CHAPTER 10: MATTER OF HEART AND BRAIN

It’s funny how people tend to trust the medicine and vitamins they receive from doctors. I had always had such a big trust towards doctors and medical people in general, I never doubted the power of the medicine I received from them. Not until now. Despite the sleeping pills and vitamins, and even the painkillers I had received from Dr Choi – just in case – my condition seemed to get a million times worse overnight. Even if I had slept well the night before, I was back to my usual 4-hour sleeping rhythm immediately, and as I woke up in the morning, I felt horrible. I woke up before the alarm went off because of throbbing headache and rolled down from my bed, falling onto the cold floor. I sat up, opening my eyes and the room started spinning around me. I thought I’d throw up so I started yelling at Sunhwa, telling her to wake up and help me.

The girl was immediately awake, eyes spreading wide open. She rushed to me and carefully helped me to sit on my bed.

“Miss Dami, what is wrong?” she asked with a panicky voice, rubbing my back gently.

I didn’t even have the energy to scold the girl for calling me ‘miss’ again, and just grabbed her wrist. “Bathroom… and the doctor…”

Even from my mumbled words the girl got the point and quickly helped me out of the room and to the nearest bathroom. She was a bit hesitant to leave me alone but in the end, left to get Dr Choi there as quick as possible. I was sitting on the floor, hovering over the toilet seat, ready to throw up, but just like the day I time travelled, I couldn’t. Then a thought popped up in my mind. An almost happy thought. These were the exact same symptoms I showed when I came into this world. What if this meant I’d be going back now? The comforting thought eased my condition for a second before I felt the nausea coming back and I leaned against the toilet seat again.

“Dami!” I heard a voice shouting and the next thing I knew was that I was held by strong arms that lifted me up from the ground. Even through my blurred vision I could get a glance of the person carrying me. It was Dr Choi. Sunhwa had managed to get him here before he left for work. Brilliant. I’d need to thank the girl later.

These were the last thoughts I had before the film stopped and everything became black and silent.

I was woken up from my consciousness by a beeping sound. It sounded familiar. I had heard similar sounds when watching medical TV shows. I got the point and realized my surroundings even before opening my eyes. My only wonder was this – which world I was in? I was lying down in a hospital bed, connected into an IV drip. I let out a sigh. This what my condition had come to? Unbelievable. I could tell I was still in the future, seeing the familiar shapes and materials of Dr Choi’s hospital. In a way, I was relieved – at least I hadn’t drifted into a completely unknown world. But even though, I felt a bit disappointed. Knowing this world seemed to cause my insomnia and health problems, it would have been the best for me to return home.

“Dami, are you awake?” I heard a familiar voice speaking and looked around in the room and then spotting Dr Choi, who was sitting in an armchair by the room’s big window. As he noticed me blinking, he got up quickly and walked up to me with an encouraging smile. “How are you feeling?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I feel alright again. How long was I unconscious?”

The man glanced at his watch. “It’s 3pm right now, so about 8 hours. That equals a good night’s sleep, that’s why you feel alright. But it’s not good for you to start fainting every other day.”

I nodded. I knew that very well. “Have you found out what’s wrong?”

The man shook his head a little bit. “Your blood sugar was low and there was minor dehydration, but other than that, nothing seems to be wrong. The main cause is the insomnia, that’s for sure, but the reason for the insomnia is still unknown. I’ll give you some more sleeping pills, and we’ll try them. If they don’t work either, I’m afraid we’ll have to keep you in the hospital for your own safety.”

I let out a sigh and nodded. I understood his words perfectly. “Thank you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Don’t stress yourself with such scary thoughts”, the doctor said with a small smile on his face. “Now that you’re awake, we’ll take a look at your condition again. You can leave in the evening if you want to, but I suggest you don’t work for a couple of days.”

“Alright”, I replied with a nod and bowed my head a little bit as the man headed out of the room, closing the door behind him. I let out a deep sigh and sank into the soft mattress of the bed. One thing I could tell for sure was that, in the year 2157 hospital beds were more comfortable than they were in 2016.

I looked out of the window that opened next to me and opened a wide, beautiful view of Seoul in its glassy, metallic, shiny glory. The way the sunlight reflected against the surfaces of the buildings was amazing. It was still winter, but the days had gotten warmer and the sun was shining more nowadays. Soon it would be spring and I’d be able to lessen the clothes. When I thought about it, I realized that if it was already February in this year, the year had also changed in my own world. It was 2017 now. I sighed. I hadn’t been there with my family during the holidays. How were they doing? I didn’t know if my body had disappeared from my own world. It might have. Or then my body might’ve stayed in the bathroom stall of my university. So, either my parents would think that I had been kidnapped and killed, or they thought I was in coma, not waking up. Both options sounded horrible.

