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Hospitals are boring places, Xin Ya’s learned.
Once the initial mania of being admitted, diagnosed, poked, prodded, and treated dies down, everything moves at a snail’s pace. The routine stagnates: a drive-by talk with her doctor in the morning; lunch at noon; a nurse checking between two and four; dinner at six; lights out at ten. Visiting hours end at eight, too, which means Ahu and Granny Wang (her elderly neighbor who was kind enough to take Ahu in for a while) leave and then Xin Ya’s left with nothing but her laptop and the shadows on the walls to keep her company.
She’s never liked being alone. Her house was always bustling when she was kid, packed to the brim with friends and neighbors and friends-of-neighbors and neighbors-of-friends. As things declined, though, people moved away, selling their land to Treeman and other development companies for a chance at a fresh start. And when her parents died, and Granny Wang took custody of her on paper, the house was strangely silent for the first time in her life.
Ahu changed that. She’s so, so grateful that he did. Because now that she's stuck here in the hospital, it hits her all over again how much she can’t stand the unnatural quiet.
The monitoring equipment beeps. Footsteps pass by her door occasionally. She hears muffled voices from the hall. But no one’s with her, no one’s focused on her, no one needs her.
Two days into her convalescence and she’s practically crawling up the walls, so jittery she overhears the nurses interrogating each other about how much caffeine intake she was allowed.
Her injuries are fairly minor, at least, all things considered. She’s bandaged up like a mummy, and they gave her a button to push if she needs someone to bring her pain meds. But it’s not so bad she’s actually bedridden—which is why she pesters her doctor (and her nurses, and the night nurse, and the janitor that drops by before the sun’s even up) until he finally agrees she can take a walk around the floor twice a day.
Xin Ya’s mom used to say one of her best qualities was how easily she could make friends. They’d go to the park, or the mall, or the beach, and within minutes Xin Ya would zero in on the nearest warm body and latch on like a limpet. Older, younger, it didn’t matter. By the time her parents came over to apologize she’d already won the other person over.
She puts that skill to good use now.
Her floor of the hospital isn’t all that crowded. Only a few of the rooms are occupied for any real length of time—there’s the granny in Room 307 who likes to gossip about all the suitors she’s had over the years; the little boy in 310 with the comic book collection he’s only too happy to let Xin Ya (so long as she does it aloud); directly across from her room is a mom and her newborn twins that Xin Ya fawns over whenever she gets the chance.
At the end of the hall, though, there’s a door that hasn’t opened once since Xin Ya’s been up and about.
She knows someone’s inside; the clipboard next to the door is filled out, and sometimes when she passes by, she can make out a word or two of a whispered conversation.
It’s none of her business, obviously. Xin Ya likes to help, but she’s not going to stick her nose where she doesn’t belong—not in a place like this, anyway. Curious as she is, the last thing she wants is to be a nuisance when someone might be in distress.
So it’s really, honestly a coincidence that she happens to be sitting in a chair she dragged over to the big window at the end of the hall when the door opens and a woman in a soft green sweater storms out—fighting back tears and swearing quietly at whoever she’s on the phone with.
Xin Ya freezes like a deer in headlights. Like, if she’s still enough, quiet enough, she’ll go unnoticed, and this sad, angry lady will walk by her, none the wiser.
“How dare you threaten me with that,” the woman hisses. “My daughter is in the hospital. Comatose. Do you think I give a damn about the company’s bottom line—“
Whatever the other person says, the woman’s expression turns frigid.
“Fine,” she responds, clipped. Her tone is pointedly neutral, but she bites out the word like she’s imagining sinking her teeth into something’s—someone’s—throat. “I’ll be there soon. Tell him to keep his mouth shut until then.”
She ends the call with a vicious jab of her finger and covers her face with a hand.
Xin Ya thinks about trying to sneak past her—slowly rising from her chair so it doesn’t creak as her weight shifts, tiptoeing along the wall until she’s far enough away she can make a break for it.
This woman’s pain isn’t hers to know. The way her voice cracked on daughter was gut-wrenching, but butting in would probably just—
“They expect me to just leave her here? Alone? What if she wakes up like that? What if she’s scared, or she panics…?”
