There was a bright white light in Chess's vision when she came to. For a second it caused panic to course through her veins. She was already deaf, was she going to be blind now too? The panic subsided when she realized that she was simply in a hospital room. The piercing noise was finally gone but the silence was just as stifling as ever. She sat up trying to get a view of the room and see if someone was there.

There wasn't. She was alone.

Panic resumed its course in her veins as she began to remember the events that had sent her there. Hamilton had attacked Changkyun. Changkyun had almost died because of her. She had watched as Hamilton had attempted to take Changkyun's last breath with all the force he could manage. Her connection to him had almost taken him away from everyone he ever cared about and all the people who cared about him.

The tears rolled down her cheeks unwillingly as the door to her room slid open. A doctor in a long white lab coat came in with a clipboard. He gave the machines and her patient file a once over before writing on a dry erase board. A nurse followed in behind him with a cart of tools, needles, and medicines as well as some other medical garb. She began to lay them out a little more straight and turned to ask the doctor something that Chess couldn't hear.

'Are you in any pain?' The doctor turned the board to face Chess who shook her head. He began to move his lips prompting Chess to realize that he was speaking to her. He quickly deduced that she couldn't hear him and began scribbling again.

'Still no hearing?' Chess responded negatively again and the doctor began writing again.

'You passed out due to the sensory overload. Your hearing is slowly coming back as your trauma is diminishing. The sirens from the police cars overwhelmed you after your temporary deafness lifted during your panic. Everything came back normal on your tests and we'll discharge you tomorrow. Don't worry everything will be fine.' Chess reached out for the dry erase board that the doctor was holding and he wiped it off and handed it over.

'Is Changkyun okay?!' Chess scribbled quickly. Instead of taking the board back from her the nurse handed over a new board to the doctor.

'He's in recovery. We had to sedate him because he was so worried about you. I'm sure that he'll be coming to see you after he wakes up. Pretty sure a wild boar couldn't keep him from getting to you.' The doctor responded.

'Is anyone coming for me?' Knowing that Changkyun was okay settled her a little.

'There are quite a few visitors here for the two of you. We've been keeping them in the lobby waiting for you to wake up. We didn't want to overwhelm you again when you woke up. If you like I can send them in.' Chess didn't even bother to write and nodded her head frantically the tears coming to her once again at the thought of her friends. The doctor nodded at her and smiled lightly before setting down the white board and heading out of the room with the nurse and her cart of medical equipment in tow.

A few moments later Giriboy, MadClown, Alice, Sumi, Bei Lee, Shownu, Jooheon, Ezra, and Young Ji came running into her room. Alice almost immediately jumped onto the bed with Chess who hugged the crying girl close before starting to scribble on the board.

'I'm okay. Don't worry Alice everything is going to be okay now. They caught Hamilton and I'm safe.' Alice nodded once she read the board but continued to cry into Chess's shoulder.

'We're all glad you're okay Chess. We were worried about you.' MadClown wrote.

'Thank you for coming Oppa. Have any of you seen Changkyun yet?' Chess scribbled quickly and turned to face it so that everyone could read it.

'The other guys are with him now but he's still asleep from what I understand. He's fine, just being a big baby.' Shownu wrote.

'How's his throat? Is his voice okay? He can still talk right? No permanent damage?' Chess's writing was almost illegible from the speed at which she wrote.

'The doctors said that there would be some bruising and that his voice would probably be hoarse for about a week but that he would make a full recovery thanks to your spider monkey impersonation.' Jooheon responded. Sumi quickly grabbed the board from him and wrote her own thoughts.

'What were you thinking?! Do you know how badly you could have been hurt? That was the bodyguards' job!' Sumi's words made Chess look at her sheepishly.

'Chess I'm glad that you're okay but you need to stop doing reckless things. What would Travis think? I promised him I would always protect you.'Ezra wrote with a stern face.

'Probably that I should have gone for the eyes instead of trying to choke him out?' Chess wrote with a giggle. Ezra rolled his eyes but handed off the white board.

'Are you hungry Chess? You haven't eaten since before you got to my place.' Giriboy wrote with a concerned look.

'Yeah I'm a bit hungry but I really want to see Changkyun first. I'm really worried.' Chess replied quickly. As soon as she pulled the white board to her to clean it the door slammed open startling everyone in the room and making Chess look towards what had grabbed all of their attention. 

Changkyun was wheeling himself as quickly as he could into the room in a wheel chair with the other members of Monsta X on his tail. Chess's entourage quickly moved out of the way so that the frantic man could get to her bedside. He quickly reached out and took her hand in his as Alice slid off the bed and ushered the rest of the group out of the room. Changkyun pulled her hand to him and rested his forehead on their clasped hands.

