"Ah. UMMA! APPA!"

"Aegi! Umma and Appa are right here." 

"Min...Minseok!" 

"Minho, I'm here. I'm here." 

"It's time to take out the chest tube. He needs to stop crying. Minho ah, can you stop crying?" 

"I can't feel anything! I'm cold! Umma! Pick me up, please! It hurts! It hurts!" 

"If he cries, it will make removing the chest tube very difficult! He's going to bleed more!"

"Umma!!!"

"Minho aegi..." 

"It hurts. It hurts!" 

"Umma? What is..." 

"Taemin! You can't be in here! Please! Why aren't you with..." 

"Ah!" 

Taemin ran out of the room as quickly as he could. All he heard was wailing and crying and all he saw was familiar eyes and blood. His heart was pounding in his chest and he felt scared. Was he going to be alright? Why did he look so familiar? He kept running and running all the way to the lobby of the hospital. There, his best friend Jonghyun was standing with his father. Taemin ran into Jonghyun's arms, crying. Jonghyun hugged the smaller boy tightly. 

Mrs. Lee worked at odd times and often needed to have someone drop her son off to stay in one of the overnight nurse's rooms. Taesun did not have his licsence yet so he couldn't take Taemin. Today, Jonghyun's father drove Taemin. Jonghyun and Taemin (and Key) had become really good friends, despite being in different grades. Taemin knew exactly what floor his mother worked on so he snuck up there, hiding behind poles so the staff wouldn't see him. The last thing he wanted to see was someone in pain. He felt so awful.  

It was very early in the morning. Minho was out of it for sure, but could still feel the pain. When they were removing the chest tube, he felt like he was being ripped open. He could feel warm cloth dabbing at the liquid running down Minho's front. He knew it was blood, but he now had no more energy to scream and had no substance in his stomach to lose. He felt like he could feel and hear nothing but pain and beeping. His skin felt dry and cracked, he felt cold, but was sweating. He had a nasal cannula, but felt as though it was impossible to breath. As he began to get feeling back in some parts of his body, he regretted it. He could feel wires attached to stickers that plagued his body. The cold metal rings around the wire clips touched Minho's skin, making him shiver whenever he moved just a bit. The fuzzy socks on his feet provided no warmth or comfort, and the plastic alligator clip with the angry red light perpetually hung to his left index finger. At any touch of the cold, sanitized nurse's hands, Minho would lock his joints and hold his breath. There were so many tears pooling in his eyes, but he wasn't allowed to cry. He would rather hold in his tears to prevent more blood from escaping, then to see any red on his body. The laminated white bracelets on his wrist were put on loosely, so they scratched the skin of his wrist periodically. Finally, he noticed connections coming from his neck. Three IV's. Three. Minho felt like a monster in a lab, a specimen in an experiment, a sick person in a hospital. The point where the needles were puncturing his neck vains began to ache. The IV tubes that lead to the cold, silver pole with the bag attached, dripped clear god-knows-what into his system. He was wide awake now, however exhausted. He knew there would be more doctors, more visits, cards reminding him of what he wanted to forget, pills that would make him gag because he had trouble swallowing them, food that he didn't want to eat, more hospital gowns, boring television, his tired parents waiting on him, his poor brother leaving school early to visit, thing after thing reminding him that he had to be fixed. 

When Minho's mind drifted to a state where he could formulate thoughts, he often thought about two things over and over again. He thought about the light at the end of the tunnel. He didn't believe it was there. The room was often dark, the eyes of his family seemed dark, everything compared to the synthetic, germaphobic white of the hospital seemed darker. Where was his light? His father didn't tell him how long the tunnel was. Ten year olds weren't meant to go in deep dark tunnels. It wasn't natural. 

He also found himself thinking of blury images of Taemin. He hadn't seen him since soccer season and barely got to see him in the halls. Even though Jonghyun and Key and Jinki were good friends with Taemin, Minho always seemed to miss the boy. Minho wondered if he wished hard enough on his soccer ball, he would open his eyes and he would be home, playing in the green park, with a breeze ruffling his long hair. His friends would be there. All four of them. They would be playing soccer and king of the mountain and capture the flag. They would laugh when Jinki fell on his face and when Taemin would freak out if he saw a bug anywhere near him. Minho would annoy Key until he would come join in the fun, and Jonghyun would be eating his signiture lollipop, trying to look cool. It was picture perfect. From his hospital bed, Minho could neither reach for his soccer ball that rested underneath a visitor's chair, nor could he just wish himself out of the hospital and for a back-to-normal life. Minho new next to nothing about Taemin, other than the fact that he had unusually brown hair, big eyes, and hated bugs. It hit Minho like a ton of bricks falling off a skyscraper that with all of this, he would never see Taemin and there was a possibility of Taemin forgetting about Minho altogether. 

By the third day of the hospital stay, Minho's dark circles clouded his eyes, aging him way passed ten years old. Minho had gone through many episodes of Keroro, OnePiece, and Naruto, had read multiple comics, and still felt no enjoyment from the comforts of home. No amount of fuzzy socks, books, stuffed animals, or people visiting him, could make him feel less lonely. No one else had his body. No one else could feel what he was feeling. This made him, most certainly isolated. 

Minho cried himself to sleep, trying to absorb all of the warmth from his Mom's hand, that held his while she slept. 

Five days into his stay, a tear exhausted, naseous Minho saw a shadow behind the door. He wondered who it could be. The shadow seemed to be second guessing itself. The shadow would come closer, but then disappear. 

Minho kept trying to crane his sore neck to see who the figure was that controlled such a shy shadow. Minho siged. 

Just then out popped that familiar, but still not too unfamiliar brown wavy hair. The eyes were the shapes of almonds. Minho, for the first time, felt the smallest of smiles creep to his face. Was the person he had been waiting for. Was this a dream?

Little did he know...

A/N: I'm so late. I have had a rough time lately and this chapter took me a while to be able to write. I hope you enjoy and maybe gain some insight. Don't worry this fic is not all depressing or scary all the time. Thank you for subscribing/reading! Comment if you want!