The words are soft, barely audible. They sound like they’ve been scraped out of the hollow of this woman’s chest. Xin Ya should pretend she didn’t hear, get up, scoot like her life depends on it and make herself scarce before this woman realizes she’s had an unintentional eavesdropper for this vulnerable moment.
Instead, Xin Ya cautiously raises her hand and says, “I could stay with your daughter!”
The woman flinches, her head whipping around to stare at where Xin Ya is perched on her pilfered chair. Xin Ya smiles, and tries to look as nonthreatening as possible.
“Who are you?”
“My name’s Xin Ya! I’ve been here a couple days because of… uh, I got caught up in something.” Xin Ya shrugs, resisting the urge to cover up the bandages around her arms and the gauze taped over her cheeks and forehead. “I’ll be around for a while longer ‘cause they wanna monitor me.” For what, she’s not sure. Something to do with the weird purple stuff that Nice freaked out over? She’s told the doctor it didn’t touch her, but better safe than sorry. “So if you have to leave, I can keep her company?”
Her voice pitches up at the end—an accidental question. But it’s probably best to offer a suggestion rather than declaring anything like she might usually do. The red rimming this woman’s eyes and the subtle trembling of her lower lip are warning enough that she shouldn’t be pushed right now.
All Xin Ya wants to do is help, not make things worse.
“You… don’t even know her. Or me,” the woman says, her brow furrowing.
“Nope!” Xin Ya agrees. “But I’m stuck here, and if it were me… well, I wouldn’t want to wake up alone, either.”
For a moment, there’s no response. Just the intent gaze of this woman on her, obviously sizing her up, judging her sincerity. Xin Ya sort of wants to offer up some assurances, or a reference (would Granny Wang put Ahu on the phone?), but she forces herself to sit still and quiet while the woman comes to a decision.
Eventually, the woman sighs, and it’s like a balloon deflating: all the air leaves her, and she sags forward, clutching her phone in both hands, and she just—looks so small, all of a sudden.
Xin Ya has the urge to reach up and pat her head, the way she does with Ahu during thunderstorms. But common sense holds her back, and she just hops to her feet instead.
“I’m Zhang Lan,” the woman says. “I’ll be back tomorrow. And if not me, one of Nuonuo’s friends might stop by.”
“Nice to meet ya, Zhang-jie! Don’t worry, I’ll make sure Nuonuo isn’t lonely.”
A tiny smile curls the corners of Zhang Lan’s mouth. “Let me introduce you properly before I go.”
Zhang Lan leads her inside room 317 and steps aside so Xin Ya can get a good look at her daughter.
Nuonuo doesn’t look too much older than Xin Ya. Maybe early twenties at most? She’s thin beneath her hospital gown, what exposed skin there is so pale the veins beneath stand out in a stark blue. Bandages are wrapped around her head and face, obstructing them from view, but Xin Ya can see bits and pieces of Zhang Lan in her. The shape of her mouth, or the sharp jut of her cheekbones.
“She’s so pretty,” Xin Ya whispers, because it feels like speaking any louder than that would be in poor taste, even if Nuonuo’s sleep can’t really be disturbed.
“Thank you. She… takes a lot after her father.” Zhang Lan draws in a breath. “But this is my daughter, Wang Nuonuo. Nuonuo, this is Xin Ya. She’ll be keeping you company while I’m gone.”
“Hi, Nuonuo!” Xin Ya hops over to the nearest chair—the one already tucked in beside Nuonuo’s bed, angled just so that someone sitting there could comfortably hold Nuonuo’s hand while scrolling on their phone—and plops down, wiggling a little to get comfortable. She’ll be here a while. “I’ve got some really good stories to tell you. My best friend’s a hero, you’d love him, ‘cause, like, everyone loves him—“
At some point, while Xin Ya rambles on about her misadventures with Ahu, the door softly snicks shut.
____
Visiting Room 317 becomes a part of her daily routine.
After breakfast and her first check-in with one of the nursing staff, Xin Ya throws a robe over her hospital clothes and makes her way down the hall. She pokes her head into 307 and 310 to say hi (the mother and her twins were discharged the day before), then moves on to Nuonuo’s room.
