Yeonhee had never been in a “next-of-kin” situation before, and she could only say it was horrible.  There were questions here, there and everywhere about her grandmother’s medical history that she had no idea what the answers were but that the nurses had to ask in any case on the off chance something important might be thrown up.  She had to sign a bunch of surgery forms for her grandmother, even though her grandmother was already in surgery, and sit through an explanation of what had happened and what was going on.

It was some time before she was left to herself in a room for family members of patients undergoing an operation, and that was almost worse.  At least with people bustling about and barking questions, she wasn’t left with her own thoughts the entire time.  On her own, she actually had time to mull through what she’d been told, and she couldn’t stop crying.

Her grandmother had definitely had a , according to the doctor who’d spoke to her.  They’d run a couple of scans and discovered an aneurysm that was threatening to burst.  Since a brain haemorrhage would almost definitely kill the old woman, they’d taken the risk of operating on her, even though in an old person there were numerous risks associated with that, including the possibility of another .  The brain scans were terrifying to look at once the doctor actually explained what they meant in terms of damage, but he had said – likely to calm Yeonhee down – that people who’d suffered a sometimes recovered after a day or two with little to no long-lasting side effects.

Others ended up with severe brain damage, though.  Yeonhee’s grandmother was quite frail, and if the operation triggered another , there was a high chance she’d die.

And even though Yeonhee’s grandmother probably wouldn’t know her from Adam if she got through the surgery, the possibility that she might die without Yeonhee being able to say goodbye, or without the old lady hearing from a member of the family that they all still loved her, felt like the world was robbing them both.

The thought kept coming back and back and back, and Yeonhee just couldn’t shake how awful and scary it was.  Trying to hold back the waves of tears, she sat almost bent over her knees and with her face in her hands.  There were only two other people in the room with her, and it looked like they were going through a similar harrowing time.

Once or twice, Yeonhee tried to calm herself down by ringing her parents and her sister, but they were all at work and didn’t pick up, and then her phone ran out of battery altogether.  Part of her was vaguely aware that she’d missed lunch, but she was feeling too wretched to eat.  All she wanted was for her grandmother’s surgery to end so that she could wrap her up in a big hug and everything would be okay again.

She had no idea how much time had passed before she realised somebody was calling her name.

“Miss Im?”

She looked up.  A good number of people were in the room now, most of them chatting, and one or two of them seemed shocked when they saw her face.  She knew she was a mess, but there was nothing she could do about it.  A male nurse was standing there, but he reacted to her horrific appearance with indifference.

“Miss Im, there’s somebody in the passage requesting you to go out and see them.”

Not trusting her voice to speak, Yeonhee just shook her head and dropped it back into her hands.  She didn’t want to see anybody except her grandmother right then, or possibly her mother.

There were footsteps as the male nurse turned to leave, and Yeonhee choked back another sob.  Life was incredibly unfair.

It wasn’t long after that that a pair of warm hands were prying her own away from her face.

“Yeonhee?” asked a familiar voice softly.

What was Yixing doing there?

“Go away,” she choked out.  It was bad enough that she looked such a mess in front of strangers, but in front of the prince, “embarrassment” didn’t even begin to cover it.

The chair next to her creaked as he ignored her and sat down in it, patting her back gently.  Yeonhee could feel tremors shooting through her body, and she was sure he could too.

“Why are you here?” she croaked out.  “What if you’re recognised?”

“Junmyeon said he saw you checked in in the fire-safety log,” Yixing told her.  “He spotted you here when we were coming back from the maternity ward to see Minseok’s daughter.”

Completely taken aback by news of the baby, Yeonhee twitched around to look up at him.  He stopped patting her back to slip his arm around it instead.

“Let’s get you somewhere more private,” he said.

Yeonhee’s body was stiff from sitting still for so long, but she followed listlessly when Yixing coaxed her to her feet and then wrapped his arm around her waist to keep her steady as he escorted her from the room.  He was wearing the pokéball cap again, dressed in jeans and a dark green hoodie.  The overall effect was that he looked three or four years younger than he actually was, and his face was thrown into shadow.

Outside the waiting room, Junmyeon was hovering by the door, and he took one look at Yeonhee before wincing.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Don’t  know yet,” the prince replied simply as Yeonhee shivered and shook her head.  “Is there anywhere private we can go?”

“I checked with a doctor and he said consulting room six should be free at the moment.  It’s just down there.”

Too drained to push away from the prince and walk by herself, Yeonhee let him guide her along to the indicated room.  Junmyeon fell in step beside them.  They entered a reasonably sized doctor’s office, and the prince urged her to sit down in the office chair before crouching so that he was on the same level as her.  Junmyeon closed the door and hovered just inside it.

The look of concern on Yixing’s face was too much, and Yeonhee broke down again before he could even ask what the issue was.

“Grandma had a stoke and she’s in surgery for a brain aneurysm,” she sobbed out.  “She might die.”

He soothed her gently as she cried, occasionally probing with simple questions for more details, most with yes-or-no answers so she didn’t have to speak.  At some point, Junmyeon left to get her a bottle of water and some tissues.  As Yeonhee began to calm down, she heard Yixing discussing private wards for her grandmother while she recovered.  Under normal circumstances, she would have told him not to, but he was already discussing the logistics of paying for it and calculating how much would be covered by the Geriatric Medical Fund that Yeonhee’s grandmother was already being supported by, and he seemed determined to put up the rest of the cost.  Yeonhee was too tired to argue with him.

Junmyeon left again to arrange everything with the hospital staff.  Yixing got Yeonhee to drink some more water and coaxed her into eating a few pieces of chocolate.

“Do your parents know yet?” he asked.  “I can’t imagine they just wouldn’t come if your grandmother’s condition is life-threatening.”

Yeonhee shrugged listlessly.  “Couldn’t get through to the rest of my family earlier because they were all at work.  My phone’s out of battery now.”

He checked his watch.  “It’s nearly six, so they’ll probably answer if you call again.”  Swiftly, he unlocked his phone and handed it over to her.

Yeonhee typed in her mother’s number and handed the phone back without pressing call.  Yixing’s gaze darted from the phone to her face, but he rang through, taking Yeonhee’s free hand in his and rubbing his thumb in absent circles over the back of it.  She couldn’t deny being grateful: one of the very best things about Yixing was that he just seemed to understand.  She reached for the water bottle with her free hand as the call connected, not really paying attention to what he was saying.  The soft cadence of his voice as he spoke to her mother was extremely soothing, and she sipped at the water until he hung up and took the bottle off her to put its cap back on.

“She’s going to ring your sister and then they’re all coming over,” he told her as he slipped his phone back into his pocket.  “And I think you should get someth