it was late at night in the hospital when jun woke up to the sound of whimpering. by now jun was fairly used to the sounds in the hospital, he had gotten his own room a week ago so he knew what the hospital usually sounded like. apart from the beeping of his heart monitor and the sounds of cartoons being played on his roommate's side of the room, jun generally didn't hear crying in the hospital. that was why when he had heard it, it woke him up. it was soft, but still audible through the thin walls of the hospital.

the ten year old jun took it upon himself to investigate the mysterious crying noises. his mother had gone home for the day and the night nurses were usually too busy to keep track of all the children on the pediatric floor at once, paying attention to the more dire cases, which is why jun was able to sneak into the room next to his. that was where he found a boy about his age crying into his pillow. jun walked right up to him fearlessly and tapped on the boy's shoulder. "hey, why are you crying?"

"I miss my mom." the boy sniffled softly as he wiped his face and squinted to see who was talking to him. he usually wore glasses but since it was night and he was trying to sleep, the crying boy only kept the glasses on the table beside his hospital bed. jun frowned at the boy's reasoning for his tears, he remembered his first night at the hospital and how lonely he felt. he also remembered how he felt better after getting a roommate to talk to and play with. that was why jun invited himself into the crying boy's bed: he wanted to comfort him, even if the sad patient couldn't bare to look at him yet. "me too, but my mom has to go home and take care of my sister so I got used to being alone."

"oh yeah, I'm jun by the way." jun smiled at the boy warmly. the crying ceased his tears, coughing softly before bringing his head up and out of his pillow to look at jun. the chinese male noticed immediately how cute the boy was, even if he had red and puffy eyes. there was a shy aura to the boy as well, jun considered himself to be shy and introverted but something about the latter made him want to talk. "wonwoo."

"are you sick too?" jun asked both curiously and eagerly. not a lot of children on their floor had the same heart condition as he did, in fact he hadn't met anyone like him yet, so jun hoped that wonwoo was like him so that he could finally make a friend. his mother barely let him out of her sight when she visited and when she was gone, the nurses didn't allow him to leave his room (due to how eager he was to run around and explore the hospital floor). that made it more than difficult for him to make friends, especially since his roommate wasn't interested in staying up to talk to him or playing games. "they did surgery on me, you?"

"the doctor said my heart is sick. it's some long disease I can barely pronounce, hypertropical cardio something." jun tried reciting what he had overheard the doctors say about him, but being ten years old he didn't know much about anything medical. all he knew was that his heart had a tendency to beat really quickly (they're called arrhythmias) and that the doctors wanted to watch over him for a bit to make sure the medicine they prescribed actually worked on his heart. "that sucks."

"the whole not having friends here sucks more." wonwoo could sense the sadness behind the sentence despite jun speaking in a happy tone. he turned to see jun staring off into the distance, in a daze. he frowned at the thought of someone as happy and friendly as jun not having any real company. it didn't sit well with wonwoo especially because of how quick jun was to comfort him about his mom. "I'll be your friend jun."

two days later wonwoo was discharged from the hospital with a small scar in place of his missing appendix. before then though both his and jun's parents had shared contact information so that the two new friends could have a means of communication. wonwoo liked to visit when his mother allowed for it, but when he couldn't the two simply video-chatted with each other on their mom's phones.

"they're letting me out of the hospital today!"jun exclaimed into his mom's phone, making wonwoo wince at his loud volume. he couldn't blame jun for being so enthusiastic though, he had been in the hospital for over two weeks. wonwoo nodded, smiling softly at the image of jun cheering on the other side of the phone screen. he gave a nonchalant response, jun had learned not to take offense to the ravenette's lack of emotion very quickly because most of the time it didn't express how wonwoo really felt, as he spoke. "that's cool jun. you have to be careful though."

"what are you my mom now-" jun complained into the phone, not knowing at all that his mother had just walked into the room after having signed her son's discharge papers. she rolled her eyes at her outspoken son, proud to have this happier side to him back after the dreary weeks he had spent in the hospital. it was time for them to go though so she picked up her phone from her son and had said her goodbyes to wonwoo. "no but I am and wonwoo is right. get your things jun, we can finally go home now."

"the first thing I'm going to do when I'm home is play with my legos, I want to show wonwoo my cool spaceship-" jun rambled on as he skipped ahead of his mother, breathing in the smell of fresh air. he was so happy to be outside, finally going back home and hopefully returning to the normalcy he had been so used to before his visits to the hospital. he paused from his rambling though when his mother had caught up to him and held his hand as they crossed the street together. "no running jun, you're going to tire yourself out."

"my cool spaceship model. he said he has an alien spaceship that's 5 feet long but I know he's lying, you can't even measure with feet that's weird!" jun exclaimed. he pulled his hand away from his mother so that he could dash ahead of her now that they had finished crossing the street. she always let go of his hand afterwards so that he could, but this time jun frowned in confusion because his mother refused to let him go. "honey please slow down. you just got out of the hospital, I want you to take it slow from now on so you don't get sick again."

"okay mom, whatever you say!" jun agreed before continuing on to talking about wonwoo's extensive lego figure collection. from then on jun would be taking it slow, not getting back to the normalcy he was used to. instead of letting jun run around with his elementary school friends like he used to, his mother made sure that jun took the right precautions, even going as far as to sign jun up for piano lessons to keep him in a calm environment inside so that she didn't have to worry about his recklessness making his hypertrophy cardiomyopathy flare up.

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