[A/N: This is not beta'd yet, since my Beta's kind of busy right now with midterms around the corner. Bear my mistakes pls.]

Chapter 17 – Visit

访问
（一）Thumb and pinky of dominant hand pointed, pinky facing downwards
（二）Dominant hand draws a circle in that position
（三）Extend index finger, tap mouth twice

The next day started rather chaotic – after what felt like maybe two hours of sleep Yifan got up around seven just to receive the news that the doctors had decided on keeping Yixing for another night. Which, of course, caused the patient to be extremely upset when Yifan and Zhenzhen entered his room with a bag of new clothes.
“I don’t want to stay here!” he proclaimed with his arms crossed in defense.
The nurse had exchanged the plastic shields over his ears with two plasters and a simple bandage which made him look less ridiculus. If it wasn’t for Yixing’s bad mood, his sister surely would’ve dropped a comment about it.
“What’s the reason for keeping you?” Zhenzhen asked while she sat down next to him and tried to comfort him with a hug, but Yixing retreated and fled into Yifan’s arms instead as he stood next to him to inspect the platter of food that was still leftover from breakfast.
Yixing mumbled something into Yifan’s shirt, but nobody understood what he said and right in that moment Dr. Lopez made her appearance, as if she had just waited for the moment Yifan and Zhenzhen would come over.
“Good morning!” she greeted, “I came to check on Yixing.”
Yixing realized his doctor had entered the room and he told Yifan to ask her to let him go home.
“Dr. Lopez,” Yifan started, “Could you tell us why you want to keep him for another night?”
The woman nodded and took a look at the file she carried around with her.
“Well, it’s nothing serious as far as I can tell, but the two nurses from the late- and nightshift reported that Yixing collapsed twice so we decided to keep him another night under our supervision just to make sure.”
Zhenzhen’s mouth dropped and she turned to her brother:
“You fainted?”
Yixing bristled with anger and tried to defend himself:
“That was yesterday, after an operation and barely anything to eat, I feel much better today!”
“He says he’s feeling good.”
“Oh, does he?” Dr. Lopez asked and turned to Yixing, “On a scale from one to ten, how would you categorize the pain? Be honest.”
Dr. Wang had obviously taught her some of the most important CSL movements for her ward rounds. Yixing hesistated before he admitted the pain was a solid seven, even almost an eight. Dr. Lopez clicked her tongue and said:
“If your pain isn’t at least down to a five or a four I’m afraid you’re not going anywhere.”
Yixing wailed at her statement and signed:
“I’m not a minor anymore, they can’t keep me her against my will, right? I want to be released today, Yifan!”
“Yixing, don’t be like that, we shouldn’t risk anything,” Zhenzhen threw in, “I think maybe another night under professional supervision isn’t such a bad idea. You’ve gone through a major operation, give yourself a break for once!”
“I can give myself a break at home, where I can actually rest!”
“Why do you always have to be so stubborn?!”
While a small argument emerged between the siblings, Yifan turned to the doctor whose CSL knowledge had left her already and she could only guess what the two were fighting about.
“So, you think another night here is necessary?”
She sighed, and said:
“Believe me, we’re happy about every free bed we can spare and we usually release our patients the day after the operation, but Yixing has gotten two implants at once, and the body needs time to cope with that procedure. According to the nurses he didn’t just feel a little dizzy while brushing his teeth in the bathroom - he fainted. Would you know what to do if he lost conscious in your living room if I let him go and the same happens again?”
Yifan had to be honest with himself and say no. He actually had not the slightest idea about medical care. Surely he knew how to cure a cold or what to do about minor injuries like cuts and bruises, but apart from that… Yifan had to admit that maybe keeping him close to a nurse for one more night might not be the worst idea.
“Yixing,” he said and received his attention when he grabbed his boyfriend’s hand, “Maybe they’re right and you should stay for another night.”
Yixing who had obviously counted on Yifan’s support snapped back his hand and stared at his boyfriend as if he had betrayed him.
“What’s that supposed to mean?!”
“I’m just saying… What if something happens to you while you’re home and I don’t know what to do?”