She brings her laptop now, which makes it easier to extol Ahu’s virtues using visual aids. It also lets her bring Nuonuo (and herself) up to speed on current events. She steers clear of anything related to Nice or Treeman, and it’s easy enough given he’s been out of the public eye for days, apparently off somewhere in seclusion to train. The other heroes provide ample entertainment anyway, so it’s no big loss for Nuonuo.
“Oh, wow, Ghostblade left Mighty Glory? He’s been there forever, I can’t believe he’s suddenly going solo… I wonder if another agency will pick him up? Y’know, I read up on how he got scouted, and he really seemed more like someone FOMO would nab. Wait, was FOMO a thing back then?”
A quick Hoogle search informs her that yes, FOMO already existed by the time Ghostblade came onto the hero scene. Huh. Maybe they did reach out to him? Or maybe his powers weren’t flashy enough for FOMO…
A representative from FOMO contacted Ahu the other day, and while Ahu’s on the fence about joining, she has to admit it’s hard to get much flashier than talking, crime-fighting super dog. A silent, knife-wielding hero who takes down his opponents with speed and hand-to-hand combat doesn’t really fit that vibe at all.
Xin Ya’s tongue pokes out from between her teeth as she scrolls through her feed, searching for anything else noteworthy enough to share with Nuonuo. Not much jumps out at her (Queen and Lucky Cyan returned from some vacation, Dragon Boy was seen playing football with a group of elementary school kids), so she pivots back to the video she’s been idly chipping away at and turns the laptop to give Nuonuo a look at her progress.
Zhang Lan keeps her word and comes back to visit. She can’t stay for long—whatever job she has, she’s pretty integral to the operations there, and she gets called away after an hour or two at her daughter’s bedside. She doesn’t look quite as pained about it anymore, at least; Xin Ya likes to think her continued presence helps to ease some of Zhang Lan’s worries.
Also true to Zhang Lan’s words, Nuonuo has other visitors.
A cute girl in a lion hat drops by, bringing the biggest basket of flowers Xin Ya’s ever seen, which she sets down by the window and then rearranges at least six times before she’s satisfied with it. She introduces herself as Luo Li, Nuonuo’s friend from work.
Aside from that, she’s a little… cagey about details. She also very obviously thought Xin Ya was an intruder when she first saw her, because she lifted the flower basket like she was about to slam it over Xin Ya’s head before Xin Ya blurted out that Zhang Lan said she was okay to be here. Luo Lo narrowed her eyes, slowly lowering the basket, then shrugged and offered a half-assed apology and a vague explanation about being on edge.
Given the state Nuonuo is in, Xin Ya really can’t blame her. These kinds of injuries for a civilian aren’t… typical.
Luo Li’s nice once they get past that initial misunderstanding, though. And it’s plain as day how much she cares about Nuonuo. She sits on the opposite side of her bed and takes Nuonuo’s hand in both of hers, chatting at her much the same way Xin Ya’s been doing. What she’s been doing, the new music she’s listened to at Nuonuo’s recommendation, the crepe shop that just opened up that they have to visit together once Nuonuo recovers.
Xin Ya lets Luo Li have her time, smiling faintly to herself as she plugs in her headphones and edits an explosion into the background of a good Ahu action shot.
Three days into sitting vigil for Nuonuo, a man in a mask and a dark coat shows up at the door.
Xin Ya doesn’t notice him at first—she’s absorbed in her project, sitting in what should be an uncomfortable crouch with her feet tucked up underneath her on the chair, hunched over the little tray table thing they brought in when she started taking her meals here. Her voice has gotten a little hoarse with all the yapping she’s been doing for Nuonuo, so she figured it was worth taking a break to finish her video anyway.
She doesn’t hear the door open. She doesn’t hear footsteps approaching her chair. She doesn’t even notice the shadow that falls over her until she switches to a different window and the lighter background suddenly shows a reflection of an unfamiliar figure behind her.
Xin Ya… freaks out.
Her laptop nearly goes flying, flung wide when she half-jumps out of her chair, her knee smacking into the tray. She makes a flailing grab for it and only manages to knock the chair the rest of the way over, face planting on the end of Nuonuo’s bed, her lower half slamming into the bed frame with a thud.
