Herro.
I've come back with another chapter! I was really surprised at the amount of reviews/favs I got just from the one chapter! Thank you, minna. And special thanks to TsukixnoEvernight for pointing out my mistakes! I will fix them soon, and I'll apologize in advance to any multiple emails that you might get.
I can tell you now, you are going to jump up and down and scream at me in anger towards the end of the whole story. c:
I'm planning on drawing a series of manga-style clips from parts of a chapter for each chapter, but I don't know when I'll get to it, since I'm a lazy butt, and I'm kinda busy with that Eldoodle of Code Electra.
Also, I have limited medical knowledge even with help, so please excuse any mistakes that comes from my small store of hospital language!
His eyes are startlingly red. Not a bright, fiery kind of red, but more like.. the color of the sun when it sinks from view in the evening. Its color is rather comforting, and weirdly, they seem less piercing than my own, which are pale blue; a strange thought since blue eyes are far more common than red eyes.
After a moment, I come to my senses and realize I'm staring at him. I hurriedly avert my eyes until I feel his gaze on me. I think about how weird I must look, girlish features coupled with the strange marks in my eyes and the brown bridges in my hair. I turn my eyes on him again, and manage to get a few words out.
"Uhh..umm..Hi."
Great. That sounded so stupid even to my own ears. I hate how my quiet and shy personality won't let me say a single thing right.
As I mentally beat myself up, I can hear a voice."H…hi.."
I look back up. I'm unsure on what to say, what if I mess up even more? I plaster a smile on my face, praying that it looks genuine, and say, "My name's Chung. Nice to meet you." Good. That sounded a bit more cool. I think.
The boy, seeing my grin, relaxes a bit. He grins, and rolls his wheelchair towards me. He holds out a hand and says, "Elsword. Nice to meet you too!"
I take the hand. I grin at him, and his smile gets wider.
That's how I met the one boy who I would come to treasure in my heart.
I didn't expect such bright blue eyes. I thought his eyes would be a plain brown or hazel. But those eyes suit him. I wish I had those cerulean eyes, instead of my creepy maroon ones. For some reason he turns away, and mutters a few words. I think it was 'hi'.
I'm not sure what to say. Why am I like this? I'm usually so good with making friends. Is it because of the unfamiliar surroundings? Ahh, I hate this. Makes me look like a fool probably.
After a few seconds, Chung tries again, "My name's Chung. Chung Seiker. It's nice to meet you," and smiles at me.
Okay. I inwardly sigh in relief when I hear those words. He doesn't think I'm a freak because of my eye color. That's a start. But since when did I care about how I looked? Is it because this is someone who has a disability, an injury, or a disease? Is it because I've never actually been near someone who wasn't…completely normal?
No wait. That sounded so prejudiced. I push the line of thought away and I smile at Chung. I say, "Elsword. It's nice to meet you too!" and hold out my hand.
The tenseness between the two of us is gone, and we shake the first handshake of our friendship.
That's when the door creaks open again and my mother enters, carrying a small satchel on her shoulder. I turn around, letting go of Chung's hand, and the nurse says, "Great! I'm glad you made friends with each other. Elsword, would you like to move Ito your bed for tonight?"
"Sure, I was tired anyways."
My mother sets the bag on the small bedside table next to my phone. I stare at the bed for a moment, wondering how the hell I'm supposed to get on the bed, and the nurse says," The wheelchair should rise up and the armrests should fold so that you can scoot up onto the bed. It may be uncomfortable, but once you get used to it, it should be fine."
I bend over slightly and examine the edges of the chair. There are slight depressions on the plastic, and when I press on one of them, I can feel myself rise. I stop when the chair is at the same level as the bed, then I press on another button. The armrests go slack, and I can push it down so that it folds. "Thank you, "I say to the nurse. She smiles, bids us good night, and exits the room.