“I won’t… I’m fine, really!”
“You just said that you’d categorize the pain as an eight. That’s not fine,” Yifan protested and it took him another five minutes to make Yixing finally give in and he agreed on staying one more night.
When Dr. Lopez had left the room, Yixing was very upset though and kind of ignored everything Yifan said who sensed that the younger’s bad mood was grounded in disappointment over Yifan taking the doctor’s side. To solve this problem, he could only think of one way so he told Zhenzhen to help Yixing get changed, while he pulled out his phone and went for the door. When Yifan had exited the room, his phone was already dialing Suho’s number.
“Oh my god finally!” The Korean cried into the device, “I was worried sick! Is everything alright with Yixing? I feared for the worst!”
“Yes and no,” Yifan said and rolled his eyes at Suho’s overdramatical statement.
Yixing wasn’t in here because he was dying.
“What does that mean?”
“The doctors decided to keep him another night. Seems like he didn’t take the stress too well so they just want to make sure he’s alright.”
“Oh…”
Suho stayed silent for a minute and then he asked:
“Is he allowed visitors?”
“That’s why I’m calling you,” Yifan said and somehow cursed himself already, “I think he might be happy if you’d swing by around noon. He’s upset and maybe his friend could help him lift his mood.”
Suho’s answer was a squeal and Yifan had to hold the phone away from his ear because it was way too loud.
“Of course!! I’ll come over as soon as my classes are over! What room is he staying in?”
“You’ll have to go to building three, room 260,” the Chinese informed.
“Got it. See you later then!”

A few hours later, Yixing was still mad about the fact he’d not be released today, but at least he was talking to Yifan again and even played some cards with him and his sister. A knock on the door made Yifan and Zhenzhen lift their heads.
“Yeah, come in!” Yifan called and the door opened - and with it, a huge plush unicorn appeared in the doorframe.
Zhenzhen raised her eyebrows and then Suho lowered that horrible thing and cried out:
“Hellooooo!”
Yifan wished himself death. Talking about dramatic appearances.
“Yifan, who is this?” Zhenzhen asked when Suho closed the door and Yixing started to beam from one ear to the other.
“That’s Suho,” he explained and got knocked over by Suho’s present as the Korean proceeded to hug Yixing.
“Darling, how are you?” Suho asked and Yixing admitted that he was okay – not good, but not bad either.
“Suho, what the ??” Yifan butted in and waved the unicorn in front of Suho’s face.
“Oh yeah!” he exclaimed, took it out of Yifan’s hands and handed it over to Yixing, who looked at it as if he didn’t know what to do with it, “I heard unicorns have healing powers! So I got you one! With that, you’ll be out of here in no time!”
Zhenzhen snorted while Yifan felt a headache creeping up on his temples. Why was Suho like that? Why couldn’t he just bring over some flowers or a get well card like normal people would do? Why in the world did he have to buy the ugliest plushed animal that a store could offer?
“Thank you, Suho,” Yixing said and it looked as if he was really touched by the gesture – he smiled and placed his chin on the head of that ugly thing.
In Yifan’s eyes, this unicorn looked more like a hippo with a horn attached to its forehead, but he somehow sensed that he wasn’t in the position to make a snarky comment.
“Soooo, what are you guys doing?” Suho chattered and grabbed a chair to sit down next to Yixing, completely shoving Yifan away.
“Oh, you know, it’s hospital, you don’t get to do very much,” Zhenzhen said and collected the cards that had been spread over Yixing’s bed which made Suho finally notice her.
“Eh? Who are you?”
“I’m Zhenzhen, Yixing’s little sister.”
As the information sunk in, the door swung open again and in stormed Tao, Luhan and Minseok.
“Sorrryyyyyyyyyy, we tried to come as soon as possible!” Tao yelled and Luhan threw a book onto Yixing’s bed.
“We brought you something to read so in case you cannot sleep tonight you won’t get bored!”
Yixing was startled, and so was Yifan.
“How…?” he started but Tao interrupted him:
“Suho told us to come over, so we bailed on our last classes for today. It took a little longer though because we had to get that book and Luhan couldn’t decide on which one to buy.”
