The I.V. and your hospital bed

This was no accident

This was a therapeutic chain of events  

Henry’s fingertips had become numb.

His fingers moved quickly, almost inhumanly, while his arms overlapped in less than a second before moving back to their original positions in record time. He swayed dramatically with the somber melody, his image that of a professional performing for the grandest of operas. It was almost as if the oversized t-shirt and sweatpants had been replaced with a suit worthy of such an occasion.

Such a performer cannot afford to make mistakes.

The smooth ivory of piano keys suddenly disappeared from his ever-moving hands at the accidental execution of a D sharp. Dark eyes darted to the treacherous key before an audible sigh and the all too familiar sound of hopelessness echoed throughout the room.

If told practice brings upon perfection, the fuse of Henry’s patience would have finally run down to its final millisecond.

“You’ve been playing for quite a long time.”

Henry shrugged, not bothering with even raising his head to acknowledge the woman speaking to him. Nothing mattered more than getting his entire performance correct, at the moment.

“I need perfection.”

The nurse standing by the door, a suspicious looking clipboard clutched to her chest, swallowed the sigh threatening to spill from her lips and forced a rigid smile. Word traveled quickly of a nurse who only dared to act human around patients and she couldn’t quite afford to lose her job.

Her fingers unfurled from the side of the metal clipboard she held before slightly waving it front of her. Henry finally bothered to look up, mostly because the pen attached to the clipboard was creating nothing short of a racket. His eardrums could barely take the frustrating D sharp, let alone the incessant clanking of plastic against metal.

“We have a new patient.” The nurse quickly gathered the pen in between her ring and pinky fingers at the sight of the pianist’s hands curling in and out of a fist. She often forgot the patients often had pet peeves she couldn’t even begin to imagine.

After trying exactly five times, Henry managed to gently set the fallboard of the grand piano down in a way he deemed decent, before rising to his feet in one swift movement. He took a quick glance behind him to check if the bench had moved. He was all too silently grateful it hadn’t or else he would have to repeat his process all over again.

“I’m assuming you want me to show them around, right, er—“He stole a glance at the aggravatingly crooked nametag messily pinned to her scrubs. “Kim Mihyun?”

Henry had a guide on his first day as well—a borderline psychotic, though kind-hearted, young man who exceeded the average height by the name of Chanyeol—but he never figured himself a candidate for this type of thing. He was too truthful, too blunt, and spat in the name of counterfeit advertisement. Most of the guides, like Chanyeol, were far too delusional themselves to even dare speak of how the ward really was.

Though, Henry couldn’t blame them. No one really wanted to face the reality of their situation. Everyone had their own defense mechanisms; some just had ones that were a bit more practical than others.

“If you would be so kind.” Mihyun held the clipboard out toward him in a professional manner, as if she had practiced the gesture as rigorously as he practiced his piece on the piano, with a smile Henry only wished she would get rid of.

He seemed hesitant to take the clipboard, not only for the sole fact that there could be confidential information underneath the metal flap, but he could possibly reach for it the wrong way and correct himself two—or maybe eight—times before he got it right. Mihyun—god, it seemed so strange to even refer to a nurse in such a way—continued on with her doll-like smile, awaiting for him reach out. Just looking at her was sickening to the stomach; even to those that could possibly be considered sane. He could taste iron in his mouth and he was sure his tongue had been stained crimson as well.

“Take it.” She urged. “It’s full of blank papers. You just have to carry it around to make yourself look professional.”

Henry stayed silent for two counts. “It’s not that I don’t want to take it.”

Honestly, these nurses—even the new ones—should have known. The ward wasn’t all too big, the maximum patient count being fifty odd, and yet they couldn’t quite remember who had what. It was ridiculous in Henry’s, and the other patient’s, opinion.

Why bother working if you don’t care?

Mihyun said nothing more, and simply tucked the clipboard underneath her arm in what he hoped was shame.

***

Walks to the entrance of the ward were a wordless experience, no matter the reason for being sent there in the first place. Whether it was for a visit by the mournful parents who understood nothing about their child or perhaps the privilege to finally be allowed access to the outside grounds, there was always the incredibly high chance one’s mood would plummet on the way there. Henry could attest to that.

Strolling past open rooms of patients struggling to keep themselves content with the limited resources they were forced to live with could bring even the strongest person to their knees. These people—the ones Henry called co-patients out of pure amusement—were nothing but dead bodies.

Dead bodies held by the strings of invisible puppeteers, limbs limp and resembling those of a ragdoll when they plodded around. They were there physically and moved around enough to let the staff know they were still breathing, but there was something about the hollow look in their eyes.

Their eyes is what frightened Henry the most. They were so empty—so devoid of every emotion imaginable. Even after seeing them for a while now, he still spent his nights wondering how it was possible for them to fall so low. Rock bottom was paradise compared to what they seemed to have been through.

He wondered what kind of sick satire was involved in this puppet show.

“I take it you’re the new patient?”

No time and definitely no interest for sugar-coating it, he supposed.

“Huh?” By the time she managed to make the small noise, Henry already decided he wouldn’t like her very much. If anything finally drove him off the cliff of sanity, it was someone who muttered incoherently. “Oh, uh, y-yeah.”

