FALLING | MxM (completed)

Chapter 4

Edited✔️

"LOOK! The sky is RED! Do you know what that means?"

Aiden looked at him with widened eyes, playing along with the silliness. "What does it mean?!"

He deepened his voice and gestured his hands towards the sky, acting all kinds of dramatic. "BLOOD HAS BEEN SHED!"

Aiden tried to keep himself from laughing, but failed. "What century are you living in? What blood, you idiot?"

He pouted, and Aiden's heart melted. "You're no fun!" He said, nudging Aiden's side.

"Okay okay, blood has been shed! That's why the sky is red. Good? Now come here." Aiden hugged him and the boy rested his head on his shoulder.

"When will you leave?" He whispered after a while.

"...Tomorrow morning." Aiden hesitated to say.

Silence. He didn't say another word.

***

"Aiden? Aiden, can you hear me? Come on, Aiden!"

He felt heavy hands slapping his face. His whole body was in so much pain, like he had been beaten up badly. He groaned and moved to the side, curling up into a ball. The throbbing of his head wasn't subsiding at all.

"Oh thank God!" He heard a voice say.

"Just keep an eye on him to prevent something like this from happening again. Lucas, you should've known better." Doctor Chad scolded the nurse before leaving the room.

"What happened?" Aiden asked with a hoarse voice, his eyes half-open, feeling like an absolute wreck.

"You stole drugs and had a semi-overdose. That's what happened. Honestly, are you that bad at math? Or do you wanna kill yourself? If it's the latter, tell me so I can kill you myself. I thought you said you're going to behave while being here?" Lucas was injecting him with something while talking in an annoyed tone.

"Feel free to kill me anytime you want. It's not like I have anything left to live for, anyway."

Lucas slapped his arm.

"Ouch! Is that a way to treat a patient?"

"You are saner than anyone here if you can pass through a high-security room and steal drugs like that."

Aiden giggled through all the silent pain he was enduring.

"Thanks, Lucas. I'll take it from here." Edwin closed the door when the nurse left but didn't get any closer. Standing there, he looked so melancholic that Aiden's stomach turned. He almost felt guilty for having done it. Now the ever-present smile was replaced by those sad, worried eyes that seemed unable to look away from him. It was seconds later when the doctor finally let his feet get him to Aiden, sitting by the bed. But when close, the boy didn't look at him anymore but at the floor.

"Why did you do it?"

"I..." Why had he done it? He just remembered not wanting to feel. "...Just needed his voice to vanish."

The doctor looked up, opened his mouth as if wanting to talk, but closed it again. He shifted in his seat and slowly held Aiden's hand between both of his. The touch felt like cold water poured over a wrathful flame in his heart. To his own surprise, it calmed him down a great deal. "Whose voice?"

Aiden didn't answer.

"It's okay, Aiden. You're gonna have to let it out in order to be able to deal with the pain."

"That's pure bullshit! As soon as I put this— this feeling into words, it'll all come back to me full force and I will be ruined." He felt tears collecting in his eyes as his chest started hurting again.

Edwin's hands tightened around him. "Yeah, but you're here so we can repair you. I'm not forcing you to talk right now, but you're gonna have to, eventually." The doctor's eyes held so much sympathy when he said that.

"Aren't you being a little too worried about a random patient?" He didn't understand the helplessness that was oozing off the younger.

Edwin's jaw clenched, and he swallowed roughly, looking to the side. "I hate it when I fail at helping the patients. When I see someone lying there unconscious and I won't know if they're really okay until they open their eyes again, I just—"

Seeing him this way, vulnerable and not the all-grown-up doctor he had tried to present himself as, made Aiden want to comfort him.

"I'm sorry." He said, squeezing Edwin's palm. "I won't do it again."

Not while I'm here

He decided not to say that part aloud.

***

"Come in." Chad said after hearing the knocking.

"Come sit here, Edwin."

"As I was telling Lucas, Aiden's case should not be taken lightly as a simple drug addiction treatment. He might not have any disorders on his record for now, but we can't just go easy on him. What happened today was a surprise to me as well, as he didn't show any signs beforehand. There must be a lot going on under the surface." Chad said.

"Well, he was rather uneasy at dinner." Edwin said.

"Elaborate."

"He kept looking at the sky, completely dissociated and then left without eating anything. I don't know, he just wasn't as hyped as I saw him the first time."

Chad sighed. "I put you and Lucas in charge of this because I needed him to be fully focused on. But seems like both of you have failed this. How did he even get in the medic's room, Lucas?"

"I wish I knew! There were no signs of breaking in, seems as if he just entered the passcode and went inside! Is he a genius or something?" Lucas gestured with his hands.

"Well, you could say that." Chad rotated his laptop so that the two could see the screen. It was a Wikipedia profile of the singer.

"We might as well regard him as a literal genius. He was hired by one of the best IT companies right after high school as a pro developer before becoming a celebrity. Well, this is his career queue: developer, dancer, singer, and producer."

Lucas and Edwin kept looking at the profile with their mouths hanging open in shock.

"How did he end up being a drug addict with no sense of math, then? He always fucking miscalculates!" Lucas asked.

"As his father explained to me, he tends to lose himself before using the drugs. You know, the cases that the person doesn't know his surroundings and just focuses on getting what he needs and doesn't understand how much he's taking."

"He mentioned earlier that he wanted a person's voice to vanish. I asked whose, but he didn't answer." Edwin said.

"He kept saying a word, maybe a name, over and over again when he was unconscious." Lucas added.

"In any case, please keep a close eye on him and make sure to double and triple the security of the med's room. Lucas, you can go now."

"Okay, I'm gonna go check on him then. Later docs." The nurse waved a hand and left the room.

Chad stood up and walked towards Edwin, sitting beside him.

"Has she said anything recently?" The head doctor asked.

"No. Nothing new, I mean. She just asks about my day and some patients and my opinion on the books she gives me to read. Nothing out of the ordinary. But she's been rather calm."

"It's the quiet before the storm, Edwin. keep her under observation." Chad stood up and walked toward his desk. "You can go now."

Edwin stood up as well and was about to leave the room when the other talked again. "Oh, and I saw her talking to Aiden last night. Not for long, though."

Edwin nodded and left the room. How come she talked to a new person as easily as that? Sure, there was something about Aiden that made you feel at ease and intimidated at the same time, but it was very unusual for her to come up to a stranger like that. It remained at the back of his head as a tingling feeling.