybe she had something that made her cranky from time to time.  But I didn’t pursue the matter.  I had my own mood swings from time to time and broke down frequently.  It just hadn’t happened yet.

Sunny pulled me out for questioning and I was forced to answer her pointless questions once again.  I told her about how I had woken up in the middle of the night because of a nightmare, but I refused to go into details.  She patiently listened to me with a concerned look on her face and afterwards, she prescribed me a stronger sleep medicine.  She also gave me a black composition notebook, which was to be my journal.  I set my goal for the day: to finish unpacking my things and-- this one had been Sunny’s idea-- to hold a five-minute conversation with someone I hadn’t talked to yet.

Afterwards, we had art therapy, to my delight.  I sat next to Heechul and immediately after the social workers told us what we were doing today, I began sketching an Eevee using the drawing pencils that the hospital provided.  I didn’t like the hospital very much, but I couldn’t deny that they had invested a lot of time and effort on the art room.  The supplies weren’t of the best quality, but they were certainly plentiful.  The counter at the back of the room was laid out with all sorts of paper, markers, colored pencils, crayons, pencils, oil pastels, paints, brushes, pens, and other supplies.

I was in my own dream world for the hour that we spent in the room.  There was me and my artwork, and nothing else.  I barely even noticed when Chanyeol had to take Kris out of the room when he threw a tantrum about how he couldn’t draw very well.

Art therapy ended too soon.  Before we headed to our next therapy session, I wrote down what I had accomplished just like Chanyeol had told us to and taped my finished drawing on the second page of my notebook.  I was so focused on making sure the paper wouldn’t get folded that I didn’t notice that Ryeowook had walked up behind me.

“Whoa,” he said in awe, his eyes wide.  His mouth hung half-open and I blushed as a few other people began to crowd around as well.  “That’s really good,” he said in a starstruck voice, grinning at me slightly.

“Oh, thanks,” I muttered, very self-conscious of Taemin and Wendy, who had been staring at my drawing.  “It’s just a rough sketch.”  I closed my notebook and got up from my chair.  Taemin and Wendy had went away to talk to Heechul, but Ryeowook trailed behind me as I walked to the next room we were supposed to go to.

“Do you take art lessons or anything?  Because even if it’s a rough sketch, it’s still a lot better than anything I’ve ever seen before.”

I shook my head.

“My parents never let me take art lessons,” I said.  “They wanted me to focus on my studies instead.”

“Oh.  Too bad.  It’s a waste of talent,” Ryeowook replied.  I looked at him out of the corner of my eye.  He seemed a little more cheerful than he had been earlier this morning.  There were still dark circles under his eyes, but he didn’t look as tired and anxious as before.

“Yeah,” I agreed without really paying much attention.  Truth was, I didn’t want to be an artist.  I wanted to be a singer and a dancer at SM Entertainment.  But I didn’t tell Ryeowook that because we were back at Room 704, the place where they had held closure group the night before.

Onew was already sitting down on a beanbag chair on the floor, and we sat in a circle like we had done last time.  I sat next to Ryeowook and the girl named Hyuna.  As the others trickled in from the art room, Onew greeted each and every one of them with a dazzling smile.  When we were all seated, he smiled at all of us once again and began.

“Hi everyone!  So how are y’all doing today?”

There was a small buzz of replies.

“Good, good,” he said brightly.  “Now, I want all of you to turn to a neighbor and tell them three interesting things that happened today.  After you’re done with that, take five minutes to talk about what we discussed during yesterday’s lesson.”

My first thought was to turn to Ryeowook, but then I remembered what Sunny had told me.  I might as well work at one of the goals I had set for the day.  So I turned to Hyuna instead.

“Hi,” I said carefully.  “Uh, so do you wanna go first?”

She shrugged and tucked her orange hair behind her ear.

“Yeah, sure, why not.  Three interesting things… nothing much happened to me today, but the cafeteria served a half-decent breakfast for once, Sooyoung complimented me on my drawing during art therapy, and my cousin said that she would come by later today during visiting hours to give me the Beast album she ordered for me a few weeks ago.”

I looked up with interest.  Beast was a popular boy group under Cube Entertainment.  I admired Yoseob’s vocals and Hyunseung’s dancing skills.

“Really?  Which album is it?”

“Time.  It came out a while ago, but I haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet because I’ve been stuck here.”

“But I thought we weren’t allowed to have electronics here,” I said, confused.

She looked around for a second to make sure Onew wasn’t listening and leaned in closer to me.

“We’re not.  There’s no wi-fi here, but my cousin brings a music player with her every time she visits and it has a bunch of songs on there.  I order the album because of the photobooks, even though I can’t listen to the actual music.”

“Oh, that’s cool,” I said.  Onew walked over to our spot and I abruptly changed the topic.  “Anyways,” I said rather loudly so that he wouldn’t realize that Hyuna was talking about breaking the hospital rules.  “Three interesting things that happened to me this morning…” I made up a few random things because aside from the art therapy session, nothing much had happened.