Her eyes resembled those of a child brought to the doctor for the first time. Dark, wide and searching, as if wary of the ward’s walls and what they could possibly do to traumatize her further. Though Henry really didn't want to care, as he had done the same on his first day, he didn’t allow her to examine her environment for any longer than a few seconds.

It was too easy to find one staring at white, eyes unfocused and lost, for hours on end.

“What’s your name?” Henry never meant to sound harsh, honestly, but being interrupted from one of the most important pieces he had ever worked on for a silly thing such as this was beginning to take its toll.

“Eun Mi.” Her stutter had faded, it seemed, and Henry thanked the high heavens. “What… What’s yours?”

Other patients would have no such thing as hesitance when speaking to Henry, considering his all too childish cheeks, accented by small eyes and full lips. He looked too much like the kid seated beside one in Biology class, furiously jotting down notes but always making sure they were neat and organized. By the way her fingers trembled in sixteenths of a beat, he could easily decipher he wasn’t the core of her fear. A part of him was grateful, while the other wondered how he wasn’t terrifying her just yet.

“Henry.” He had the split second thought of holding out his hand, but almost immediately realized it would be horribly embarrassing to hold it out the wrong way.

Sparing a glance at the clock dangerously hanging on a loose nail never placed correctly into the wall, Henry realized that no matter what time he wished it to be that dreaded clock would always be stuck at midnight. From the day he had arrived, disheveled and alone, it had been midnight. Whether sunlight streamed in through the open windows, or bullets of rain poured on the glass, those clock hands never bothered to move.

Time was a messy concept, one that Henry never bothered to keep track of, but nevertheless, it aggravated him that the staff wasn’t bothered to fix it.

***

“And this is the recreation room.”   

Relief was obvious in the tone of his accented voice, but he didn’t even bother hiding it. The sooner he could sit down at grand piano and continue perfecting his performance, the better it was for every party involved. He only hoped this Eun Mi would take a leisurely seat on the couch and leave him alone for the rest of her stay. It wasn’t that he had something against her--oh no, not at all--he just simply preferred to be left alone.

She seemed as if she could barely stand beside him, somewhat uncomfortable with how close they were forced to be in the narrow doorway.

Though he would normally step away with a carefully calculated glare thrown toward the offender’s direction, Henry didn’t dare move a single finger. He was capable of sympathy, despite popular belief. The psychiatrist even marked it with a messy tick written with a blotchy, black ink pen on his evaluation paper.

“It’s… ”Eun Mi audibly gulped before taking a moment of silence to search for a word that wouldn’t offend any of those in hearing proximity. “Quaint.”                            

Henry could agree and disagree.

It was a rather large room, perhaps one of the biggest in the entire facility, filled to the near brim of patients.

There were those enveloped in quiet games of chess and checkers, each player taking ten minutes before even beginning to think about moving either their Knight or Bishop. Even then, they moved too recklessly and often times got their pieces taken away. Henry could barely watch them play without threatening to rip out his hair one strand by one.

“Can I ask you something?” Eun Mi’s voice, so small and gentle as if she was still wobbly from the morphine, could barely break through Henry’s thoughts.

He had learned to keep himself locked away, the gleaming silver key thrown into the nearest river.

“Sure, why not?”

Other patients were occupied by the television, a small one that could possibly be twice the age than the oldest patient there, playing the same episode of an American show over and over. Henry wondered if they simply replayed the episode or if that was simply the only channel accessible.

“Who is that?”

Henry blinked at Eun Mi’s sudden question, quirking an eyebrow as he followed the direction of the nod of her head. Truthfully, Henry was the type that didn’t care much for other patients and kept to himself. He had no interest in keeping track of a sticky web of friendships, often feeling like an innocent fly trapped against his will only awaiting the moment where he is devoured, but he would be lying if he said he didn’t know who it was.

“Kyuhyun,”

Eun Mi had been examining Henry’s expression as the two syllables tumbled from his tongue, her eyebrows furrowed and lips pursed. Her eyelashes fluttered every other second, each bat continuing to weigh down her eyelids. It was truly a wonder how the sedatives hadn’t worn off just yet, impairing her every twitch to make it seem as though she was more dead than alive.

Five words rung in her head and the sheer irony in them could have drawn out a tired chuckle; No rest for the wicked.

“He doesn’t really talk to anyone.”

Henry seemed to be deep in thought, now leaning against the door frame with—what Eun Mi could only describe as—a posture that screamed perfection. He crossed his legs at the opportune angle, rested his head against the wood in such a practiced way, and it succeeded rather well at leaving Eun Mi speechless.

Truly and ignorantly, she believed this level of obsession for perfection could only be reached by psychopaths.

“Do you know why?”

Perhaps she was beginning to lull back into full consciousness, curiosity taking charge of her actions for the time being. Though she still appeared to be on some sort of high, or desperate to survive another day without sleep, it was obvious her mind and mouth were still fully awake and operative. This seemingly left Henry too confused, dumbfounded even, to dare change the subject.

“No clue.”

Henry shrugged, lifting himself from the door frame only to curse under his breath and lean back against it. Three tries later, without anyone noticing or bothering to care, he managed to balance himself the way he seemed to deem fit.

“Why don’t you ask him yourself later? Come on, we need to move on.”

A/N: 2213 words and a lot of frustration later... 

Well, you've met Eun Mi and Henry. And, indirectly, Kyuhyun.

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