sleepless cinderella ☆ ten | ✔

06

This was it. Today was the day. The day you were finally taking Ten up on his previous offer of you coming to the hospital and meeting his team. Or, at least the ones on shift at that time.

You'd woken up at an ungodly hour of the morning in order to go in with him for his shift at five. According to him, the best time for you to go in to maximize your ability to talk to them was then, when it would theoretically be the least chaotic and busy. Their first surgery was set to be at seven, giving you a little bit of time while they prepped for and started their pre-op duties. Of course, you would reach a point where you'd had to leave for safety reasons, but until then, you were determined to get as much out of these people as possible. And also meet your boyfriend's co-workers or something like that.

Clinging to your boyfriend's arm, you desperately wiped the sleep out of your eyes. Waking up to him peppering your face with kisses was nice, but that still didn't make the fact that it was three forty-five when he did so any less true.

"How the hell are you so awake?" You grumbled, trudging down the halls with him.

"Let's get you some coffee from the doctors' lounge, Y/N," he patted your head affectionately, leading you down another corridor. "It's much better than the stuff in the cafeteria."

You forced yourself to click your voice recorder on, blearily shifting into interview mode, "Say that again for the record?"

"You look like a zombie, so we're getting you coffee from the doctors' lounge instead of the cafeteria because the stuff in the cafeteria is dirt water."

"A zombie?"

"A very cute zombie," he reassured you, stopping to push a door open for you.

Begrudgingly, you let go of his arm to allow him to approach the coffee maker. You stood just past the doorway to observe your surroundings. The doctors' lounge was nicely furnished, a couple couches in front of a TV, a small kitchen on the other side. Sitting at the countertop that separated the two areas was a woman who looked up from her bowl of cereal at you with interest.

She briefly looked between you and Ten, who was pouring coffee into a pastel pink mug for you.

"Are you Y/N?"

"Yes," you confirmed, gesturing to the stool beside her. "Would you mind?"

"Absolutely not," her eyes were practically glittering as she watched you sit down. "I'm Duan Aojuan, I work with Dr. Li."

"Yeah, you're like his protégé. I'm Y/L/N Y/N, but it seems that Ten's already told you about me." You then leaned a little closer to her and lowered your voice, "Ten didn't want me to meet you because he says you've got a lot of embarrassing stories of him."

Aojuan's face lit up before her voice turned conspiratorial as well, "Plenty. Remind me to introduce you to Zhengting, too. Actually, I'm going to page him here right now."

"I already regret this," Ten sighed, placing your coffee in front of you on the counter, paired with a gentle hand on the small of your back.

"Oh! Aojuan, just so you know, I have a voice recorder going right now. Is that okay with you?"

At her confused look, Ten chuckled from beside you, gently reminding you, "Y/N, babe, I know you're tired, but most people don't just record every conversation they have. Maybe explain to her why."

"I'm a college student, I'm used to functioning on less sleep than this," you scowled at him, taking a sip of your coffee before continuing. "And I was about to, when you cut me off."

Ten was unfazed by the elbow you gently jutted into his stomach, resting an arm around your shoulders as you refocused on Aojuan.

"I'm a journalism student, and my final article is on Ten, and I wanted to include information on and from the people he works with. Is it alright if I record and include you in my article?"

"Oh, sure! Could you just keep my name out of the article?"

"Yeah, of course."

Just then, the door to the lounge opened and in stepped another man, this time not donning the white coats that Ten and Aojuan had, but simply in his pale blue scrubs.

"Aojuan? You paged me? Said it was urgent—" as his gaze landed on you and Ten, his eyes grew wide and he immediately rushed to sit on the other side of Aojuan. "Oh, this is urgent. I'm Zhu Zhengting, and you must be Y/N."

"You two are so melodramatic," Ten scoffed, to which you snorted.

"You're not really one to talk, Ten. Do you want me to bring out the recording of how you asked me out?"

"You recorded him asking you out?" Zhengting repeated, taken aback.

Aojuan thankfully explained it for you, "She's a journalism student and is doing an article on Dr. Li, so she's been recording their conversations. Including this one, right now."

"If that's alright with you, Zhengting," you added on the stipulation, making sure everyone was comfortable with and had knowledge of you recording.

"Sure," he shrugged, then seemed to realize something. "Wait—all of them? Everything?"

You nearly spit out the coffee you had just sipped on, taking a moment to swallow it before laughing along with your boyfriend, "No, only the ones that pertain to the article. So not everything."

"I just had to ask."

"And Ten's the one who recorded him asking me out. I had the voice recorder turned off and he turned it back on to ask me out."

"You are melodramatic, Dr. Li."

"As if you two didn't already know that about me," Ten shook his head affectionately at his co-workers.

"Now that we've got that out of the way," Aojuan turned the conversation back to where you had really wanted it to be, speaking to Zhengting as she expanded on her previous explanation. "Y/N wants embarrassing stories of Dr. Li, and I think we are the most qualified to supply her with this information."

Zhengting looked like a kid on Christmas morning, "We absolutely are. Oh, I've been waiting for this opportunity for years!"

"I don't think I want to be here for this," Ten announced, kissing the top of your head. "I'm going to check in with some other people, I'll come find you in a bit."

"Bye, Ten," you fondly watched him leave the room. Once he was out of your sight, you turned back to the other two still left in the lounge with you, "Alright, where were we?"