“I didn’t want to get a bad one okay?”
“But… I only asked Suho to come over?”
The Korean made a surprised sound, as if this was news to him.
“But you said ‘his friends could lift his mood’ so I thought I’d summon the others too.”
Yifan closed his eyes, definitely feeling the headache now, and asked himself why everything had to escalate with his friends.
“I didn’t use plural, Suho! I said friend! Meaning one person!”
It wasn’t like Yifan tried to keep the others from visiting Yixing, but he wasn’t so sure if all of them coming to see him at once were a good idea. His plan had been to get Suho over, who surely could get Yixing’s mind off the happenings in the morning, and the others could come over when he was back home and a little better on his feet. Suho had destroyed that plan but he didn’t seem to feel guilty about it.
“I never understand you when you talk on the phone! You just swallow the words! Are you sure you did even speak Mandarin and not Cantonese??”
“Watch it, my Mandarin is better than yours!”
“I’m not Chinese, you !”
“Well, I’m happy you’re here guys!” Yixing threw in and thanked the three for the book.
Luhan had bought a Chinese copy of ‘The Fault in our Stars’, admitting he had never read it before, but the shop assistant had highly recommended it. Of course the others were curious about the operation and Yixing tried to satisfy their curiousity as much as possible, given the fact that he had spent most of the last day narcotized and therefore didn’t remember very much. They took also a big interest in Zhenzhen since Yixing had never mentioned having a sister before. They spent about an hour talking before the remaining two persons knocked and entered: Sehun and Yinhang. Of course they had to endure some rather immature comments on why they came so late, but Yixing seemed too happy about their coming to care much about their late arrival.
“Sorry for that, but I just had to go to the bank to withdraw some money,” Yinhang said and kept searching in her bag for something.
She then pulled out a bundle of one hundred Yuan bills and waved it in front of the others.
“Remember my little bet with Yixing? I won! Ha!”
She handed the money over to the patient, a victorious grin on her face.
“Um, excuse me?” Yifan said, while Yixing examined the bundle and then took it carefully.
“I got the message that the last painting has arrived at its destination last week but I thought I’d wait a little to drop the news,” she explained and clapped her hands, “And get this: I’ve already got three others who asked if new paintings will be arriving in our store!”
Once again, she searched for something in her bag and handed Yixing a few sheets of paper.
“Here, screenshots from comments and the mails I got from the new owners.”
Yifan pushed Suho aside to check for himself.  Judging from her screenshots, she had put an awful lot of time and effort into the layout of the online store. She had also saved the e-mails from the customers and other interests that indeed asked if the artist would be selling any new paintings anytime soon. One page with the customers’ information gave away that one painting had been sold to a guy in Beijing, two had gone to Shanghai, one to Chengdu and the last one had been bought by somebody in Changsha. Yixing lowered the last page with comments about the pictures and looked at Yinhang in disbelief.
“Yeah, thank me later. So, I’ll send you the details about the painting you owe me as soon as you’re fully recovered, okay?”
A bet was a bet so Yixing had to keep his promise and even though he did not like it very much, he asked Yifan to take the money with him when he’d be leaving in the evening. Yifan had expected a lot more resistance from Yixing’s side about accepting the money but then again – his boyfriend was still under the influence of a lot of painkillers, maybe he didn’t really fully understand the news that Yinhang had just broken. He also did not seem to realize that Yinhang was now fully motivated to make this her new project, since she also dropped that if Yixing had any paintings he needed to get rid of, she’d be happy to sell them again because it was fun somehow.
“Admit it, Yifan: I’m amazing, aren’t I?”
“Okayyyyy, Yinhang, let it go for now!”
Sehun grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her away from Yixing and he explained:
“She’s been bragging about it for a few hours now I cannot hear it anymore.”
“A few hours?” Suho asked and raised an eyebrow, but the Korean man and the Chinese woman just sighed and decided to ignore him and the others who looked at the two like they owed them an explanation – which never came.
