━━ SIX HOURS. DAIYU spent six long, agonizing hours sitting on the chair outside the operating room, anxiously awaiting for her father's surgery to go well.
for two of those six hours, she had peacefully slept, comforted by jianyu's shoulder that supported her head, gently keeping it from aching around her neck. now that her lethargy had dissipated, daiyu was left a bundle of highly strung nerves, just waiting to explode into a million emotions.
her fingers were entangled in their sorrowful bundle of anxiety, cold and damp from the perspiration leaving her worn body.
the phone in her jacket pocket had stopped working fifteen minutes into the surgery, and daiyu had awoken to a black screen and a dull ache inside her head.
it had been days since daiyu had proper sleep; with the hurricane of misfortune chasing after her, the chinese-korean girl had no time to replenish her energy and keep her head up.
the remaining hours felt like days to the teen, who was too focused on thoughts of her father to bother giving the boy next to her the cold shoulder. jianyu didn't deserve it, anyway.
life worked in mysterious ways, and if it was fate that had brought her father and his mother together, her words and disapproval weren't going to separate them as easily.
daiyu was too tired to try, and too done to even care whether or not she had been lied to.
all she wanted was to piece her family back together.
the hospital waiting chairs felt like hell against daiyu's back, making her spine curve oddly and ache as it crushed her posture into awkward positions. she didn't know how she managed to fall asleep on them, but didn't dwell on it too much.
all she could focus on was the dull grayish white doors of the operating room and the blue curtains blocking the view of the other side.
on the other side were nurses and doctors that were operating on her father, his now fragile life in their hands.
the gnawing worry in her stomach kept churning her insides, despite her resolve that everything would turn out right. daiyu had never asked anything of the world; didn't that alone warrant her a happy future? was she so unlucky as to live unhappily for the rest of her life?
all she could do was wait and see, not-so patiently watching the surgery room with a heavy heart.
━━ THE NEWS WAS broken to her on the way back from the vending machine.
her stomach had finally given in to the hunger during the last half hour of the surgery, and jianyu had generously given her some country-appropriate currency for daiyu to buy herself something in the meantime.
just as she was unwrapping her breakfast bar, the main surgeon walked out from the operation room. he looked drained.
daiyu's heart plummeted to her feet, and she quickened her pace towards him.
her voice was gone—a hoarse and empty whisper as she tried to convey what she wanted to ask in words, but they wouldn't come out. daiyu's hands shook so much she accidentally dropped the bar, staring at the surgeon like a rain-soaked dog.
there was a long stretch of silence. daiyu couldn't even hear the clatter of tools from within the operating room. that empty void of noise made the chinese-korean girl feel like an insignificant speck of dust on the white tiled floor.