My mother helps me move from the chair to the single-sized futon, lifting up my useless legs and placing them gently onto the cotton sheets. She kisses my cheekㅡshe is so damn motherlyㅡand turns away to exit, when she notices Chung, looking lost. She exclaims, "Oh, excuse my bad manners. I didn't know there was someone else in the room. I'm sorry."
Chung smiles politely."It's no problem."
"But I'm glad Elsword has someone to share a room and be friends with him. I imagine it would be quite lonely alone here." Chung's smile drops a fraction, like her words affected him. But she doesn't notice, and continues, "Elsword isn't used to staying anywhere else other than his home, so please take good care of him!"
I roll my eyes."Mom, seriously, I'm not a kid. I'll be fine, okay?" I make that my-parents-are-so-tiring look at Chung and his lips quirk up briefly in a half-smile. He looks up at Mom, and smiles a genuine smile. "I promise Elsword will be fine here, ma'am."
My mother exits, turning off the lights and now the only light in the room is the small incandescent lamp on the table between our beds. We lie in silence for a while, and then I speak.
"What happened to you to be in the hospital? The nurse mentioned you already being here for a while."
There is silence from the other bed. Fearing that I've asked a personal question, I quickly add, "You don't have to tell ms if you don't want to. It's not in my place toㅡ"
"No, it's fine." After a few moments, he adds, "I have leukemia."
"Leukemia...?"
"Blood cancer," Chung explains. "It's something that causes your bone marrow to create defective white blood cells in your body."
Okay. I didn't understand anything, but isn't any type of cancer something pretty serious? The way adults talk about it, it's practically incurable."Cancer? Then shouldn't you be in the 5th floor for cancer patients?"
"Mine's not anything too serious, "He says that, but there is a faint shadow to his face. Why? "so I'm staying here. "
He sees the look on my face and laughs."Don't look at me like that. I hate it when people pity me. I'll be fine after treatments and medications and whatnot."
"Ah, okay." I'm not convinced, but if he says it's okay, it's okay. I don't want to annoy my friend in the first ten minutes I was here.
To change the subject, Chung asks, "So what happened to you to be here?" He winces, gesturing to my limbs swathed in many layers of bandages like a mummy."That looks pretty painful."
"It is," I agree. "I was on a field trip, and the bus crashed. I didn't get a chance to ask, but apparently one of the front tires were worn out and it slipped. None of the other kids were hurt much but I happened to be in the unlucky zone."
"Ouch. I'm sorry." we sit in silence for a while, and then Chung speaks again.
"Where were you going to in the field trip?"
The White House. My teacher put in an entry for a chance to go there, and we got picked! If only the bus hadn't crashed.."
"The White House? Wow.." He seems deep in thought. He voices those thoughts a moment later."Your life seems so interesting compared to mine. My life is just the same thing over and over again."
"Nah. An eighth-grade life is just school, school, school, and more school. This is a change from that old pattern."
He laughs again."You're not going to think that after a few weeks here."
"Speaking of which, how long have you been here?" I'm curious about his life, even if he says it's boring.
"About nine months." He says nonchalantly. Nonchalantly?
Seeing the expression on my face, he grins."Why do you look so surprised?"
"Uh, er.. The nurse just told me that you'd been here for a 'few' months.. The sloppiness of adults, really." I shake my head and say that while making a quotation mark with my fingers, earning a slight grin. "But if your leukemia isn't serious, why have you been here for so long?"
"Um, I guess if I don't stay and get treatments constantly, it's going to get worse or something." Chung lets his bangs fall over his eyes. "I miss going to school. The few kids that came here always say something about school being so boring, but I don't get it. Isn't it nice to see friends at school every day, even if you have class?"
"Er, well.. If you think of it that way.." I think for a while. I can't percieve school as anything but a drag in my life. It got me a few months in the hospital."Well, I guess being with friends is nice. But when you have a biology teacher like mine..." I shiver at the thought. "Mrs. Hobbs is a demon. Like, seriously."
"Really? How bad is she?" At the question, I immediately launch into a long speech about what an old hag she is, and all the things that we have to endure.
