He didn't wanted to be there anymore, he needed to get out. His head began to ache terribly and he was sure it was not because of the alcohol, besides everybody else seemed to be having fun and he wasn't. It was his birthday, he must be happy.

But it was hard when he faces his platonic love and groom of this, becoming corny as if there were no one else. As if he did not exist.

"Ming Are you okay? you look kinda green." SeungKwan asked loudly over electronic music.

The other five people at the table turned to him at the time, worried about the state of the Chinese. Jeonghan even got up from his place to go to check him closely.

"Just ... I'm not feeling well, have been  too many beers today." He said kindly pushing Jeonghan away.

"No more drinks for you... Why don't go to dance?" SeungKwan proposed. "So you could lighten the body."

Minghao shook his head, the desire to leave there taking more weight on his brain.

"I think I better go..."

"But it's your birthday..." SeokMin tried, as if he could not process that he wanted to go.

"I want to go... I'm... ahm, sorry for not staying but... I really do not feel good and do not want disturb."

Before recieving complaints about that sentence, Minghao quickly got up from his place and started away, walking to the exit. Trying to erase from his mind the images of SeokMin and that kid.

How had he been so stupid? It was obvious that SeokMin never would notice someone like him.

Once outside the pub, with heave steps he made his way to the parking lot looking for his car. The faster he could get out of there, better.

"Hey ... Hey, Minghao!"

Slowly he turned around, eyes searching from who had called him. A boy about his age came running.

"Stop right there!" Exclaimed the Chinese. "Do not come, I know martial arts."

The other boy scoffed at his  words, as he stopped.

"I will not hurt you, and I hope you to me either." the blonde commented with a smile on his face. "I'm a friend of SeokMin ... We met about an hour ago."

"What do you want?... ahm ... What was your name?"

"SoonYoung."

"Fine, I don't have time for this SunHyun, leave me alone." MingHao said. 

"It's SoonYoung." corrected the blonde. "I'll take you home, you can't drive in your state."

Minghao panted offended because Who do you think you are?

"First, I'm fine, I can drive, Second, I do not know you totally to let you drive my car." Minghao said raising an eyebrow.

"Wow, you're pretty different from what I thought." confessed SoonYoung scratching his neck. "That tender face of yours, is misleading."

Minghao snorted. "whatever, I'm leaving."

"Let me take you home ... You're very drunk."

"I'm fin-"

"You drank more than ten different drinks, and have not stopped to moving as we speak." SoonYoung interrupted. "Let me take you home."

"okay! fine!" MingHao Raised his hands in defeat. "you're annoying you know?"

"And your unfriendly." SoonYoung said taking the keys of the car.

 

[ ... ]

 

It was like any other day, it felt like any other day, it was only a matter of awakening.

Minghao felt it was a normal day in which he had to get up to go to college, consciousness gradually infiltrated his system by replacing the drowsiness which had his legs numb, last night he had fallen sleep like a rock.

Although Minghao  not specifically remember when and how he went to sleep. He is awake, but do not open his eyes yet, psyched the things he have to do, it's Saturday so he have to go to work at night.

After count to three he slowly open his eyes, the first thing he get is the sunlight hitting his face making him frown a close his eyelids, surely forgot to close the curtains.

After a few seconds, when he opens his eyes again, he realizes that it is not the sunlight who annoys his pupils, is a white lamp which shines brightly and is just up his body, so that's why hits him right in the face.

Minghao explores sight, even without leaving the place where he is. It is a room he doesn't know.

He is confused, he doesn't know what he does there, doesn't know how it got there, and does not know where is there. He listen some steps, one open door and then more steps, in a second has a woman at his side reviewing a folder.

"Oh, Mr. Xu is awake." She says with a smile. "Welcome back, I will fetch the doctor for examination, your family will be happy to know that you woke up, try not to move."

She is dressed in white, Minghao just notice it  when she leaves, so he turns to look around and for the first time repairs on the machine which is next to the bed and makes a constant sound, a high-pitched beep repeated while a green line go it way up and down on the screen of the machine, also notices the saline bag hanging which it is connected to his left arm.

He's in a hospital.

Hospitals, where the circle of life took place.

Many people were born there.

Many people died there.

Why is him in a hospital? he wonders and  affects him that can not find an answer.

The door opens again, so exaggerated and  his father enters wearing an expression between relief and sadness, behind him his mother who's bathed in tears, also makes her entrance, pushing his father from her way and going up to him to hug.

