"I have seven wishes, but you're not one of them."
"Do you really not want me?"
"Well, I can spare half a wish for you."
~~~~~
In which Yuna and Chan want to find their cause of happiness, even when they are behind those white hospital walls.
~~~~...
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The next morning, Chan walked out of his hospital wing and stood under the tree they had chosen the previous day. The cafeteria was bombarded with people as always, and as he tapped his foot in anticipation, he thought over why he was so eager to meet her.
Maybe she was one of the only people he had come to trust ever – other than his mother. He didn't know why he had come to trust her in such a short span of time, but it was maybe her aura that drew him in. The positive, energetic, happy vibe that she exhibited – it was contagious and he found himself still smiling over her laughing over that picture with the man and the mayonnaise.
He was happy to have found such a great friend in her. She made his days a hundred times better, only by meeting him once in the day. He realized how his short span of happiness was something that he shared with her.
How had he come to trust her so easily?
He didn't know.
Anyway, staring at the time on his phone, he came to know that he had been waiting for about fifteen minutes. Sighing, he stressed over how he thought that she wasn't going to come anytime soon. Chan was disappointed as he turned around to walk back to his room when he heard a yell, "Excuse me!"
He turned around to see a young boy walking towards him, with a sling on his arm and a healing bruise on his cheek. His cheekbones were well defined, and he wore a puzzled look on his face. He was dressed up in the hospital gown as well, so Chan waited for him to near him, raising his eyebrow.
As the boy reached him, he asked Chan, "Are you Bang Chan, by any chance?"
"Yes, I am?" Chan spoke uncertainly.
"Oh, I knew I'd find you here! Noona was right!" he rejoiced, giving him a wide, innocent smile.
"You mean Yuna? She told you to come here?"
"Yes! She's actually in a little serious condition right now, and she didn't have your phone number, so she told me to tell you to come to her room to meet," the boy explained.
"Oh, alright," Chan nodded understandingly, and the two walked towards the eastern wing.
As they walked, Chan asked, "What's your name?"
"Ah, I forgot to tell you! I'm Yang Jeongin," he smiled, and Chan noticed that he still wore braces. It gave him a childish look, and judging by the features of the boy, he couldn't be older than sixteen.
In a blink of an eye, they were standing outside Yuna's hospital room, and Jeongin knocked on the door. They heard a faint 'come in', and the younger boy opened the door for them.
And Chan walked into a different universe altogether.
There were Polaroid pictures clipped on three thick threads across the room, covering the top part of the room entirely. He saw that the mayonnaise man's picture was hung too. He couldn't recognize anyone except Yuna in those pictures, and as he moved his gaze along the threads, he found his picture with her hung up too.
When he looked away from the pictures, then his gaze caught onto countless paintings stuck up on the wall behind the bed, all looking as if an amateur artist tried her hand at it. There were paintings of space, sketches of people (not exactly looking accurate), and abstractly drawn splashes of colors on the sheets.
"Hello!" Yuna woke him up from his state of admiration.
"O-Oh, hi," Chan spoke, embarrassed that he had been caught shamelessly staring at the interior and ignoring the girl for whom he was there.
Yuna laughed, and that's when he noticed that there were IV pipes attached to her hand and how weak she was looking.
"How are you now?" he asked, and she showed him an enthusiastic thumbs-up.
"Who are these people in the pictures?" Chan couldn't help but ask.
"These are some strangers who were looking sad when I first saw them," she explained, "Just collected these pictures as memories."
"What's so memorable about them?"
"Well, first of all, spreading smiles through pictures. Second, these are the memories I made while I'm in hospital. So when I'll be out of this cancer mess and be alright, I'll look at them and cherish them nostalgically."
"You're getting worse, noona. You'll need to stay in the hospital more, just like the doctor said," Jeongin blurted out.
"Yeah... but don't worry, I'm okay, and I will be okay someday..."
"..."
"And I can't wait for that day."
(a/n: okay so I realized that the theme song for the entire book is SUNSHINE by Stray Kids, so if you want to get the feels, do listen to it every time you read this book :))
