A/N: The image above does not belong to me. It belongs to the person who uploaded it on the internet.

Cooheart's POV

I woke up to the sound of a constant beeping. I slowly opened my eyes to unfamiliar surroundings. Where the hell was I?

"Cooheart! You're awake!" I heard my mom's voice.

She got up from where she had been sitting and rushed over to my bed.

"Mom, where are we?" I asked, "and what is that beeping sound above me?"

"That's the machine monitoring your heart rate and blood pressure," my mom replied, "you are in the hospital. You're lucky to survive the car crash."

Suddenly I recalled what had happened to me and Title.

I quickly sat up, only to fall back against my pillows, feeling dizzy and weak.

I was scared to ask the question but I needed to know.

"Mom," I said, my voice quivering uncontrollably, "Title... Title... "

I could not continue. I was so scared to know.

"Title is alive. He is in the room next to yours."

It wasn't my mom who answered. It was Kao. I did not notice that he was inside my hospital room as well.

In my sheer relief at knowing that Title had survived the car crash, I started sobbing loudly, my shoulders shaking. My hands flew to cover my face.

Someone came over to hug me gently. I thought it was my mom.

"Try to relax now and don't think about what happened. It is important that you recover speedily and completely," Kao was talking softly against my ear, his arms still around me.

"When can I go to visit Title next door?" I asked.

Kao released me and straightened up from my bed.

"You will have to ask your doctor when you are strong enough to get out of your bed," he replied.

"Cooheart," my mom finally spoke up. I could tell by the hesitation in her voice that she was carefully choosing her words.

"Cooheart, you were luckier than Title. Your injuries were not as life threatening as his."

"What do you mean, mom?" I was wailing once more.

Kao was shaking his head at my mom.

"Maybe it would be best not to talk about the incident right now," Kao said to my mom, "excuse me while I go over to the nurses' station to ask whether Cooheart can take any solid foods or drinks now. If they say yes, I will go ahead and buy something for him to eat and drink."

"I'm not hungry," I announced. And it was true. I was too devastated to think of food at this time.

Kao did not respond. He just left the room and so it was only my mom who was with me.

"Mom," I pleaded, "I wanna go and see Title. Please help me to get out of bed and walk over to his room."

"You cannot do that, son," my mom scolded me, "you are still too weak to get out of bed. Get some nutrition first and wait till you get stronger."

Before I could reply, Kao walked back into the room with a nurse.

"Hello, sir," the nurse greeted me, "I'm happy to see that you're awake. How are you feeling?"

Suddenly I broke down and cried once more.

"I want to see my friend who was with me in the car crash," I pleaded with the nurse between sobs.

"We can't let you do that, sir," the nurse replied, "you're still too weak to get out of bed. Besides, even if you are strong enough, your friend wouldn't know that you visited him because he's still unconscious."

That last bit of information got me sobbing loudly all over again. I did not notice that Kao was looking grimly at me, his lips tightly pursed.

The nurse looked at the digital information that the beeping machine above me was showing her. Then she pulled the stethoscope that was slung from across her shoulder and placed the ear tips into her ears and then placed the other end of the stethoscope on my abdomen, moving it all over my abdomen and listening carefully.

"You're probably gonna tell me that you're not feeling hungry right now but your stomach and intestines are telling me that you are," she said.

"I will go buy some food," Kao said to my mom and quickly left the room.

"Please put some food into your stomach," the nurse advised me, "if you wish to visit your friend next door, you will need to nourish yourself to gain the strength to do so."

I nodded in resignation and the nurse left the room.

I tried not to recall the moments just before Title's car skidded and hit the electric pole. It had happened so suddenly but I knew the second that the car went out of control and I could clearly see the electric pole getting closer. I heard the deafening sound as the front of the car crunched against the pole before I totally blacked out.

I closed my eyes and turned my face to the wall so that my mom would not see me crying again.

She tried to cheer me up by turning on the television set that was facing my bed. She chose a comedy channel but I found myself just staring blankly at the screen.

After some time had passed, Kao came back with a brown paper bag that had the logo of a well known restaurant with several branches all over the city.

"The nurse at the station advised me to get you easily digestible food at this time," Kao announced while taking out a covered bowl out of the bag.

He placed it on top of my bedside table and pushed the table across my bed. He removed the lid and took a small plastic ladle from the bag.

"I can feed myself," I said, taking the ladle from him because he had already scooped some of the rice porridge with cut up tofu and pieces of seaweed and was trying to bring the ladle to my mouth.

"Thank you, Kao," I heard my mom say to him, "you don't have to do this for Cooheart. You should be taking care of yourself. You have been here since last night and haven't eaten anything."

"Thank you, Kao," I said belatedly. I didn't want to sound like an ungrateful spoiled brat to him.

"I bought some food for you and me," Kao said to my mom, placing his hand back into the paper bag and taking out two square plastic food containers.

When he removed the lids of the food containers, the delicious smell of pad thai wafted to my nose.

"Oh, can I have some of those, too?" I asked my mom.

"No," said Kao, "the nurse said for you to take soft foods for now."

I made a face but he didn't budge. 

I could tell from the few days that I had known Kao that he and I were not going to get along well.