Minghao makes a muffled sound and apologizing she retires. His mother's still crying and  begins to tell (or stammers) how worried she was and other things to which Minghao does not pay attention.

His father remains silent, standing just behind his mother, when MingHao looks the man, he just looks at him smiling and posing a hand on his ankle still under the covers. Never before he had been so grateful about the personality of his father, always reserved and doing only what is necessary. He liked to have inherited that from him, not the boisterous personality of his mother.

She's controller, gossipy, exaggerated and extremely invasive. Minghao understand why they divorced, He also would have left. And he did, using the university as an excuse. He loves her, but he loves more when she's away.

Right now, he wasn't loving her a lot. She was too close.

Luckily, the doctor makes an appearance, looking dapper in his white coat and smiling like he was in a toothpaste commercial.

"Wow! You have finally awakened, you had us worried boy, but fortunately did not pass away." It's like the doctor begins. "I'm JoonMyun Kim, a graduate of the University of Seoul in traumatology and I am the doctor in charge of you, your iron levels and glucose are nice enough, your weight is normal, and your  erythrocytes and leukocytes are working well... You're pretty good actually."

The man held the same folder as the nurse had seconds before, and just like her, he checked the machine and the bag before turning to him, erasing the smile and putting on a serious face.

Very professional.

"Can you sit? "He asked and then added. "Let him do it alone, please."

Minghao looked left, where Dr. Kim had watched, and saw his parents sitting in an armchair, he remembered they were there, his mother was bent like a lion about to attack its prey, but in her case was a mother ready to do everything for her baby.

He wish they weren't there.

Carefully Minghao support forearms on the mattress and applied force to lift his torso  and sit, after he clasped his hands in his lap and began moving his toes, waiting for another instruction of the doctor.

"Good, I'll take off the blanket okay?" MingHao nodded and soon the sheets were torn from their place. "You can move your toes, that's good, try to move your feet, only feet."

Minghao shuffled his feet from side to side until the doctor ordered him to stop, the man write down things in the folder and then asked to bend his legs, and Minghao did so. Dr. Kim kept ordering to move every part of his body for a while and making notes.

"Well apparently there is no problem with your motor function ... Can you talk?"

What kind of question was that? Of course he could speak, he was not a child.

"I do not think you're a kid, so don't frown like that, you'll get old." Said the doctor and Minghao change his expression. "That's better, these are protocol questions, I apologize in advance if any offends you ... So which is it ...? Oh yeah, tell me your name, age, where you were born and where you live."

Minghao opened his mouth and tried to speak but no words came out, had a sore throat and his tongue felt numb.

"Easy buddy... Do not try much, go slowly if you want."

"M-my... nam-me's... Xu Minghao." He began hoarsely, then coughing. "I'm... Nin-... Nineteen... I was born in Anshan, Chi...na and live in Yongsan-gu with frie..nds."

"Well, your voice will soon be clear, it's just that you didn't used it these days ... Who are your parents?"

What? Days?

"Xù QianLi y Xù GengLu."

The doctor looked at his parents in the corner, and they nodded still looking worried bout' his son. It was the first time in a long time he saw them so close together; in his high school graduation he had to book two isolated places, one at each end, and go side by side after it ended the ceremony because they didn't wanted to see eachother.

"Do you have brothers or sisters?" Minghao denied. "Well, now we go with the tough questions, What day it is today?"

"Eight November." he responded with the same hoarse voice.

More notes in the folder.

"What was the last thing you did?"

Minghao took a moment to respond, with his brain working as quickly as it could. He remembered his friends looking for him in his classroom, and then going to lunch, they bought a cake ... It was his birthday.

Remembers SeokMin telling him that they had plans for the evening, but when he tried to remember what happened at night, he couldn't.

"There are ... things I can not remember." The brunette was surprised that had sounded so scared.

"Calm down, breathe ..." starts the doctor calmly. "Minghao today isn't November 8, is Monday, November 10 ... You had been asleep for two days, you had suffered a concussion caused by a car accident, Can you remember?

His mind works like a projector, showing small scenes of the accident, which come and go too quickly making him feel dizzy, as if he were back on the scene, there is a strong smell of gasoline filling his nostrils, although it is impossible. There is a somewhat annoying hum that resounds in his ears, and the room is spinning around.

"Minghao calm down, you need to breathe." says Dr. Kim.

But he can not control his body at that point.

His mother has returned to be mortified, crying a river, and the machine's beep goes faster and faster. He can see how the doctor injects something into the IV, and seconds after he becomes unconscious.