[Year 23]

"Do I have to get myself admitted to the hospital to be able to see you for more than five minutes?"

Something slammed itself onto the table and it shook vehemently, as though an earthquake just happened. Well, technically, an earthquake in the form of a girl did just happen.

"You could try?" I lifted my head, eyes narrowing into crescents upon seeing her and her unamused expression but hey, it's her. I stuck out my tongue, “Okay, not funny.”

“Of course it’s not. Who on earth would joke about that.” Her hands moved and my eyes automatically darted in that direction, widening in size when two large bags filled my sight. I sniffed and as though the faint aroma that I’ve smelled was a spell, my chest swelled on its own. My hands reached towards them but she quickly swatted them away. “Go away, I’ll unpack them for you.”

I withered, hands and cheek meeting with the cold surface of the table. My eyelids fluttered shut on their own but I willed them to open when a soft sigh broke the silence of the room. “Sheesh, you look like death.” My eyes flitted to her, lids still straining to stay open despite the strong urge to close them because– “How many days have you not slept?”

“About four?” I breathed, fingers creeping towards my face and I hurriedly got them to prop my eyelids open because I could feel the exhaustion washing over me. I can’t afford to fall asleep, not because of the fact that I was still on duty and my body has been tuned to wake up to the slightest vibration of the small pager in my coat pocket, but because she’s here. She’s finally here. “I’ve taken naps but who am I kidding, those naps amount to nothing.”

As if on cue, I yawned loudly, tears forming in my eyes and my mouth was about to shut when something warmth brushed past my lips and heat filled the insides of my mouth. Something slipped past my lips and a soft instruction to chew, Yixing travelled to my ears. So I listened and moved my mouth, teeth biting down into softness. My eyes snapped open immediately because mm I recognise this taste. “Stir-fried pork in soy sauce?!”

She laughed, and her laughter resonated with the silence that had disappeared with its appearance. “Yeah, it is. Good sense of taste, Xing.” My eyes darted to her, taking in the fond smile on her face, the dirtied spoon twirling in her fingers, the numerous containers of food placed on the table surface between us. “Time for your breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Eat up!”

I inhaled, and all hell broke loose.

“How did you manage to make that pork with soy sauce so similar to my mum’s? The proportion of whatever she adds into the dish is challenging to get and, mind you, I’ve been trying to perfect that dish for years.”

I slumped against the back of the chair, feet propped up on the table where the containers of food used to be, but now they were being packed back into the bags where they were taken out from. Deft hands ensured that each container had been wiped down with napkins and tightly covered with the correct lid before it went into the bags. I watched, fondly, as she did that. A hint of a small smile tugged at the corners of her lips.

“Your mum heard about my plan to visit you,” She said, hands still keeping the numerous containers back into the bags. Her brows furrowed and the hint of a small smile disappeared, turning into a slight frown, when one of the bags proved too full to be zipped up. She tugged at the zipper, gradually applying more force each time she failed and just when I knew that she would yell in frustration, I gently pushed her hands out of the way and attempted to try my luck at it. I successfully zipped it up, and averted a mini World War. She sighed resignedly as I chuckled softly, hand reaching up to ruffle her hair playfully. “Thanks, Xing.”

“You’re welcome, s–” An affectionate Sweetheart stopped itself from slipping out of my lips and the knowing gaze that she gave me seemed to say something about it. But if she knew, she didn’t pursue. So I hurriedly changed the topic, “You said something about my mother…?”

“Oh. Oh yeah.” The knowing look in her eyes didn’t subside, but she did tear her eyes away to focus on packing the other bag, her deft hands working swiftly again. “She would have come to visit you on her own, but then your dad had already booked a cruise trip for their twenty-eighth wedding anniversary so your mother couldn’t do anything about that.” Her face scrunched up into an adorable oh-well expression that strongly pulled at the corners of my lips. “Then, she overheard me asking Xiumin for permission to head to the hospital, and decided to teach me that recipe so it’d kind of be her birthday gift to you.”

I nodded, but then did a double-take and spluttered, “W-Wait, you asked permission from Xiumin-hyung to come here?”

“I think this past week of staying here has done something to your brain, Xing.” A smirk threatens to replace the confused expression on her face, and she let it. “Your Xiumin-hyung is a cleanliness freak, always going on and on about washing hands before eating, washing your feet after going outside, showering yourself even if you’ve done nothing at home. So, imagine, I came here without his knowledge and when I return home, he finds out about it.”

I winced, knowing full well how Xiumin-hyung would react because hey, even though I haven’t been home for the past one week, that doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten about my friends’ quirks and habits.

“Exactly,” As though she could read my mind, she winced too. “He is going to freak out and start shrieking germs, germs, germs in my houseeeeeee! And mind you, I don’t want to have to call Luhan again to calm him down.” The wince on her face spread and I knew she had recalled that.

Months ago, both Kai and Jen had gone on a short three-day trip with the students that the boy teaches at the elementary division. It was an adventure camp situated in a forest of some sort and when they returned, a war almost broke out. The instance they stepped back into the house, Xiumin-hyung was already in the living room and boy, looking murderous was a severe understatement. Needless to say, all thirteen of us (yes, including Luhan-hyung whom Kris-hyung frantically kept trying to