Suddenly I heard a knock from the door. I turned around to see who it was, entering the room, and felt a bit relieved as it was Seungcheol. I had almost been afraid it would be Dr Choi, with some bad news. The boy was wearing black, as always, but his hair didn’t look as styled as usually, and it was flowing onto his forehead naturally.

“Hi”, the boy greeted me as he walked into the room and then to my bed, sitting on the edge of it. “Are you feeling better?”

I nodded. “I’m fine again. Shouldn’t you be in school?”

“I only had one lecture today”, he explained with a warm smile. “Don’t worry about my studies. I, anyhow, am a bit worried about you.”

I tilted my head a little bit and blinked. I didn’t even get to open my mouth as he continued. “What are you going to do? I thought you said you’d forget Wonwoo. Now you seem to spend a lot of time with him.”

So this it had been about. Seungcheol had seemed a bit dry since yesterday. He had picked me up from the bookstore out of worry and promised to not tell his father, but he hadn’t talked to me at all after that. He had seemed to avoid me, like he would have exploded in anger otherwise.

I sighed. “A lot of things have happened since I said that. I got to know him better and now he knows about my ability too.”

I watched as Seungcheol’s eyes widened and he let out a quiet gasp, leaning a bit closer to me. “Why in the world did you reveal your ability to him?”

I put my hand over his. “Calm down. He is a drifter too. I’m very sure of it.”

Seungcheol got silent and let out a sigh, looking clearly upset. “I’m a little bit disappointed.”

I already had a hunch of what he was going to say yet I couldn’t open my mouth to stop him from doing it. Instead I just listened.

“I wanted to confess to you. I wanted to tell you that I like you. Well, now I’m doing it anyway.”

Even though he had already seemed to get the point, that I didn’t like him the same way, it made me feel very uncomfortable, listening to his words. I loved him as my best friend in this world, he was the only one that I had told everything to. I didn’t want it to get ruined by his romantic feelings.

“I know you don’t feel the same”, he stated. “But I’d like you to know.”

With those words being said, the boy walked out of the room, just to walk into Sunhwa at the door. They shared a quick glance at each other and Sunhwa bowed at the boy before walking into the room. I still felt a bit down but seeing the girl brought my mood up a lot.

“Miss Dami”, she said with a smile on her face. “Are you alright now?”

“Yes, I am”, I replied. “But I might faint if you call me ‘miss’ again. Did you get off work early just to see me?”

The girl giggled. “Sorry… but yes, Seungcheol told me it was alright so I came to the hospital with him. What did you two talk about, by the way?”

I sighed. “You don’t want to know.”

The girl looked a bit hesitant for a second before she sat on the edge of my bed. “Dami… do you, perhaps, like Seungcheol?”

I stared at the girl with wide yes. “No!” I denied right away with a laughter. “I have a boyfriend. We’ve been together for three years. I wouldn’t dare to even think of other boys!”

“You have a boyfriend?” Sunhwa’s expression brightened up a lot. “That’s so lovely!”

I chuckled. Yes, it was lovely. Very lovely.

After a couple of hours, I was free to leave the hospital. There were no signs of anything weird or different in my body or functions, so I walked out of the huge building with ease, and with a calm mind. I’d be free for the rest of the day, and tomorrow would be all of the maids’ day off, so I’d be on a lovely 2-day vacation now. I knew Sunhwa would leave the house to see her parents tomorrow, and since Seungcheol seemed to have gotten a bit upset, I probably wouldn’t spend the day with him either. The only possibility for me was Wonwoo. As I thought of the boy, I wanted to visit the bookstore. We had agreed to meet there later, and today was a great ‘later’.

I hopped on the always so creepy flying train and headed to our neighbourhood, taking a walk to the bookstore. It was almost funny how naturally my feet led me there every time. The old, almost always quiet bookstore had become my other home in this world. The old lady who was keeping the store was very sweet, and the lavender scent in the store was lovely and very calming.

“Good evening!” I greeted the storekeeper lady as I stepped in.

“Good evening, dear”, the lady greeted me back with a smile.

I walked through the store, glancing through every shelf to see if Wonwoo was in the next corner – but he wasn’t. As I walked closer to the last corner, the corner we had met multiple times in, I was almost sure I’d find him there, wearing his reading glasses, sipping coffee and reading something in the armchair. But he wasn’t there. The reading corner was empty, there were no books on the small table, everything was completely untouched. I couldn’t help but to feel disappointed.

