The practice room is quiet. You could think it is empty because not a sound has been heard in a while and the room is dark, but sitting on the floor by the wall is Hannah. On Sunday she failed finishing her recording in the studio for a song to the Musketeers’ comeback, she couldn’t sing correctly. Yesterday, she did not do well in the studio but because they don’t have more time to record so they had to be satisfied with what she did. has started to hurt this week. Today, she didn’t have a recording but she came to practice after filming and saw in the mirror that is swollen. That’s why it hurts to swallow and eat and talk.

It is the worst timing to get sick, Hannah thinks. In a month, it is the Musketeers’ turn to make a comeback. They have started to learn the choreography to the title track, and Hannah is facing the crisis where she can’t sing. Her voice won’t come out. She can whisper the lyrics, but she’s not singing. Last night she barely got any sleep because was so swollen she had trouble breathing. This night, she isn’t even going to bed.

She has given up on singing for spending three hours in here. hurts, breathing is hard, her body is acing and she is silently crying by herself in the dark. Lately she has felt stressed about singing, about being in the studio to record, that she doesn’t enjoy it and it is painful because Manager Lim is at the hospital and somehow she thinks that is why she can’t sing. She doesn’t want to sing when fearing that their manager won’t get better. The surgery went well, they said, it was the first one. Hannah had believed it was one surgery, then it would be over. But it turns out there will be more surgeries to get rid of the brain tumour.

Her phone starts ringing next to her, the sound almost echoing in the room. It isn’t the first time her phone is ringing tonight, but it is the first time she picks it up. When swiping her finger over the screen she also presses for the loudspeaker to be on.

“Mm,” she gives out a sound to let him know she has answered.

“Hi, finally you answer. Where are you?”

“Practice-room,” Hannah lowly tells him.

“Still? I thought you’d be on your way home by now. Well, I thought you’d be home by now but since you’re not home, I thought you’d be on your way.”

“No… I’ll go to work after I’m done here.”

It gets quiet on the line as he seems to be in thoughts and Hannah isn’t talkative, not asking what he is doing. “Do you want me to come over?”

“Get some sleep, Jonghyun,” she answers.

“You’re alone?”

“Mm.”

“Nabi…” Jonghyun says in a low voice, just like that it sounds as if he knows exactly how she is feeling.

“You should get some sleep,” she repeats, hurting so much. “It’s late.”

“I was hoping I would get to sleep next to you,” he mentions. “Is Manager Lee in the building or did he leave you there?”

“He went home to sleep ages ago.”

She can hear him do something in the background while he talks to her. It takes several minutes before she asks him about it, asking what he is doing and imagining him getting ready for bed, just to be told that he is on his way to her. He even laughs, asking if she can’t hear the engine. She can’t hear it, and sighs because she told him not to come. It’s not that she gets upset that he doesn’t listen, it is more because she thinks he could use that sleep she told him to get instead of coming.

They stay on the phone until he arrives. Hannah doesn’t say much, she just snuffles and listens to Jonghyun’s voice as he talks while driving, telling her how calm the streets are and how beautiful the sky looks. He doesn’t ask why she has been crying, he doesn’t ask her anything until he walks through the doors to the practice-room and finds her sitting on her own. Hannah has wiped her tears, even checked her reflection in the mirror to not look too horrible when he comes, yet the first thing Jonghyun comments on is how dreadful she looks.

“There is no one else in the building, everyone has headed home,” he then lets her know while sitting down next to her. With just a glance at her, he decides to take off his cap to put it on her head. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” she mumbles and leans against his arm. “You didn’t have to come.”

“I know. You said that,” Jonghyun remembers, pecking her head. Or it is his cap that he pecks but she is wearing it. “I wanted to come. Do you know that the ring on your finger should let you know that I will always, always be here for you? That’s a reason as to why I came.”

With just a glance at him, Jonghyun explains that they can talk or not, but all he cares about is that they are together; that she knows he is there for her.

“You’re really good with words,” Hannah compliments him.

Jonghyun chuckles lowly, leaning his head back against the wall. “I have practiced,” he jokes. “Did you catch a cold? You’re hoarse.”

“My throat hurts like crazy.”

“I can hear that, no wonder you can’t sing with that throat. Did you think about going to check it up?”

With a grimace, Hannah turns to look at him with a grimace, tilting her head back. “Ji Young suggested it earlier, since I said it’s difficult to breathe at night.”

“Is it difficult to breathe now too?” Jonghyun wonders, looking down at her so his expression becomes adorable.

“Mm,” Hannah answers with a pout.

“We should go to the hospital then,” Jonghyun suggests, grabbing her hand but only to link their fingers together. “If this is why we’re not lying in bed at home, we should go look it up.”

They should, she agrees on that. “We should go home and sleep first,” she mentions. “You look tired.”

“I am tired,” Jonghyun admits. He gives her a smile. “And you look tired too.”

Though they both talk about going home, they stay for half an hour before they leave. They don’t say much, just leaning on each other. But though they go to bed when coming home, Hannah can’t fall asleep. It is harder to breathe when she is lying down, it feels as if so swollen that the air doesn’t want to reach her lungs. In the end, she leaves bed to go drink something warm, then eats some ice-cream because is still hurting.

It’s five thirty in the morning when she texts Manager Lee to let him know she wants to go to the hospital, so he knows when he wakes up. She stays sitting by the kitchen table with a bowl of melted ice-cream next to her as she didn’t eat it up, she checks Instagram and comments on 5 Pieces’ YouTube page, as well as on the agency’s YouTube page. She read comments online about fans’ excitement for Hannah’s SMSTATION coming out.