The friends stayed the whole afternoon and entertained Yixing as well as they could while Yifan stayed a little in the back, occasionally throwing in his obligatory sarcastic comments. Once they even went to the cafeteria together and when the nurse on duty on their floor saw that Yixing was (slowly, but steadily) walking down the corridor laughing about a joke that Tao had just told, she smiled in approval, as if that was just exactly what she wanted to see for his recovery. After an either very late lunch or a very early dinner at the cafeteria, one after another had to go home and before visiting hours were coming to an end, it was only Zhenzhen, Yifan and Suho who sat beside Yixing’s bed.
“Okay, Suho, let’s go and give the last twenty minutes to our couple, shall we?”
Her question was more of the rethorical kind and she gave her brother a big kiss on the cheek, promising to be back tomorrow and then she grabbed Suho’s arm to drag him with her. He barely had a chance to say goodbye himself. When they were alone, Yifan didn’t know what to say because he still felt Yixing might be angry with him.
“Are you seriously going to stand there for the next twenty minutes?”
“I don’t know, do you want me to?”
Yixing’s answer was an epic eye roll, and he looked awfully lot like his sister in that moment. Afterwards he patted the free space on his bed. Yifan pushed himself off the wall and sat down on the bed, facing Yixing who placed his hand on his boyfriend’s knee.
“I’ll take you home tomorrow, I promise.”
“Please, because I cannot handle another disgusting hospital lunch.”
Yifan snorted, laid down next to the patient and asked:
“So what do you want for lunch tomorrow?”
Yixing thought about it for a moment and then admitted:
“I’m kind of craving Hongshaorou ever since I got here.”
Yifan made a disgusted face – he hated that dish, not necessarily because it tasted bad, but because he just simply despised pork belly. He never quite understood why people would eat meat that consisted more of fat than anything else, but he wasn’t the one who had gotten his skull cut open and some devices inserted, so it wasn’t his turn to complain. Instead he said:
“Copy that. I’ll get you some after I picked you up.”
“Sorry I know you don’t like it very much…”
“It’s okay. Your wish is my command.”
Besides, he could still get something else to eat. Meals in China never consisted of just one dish anyway. Yifan shifted his weight a little so he didn’t just lay on the mattress of the bed halfway with one leg dangling down and then he realized how comfortable it actually was.
“It is, but I still couldn’t sleep. The nurse takes your vitals every hour or so and wakes you up,” Yixing explained after Yifan had voiced his thoughts – or put them into Sign Language for that matter.
“I didn’t sleep well either,” Yifan admitted, “I let Zhenzhen sleep in our bed and I moved to the couch and that was really uncomfortable.”
Yixing stopped short and then started to giggle.
“What’s wrong? Still high on painkillers?” Yifan asked because he couldn’t follow what was so funny about his statement.
His back really ached a lot because of that god damn couch that was way too small for him. He wasn’t even able to stretch out his feet without them hanging over the armrest.
“You just said ‘our’ bed.”
When Yifan’s eyes widened in shock, Yixing tried hard to bite back his laughter but then he couldn’t hold it back anymore.
“I… I mean… I wasn’t…”
“Tell me, if this is our apartment then, why am I the only paying rent?”
“It’s YOURS! It’s all yours!!” Yifan blabbered but the damage was already done and Yixing had a blast teasing him.
“I mean, since we’re already engaged…”
“It doesn’t count when one party doesn’t even remember that moment!”
“Since when is that a rule?”
Suddenly, Yifan felt horribly reminded of the conversation with Yinhang when she had denied that she was going on a date with Sehun (but seriously, who was she kidding? Yifan just knew something was up and he was the last person on this earth she could fool). He kind of denied that he had hopelessly fallen for Yixing. And who was he to fool himself?
“Pfff. It surely is!”
Yifan was spared another comment but still had to bear Yixing’s wide victorious grin for another five minutes before the nurse crashed the scene and made Yifan shoot up.
“What are you doing in a patient’s bed with your shoes on?!” she yelled at him and Yifan was so eager to get off the mattress as fast as possible he kind of tangled his own legs, stumbled over them and was only saved by the wall to not fall down on his face.
“I--- umm….?”
