Clinging to Friendship

Epilogue

“Ugh…” I groaned. I attempted to open my eyes but found it extremely difficult as they had, for some reason, crusted shut.“Oh my god! My baby! Honey! Dr. Moreno! He woke up! Hurry up! Get in here!” I heard the sound of my mother’s voice shouting, then the sound of frantic button pushing, coming from right near my ear. The spot beside me was pushed down, I assumed it was because she had sat down beside me. “Kian… Oh, my sweet baby…” I felt fingers wipe my eyes, and I found that afterward, I was finally able to open my eyes. Once my vision focused, I could see she was there. My mother… There were tears in her eyes and she looked so much tired than she had been, even when my sister had kept her awake all night. What happened? Where was I?“Hi…” I croaked, my voice hoarse with disuse. She smiled at me and with that tears streamed down her face. She grabbed my face and rained kisses down on my face. I heard footsteps sounding like they were coming from outside and I tensed up. Who was coming? I pushed myself up on the bed trying to protect my mother, groaning as my body stretched in my movement. A door opened, and two people came into the room. It was two women, one in a lab coat and the other wearing scrubs. The one who I assumed was the nurse, ignored me and walked to the cabinets and began pulling things out and working on something, I wasn’t sure what.“Hello there, Kian. It’s nice to finally see you awake. My name is Dr. Moreno, and I’ve been your doctor since you’ve been hospitalized.” Dr. Moreno gave me a kind smile and crossed the floor to sit down in a chair beside my bed. “Would you like some water?” I nodded, once she had said that it finally made me realize that my throat felt scratchy and sore, hopefully, the water would help alleviate my pain. My mom stood up abruptly and stated.“I can go and get him some water… That way you can talk with him.” The doctor nodded, and my mother quickly stepped out of the room to go and get me something to drink.“Now then, Mr. Kian. Would you like to tell me what happened to you? Those gashes in your side were extremely deep, we weren’t sure that you were going to make it,” Dr. Moreno said, I heard the nurse make a noise of agreement.“What exactly happened?” I asked, my voice sounding even raspier. Dr. Moreno stood up and pulled the blankets back, she gestured to my hospital gown and I nodded. She pushed my gown up and revealed that my side was heavily bandaged.“Tabby? May I have the scissors?” The nurse complied and dug through another cabinet, before producing a pair of scissors. She handed the doctor the scissors, then she immediately began cutting the bandages apart, revealing huge stitched up injuries. They stretched from my belly button to my side.“How did I even survive this?” I whispered, there was no way I should’ve survived this but somehow… I did.“Honestly, I have no clue honey, you flatlined multiple times during surgery. I’m just glad you made it back.” She shrugged, taking the used bandages off and threw them into a bin. The nurse handed her some clean new ones and Dr. Moreno began bandaging me back up. “So, do you have any idea how you sustained those injuries?”The events of what happened had been steadily flooding back, that stupid test of courage, the monster, and then… then Ji-Yong and me. It all came back. There was no way that I could tell the doctor what had happened to me, so instead, I just shook my head.“No Dr. Moreno… I have no idea what happened to me.” I lied. She nodded and stood up, brushing off her pants.“Alright then, Nurse Tabitha, will take care of you now. I’m off to go check on some of my other patients,” Dr. Moreno opened the door and almost walked into my mom and father, who had been waiting patiently on the other side. My mom quickly apologized and stepped aside for her, the doctor nodded in acceptance of her apology before leaving the room.Now with Dr. Moreno gone, I had to deal with my parents. My mom handed me the water and I downed it as quickly as I could, the cool water soothed my burning throat. The nurse waited for me to be finished before she started taking my temperature, blood pressure and whatever else nurses had to do.My father was sitting on the couch that was opposite of the hospital bed, his arms crossed and his face stern. I could just tell that he was waiting for the nurse to leave so that way he could yell at me. I hoped that the nurse would never leave but very soon after she had finished doing whatever it was that she was doing, Nurse Tabitha left me with my parents.“So,” my father’s deep voice reverberated through my chest, “What the f**k happened to you?” He questioned. His eyes blaring fiercely. I was just about to answer before my mom spoke up.“Kibwe!” She snapped at him, “Can’t you wait until he is better? Why do you think you have to question him right now? Leave him alone, I swear to god.” She grabbed my father roughly by the arm and pulled him out of the room, even while he was attempting to argue with her.When she returned, it was alone. Thank god. She smiled at me and walked back over to my bed. My mom bent down and gave me a quick kiss on the forehead.