Last week it was teased that Hannah will release a song through SMSTATION Season 2, collaborating with the producer Max Martin. Since Sunday it has been released a teaser every day, preparing fans to the collaboration. On Monday, a short making-of-music-video was released. The day after it was a teaser video of Hannah and her crew meeting up with Max Martin in the studio, how they started to work together. Yesterday, the music video teaser came out; not a making-of but the actual music video teaser for [Just Like Fire]. They seem excited online.

She looks up when Jonghyun comes out from the bedroom, rubbing his eyes from sleep and only wearing underwear.

“Did I wake you?” Hannah whispers, her voice unable to come out. She won’t be able to film well for the movie if her voice won’t come out more than this.

“Yeah,” Jonghyun mumbles and walks over to her, “Your side of the bed was empty. Can’t sleep?”

“Can’t speak,” she whispers.

Jonghyun grimaces with her before putting his arms around her, mumbling against her head that she still can keep him company in bed. “Or I can go with you to the hospital?”

“Ji Young will come with me,” Hannah lets him know. “You should sleep.”

“Hospital first,” he says, patting her shoulder before he starts walking back to the bedroom. “Hospital first, then I’ll sleep. Is he coming to pick you up now?”

“Uh… he is still sleeping,” Hannah answers, giving him a grimace when he turns around.

“Get dressed.”

He decides to drive her to the hospital, because neither of them can sleep, it’s now morning and Manager Lee hasn’t answered Hannah’s text message. Tiredly, Hannah pulls on an oversized sweater dress in light pink, almost having Jonghyun drag her from one room to another as she is just whining. Jonghyun whines back to her when bringing her to the hall for them to put on their shoes. He pecks her hair before reaching out for his sneakers.

“I should make it up to you,” Hannah whispers when she has her shoes on, pouting at Jonghyun who is going to take her to the hospital while he should be in bed.

Jonghyun turns to her with a smile, adorably embracing her to push them both out the door. “You said you’ll come to as many concerts of mine as you can, that’s you making up to it,” he says. She isn’t sure if he is joking or not, but ever since he told her he is going to have solo concerts starting the end of May (and a lot of them), he has had the idea of having his wife show up almost every night to support him. He really likes that thought.

For being someone who just has slept an hour, Jonghyun is surprisingly awake. Hannah can’t help but to watch him driving her, seeing how energized he is all of a sudden while she, for Hannah, her body is aching almost as much as , feeling really sick. Manager Lee texts Hannah before they arrive at the hospital, then she calls him but Jonghyun gets to do the talking as it turns out Hannah isn’t heard very well over the phone. Her voice is terrible, Jonghyun tells Manager Lee, letting him know of her symptoms for some reason. Manager Lee knew all about her symptoms, after spending the previous day hearing Hannah’s voice get worse and worse and hear her complain about feeling sick, but still not agreeing to go to the hospital. So, he thinks it is a good idea that Jonghyun has changed her mind.

The hospital visit is completely strange. Hannah is moved from one room to another, first meeting some nurses and then being directed to see a doctor, then she goes out to wait and then goes to see the doctor again. Jonghyun goes with her, mostly to translate the difficult doctor-talk than being there as support. Turns out she has a cold, which they could guess. The doctor is very simple about it, first saying it is a cold and that her swollen throat can be treated with rest and tea. The weird part is after being in his office for twenty minutes.

He says a few words in a sentence that Hannah doesn’t understand but that Jonghyun frowns for, so Hannah looks at Jonghyun with a face-expression that means she needs a translator.

“What should we do to fix it?” Jonghyun asks the doctor without translating to Hannah that important sentence about something they should fix.

“A psychologist perhaps?” the doctor suggests, turning to his table to give them a name of someone he knows. Now, psychologist is a word that Hannah knows and it is her turn to frown.

“Translation, please,” Hannah whispers to Jonghyun.

He gives her a glance, still having that troubled frown slightly visible on his forehead, hidden under his hair. Jonghyun then clears his throat before he translates for her;

“The doctor says it can be mentally too. You are swollen and that, but it’s not a common cold. He thinks it’s more mentally, that you’re under stress and … and the result from that, is you can’t breathe and your body is aching…?”

The doctor nods when Jonghyun gives him a questioning glance, as if asking if he is translating it correctly. Translating Korean to Korean, but still changing the words for Hannah to understand. She keeps looking from Jonghyun to the doctor as if she is considering laughing at them or she is considering that this whole thing is mentally. Is she making herself sick?

“I don’t feel stressed,” Hannah whispers.

Jonghyun gives her the weirdest look at that simple comment. “You’re stressed, everyone can see that.”

“But not that stressed,” Hannah comments.

“Do you want the number to a psychologist?” the doctor wonders.

“No, that’s not necessary,” Hannah politely tells him and gets up on her feet. “I have a number already, sadly. Thank you for taking your time.”

She stays polite with the doctor but is in a hurry to leave. Jonghyun thanks the doctor too before they are out of there. He grabs a hold of Hannah’s hand while they are leaving, heading down to the garage. It’s early but a lot of people, so the celebrity couple hurries to the car to not have anyone recognize them; recognize is alright, it is taking pictures that won’t be alright. They are quiet for minutes, both Hannah and Jonghyun are in deep