Friday, June 20^th, 2014

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Areum’s head snapped to the side in irritation, reaching out to silence the annoying alarm. Unfortunately, her hand was only met with a series of wires and cold metal. The repetitive noise didn’t stop, so she curiously let her eyes open to form a little slit.

All she could see was white, white and white. This definitely was not her room.

Suddenly remembering the last events in her night, she gasped before bolting to sit upright. Areum found herself in a clean white bed clad in a blue hospital gown. Her arm was pricked with an IV, and her heart rate was being tracked by a bedside monitor. “What the hell happened in that cave?” She muttered to herself, massaging her temples in anxiety.

“Areum!” A voice yelled as the door was swung open.

“Huh?”

“Oh, thank god you’re awake!” Her aunt bent down to cup her face between her hands. “I don’t know what would have happened if I lost you…”

“What even happened to me?” Areum grumbled, her eyebrows pinching together.

“Why don’t you ask your friends?” Her aunt said lowly.

“Jongdae!” Areum screamed. “What happened to him?” Her hands gripped at the white sheets, her knuckles turning white.

When her aunt didn’t respond, she felt close until she could barely breath. Once again, she found her surroundings fading away into blobs of plain colors. Even the voices around her seemed like they were miles away.

The next time she woke up, the people around her were far different, though she was in the same room as before.

“Oh my god, she’s awake!” A female voice hissed.

Areum groaned while rolling over on her side. “Wakey wakey;” Another voice hummed softly.

“Why do you guys seem so familiar?” Areum mumbled, straining her eyes to focus on the three figures positioned on her bedside.

“May be because you spent the last two weeks with us?” One of them deadpanned.

“Jongdae!” She almost yelled and got up, but they were quick to push her back down into a sitting position.

“We’re here too, you know!” The Namjoo and Minseok exclaimed.

“Oh, hey guys.” Areum blinked.

“How are you feeling?” Namjoo asked, pushing a stray hair out of Areum’s face.

“Like absolute crap.”

“Aw, it’ll get better soon!” She leaned forward to envelop the girl in a tight hug.

“Honestly this doesn’t feel much different than the day after finals week.” Areum mumbled.

Namjoo and Minseok chuckled lightly at her cute humor, but quieted down after a few moments. There was a lot of information that they were withholding from Areum, but she was in no condition to hear about it.

“I’m not stupid, you know.” Areum whispered softly when the two didn’t say anything more. “I deserve to know what happened to me.”

Namjoo inhaled nervously while Minseok closed his eyes momentarily. “It was an accident.” The male deadpanned.

“Care to elaborate?”

“You were almost crushed by a boulder in a cave, and someone saw the cave in from afar so they called an ambulance. That’s the short version of the story, at least.” Minseok swallowed, kneading his fingers on his lap.

Areum gasped, once again falling into a state of panic. “If I was crushed, what happened to Jongdae? Is he okay?”

When they simply looked at her with unreadable expressions, she moved to remove the various devices holding her captive to the bed. “He’s in this hospital, isn’t he? He has to be.” She muttered to herself.

“Areum, don’t be so stupid! You’ll hurt yourself!” Namjoo growled, wrapping a hand around the girl’s wrist. Areum shook her off, but Minseok was quick to firmly seat her on the bed again.

“Look, we know you’re not in the best state of mind right now, but going crazy over him isn’t going to help you or Jongdae.” He held her hands gently, his voice thick with sincerity.

“Then why don’t you tell me the damn truth?” She exhaled heavily.

“We can’t, Areum. We really can’t.” Namjoo avoided her eyes, staring at the pristine white wall.

The next day, Areum was released from the hospital.

“I don’t want to yell at you, but just listen up this one time.” Her aunt said sternly as she pulled into the garage.

“Yes?” Areum pinched her eyebrows together.

“Please don’t do these risky things ever again. I don’t what I would have done if you were gone. So please, for your own sake, and for the sake of your family, please don’t try anything else like this.” The tears were beginning to pool in the woman’s eyes as she spoke, and Areum felt the guilty lump in grow at the sight. It really was unfair for her to run off with a boy and cause her loved ones so much pain.

“I promise I will be responsibly from now on, Aunty.” She leaned across the console to envelop her aunt in a warm hug.

But there was still one problem.

Jongdae was nowhere to be found, and that was what hurt her the most. 

I'm so sorry for the long wait >.<

Thank you to those who have continued to support this story, even if I went MIA for like 2 months...school gets in the way, ya know? 

I'll try my best to keep this rolling in the future; so thanks for being so patient. We're about 1 third of the way through the story! Also, I welcome my friend, Bts_lover13, who will be the proofreader for this story from this point on :)

Have an awesome day,

~Vixxy