As I entertain Chung with a story about the time the prankster of our class, Toma, had placed itching powder in her desk drawer, making her jump up on her fat behind and scream her head off when she reached inside for a pen, the nurse comes in and tells us that we should really go to sleep and charge up on energy for tomorrow. We turn off the bedside lamp, and I pull the linen covers up as best as I can with my stiff arm. I close my eyes, and realize I've forgotten something.
"Good night, Chung."
"..Good night to you too, Elsword."
Satisfied, I let my eyelids slide close, and I fall asleep like my old self, the one who could sleep anywhere like a cat.
After the light is turned off, I close my eyes and try to sleep, but I can't. I just can't.
I think I'm too excited about making a friend. It's hard to make a friend when there are barely any people my age in this part of the wing. You would think that kids would get hurt more than adults, but nooooo. All the people who stayed in my room were either had pity for me(which I detested very much), looked at me like I was a freak, or was downright mean. But Elsword.. Elsword actually treats me like an equal. The only people I've known to do that is my brother and the doctors. It feels..
Different. That's it. It feels good, to have friends. Someone who'd be with you to have fun, talk about problems, everything. I know my brother would do that for me, but he is older and he also has school and a bright future ahead. I can't pull him away from his life.
At the same time, I feel rather guilty. I made a friend, but I also lied to him. Within an hour of our meeting, I lied. Even though it's technically not really my fault, the feeling at the bottom of my stomach refuses to go away. Argh, can't everything be just simpler?
I miss Dad. He would be here no matter what, even if it was snowing two feet every night, even if he had to skip work, anything. He was the kind of person who was there for his family 24/7, through thick and thin. But there were things not even Dad could reach through for our family.
Human life is so fragile. Just one careless step off a ladder, the heart-stopping fall through the merciless air, the sickening crunch of bone against asphalt, and it's over. It's over and you can't have it back, no matter how much you fight against reality to retrieve it.
Does he miss us? Does he look down from the gates of the afterlife that he is in, watching me and my brother? I hope so.
Just for that moment, the urge to see Dad is unbearable, and I almost cry out. I stifle it just in time though, and reach out a thin hand to the small bedside table. My hand finds the familiar cover of a book, and I pick the heavy book up and prop my soft pillow up on the headboard of the bed. The tiny flashlight that hangs by a cord sewn through the spine of the book lights up when I twist its base, and illuminates the maroon cover.
'Don Quixote'. The golden letters shine in the darkness, and I quickly form a tent with my hands and the bed covers to prevent the light from waking Elsword. I turn to the page where my bookmark, the most precious thing in the world to me, lies hidden between clean white pages.
The faces of four people smile at me. It's the picture our whole family took at the park, two years ago. Me in the front, blue eyes shining like mirrors, Kei, my brother, next to Dad who has one hand on Kei's shoulder and another on mine, and Mother who has the rare signs of a smile on her stiff face. How I wish I could go back to that time, just be swept inside the picture, the occupants of which do not know of the hardships they will face in just a few months.
Rooooaar.
Wait, what?
I look around at the source of the sound, and that's when I see Elsword sleeping soundedly and those obnoxiously loud snores coming from his open mouth. I shake my head and smile. Who would have known that my new roommate can snore louder than a tiger with a cold?
There's something warm on my face. I open my eyes, and immediately close them as the bright sunlight streaming through the slits in the window blinds assault my sleepy eyes. I groan and put a hand over my face. It must be well into the morning for the sunlight to be so powerful.
"Good morning," I hear someone's soft voice. That's when I remember that I'm not in the ICU.
I remove the hands over my eyes and sit up. Chung's propped up on the headboard of his bed, calmly reading a book so thick I wouldn't even dare look at it, let alone attempt to read it. He looks at me, grins, and says,"Did you know you snore louder than a train? It was so loud it wasn't even funny."