“Just so you know Kian, this isn’t our last conversation about what you were doing trespassing at the school. Though it’ll be once you’re out of the hospital, your father and I are going to have the full story. You got that?” I nodded, and she smiled. “Good.” She patted my head before leaving to follow my father. Though she stopped before completely leaving and said, “I’m so glad that you’re ok, baby.” Then with those parting words, she left.I leaned back against my hospital bed, thank god for my mother… But sometimes she could be a little scarier than my father. I chuckled softly and closed my eyes. I hadn’t had my eyes closed for very long when there was a knock on my door. I almost jumped right out of bed, when I remembered that I was in the hospital, not the school. It was probably just the nurse, so I told them to come in, leaving my eyes closed.“Hey, is that how you greet your guest?” I opened my eyes, a smile already plastered across my face.“Hey there Ji-Yeong. Is that a better greeting for you?” I teased.“Maybe, I still think you can do better,” he laughed at me. Ji-Yeong walked over to the bed and sat down on a chair next to my bed. He handed me a bouquet of flowers, which I thankfully took from him. “For you Kian. Now you better like these, cause they were hella expensive. I’m going to be in debt to my parents for forever.”“You don’t need to worry about a thing, I really like them,” I looked at the all the flowers, in my bouquet. There were a bunch of different flowers here, but the only one I could actually identify were the roses in them. “What flowers did you get me?” I asked him in confusion, causing him to look away from me, I could see that his ears were tinged with pink.“I honestly have no clue… I don’t really know what I got… I just told them that there was someone that I really liked in the hospital and they gave me this…” I smiled at him and patted the spot on the bed beside me.“Thank you Ji-Yeong, I really love them.” He set himself down beside me and took the flowers from out of my hands. He set them aside for me onto the nightstand nearby.“I’m really glad you like them Kian.” His smile was like a mile long and even though I was bedridden and just woke up, his smile made me feel like I could run for a million miles. It made me feel twenty times better.“So, among other things… How the hell did we get away from that monster?” I asked him curiously. His eyes widened when he realized that I barely remembered anything, and he immediately launched into the explanation. He talked for like thirty minutes straight about how I ended up in the hospital. He talked about when he found me in an empty classroom and patched me up to the best of his ability. He told me about him and Layne fighting off the shadow creature and escaping before being trapped by it, just when they were so close to the exit. After that though, Ji-Yeong cut himself off, staring off into the distance.“Hey,” I waved my hand in front of his face attempting to bring his attention back to me. “Then what happened Ji-Yeong?” I prodded, there was no way that that creature would let us off so easily when we had been that close to the door. So, what happened? I poked him in the side, attempting to get some kind of answer from him. Thankfully, I gained his attention and finally got my answer.“Ok! Ok already!” he cried out, trying to escape from my poking, “The police managed to get there in time and they shot at the creature. It scared him off and they immediately got help for you.” I could tell that he was lying to me, and it wasn’t hard to figure out. Whenever he lied, he would immediately look away from me and he would chew on his lip.Even if I didn’t like that I didn’t have the exact answer, if he didn’t want to answer me now, it was fine. I’d get it out of him later. I sighed and nodded, thanking him for telling me the full story of what happened while I was unconscious.“Are Layne and Poppy going to visit me soon?” I changed the subject, hopefully to one that was a little happier.“Yep! They’re waiting for when your dad leaves so that they can come in.” Makes sense, I wouldn’t want them to have to deal with my pain in the ass dad… “You know, Kian, I’m really glad that you’re ok. I was so worried about you.” Ji-Yeong murmured, crossing the room to look out the window. I stared at him and smiled. Wanting to comfort him I sat up as much as I could without hurting myself and I pounded on my chest.“You don’t need to worry about me! I’m as strong as an ox!” He laughed at me and returned to the bed, reaching over to hug me. I winced and groaned in mock pain. “Oh… god… Ji-Yeong,” he pulled back quickly, his expression one of anguish.“I’m so sorry Kian! Are you ok?” He fretted, checking me over, I laughed and nodded. “Really? You d**k!” He slapped my shoulder and glared at me. “Don’t you do that, I legitimately thought that I had hurt you.” I smiled at him and took his hand in mine and pulled him close to me, so close that our lips were almost touching.“Can I kiss you?” I asked, my voice husky.“I don’t know. I might hurt you, you know?” He stated, and I shook my head.“You could never hurt me…” I murmured, “Can I kiss you?” A soft smile graced his lips and he nodded, before closing the gap between us. Pressing his lips against mine. I smiled against our kiss and wrapped my arms around his neck. He was so warm in my arms… So solid… He was here, and I was here… We made it out and now here we were; embracing one another.This was bliss….

The End...