XVIII

Terror

“Here,” Jongdae says, “I think you should have a phone.”

Baekhyun stares at Jongdae’s outstretched palm, where the phone lies, and he’s not too sure whether or not he should take it. He feels as if he’s going to drop it, which is highly possible and it’s even more possible that it’s going to break. For the longest moment, none of them speak, and then finally, Jongdae forces the phone into his hand. “Take it,” he says, “I put in three contact numbers for the hospital. It’s unlikely that they won’t be able to reach me, but if they ever can’t, they’ll phone either you or Joonmyeon. If they reach me first, I’ll then phone you with this number. You probably won’t have to use it at all, but when you do get phoned…”

He thinks it’s awfully sad that Jongdae doesn’t have to specify what they’re talking about and they both already know. Wordlessly, Baekhyun takes the phone and tucks it into his pocket, and then they continue on with the morning like nothing’s happened.

***

Jonghui rarely talks nowadays.

She’d brought speaking to a minimum before, but now, she remains scarily still on the bed and Baekhyun isn’t sure what to say either. On normal days, both of them read the pile of books that has gotten too high. Sometimes he’ll read aloud to her, and though there have been a couple of times that she’s fallen asleep, they manage to get through the a good chunk of the book on other days. Sometimes he falls asleep too.

One time, he managed to drift off first. With the hospital window open, both the curtains and the glass pane and the sunlight streaming in very warmly (even though it’s now nearing October and very chilly in the morning and evening, it’s oddly relaxing. The hospital looks a little less lonely than usual, and maybe it’s because of the sunlight has turned the white a warmer shade. Jongdae has also bought a bouquet of flowers in for Jonghui, and it stands out like a beacon against the otherwise pale hospital room.

Whatever it is, there’s something about the day that’s soothing. Perhaps it’s because Jonghui looks brighter than usual and if Baekhyun ignores the machines connected to her and the white hospital, she almost looks like how he remembers her before — glowing, cheerful, smiling — and with all that, he drifts off.

It’s actually Jongdae that wakes him up.

Baekhyun can feel Jongdae shaking him, and he snaps upwards, slightly surprised and still disoriented from sleep. The room light is on, and it’s too bright for his eyes. Jonghui is also asleep, head tilted to the side and eyes shut. The blanket rises and falls as she breathes, and while she doesn’t say it, it’s obvious that it’s painful for her to even breathe at times. The thought makes his own chest ache.

“What time is it?” he asks Jongdae, because the sun is setting outside and he can’t quite remember how long he’s slept. “Why are you so late today?”

Jongdae gives a slight groan. “She really likes soup,” he said, “And she can still have a bit of it because I ordered a really mild one for one. I took a detour to buy it at her favourite noodle shop and got caught up in more traffic than I expected, so now I’m late. It’s almost seven thirty, anyways. I’m thinking we’ll all eat dinner here today and leave a bit later.”

At that moment, the blankets shift and both of them look at Jonghui. She blinks tiredly at them, then her eyes land on Jongdae. “I smell noodle soup,” she croaks.

A couple of minutes later, all of them are gathered around Jonghui’s bed with noodle soup in their hands. Jongdae’s somehow requested for Jonghui’s noodles to be smaller, because the udon is cut into smaller bits than the rest of theirs.

Baekhyun hasn’t even realized how hungry until they’re eating, and while Jonghui sips her soup slowly with the plastic spoon, Baekhyun has finished his in a couple of minutes. It’s still pretty hot, and to add on to it, a teensy bit spicy. When he’s fanning his mouth (whether it’s because it’s actually too hot or if it’s because it’s spicy hot) afterwards, he finally begins to regret downing the food so quick.

Jongdae slurps up an udon noodle loudly, and Baekhyun tries not to cringe at the noise. “Did you even eat lunch, Baekhyun?”

He shakes his head.

“The hospital has lunch.” Jongdae sets his noodles down and reaches for his water bottle, which Baekhyun eyes enviously because the spicy taste is only getting worse and he doesn't have any sort of water to quench it. “I can’t have you starving yourself like this. You’ll only eat double the amount for dinner so you might as well eat lunch too.”

“When have I ever eaten double the amount for dinner?” Baekhyun asks, still fanning his mouth. “I wasn’t hungry at lunch, that’s all.”

“Well, I don’t care, then.” Jongdae rolls his eyes at him. “Starve yourself. See if I care.” He up another noodle loudly, and Baekhyun physically winces at the noise (and at the same time, he’s still kind of hungry). Still, after a moment, he turns to look at Jonghui. “Make sure he eats lunch,” he says, “Kick him out of the room to eat lunch. And you better eat too.”

Baekhyun opens his mouth to argue with Jongdae, but then snaps it shut again. Jongdae’s words always contain some form of insult, but on the other hand, part of him feels oddly warm at the gesture.

“Do you care?” he asks, just to test the boundaries. “Actually, why do you care?”

Jongdae nearly spits his mouthful of soup out. “Do you think I care? Starve yourself all you want. It doesn’t concern me anyways.”

Surprisingly, it’s Jonghui who’s the next one who laughs. She’s the slowest eater out of all of them (she always was, and now she’s even slower. Baekhyun tries not to think about it too much), and her bowl of soup is still half full. “He’s always been terrible with showing his feelings,” she tells him. She’s smiling, but she’s still keeping her voice to a minimum because it hurts her to speak loudly. “He’s always been like that.”

Jongdae scowls at her. “You’re supposed to be on my side,” he says, though even as he says the words, Baekhyun’s mind isn’t on it anymore. The unerasable memory of Jongdae breaking down as they drive home, silently, wordlessly, almost as if he’s still trying to reign in the emotions and pretend they’re not there as he cries. It’s painful to think about, and Baekhyun can’t imagine how much more painful it is for Jongdae.

“Then don’t care,” he says dully, “Just don’t starve yourself like me.”

He receives a strange, questioning look from Jongdae, and then the rest of the dinner is spent in silence because neither of them know how to reply.

Jongdae cleans up the bowls and tosses them in the garbage can when they’re all finished. The room is getting cold because the September night is chilly, so Baekhyun closes the window until there’s just a crack. The wind stops blowing in.

“Are you leaving now?” Jonghui asks them as she hands her almost-empty bowl of noodles to her brother, “It’s pretty late and you’re probably tired.”

Baekhyun’s ready to pack up and leave, but Jongdae shakes his head no and pulls out something silver from his bag — his laptop. “Not yet,” he announces. “We’re going to watch a movie.”

Both him and Jonghui look at Jongdae at the same time in shock, but he promptly ignores them and opens the cover of his laptop as if nothing is wrong. “What do you want to watch?” he asks Jonghui, “I downloaded a couple of your favourite Disney movies. And… Lord of the Rings, because… well, that’s self explanatory. I have all three of them. And The Hobbit movies, but you said you didn’t want to rewatch those.”

“Lord of the Rings?” Baekhyun’s sort of read the books before, but not in very much detail because the writing style was too hard to get through. “There’s movies for that? And there were other books apart from Lord of the Rings and there are movies for that too?”

Jongdae shushes him with a wave of his hand. “You’re not choosing, she is.”

“If he wants to watch Lord of the Rings, I have no objection with it.”