I blush and stutter out an explanation. "Eh-eh really? I didn't know that..N-nobody told me that I snore.. I swear, I'll kill my sister for sleeping in the same room for my whole life and not telling me! God, I'm sorry if I bothered you in the night or-"
"No, no, it's fine." Chung cuts me off and says," I got that really useful ability to tune things out." with a slight quirk to the corners of his lips, he adds," Also.. you sleep in the same room as your sister?"
I sit there, not getting it, and suddenly he bursts into laughter, and I immediately launch into a floundering explanation of why we sleep into the same room, my face considerably hotter than it was a minute ago. Chung continues to laugh, bending over at the waist in mirth.
Attempting to conceal the redness of my cheeks, I glare at him. "That was so inappropriate."
"No it wasn't," Chung wipes his eyes on his sleeve, still chuckling."You just took it the wrong way."
"..Okay, you are officially labeled as evil in my mental friend chart."
He grins."Okay, I'm fine with that. It means you still accepted me as a friend, right?"
I stare at him. "Y..You.."
..Great. I'm so dumb to fall into that trap again.
I stare at my food, and will my hand to pick up the food, put it into my mouth, and-
Plop. The piece of pancake that was speared with the fork in my left hand slips off the tip for the millionth time. I sigh in frustration and halfheartedly prod at the piece of food, in tatters from all the poking and spearing, Chung looks at me from the other bed, and asks,"Do you need help?"
"No wait, I think I got it.." Finally. The pancake is hovering near my mouth.. Just a few inches... I got it..
Plop.
"Oh, just screw this!" I explode, and put down the fork with a loud clang.It's so hard to eat when you're right-handed and your mother's been feeding you for the past 72 hours.
Chung sighs. "You know what, this is stupid." He gets up and drags a stool from the corner of the room to my bed. He picks up the fork I abandoned, and pierces the now mushy piece of bread and holds it up. "Open up."
"What?" I stare at him, mouth open, incredulous. He takes the chance to shove the pancake into my mouth. "Now eat."
I give in and chew. The hospital food was good so far(maybe except for that spinach I was force-fed), and this is no less.
"Done? Chung asks, and when I nod, he picks up another piece and holds it up, waiting.
After a grueling thirty minutes, I'm finally done with the meal. It was rather embarrasing, having to be fed by a boy my age. I mean, it's mortifying enough to look like a mama's boy while your mother's crooning," Open your mouth.. That's it. Here comes the airplane!", but this is more than a blow to my guy ego. Not that I'm complaining. It's better than missing a meal.
Chung is staring at my face, then he laughs. "You know it took you fifty minutes just to eat?"
"What?" I take a look at the clock. It's true. The nurse brought us breakfast at 10:10. It's nearly 11 now. "Ohhh.." I groan. "The bus just had to break my right hand. Great luck you have, Elsword Siegehart."
"Your last name is Siegehart?" Chung asks. I look curiously at him and answer,"Yeah, why?"
"Nothing. I just remembered.."he ponders in thought for a while, and slowly says,"Do you happen to have a sister named Elesis?"
"Yep! How did you know?
"She's my brother Kei's lab partner at his college. He was really enthusiastic, describing her." He rolls his eyes and makes quotation marks with his fingers when he says that last part.
"Hmm.. Enthusiastic, huh..."I draw the words out. " You don't suppose he's interested in her, riiight?" I put two fingers under my chin, pretending to stroke a beard, and wiggle my eyebrows caterpillar-style." 'Cause if he is, I'll make sure he doesn't touch Elesis."
He laughs, and then says,"I knew it. You have a sister complex." He also wiggles his eyebrows.
"Wh-Whaㅡ no I don't! I just happen to care for my family very much!"
"Yeah, yeah," Chung shakes it off carelessly, which kind of irks me because it seems he doesn't believe me. "But really, it's like fate. Your sister and my brother just happens to be at the same school, and we just happen to be in the same hospital room."
"Yeah," I agree."In that case I guess I should say this again. Please take care of me!" I pretend to whip off a nonexistent hat with my good left hand and bow to him.
