Arena wasn't getting out of that hospital that evening after all. It had been 5 a.m when she had alerted and scared the nurses with her screaming. The pounding in her head and the ringing in her ears had been so loud that she herself couldn't hear the screams.

After the nurses pinned her down, her face was wet with tears and a few drops of sweat sliding down her forehead. She had been given a sedative, which kept her asleep for a couple of hours.

Her ears had been bleeding.

When Arena regained conciousness hours later, she heard the doctor speaking to her mom. Something about burst bloodcells from the pain. Arena couldn't be sure, her ears hurt thus she couldn't hear 100% clearly what was being said in the room. She slowly opened her eyes to see the doctor checking the dripfeeder and her mom sitting down in the chair next to her.

"Good, you're awake," The doctor walked to stand at the foot of Arena's hospital bed, surveying the patient's situation with clear eyes. "Want to tell us what happened?" The doctor's voice was nice but stern. Something about her voice made Arena feel more relaxed than she was before when she had first opened her eyes.

The doctor pressed a button on the side of the hospital bed which made the head part of the bed slowly rise so Arena wouldn't have to cause herself more pain trying to lift herself into a sitting position. The bed did that for her. The doctor smiled and lifted a thin eyebrow, waiting for Arena to start talking.

"I don't know what happened," Arena's voice was hoarse from the screaming. Every word that came out of her mouth caused her throat to throb, but she owned them an explanation. She sucked up the pain in her throat and continued talking, slowly and carefully. "Something woke me up and I couldn't fall back asleep. My rib was giving me hell pains and my head just started to hurt really bad. I tried sitting up and putting my hands to my ears when they started ringing. I didn't notice it at first but as it grew louder, it became unbearable." She stopped, looking at the faces of her mom and the doctor. One was calm and understanding the other filled with shock and concern.

Arena's mom took her hand and squeezed it, nodding to Arena.

"Was I.. was I screaming?" Arena's voice grew quieter as she looked straight into the eyes of the doctor, who's hands were deep in the pockets of her long white hospital jacket. Arena's deep green, almost brown eyes were filled with shame and apology.

"Yes, yes you were. Gave us all quite a fright too." The doctor chuckled. Arena was confused. How wasn't she angry? "You're not...mad at me?"

The doctor walked next to Arena, and touched her hair, "Of course not. It's okay. Though we would like to keep you here another day, so we can keep an eye on you." The doctor's turquoise eyes were kind and she smiled. Arena nodded and her mom spoke up. "Naha's here to see you by the way."

Arena's head turned to her mom as she squeezed her hand again, "You told her?"

Arena's mom nodded and stood up from the chair, "She's waiting outside, I'll call her in." Arena gave another nod and leaned back her head watching her mom carefully open the door with graceful ease.

Everything that happened next, went by like a flash.

Her best friend rushing into the room with roses and balloons, them talking about how worried Naha had been, Naha painting Arena's nails and toenails (no idea how it got to that point tbh), them laughing together and taking selfies. Though laughing hurt Arena's rib, she was glad now that Naha was here. She needed her best friend. It was like Naha was giving Arena strength.

Naha lounged in the chair, scrolling through instagram when she suddenly looked at Arena. "Have you talked to Kihyun? Does he know?" Arena's eyes were wide and she pushed herself up from her bed, grabbing her phone from her footing, the same place she had tossed it to hours before. Remembering that the battery was still empty she laid back down and put the phone next to her hands. "My phone's dead."

"Give me that." Naha took her friend's phone and fished out a blue powerbank from her designer bag and connected it to Arena's iPhone. Naha turned the iPhone on and held the phone high, so Arena couldn't yank it away from her. Which she usually did.

Okay more like all the time. Arena didn't like people touching her phone. She had personal stuff there! Arena looked at her best friend with a snarl on her lips and for a second Naha really thought that Arena would jump on her and claw her face off like a wild and berserk tiger.

Luckily that didn't happen. Arena did though try to reach her phone but Naha only swatted her hand away. The same way she swatted away flies. Arena folded her arms and rolled her eyes.

So rude.

Arena didn't have time to think more because soon enough the hospital room was filled with blings and beeps from Arena's phone notifications. Naha still held the phone high in her hand and she met Arena's eyes. Naha gave her friend a lazy smirk as she lowered her hand and checked her notifications.

"Kihyun, Kihyun, Kihyun, ooh facebook party invite, Kihyun and," she looked at Arena and handed her the phone back casually, "Kihyun." Naha smiled as Arena took the phone and read the messages Kihyun had left her:

"Are you still sure there's no way you could join?"

"How are you?" (Including a bunny sticker)

"Are you eating well?"

"We're going back to Korea today."

"Are you ignoring me?"