Groaning, Xin Ya shoves herself upright and glances around wildly for her computer. She definitely cannot afford a new one, and more to the point, she hasn’t saved in the last three hours. The last time she backed it up was a week ago, when she was home and had her external hard drive with her. Her cloud subscription lapsed last year and she never had the money to re-up, so physically copying everything to the hard drive is her only method of saving it.
She’s expecting carnage. A cracked case, electronic guts strewn across the linoleum floor. What she sees instead is the strange man holding her laptop in both hands, completely whole, not a scratch on it.
“Oh,” Xin Ya says, and it’s more a gasp than it is a word, relief swelling up in her chest like a helium balloon, “thank god. Thank you! I don’t know what I woulda done if that went splat just now.”
The man blinks, then holds the laptop out for her to take. She does, gently, gently closing it and putting it aside on the bedside table, before she rights the chair and turns back to him.
“I’m Xin Ya! Zhang-jie asked me to keep Nuonuo company while she’s at work. Sorry if I startled you!”
He only inclines his head, his eyes drifting past her to where Nuonuo lays motionless in bed, as she’s done the entire time Xin Ya’s been here. Xin Ya waits a moment, but when it’s clear he’s not going to say anything, she scurries around the bed to drag the other chair over and pats the backrest.
“You can sit here if ya want!” she offers, grinning. “Are you another one of Nuonuo’s friends? Or family, maybe?”
The man doesn’t move to sit. He doesn’t really move much at all. Just stands there, a little awkward, a little unsure. Like he doesn’t know how welcome he is here. But the staff let him in as a visitor, so he must have some connection to Nuonuo. It’s not like he’s a ninja or something and snuck past all that security.
She opens her mouth, no clue what’s going to come out but determined not to let the silence get too fraught, when he raises a hand, two fingers pointing up.
Two…? Oh!
“Family, then! Got it, got it. Nice to meet ya!”
It doesn’t get more comfortable after that, not really. But Xin Ya doesn’t mind. This man looks at Nuonuo the same way Zhang Lan does. The same way Luo Li does. He cares. He’s worried. He wants to offer what comfort he can, even if he doesn’t know how best to do that.
Xin Ya talks, but only occasionally. She doesn’t ask too many questions—mostly things he can answer with a nod or a shake of his head, or simple hand gestures. She gets the sense he’s not too keen on noise; the announcements over the loudspeaker in the hall have the skin around his eyes tightening, and every squeak soft-soled shoes on the floor or swish of a door opening makes him clench his hands around the loose fabric of his coat.
Ahu doesn’t like loud noises. He won’t tell her exactly why, but she figures it has something to do with his owner from before. She’s gotten good at anticipating what might upset him and avoiding it when possible, and mitigating the damage when she can’t. This isn’t so different.
By the time visiting hours are up, she’s maybe learned three things about the guy—four if you count his apparent dislike of The Johnnies, which she can only assume given the way his eye twitched when she mentioned them during her hero news recap of the day.
A nurse pops in, reminding them both they’d need to clear out so Nuonuo could get her bath. Xin Ya cheerfully salutes her, pats Nuonuo’s hand, and promises to be back tomorrow. She gathers her things and heads for the door, but pause at the threshold, looking back over her shoulder.
The man stands over Nuonuo, a hand hovering in the space between them. She thinks he might’ve been aiming to do what she did—a soft pat to Nuonuo’s hand. Gentle reassurance, a reminder she isn’t alone. But, eventually, he stuffs his hands in his pockets, shakes his head, and walks past Xin Ya without a word.
She watches him until he entered the elevator at the far end of the hall, feeling oddly hollow in the pit of her stomach once the doors slide shut and he disappears.
________
“Yaya, let’s get going. The cab’s waiting outside!”
Xin Ya slides her laptop into the backpack Ahu had brought for her and slings the bag over her shoulders. She aches a little still, her back sore from the spill she took, her arms and legs a multicolored mess of bruises. Clean clothes—her clothes—help; she feels way more put together like this, especially with Ahu trotting at her heels as she leaves her hospital room for the last time.
Granny Wang is waiting with her discharge paperwork, a tired, tender smile deepening the lines around her mouth.