When I look up, Chung's blue eyes are bright with amusement."Same here," he says, and performs a curtsy.
I laugh. "Just like you to do that, looking like a girl and all."
"..."
..Did I say something wrong?
After that breakfast incident, we sit in our beds and stare into our book or phone. I'm still laughing inwardly at Elsword's expression when the pancake was barely an inch from his mouth and fell back onto the plate. It made for good entertainment, but now that conversation has stopped, the air between us is rather awkward.
I sigh and look up at the clock. It's half-past thirty, which means the doctor will come for the weekly injections. I hate them, which is Supposedly they are going to help treat the defective white cells, but it's been more than 5 months since they gave up on the radioactive treatment and started on this one. The tiny marks on my wrists made from the thin needles of syringes are countless. I guess that, seeing as I've had a needle poking into my skin constantly, I should have gotten used to it, but nothing prepares you for that sharp point piercing skin into a vein, the feeling of cold, unfamiliar liquid flowing into you, and the numbness of your arms for hours afterwards.
There's a knock on the door, and Dr. Grail steps in, followed by Ms. Hanna and Ms. Lucy. He is holding a syringe filled with clear fluid in one hand and a clipboard in another. I sigh. There it is.
"Hello, Chung. How are you doing today?" Dr. Grail asks me, handing the pouch to Ms. Hanna and unclipping the pen from the wooden clipboard.
"I'm fine, thank you." He begans to write on the progress report I know is on the clipboard. My answer is always the same, so I have no idea what he writes in there every day." Is that today's dose?"
"Yes. And I also have good news about it. We believe this treatment was successful, and in a few months I think you'll be ready to get the bone marrow transplant and be cured of leukemia."
My heart leaps in my chest. "R-really?" I smile, the grin reaching the ends of my face. " I'm so glad..."
The doctor smiles."Yes, but I don't want to get your hopes up too much. The marrow has to be donated from someone else, and I'm telling you now that the donor's white blood cell type has to match yours completely, and it might be hard to find a donor who does match. Also, the treatment you are undergoing now may still fail farther into it."
I barely here the last part. All that registered was that the treatment was working on me.I nod and fall into a daze, contemplating the possibilities waiting for me outside of this hospital's walls. I'm so out of it that I don't even notice the heavy needle breaking into my skin nor the stinging pain that normally accompanies it. It makes me so happy to just think about going somewhere else, going to school again, and going back home. I only wake from my trance when the doctor and nurses leave and Elsword speaks. " Was that your leukemia treatment?"
"Yes," I answer, and with a slight smile, I continue, " They told me that it's working and I might be able to be cured!"
Elsword's face lights up with a smile in sincere happiness for me. "Really? That's great!"
I laugh, still not back from the highs of good news. "I know right! Finally, I can go to school again!"
He looks at me like I've lost it. " Go to school? Are you serious?"
"Yeah! I just really want to meet new people. It gets so boring here without anyone!"
He makes a fake hurt face. "What about me? I count as someone, right?"
"You are an idiot. Of course! I just meant that there are a ton of people at school and I want to learn and make friends and talk with other people andㅡ"
"Okay, okay! All I know is that you are now classified as 'evil' and 'weird' in my friend chart." He shakes his head in exasperation, although the corners of his lips are raised. "Got that?"
I smile, and say," As long as I'm in that friend chart, anything."
I'm sorry for the late update. I was able to write this chapter with the help of my friend Karin, who has a brother who was diagnosed with Leukemia but thankfully is now free of the disease! Thanks, Karin! She also encouraged me to write at least 3k words. I've filled my quota with 4000!
I think I conveyed the feeling of making friends okay, since I experienced not having friends and then having someone come up to you, telling you they want to be friends. I tried to write down that really happy feeling down, but it's so hard!
I looked over this a few times, but I'm human : not perfect. If you see any mistakes or weird parts of the story you can't understand, please tell me!
+4/6/13
Fixed some stupid mistakes in the story!