Arena hadn't noticed that her mouth had fallen open. She just stared at the phone, unable to find words. It was Naha who broke the silence, eager to find out what the hell that boy had written to Arena that she was paralyzed like that and not speaking.

"Arena? What did he write?"

Arena's hand rose to her mouth and her eyes to meet Naha's.

"He thinks I'm ignoring him...WHAT THE HELL DO I SAY NOW"

Arena slapped her forehead and Naha winced at the horrible sound of Arena's palm connecting with her forehead. Arena fell back in her hospital bed and stared at the ceiling while Naha once again grabbed her friend's phone and read the messages herself in grave silence.

Arena didn't want him to think that she was ignoring him. She would never ignore a celebrity....well actually she didn't like ignoring anyone. Ignoring itself was an ugly word and not cool thing to do. What if Kihyun's going to ignore her back now? Surely he wouldn't do that, right..? Arena felt a pang of guilt. He should understand. After all he sent those messages at 5 a.m. Arena scoffed. How dare he think she was ignoring him.

"He seems worried."

Naha sat quietly in the armchair and placed Arena's phone on Arena's flat stomach. She leaned back and watched while Arena didn't look at the phone, now actually laying on top of her.

"Kihyun worries about everyone, he's the mom of the group, remember?" Arena's voice was emotionless just like her face. The key was to relax your face muscles and boom you have yourself a resting-bitch-face.

Naha thought for a while, not bothering with Arena's dead look. If no one noticed that Arena looked like something inside her had died, then she would eventually drop the resting-bitch-face.

"You know, " Naha folded her legs under her and pulled her cardigan more tightly around herself, "worrying about a girl is different from worrying about your close-as-brothers friends." Naha grinned, her lips coated with purple lipstick parting, showing her teeth. It was beautiful.

Arena popped herself up on her elbows and looked at her wise companion, hair falling into her face. She whipped them away so she could actually see something and not be a wannabe Samara Morgan.

"You should answer him."

Arena gave Naha a long look.

Naha shrugged, a beautiful gesture from her delicate shoulders. "I'm serious, you should. It isn't nice to ignore him like that." She put extra pressure on the word ignore.

Arena sighed. Fine then. She actually did want to talk to him.

"Okay, give me my phone."

Naha pointed a manicured finger towards Arena's belly and yawned. "Over there."

Arena typed in an answer:

"Hey, I'm good, going to be in the hospital for tonight too. Get home safe, hope you had a nice tour and got to see the world a bit more." She added a smiling bunny sticker to the text. Then she showed it to Naha who nodded and gave her a thumbs up.

***

Back to school it was. Arena groaned as she pushed herself out of the bed on a very snowy Monday. She had been home for a day now and was still forced to go to school, though excused from PE class. Thank god for that. Arena didn't like PE at all, especially when they had swimming. Even if her skin was getting better and better with each passing day, then the stress from school and the chlorine in the school pool made Arena's skin somewhat break out. Also she didn't like the fact that her hair got wet. That was the main reason she didn't want to go to swim class.

And sometimes, when the teacher hated them really bad, they had to do swimming exercises in the water and got graded for it. Swim class was once a week in winter and spring. There was no getting out of it unless you had a damn good excuse.

Arena hoped a cracked rib would make up for that.

She smirked lazily to herself as she trodded into the washroom to get ready for the day. School was going to hurt like a bitch.

***

"Arena? You're sulking." Naha jabbed Arena's hand with a pencil.

"Well maybe it's because I am in incredible pain," hissed Arena so the teacher wouldn't hear their conversation.

It was true. Her side was killing her. She had taken painkillers at home and had a medical salve underneath her medical tapes. But 4 hours had passed now and she should take new ones. But not in the middle of English class. It was hard to breathe and even harder to actually concentrate on whatever that teacher was talking about in front of the whiteboard.

Arena groaned silently and held a hand over her rib, she checked her wristwatch to know how long the lesson would last.

15 minutes to go.

She would make it.

When class ended, Naha helped Arena pack her things and carried her backpack out of the classroom to Arena's locker. That's where she had the painkillers, curtesy of the hospital's kindness. Arena opened the locker and threw two painkillers into her mouth followed with some bottled water. Two may be too much but Arena didn't care. As long as it numbed the pain. At least a little bit.

She sank down to the floor and leaned against the lower lockers. If the owner of the locker she currently leaned on wanted to get their stuff then too bad. Arena wasn't going to move until the very beginning of the next lesson. Naha sat down next to Arena and gave her her backpack.

"Oh, Arena I think your phone is ringing." Naha motioned to the front pocket of the bag, lit up from inside and playing music. Arena took her phone and answered.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Arena? This is Park Hae."

Arena almost dropped her phone at the familiar voice.