Hyuna stared blankly at the sheet of paper set before her. She chewed the inside of her lip and fiddled with the hem of her shirt as she sat on the floor in the common room at the low table. The doctor had given her an assignment and one that she could not follow through on: write a goodbye letter to her mother. Unable to even begin thinking about the words to write, Hyuna glanced around the room until she settled on Kibum, who was perched on the couch and staring at her with dull eyes as if waiting to see what she would write if she did at all. She lowered her head her lip trembled; this was cruel, absolutely cruel.

Without thinking, she slowly moved onto the couch next to Kibum and lay her head on his shoulder, reaching for his arm to hold. They sat together in silence, listening to each other breathe and the echoing ticks of the clock on the wall, counting down the seconds until Jongwoon would return with their nightly doses of medication before leaving for the evening.

“Hey, Kibum?” Hyuna whispered lightly, staring at her pink socks. “Do you think when your father comes to visit I could come with you? It’s just that I don’t have anyone that comes to see me.”

Kibum said nothing, but she hadn’t expected him to.

“You’re really lucky, you know that? I heard that you have a big family with a lot of brothers. I wish I had some brothers, even if it was just one. It’s just me and my mom, you know. I know I already told you, but she has cancer. I’m not allowed to see her though, and so that’s why I was wondering if I could come with you when your father comes to visit.”

Hyuna sighed quietly and blinked as her eyes watered up with tears that she wouldn’t let fall. The doctor was such a cruel man to refuse her request to visit her mother and then to turn around and tell her to write a goodbye letter to her. Her mother was down on the third floor, the cancer floor, and clearly the doctor’s there were complete quacks because there was no way she was dying. She wasn’t dying and there was no need to write a goodbye letter. Hyuna supposed that if that were true then she didn’t really need to visit either, but it had just been so long since she’d last seen her.

“You know, I heard a rumor that we’re getting some new clothes up here. I hope it’s true, I’m so tired of wearing white all the time. They should bring us colorful pajamas like pink for me and red for you. That would look cute together, right?”

Kibum let out a soft breath and Hyuna smiled widely, deciding that he agreed with her. Before she had a chance to respond, there were footsteps coming from down the hall and she quickly scoot a foot away from Kibum just as Jongwoon entered the room with a tray full of cups of water and little cups of pills.

“Alright, then, let’s get you two your meds and then it’s off to bed!” Jongwoon announced as he set the tray down on the table. He took notice of the blank sheet of paper but made no comment; what the doctor did was no business of his, he was merely a nurse.

“Why do we have to go to bed so early? It’s barely eight ‘o clock!” Hyuna complained, casting a quick look at the clock. She grudgingly accepted her water and quickly swallowed down the white pill handed to her, grimacing at the aftertaste it left in . “You know, you could at least bring us a snack to go with it. Teddy Grahams or something like that.”

“I brought you an entire basket full of snacks yesterday,” Jongwoon responded, looking around the room only to find the basket tossed in the corner empty of all treats.

“Yeah, well that was yesterday and we ate them all,” Hyuna smirked, recalling the previous night when she and Kibum has wandered back into the common room near midnight and ate the entire content of the basket.

Jongwoon gently popped one rather large pill into Kibum’s mouth before tilting the cup of water so that he swallowed it; so far he’d been taking the new medication for a week and a half but there wasn’t much of a change that he could see. B