spider | hoshi + s.coups

14

present day

The room went quiet with Hyeri almost dozing off, and Soonyoung refusing to stop massaging her, when all of a sudden, the quietness was interrupted by a loud ring from Seokmin's hand.

Everyone flinched at Hyeri's loud ringtone, Seokmin hastily muting her phone, before declining Seungcheol's call once again. His heart ached for Hyeri when he saw that she had saved her husband's number with lovey-doves emoticons, as if she wasn't lying on a hospital bed because of him.

Hyeri jerked awake, pushing Soonyoung off and trying to get up to get her phone. However, when she stood on her feet, her head did a spin, causing her to yelp and almost fall over, if Soonyoung hadn't caught her on time.

"Woah, there!" Soonyoung placed a hand on her shoulder to help balance her, when he felt that her skin was burning. He touched her neck, and forehead and almost flinched at the high temperature. "Hyeri, you're burning up."

"What? No, I'm fine!" She tried pulling away from her best friend. "I need to go home, Soonyoung, Seung—Seungcheol will be worried."

"You're not going anywhere in this state," he deadpanned.

"No, no, you don't understand! I have to go home, Soonyoung. Something might've happened to him. I-I need to go back and take care of him."

"The first and only person you should care about right now, is yourself."

"H-he won't be happy if I stay out too late, he won't like that," she started blabbering with incoherence, trying to get away from Soonyoung, who tightened his grip on her.

"Hyeri!" He grabbed her cheeks, holding her face still, and saw that she was hysterical, on the verge of tears. "Stay in the bed, Hyeri, you're not well!"

"I won't be well either way, if I don't go back to Seungcheol right now!" Hyeri practically screamed at Soonyoung's face, before reducing to tears.

Soonyoung wiped her tears away, and shook his head. "You'll be fine, Hyeri. Seungcheol won't be able to do anything more to you," he said, softly, "I won't let him lay another finger on you."

He pulled Hyeri into his arms, his chest muffling her sobs, fingers soothingly rubbing her. "Nothing is going to happen to you, Hyeri. I'll make sure of it."

Hyeri didn't notice the teardrops that fell on her head from Soonyoung's face.

Hyeri eventually calmed down, trying to not get so worked up again. Just for good measure, she ate the tablet that the nurse had bought, and laid back on the bed.

"You guys can leave. . . if you want to. I'll be fine by myself," Hyeri said softly, eyes still closed.

"There's absolutely no way I'm leaving you alone."

"I promise I won't run away, Soonie," she tried joking.

"I can't let you out of my eyesight again until I'm absolutely sure that you're okay."

"But I'm okay. I just need a little sleep, then I'll be fine as I'll ever be."

"Stop wasting your breath, I'm not going anywhere. I know how much you hate being alone, especially in an unfamiliar place."

Hyeri smiled, opening an eye. Soonyoung put his finger over that eye, and gently closed it, tucking her inside her blanket. He placed a soft kiss on her forehead.

"Sleep well," he whispered.

Seokmin quickly looked away when Soonyoung turned towards him. He sighed and pulled him outside to talk.

"Before you say anything else," Seokmin started, "no, I am not going to go back home without you."

"Don't be stupid, there's only one spare bed in each room. Plus, I'll need you to go back home to explain the. . . situation to everyone before she comes so they're all ready to take care of her and not ask stupid questions."

"I can manage for another spare bed, that's not a problem. And no, I don't want to explain things to them all alone. Not yet. I'll need you with me as emotional support when we're disclosing all this to them. If we ever plan to disclose all this to them."

"We can't hide it from them, Seokmin."

"But you can hide it from Hyeri? How does that make sense?"

"Seokmin, please, I'm too mentally exhausted to deal with this right now."

"We can't ignore this forever, you know. But fine, go take rest. We can decide what to do tomorrow, after a good nights' sleep."

Soonyoung chose not to answer Seokmin, and walked inside the ward, slowly closing the door behind him. He sat on the spare bed, and stared at Hyeri's sleeping figure, lost in thought.

He was feeling so many emotions that he didn't know how to make sense of. But the most prominent of them all was rage. Directed at who, he wasn't sure. Seungcheol, definitely. Somewhere deep inside, maybe at himself too.

How was he any better than Seungcheol? They both let her down, and broke her. Again.

They both broke their promise, just in different ways.

xx

I'm seriously questioning my life because how and why do I write such sad shit so effortlessly

[ May, 2023 ]