“Ready to go home, dear?”
Xin Ya grins. “More than. But I gotta do one more thing first.”
“Yaya, the cab—“
“Just a second! Or like, thirty seconds! I’ll be fast, promise. Ahu can time me!”
“You’re not going anywhere without me,” Ahu protests gruffly. “Are you crazy?”
“What kind of trouble am I gonna get into here?”
“It’ll find you. Somehow. Either way, I’m not taking chances.”
Rolling her eyes, Xin Ya leans slightly into the warmth of Ahu’s small, solid body. “Okay, okay. I really will be just a minute.” She clasps her hands together in mock prayer, turning a pleading, doe-eyed pout on Granny Wang. “Thirty seconds?”
Granny Wang sighs, folding her arms across her chest. “I’ll even be generous and give you sixty.”
“Thanks! Be right back!”
With that, Xin Ya turns and starts for room 317.
Ahu doesn’t ask what she’s up to. He hasn’t been here as often as he would’ve liked; the FOMO representative kept him plenty busy, and once he signed (at Xin Ya’s urging), he had interviews and photoshoots and vlogs to film for FOMO’s official account. They’ve talked, though, since Granny Wang was more than happy to hold the phone for Ahu, so he knows exactly who she needs to see before she leaves.
Zhang Lan isn’t here today. She’d mentioned something about a stockholder meeting she couldn’t miss, and that it would probably eat up most of her day. Luo Li’s busy with school, too, and whatever weird extracurricular thing she has going on that leaves her covered in motor oil and smelling like burnt hair. The masked man never came back after that first visit—or he managed to swoop in before Xin Ya showed up and left just as quickly.
All that to say—Nuonuo’s alone in her room.
Ahu pads in ahead of Xin Ya, acting like a real guard dog as he sniffs around the corners of the room, scuffling under the bed, sticking his nose into the trash can by the window. He pops up on the other side of the bed and nods, which Xin Ya takes to mean it’s all clear for her to enter. She almost laughs, but it’s… sweet, honestly. That he cares so much. That he wants to protect her.
Nuonuo’s the same as ever today. Bandaged, pale, the machines around her masking the sound of her breathing. Looking so, so small swallowed up by the blankets and the too-big gown.
Xin Ya’s chest goes tight.
“I gotta leave first, Nuonuo,” she says, sniffling. There’s heat behind her eyes she tries furiously to blink away. “I’ve had a really great time getting to know you, and your mom, and your friends. They miss you a ton, and obviously they do, because everything I’ve heard about you tells me you’re an amazing person. So you gotta wake up soon, okay?”
It’s an impossible ask. If Nuonuo could wake up on her own, Xin Ya knows she would’ve done it the first time Zhang Lan cried in here. She would’ve done it to thank Luo Li for the flowers. She would’ve done it to reach for the masked man’s hand.
Xin Ya can hope, though. And while it might not be her number one talent, she’s pretty good at that, too.
Rummaging around in the bedside table, she grabs a half-used notepad and a pen that takes a little scribbling to get the ink going.
You probably won’t remember me, but my name is Xin Ya, and I really wanna be your friend! Tell Zhang-jie and Luo Li and the scary coat guy I said hi! Text me: XXX-XXX-XXXX
She tucks the note under the vase of fresh flowers. Zhang Lan will find it, she thinks; hopefully she’s not overstepping with this, but she figured either way Zhang Lan will appreciate the sentiment if not the note itself.
“Okay!” she chirps. “All good. Let’s get a move on, Ahu! We’ve got more videos to film!”
Ahu sighs. “Get in line. FOMO wants me to do something called a day in the life video?”
“Ooh, that’ll be fun! We can get Granny Wang to do a cameo.”
“Not if she leaves in the cab without us.”
“Ah, shoot, you’re right. This was way more than sixty seconds. Cmon, hurry, hurry, I don’t wanna walk home!”
They get scolded for running in the halls, but Xin Ya can only laugh as she darts into the elevator, Ahu held snuggly in her arms, Granny Wang staring heavenward like she’s looking for guidance from some higher power.
She’s going home.
And hopefully… Nuonuo will be able to do the same.