Chess could see his shoulders shaking and sat up more fully to turn herself towards him. She used the hand that Changkyun wasn't clutching to try to make him look at her. She didn't know what was wrong and she needed to know that he was okay. He was everything to her. She finally managed to peel his head off of their hands to make him look at her. She almost regretted it.

He was crying.

Chess immediately leaned over and wrapped her arms around him. It was the closest they had been in weeks, over a month if you considered Changkyun's time on tour. It caught him by surprise but he swiftly wrapped his arms around her in response. He held her closely and cried for a long time into her shoulder. Chess simply rubbed his back and his hair comfortingly while trying to calm him down. A while after his tears finally dried he reached for the white board.

'I was so scared that you were hurt. I thought he had done something to you again.' Changkyun reached out and took Chess's hand again.

'I'm okay. I was worried about you. How's your throat? Did you get something for the pain?' Chess wrote before reaching out with her right hand to touch his face.

'They gave me something. They forced me to stay in my room for it to start working before I could come see you.' Chess scooted over on the bed and pat the spot she had just emptied for him to join her. He quickly accepted the offer and shakily stood to get on the bed with her.

When he was settled Chess wrapped her arms around Changkyun and brought his head to rest on her chest with her chin on his head. He reciprocated and held her just as tightly. The two felt more relief than they had felt in weeks in their embrace. It felt as though the two could only really breathe with the others arms around them. 

“Is it okay to leave them like this?” Minhyuk asked as he and Wonho and Kihyun peeked in through the window of the door to look at the two cuddling patients.

“Let it go Minhyuk-ah. It's been a long enough day for all of us but especially them. Let them have some time to be together,” Sumi scolded.

“How do you guys deal with her? She's a nightmare leader,” Kihyun whispered to Alice.

“I heard that!” Sumi yelled at the two.

“This is the first time that she's been this close to him. He was dying the last couple of weeks,” Shownu said absently staring at the door from the bench he was sitting on across the hall.

“What do you mean?! Is Changkyun going to be okay? The doctors weren't in fear of his life when the doctors talked to us!” Jooheon yelled.

“I don't mean literally,” Shownu sighed and shook his head. “You guys heard him cry himself to sleep every night. He... He just wanted to hold her. To make her worries go away. He couldn't touch her without her flinching. He couldn't talk to her normally. He couldn't hear her telling him that she was fine. He was losing his mind but he was putting up with it to help her. Not being able to help her was killing him.”

The rest of the group went dead silent. They all knew that Chess was having a really difficult time and while they knew that Changkyun was also having a rough go of it, they hadn't realized exactly how bad it was. They should have known that it was worse than he was letting on and they felt guilty for not trying to reach out to him. They had all been so solely focused on Cheshire that they had all but forgot that Changkyun needed support too.

“We're a bunch of s aren't we?” Hyungwon asked from his spot on the floor.

“No we're not. We just all need to remember to let Changkyun know we're here for him too not just to help out Chess,” Wonho replied.

“I'm going to go get food. Does anyone else want anything?”Ezra said bringing the group out of the depression that they were all stuck in.

“Mwoh?” Giriboy asked.

“Food,” Bei Lee said as she pulled Minhyuk away from the door.

Young Ji grabbed a pen and paper and started taking down everyone's order before glancing at the door and adding two more items to the list. She lightly grabbed Ezra's arm and steered him towards the elevator to go get the food. Everyone noticed the way Ezra wrapped her arm more fully around his as they went and smiled lightly. It seemed that a few good things came out of the immense tragedy that had happened. It wasn't much but there was a silver lining.

'I've missed being this close to you.' Changkyun wrote down.

'I know it doesn't seem like it but I have too. You're the only thing that kept me alive through all of this' Chess replied.

Changkyun pulled Chess closer and lightly kissed her forehead and for the first time in a long time she didn't flinch away. He wanted her to know that he understood and she did. She knew that he was the most understanding person that she had ever met. There was nothing in this world that he wouldn't do for her and she reciprocated the feeling. Their arms and light breaths were the most comforting thing in the world to them and they would give their lives for the other to be happy. It made Chess feel a bit guilty. She hadn't even felt that way about Daniel. She knew something for certain now though.

Changkyun was the truelove of her life. She may have been the love of Daniel's life but Changkyun was the love of hers, so she felt a bit guilty but she also knew that Daniel would be happy that she was finally moving on.

'We made it through winter. This is how our spring will start.' Changkyun wrote to Chess before she looked up and kissed him lightly.

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A/N Hi guys! I promise that I haven't abandoned this! But I can promise that we're probably only a couple of chapters from the end. I want to end this on a round number for my OCD's sake so we're getting really close. I know I've said that before but it's much more true this time than it has been in past chapters lol. As Always Thank You for Reading! Kamsamnida!