Sungjong woke up in a hospital room. He wrinkled his nose at the antiseptic smell that was always present in hospitals. The room was plain but on a table a bunch of flowers were crowded together giving the room a bit of color. The room was also empty of anyone else. He was a little sad to find that he would wake up in the hospital alone. Where were the other members? Before finding that out he figured he should find out what time and day it was. He felt like he had slept forever. The events leading up to his hospitalization were coming back now. He could feel the dull throb of pain coming from his back.

“AHHHH” Sungjong squealed in pain when he tried to sit up to reach for his phone which was sitting on the bedside table.

He fell back immediately, his face flushed from the pain. It had felt like someone was jabbing a bunch of needles into his back.

A nurse ran into the room, “Are you alright? I heard your cry from the hallway!”

Sungjong caught his breath, “I’m….okay now. Could you do me a favor and hand me my phone?”

The nurse immediately handed it to him, “I’ll be back in just a few minutes with the doctor, he will want to know you’ve woken up.”

His phone was filled with text messages from his friends and family asking if he was okay. He supposed the news of his accident had gotten out.  And it was also time for m countdown to be airing. That was where the other members would be, they would be there to do the live recording for the comeback. Sungjong’s eyes filled with tears at the thought. He wanted to be there so badly. He was angry that he fell and he was angry that they would still comeback without him. Being a sub-vocal meant the show could go on without you.  He let the tears fall and fumbled with the in bed TV remote. The least he could do is watch their comeback.

The doctor came into the room right when Sungjong found the correct TV channel, but a rookie group was performing, thankfully he hadn’t missed much of the show.

“Sungjong, how are you feeling?” the doctor smiled and grabbed the clipboard at the end of the bed.

“My back hurts. I tried sitting up and….it hurt too much.”

“Were you crying from the pain, was it that bad?”

Sungjong shook his head, “No, I’m crying because I’m here. But it does hurt enough to cry about. What….what happened?”

The doctor’s face suddenly became darker, less cheerful, “It is a hard story, maybe you’ll want to wait until your friends are here with you?”

“No, no tell me now! I need to know now! What happened? And when can I get out of here? And most importantly, when can I get on stage again?” Sungjong’s voice came out small and whiny instead of strong and demanding like he wanted, but the questions were at least out there for the doctor to answer.

“Due to a bit of a freak accident when you fell, you nearly severed your spinal cord. You fell onto a piece of glass that cut right between your vertebra into the spinal cord. The damage was fixed through surgery so you have no worries of loss of use of any limbs but the recovery period will be months. You will not be able to perform with your group for a long time. And even when you can start dancing again you’ll need to be careful for to not over exert your back.  These next few weeks will be the hardest I believe because the pain will be nearly constant. Your nerves are trying to reconnect and so…”

Sungjong had buried his face into his hands and was sobbing, “No..no…no…no…”

The doctor sighed, “But with therapy you’ll be dancing and performing again. You are lucky try to remember that, I know right now it isn’t helpful to hear but it will be.”

“GET OUT! GET OUT PLEASE!” Sungjong didn’t want to hear the doctor tell him he was lucky or how long he would have to wait to get back on stage. He didn’t want to believe it was the truth. Doctors always over exaggerated everything anyway.  It would only be a few weeks he bet and he’d be good as new.

“Okay, I’ll leave, but if you need anything just call the nurse in.” he gave a weak smile and walked out the door.

Sungjong laid in the bed staring at the ceiling while trying to stop crying. Suddenly he heard a familiar song and the sound of a crowd cheering. He looked at the TV to see the six members of Infinite coolly starting the chorography for the new single.  His legs twitched, automatically wanting to keep up with everyone else. Their dances were muscle memory, it just took a second of the beat before they could start dancing precisely in sync. Sungjong loved their title as the in sync-dols. He loved dancing so much. It didn’t matter if it was their song, another idol group’s song, or a girl group’s song. He would dance them all.

He watched the comeback performance, noting any mistakes so he could tell the members about it later. It was an almost flawless performance. The fanchants were nearly deafening and the camerawork was sensational. What bothered him the most was that the stage didn’t look wrong without him there. He had expected to see it and notice the gap where he was supposed to be. To see the other members look at his place and miss a step. But he knew that didn’t happen, they had performed before without members without any issues.  Surprisingly they had let Sungyeol sing Sungjong’s parts. Sungyeol had done it nicely too. Though Sungjong would tell him for the zillionth time that he needed to hold the mic closer or sing louder, it was always so hard to hear.

Suddenly his phone rang; the id said it was Sunggyu, “Hyung!” he sobbed into the phone.

“Sungjong! I’m so happy to hear you are awake! Why didn’t you call us as soon as you got up?”

“Ahh, I knew you were going to be busy with mcountdown performance and such…..”

Sunggyu sighed, “Silly, we would have dropped everything! Wait just a little while and we will be there okay? I’m sorry you had to wake up in that room alone.”

Sungjong hung up the phone and hoped they would arrive soon. He needed them to tell him he would be alright. The members wouldn’t lie to him like the stupid doctor. He knew the doctor wasn’t lying but it made his heart hurt less if he believed it was a lie or at least an exaggeration.