As soon as Onew was gone, I turned back to Hyuna, who rolled her eyes in Onew’s general direction.

“That was close,” she muttered.  “I really hate how he checks to make sure we’re actually talking about the stuff he wants us to talk about.”

“I don’t really know much about him, but from what I’ve seen so far, he seems… kind of…” I struggled to find the right words.

“Annoying as ?”  Hyuna suggested helpfully.  She laughed and I laughed along with her.

“Yeah, I guess.  I think he means well, but--”

“-- the stuff he does is so annoying,” she finished, smirking up at me.  We spent the next few minutes complaining about Onew instead of talking about what we had learned yesterday, speaking quietly enough so that he wouldn’t overhear us.

“Alright everyone, let’s wrap it up!”  I heard after a while.  Onew clapped his hands twice and the conversation slowly died down.  “So, yesterday we talked about thinking positive thoughts.  Today’s session is kind of related to that as well.  Since we’re already on the topic of positive things, we’re going to be talking about self-care and how to be kind to yourself.”

We spent the next hour brainstorming and discussing ideas and writing them down in our journals.  Towards the end, we did an exercise where we were each given fictional situations and we had to tell the rest of the group how to overcome that situation using the techniques Onew had talked to us about.

The topic Onew had assigned me was how to cope with the loss of a loved one.  I tried to remember that Onew had good intentions, but it had taken a huge amount of self-control to stop myself from choking the life out of him for bringing up such a personal topic.

It wasn’t just me.  I didn’t know much about the others’ personal lives and problems, but I could tell by their facial expressions that Onew had triggered something in them.  Ryeowook’s topic was how to stop worrying about weight gain and eat without regretting anything.  He looked like he was going to cry at any second, and the fact that lunch was just around the corner didn’t help.

Heechul was absent from lunch because he had broken down in tears and started screaming at Onew.  So I ate my jajangmyeon and fruit salad with Hyuna and Wendy and Daehyun instead.  Meanwhile, over at Ryeowook’s table, TOP was actually in tears.  Sooyoung was looking away from the large bowl of food in front of her, which was only half-finished.  Ryeowook’s bowl was completely untouched.

After lunch, our vital signs were taken again and we had recreational therapy in Room 704, which I later learned was referred to as the common room.  I sat next to Hyuna on the floor cushions and we talked about various kpop groups and our biases and our favorite songs.  I revealed my dream of joining SM, and she told me about her dreams of joining Cube and working with her ultimate bias, Hyunseung.  Most of the others watched an episode of a historical drama I didn’t know the name of.  Heechul was back and he was sitting in a corner with TOP, brooding over a cup of coffee.  Ryeowook was nowhere to be seen.

After recreational therapy, a social worker named Dara came by, the same Dara from 2NE1.  She talked about how important it was to pursue our dreams, no matter how radical or impossible they seemed.  I noticed that CL was sulking in a corner the entire time, refusing to interact with Dara.  I figured she was probably bitter about the breakup of 2NE1, but she looked so disheartened that I didn’t approach her.

Ryeowook finally showed up in our room halfway through visiting hour, looking extremely upset.  I could tell as soon as the door opened.  His feet dragged along the floor and his eyes were dark with despair.  He glanced at the drawing I was working on, but he didn’t say anything about it.  He walked over to his bed and slumped backwards on it with a sigh.  He closed his eyes and was quiet.

I didn’t want to bother him because he looked like he didn’t want to be bothered, but I couldn’t resist looking up after a minute.  To my shock, there were tears leaking from under his closed eyes and rolling down his cheeks.

My instincts took over.  I put down my sketchbook and my pencil and got off my bed.  It creaked loudly, but Ryeowook didn’t look up.

Not until I sat down, wrapped my arms around him, and rested my chin on his shoulder.  A few seconds later, I could feel him shaking with silent cries.  I didn’t know how to deal with a crying Ryeowook, but I hugged him more tightly.  He didn’t raise his head, but I murmured something comforting and his soft hair.

“Thank you, Sungmin hyung,” I heard after a few minutes.  Then he slowly released himself from my grip and lay back down, closing his eyes again.

He obviously didn’t want to talk about it, but I slowly realized that I wanted him to open up to me.  I wanted to help him with his problems.

Hi my readers/subscribers ^^ yah I finally decided to take the time to update... I'm so, so, so sorry that I haven't updated for 2 months... but I had a severe case of writer's block D;

I'll try to update more frequently but it took me a long time to write this and I don't really know how to continue this fic... but I'll try my best ^^

Thank you for being patient with me ^^

This is kinda unedited... sorry D; but I need to sleep now and I have school tomorrow but I'll edit this as soon as I can XD

Thank you for reading, comment, subscribe, and upvote if you haven't already, and have a lovely day everyone ^^