For years there had been nothing in my life. I was a dark, cold girl, living only because my lungs still worked. I woke up everyday with nothing to look forward to; nothing to see, nothing to talk about, nothing to be happy about. Nothing. Literally nothing. No parents, no friends, no proper home, no family. I was alone in a bed in a hospital in a world that I wished I did not exist in. I had been in the same bed for 6 years.

The doctors were always to scared to send me anywhere. They had tried once. Within 2 days of moving me into rehabilitation I was rushed back to hospital. I remember I was 11 years old then. From the age of 11 until 17, I was bed bound. I didn't want to be, but what was there to look forward to if I was let out? I had nothing, after all.

From then on, every day seemed the same. My daily routine consisted of looking around the empty room I stayed in, hearing that beeping noise every 5 seconds all day. Nurses would check on me, stick needles into me, and occasionally take me to do scans or other things I never understood. But I lived the same day for 6 years.

There was no one who came and sent me letters or gifts; there was no one to celebrate my birthday apart from the nurses who tried to get to know me. But there was nothing to know about me. I was just a girl with nothing, stuck inside a bed. You could even say that I had no personality. I just lived. In pain.

I didn't even have any possessions that I had brought from the times before I was hospitalised. I don't even remember anything that I owned before my first year at the hospital. Nurses bought me teddy bears in the earlier years, but they meant nothing. The nurses always got assigned to other people soon after.

I still wonder today how I had lived in a bed for so long. I wanted to die; I couldn't bare it, but I never brought myself to act on the idea. Partially because I was physically unable to do such a thing.

I was lifeless, unti the last few months of my sixth year at the hospital. I experienced an event that sparked a light.

I was turning 17 that day. I almost forgot it was my birthday until a nurse came into the room to check on me and saw my birthdate printed on a sheet of paper attached to her clipboard. She soon left me alone in my bed after adjusting my body and sticking in some new syringes. I closed my eyes and thought nothing of her small kindness. It was my birthday, but I knew that nothing more than laying here and recieving short checkups from nurses was going to happen today. But I was wrong.

I opened my eyes to the sound of footsteps, assuming another nurse was coming to tend to me. But a stranger walked into the room. A boy about my age was smiling at me; it was the biggest smile I had seen in a long time. His smiling teeth and eyes caught my attention immediately - those two things and his large nose. It was larger than any other person's nose I had seen, matching with his full lips; I almost thought he was a foreigner. He was also quite tall and walked confidently without uneasiness. His big eyes darted around the room, finally locking with mine. He was holding a purple balloon and a box with a ribbon on it. As he walked beside the bed, I felt a weird sensation, something I had never felt in my whole life. Everything that was happening was so new to me.

Then he did the unnexpected. He stood over my bed, his wide eyes looking directly into mine, and shouted "Happy Birthday!", and started laughing, embarrassed with himself. He lifted up my arm and shyly tied the balloon's string onto my wrist, letting the balloon bob above my head, then put the neatly wrapped box on the bed-side table. All the while he was smiling so much, looking straight at me, as if he was waiting for me to do something.

And for the first time in 6 years, I smiled.

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On the outside, I was just a normal boy. On the inside ... well you could also say I was a normal boy. Most people now a days complain that they don't have friends, right?

At school, I was refered to as 'the weird one'. I was weird, alright. But I never understood why people used that against me as an insult. Why was being weird bad? My parents grew up just fine as strange people, but me - I just didn't fit in anywhere. So many people at my school were idiots, and for that reason, I pretended that I understood why they didn't like me. But I always knew that I didn't understand. I didn't understand why they had to be idiots, leaving me here, pointing to me, labeling me as 'the weird one'.

If you call friends people who understand why you are weird, then I guess I had a few friends. Kong was nice to me, at least. He kind of accepted that I was strange, not really normal, but he still kept his distance to be friendly with Hakyeon and all those people. They weren't exactly idiots, but they stood away from me. They liked girls more than being understanding.

Well I guess Hongbin was really the only one who did understand me the most, apart from my parents. And Taekwoon looked at me sometimes when I attemped to be funny, but never laughed. The most that I had seen him do was smirk slightly. But all those boys were in the same group. They were in a group that didn't include me. I didn't belong to a group.

In class I tried to make people laugh, I even sang some songs, but I was always hushed by one of the students. I always replied with a smile. Which is my biggest weakness. There are countless times that I could have replied to people teasing me with something as simple as, "Go away," but instead I just smiled and nodded my head. I just smiled. I couldn't do anything more or anything less. Smiling just came naturally to me.

I constantly smiled throughout the day unless I was hit with some nasty words from idiots, then I would arrive home and basically take my mouth off my face and be sad for my mother to notice.

Sometimes when my mother caught me when I was down, she looked at me and said, "Don't ever stop being the happy person you are, Jaehwan." And I always listened to her. But I admit that I had wanted to change myself a bit to gain some friends. At the same time, I wanted to be myself. And if it hadn't been for that want to be who I am, I would have never been a more happier person in the future.

I wanted to make people laugh. I wanted to make people feel a bit better. I wanted other people to be happy, and because of that, I needed to be happy. So for so long I tried to just be happy. But they still refered to me as 'the weird one'.

I made a decision one day. I couldn't just be happy for no reason.

I went walking around town subconciously after a long day at school, looking for something. I don't what, but I did come across the hospital. My legs dragged me through the visitor's entrance. I walked around the complex array of corridors until I came to the emergency ward. I just stood in the waiting area, where people sat, looking glum. I examined each of their faces, but they all looked the same to me. Worried, sick, pale faces. Even if some were not wanting attention from a doctor, they looked the same as the sick ones.

A loud voice startled me. I looked behind me to see a lady at the desk with a frown on her face.

She repeated, "Excuse me?" I stared at her expression that seemed to have been printed there. He face stayed that way when she spoke again, "Sorry, young man, but you cannot just linger around here."

My eyes wandered over to a pin up board that was stuck to the wall on her left. There were community notices and other various flyers that I had seen all around town. There were pictures of patients also. Some had notes beneath them saying things like, "Thank you nurses that have taken care of our ___," and "___ was released from hospital today! We wish him all the best," and stuff like that. But there was one note, one note written in Arial font, one note without a patient photo. Its content gained my attention. 

"It's is Maya's 17th birthday in 2 days! Unfortunately, she does not have any family to visit her, so if you would like to cheer her up and wish her a Happy Birthday at her bed, she would really appreciate it! Please notify us at the front desk for more details."

She had no family. She was going to be my age. She needed someone to cheer her up.

I realised that I was keeping the angry lady at the desk waiting, so I managed to quickly snatch the note from the pin up board at hand it to her.

"I'd like to volunteer, please," I said, smiling.

It was a chance to make someone happy.