I let out a sigh and rested my hand on a bookshelf. I had expected to meet him here today. As I got over the disappointment, I decided to take a look at some of the books. I picked a book, read the text on its’ back and put it back into the shelf, picking up the next book. I opened it, looking at the pictures on its’ pages.

Suddenly I felt arms wrapping around me from behind, holding me tightly yet gently. I let out a surprised gasp and dropped the book from the shock. As I slowly calmed down, the shocked heartbeats changed into cold shivers that travelled down my spine as I felt hot breath on my neck.

“Hi”, Wonwoo’s deep voice greeted me.

“Hello…” I managed to greet him back. “What are you doing?”

“This is something the dream Wonwoo would have probably done, too.”

Yes. It was. And there was nothing to complain about the hug – it was warm and comfortable. But the person doing it wasn’t exactly in his right mind. I turned around, still in the boy’s hold, so now we were facing each other. We were incredibly close and it wouldn’t have taken any effort from me to kiss the boy, but the thought didn’t even linger in my mind. I stared into the boy’s sharp eyes.

“Why are you acting like this?” I asked.

The boy finally let go of me, dropping his hands to his sides. “I just thought the situation for you. You stand next to your boyfriend all the time but he doesn’t react to you at all. It must feel very lonely.”

I looked at the boy for a while before letting out a sigh. To think that the boy who thought of me as an annoying stalker was now caring for me enough to act like this. “Thank you for thinking like that. But your actions really just confuse me even more.”

Wonwoo replied to my sigh with his own and sat down onto the armchair. “Then how should I act to make you feel comfortable?”

I didn’t know the answer to that. I shrugged my shoulders and sat down to the other armchair, letting out the thousandth sigh that day. I stared in front of me blankly, having too much to think about. Today had been one messy day. From the symptoms to the fainting to the conversation with Seungcheol, to this.

“What was I like in your dreams?”

Wonwoo’s question woke me up from my trance and I turned to look at the boy. It almost surprised me that he wanted to know – but what surprised me more was that referred to the dream Wonwoo as himself. He had seemed to have such a hard time trying to believe it.

I flashed the boy a smile. “Just like you are here. Of course, a bit sweeter, since we’re a couple. But other than that, you’re exactly the same.”

Wonwoo’s dark eyes were piercing mine as he listened. After I got silent, I had to look away and he seemed to notice me getting flustered. He let out an awkward cough. “I guess it’s good. It would be scary if the dream version of me was completely different.”

I chuckled and nodded. Then I glanced at the back of my hand as I still felt an annoying sting on the area where the IV drip had been connected earlier. “Ah, my hand hurts.”

Wonwoo raised his eyebrows. “Why?”

I flashed him an awkward smile. “I had to go to the hospital today.”

“What? Why?” the boy asked, blinking his eyes.

“I fainted again”, I simply stated, shrugging my shoulders, trying to brush the topic off.

Wonwoo didn’t seem to want that, though. “Why are you here then? Shouldn’t you go home and rest?”

“Wonwoo, I’m feeling fine”, I sighed.

But the boy didn’t give up. He was determined to make me return home and try to sleep. I felt like the storekeeper was teamed up with him since the lady came to us, telling that she had to close the store and asked us to go home. With a sigh, I followed Wonwoo out and let him walk me home. Almost, at least. I didn’t want any suspicions to raise in the house, so I told the boy to stop a block before the Choi family’s house.

“Don’t overwork yourself”, he said. “You can’t even sleep…”

I let out a silent chuckle. “Don’t worry. My employer is a doctor, he’ll take care of me.”

Wonwoo snorted. “Alright. Go now.”

“Good night”, I wished the boy and crossed the street, kind of waiting whether he’d reply to me. He didn’t I glanced over my shoulder as I kept walking. The boy was still standing there, as if he was waiting for me to go inside before leaving.

I chuckled by myself as I opened the door of the house. It wasn’t purely a happy chuckle. It also had some regret. I had almost started to think of Wonwoo as a different person, a friend. But his actions had made my heart flutter again, reminding me of the way he acted in my dreams, reminding me of the warm, long hugs and sweet kisses. And now my heart really didn’t know what to do. I sighed as I sat onto my bed. My heart wasn’t the only one. My brain was clueless as well.

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Hi again! I decided to do a double update today, so two chapters up! Make sure to read them both so you don't miss anything.

I'm off to sleep now, good night. Or morning, day, evening, what ever it might be in your country! ^^