She had brought some new bandages and just shook her head when Yifan tried to explain that they hadn’t been doing anything but talk and Yixing pressed his lips together to surpress the next laughing fit before it had the chance to break out. The nurse, somewhere in her forties but looking way older than that, sighed and asked:
“Are you the person who’s going to take care of him?”
“Um. Yeah.”
She waved him over.
“I’ll show you how to keep the surgical site clean until the stitches come out. He says he can do it himself, but you’re better safe than sorry.”
The other one tried hard to walk over to her in a very casual way but he failed horribly and hit his thigh on the end of the bed and Yixing snorted once again, while the nurse just eyed Yifan as if she was asking him if he was sure he could take care of another human being when he himself wasn’t even able to walk.
“Okay, just watch closely. There’s nothing difficult about it,” she said when Yifan stood next to her and pulled off the first plaster.
The cut started right behind Yixing’s earlobe and went around the back of his ear up to his skull, drawing a bow of maybe two inches at the most. The stitches made it look much worse than it probably was, at least Yixing did not even flinch when the nurse went over the cut with some antiseptic lotion and then put a new plaster over it.
“Easy, right?” she asked and hovered to the other side to get the other ear done, shooting Yifan a even-you-cannot-mess-this-up-look.
“Yeah…” he grunted and felt a little attacked by her behavior.
When she was done with Yixing, she took a look at her wristwatch, and then said:
“I’ll be back in five minutes with his dinner. By then, you’re out.”
When she had left Yifan said:
“She is so RUDE!”
Yixing nodded in agreement and then reached out for Yifan’s hand. Yifan took it and was once again amazed how large his hand was compared to Yixing’s but yet it fit into his in an odd way.
“You better get going.”
Yifan let out a huge sigh and had to accept his fate.
“Maybe you’re right. I don’t know what Suho and Zhenzhen are up to.”
A pull on his hand made Yifan stumble once again, this time into the direction of his boyfriend. He managed to stop before their heads could collide and Yixing said:
“Yes, go check on her. And make sure she’s doesn’t trash our apartment.”
A groan of frustration escaped Yifan’s mouth, but Yixing unknowingly silenced him with his lips that were still a little dry from yesterday’s lack of hydration. Yifan placed another kiss on Yixing’s forehead and then asked:
“Will you be fine?”
“I have to, right?” was Yixing counterquestion and then he grabbed the unicorn that had been placed on the chair next to his bed, “I’ve got a new friend to cuddle with. He’s not you, but it’s better than nothing.”
Yifan only rolled his eyes and gave Yixing another peck on the cheek, before he finally brought himself to leave for the door. When he opened it, the nurse rushed beside him, carrying Yixing’s dinner with her.
“I was just about to leave!” Yifan said, hends hald up as if surrendering to the police (which would be her in this case).
“Good. Good night,” she only said before she walked over to Yixing’s bed and Yifan finally closed the door behind him.
Zhenzhen had waited in the hallway on another pink chair. Suho was already gone.
“Hungry?” she asked when he had approached her.
“Kind of.”
“I don’t know about you but I’d kill for some Pizza right now.”
“I know a good store at Wudaokou.”
Zhenzhen squealed and linked her arm with Yifan’s.
“Then what are we waiting for?!”

A/N: GOD DAMNIT I SWEAR TO GOD why did this chapter take me so long to type ugh. Those of you who follow me on twitter might know what I mean I tried to push myself to finish this thing like... every day and sometimes I only got two sentences done. Excuse the lack of Fanxing, IT WILL GET BETTER I PROMISE.
I guess a lot of you already sense that we're nearing the end, but I cannot tell you how many more chapters will be coming up - maybe two or three, depending on whether or not I can get rid of this horrible writer's block. Plus an Epilogue. Woop, woop.
BY THE WAY I need to ramble a little so much happened this week, like Showxing on that Red Carpet or Yifan releasing his song... I mean oh god this song is trash but I love it????? Oh and who allowed him to associate with Wang Sicong that man is so nasty ide... I hope Fan Bingbing drags his and he comes to his senses again this is unacceptable imo. UGH. Okay. I needed to get that off my chest thank you.

See you around~