234's Lifelines

22. Little star

Song : Little star
By Akmu

"Joseph Conrad once wrote: 'Who knows what true happiness is, not the conventional word.. but the naked terror. To the lonely themselves, that wears a mask, the most miserable outcast hugs some memory.. or some illusion.'" Lucas Scott One Tree Hill

***
Hera walks into the paint room and looks around. A few paintings laid scattered on the ground. One was broken. She walks towards the pictures and looks through them as a thought occurs to her. Was Aphrodite here? She removes the white sheet from the paintings and inspects them but sees none and let's out a breathe of relief. It must still be in the beach house painting studio. She picks up the paintings and stacks them up next to the wall not sure whether to throw it away or keep it since she didn't know if it was important. She decides to keep it as it isn't her call to make and turns off the light after cleaning up and placing the sheets back on. She then walks out towards her room where Lexis currently was.

As she steps in, she notices the nurse falling asleep with a towel in her hand. She quietly walks over and taps her shoulder.

"Hey, you can go get some rest in the living room, I'll watch him," Hera says.

The nurse nods and follows Hera out with a blanket and pillow Hera got from her closet.

"He'll run a fever all night so he needs to be constantly wiped down," The nurse says to which Hera nods.

"If you need anything just let me know," The nurse says to which Hera quietly nods again. After getting the nurse settled in she returns to the room changes the bowl of water and walks back to the room.

She seats next to him on the bed and places the towel in the water squeezing out the water leaving the towel wet. She then places it against his sweating forehead and wipes his face.

She raises the duvet revealing his shirtless body underneath and gasps in shock. She expected to unbutton him and help wipe his body but actually seeing his naked body without preparing her mind for it shocked and threw her off.

"Calm down Hera, there's nothing here you haven't seen before," Hera whispers to herself biting her lower lip.

She purses.

He isn't naked all the way down is he? She wonders in fear as her eyes flow down to his waist where the duvet was currently laying.

She shakes her head and uses the towel to wipe his face and neck moving to his right hand. She raises his hand and starts wiping from the shoulder down. As she gets to his palms and opens it up, it closes around her hands dragging her towards Lexis face.

"What do you think you're doing?" Lexis says.

"I'm...you...you're...I'm...you have a fever, I was wiping your body," Hera explains.

Lexis eyes flutter as he tries to make sense of his surrounding before shutting his eyes letting go of Hera's hands. Hera sighs in relief thankful he'd fallen unconscious. She quickly places the towel in the bowl and places her hands against her chest, closing her eyes she takes in and let's out deep breaths, opens her eyes and covers Lexis back with the duvet. She then walks over to the armchair and sits in it quietly watching Lexis.

Over in the room across the hallway, Shakespeare wakes up needing to use the bathroom. She turns on the light switch but it doesn't come on. She tries again to no avail. Giving up she gets down from her bed and tries to find the door but hits her feet against something due to her inability to see in the darkness and starts crying. She finally finds her way out and walks towards her mother's room and opens the door walking in sobbing.

Hera looks up at the little girl standing by the door and notices her daughter crying. She gets up and rushes to her side.

"What's wrong?" She asks worried that she had a nightmare or something worse happened.

"My...my leg," Shakespeare says bawling. Hera looks down at her leg and notices blood pouring out from her toe.

"Oh my goodness," Hera says raising her daughter up and carrying her to the chair.

She quickly rushes out of the room and gets a first aid box returning to clean and disinfect the wound.

"Shakespeare I'm going to place the disinfectant on the wound now," Hera says.

Shakespeare reaches out and grabs her mother's left hand placing her forehead against her mother's and shutting her eyes.

Hera applies the disinfectant, Shakespeare yelps in pain.

"It's okay now, you're okay," Hera says holding onto her face patting it.

She lets go and wraps the toe in a bandaid raising Shakespeare up to lay against her lap, rocking her.

"AKMU," Shakespeare calls out.

"AKMU? Okay... let's see," Hera says in understanding

"Little Star?" Hera asks.

Shakespeare nods placing her thumb in her mouth to suck.

~"bam jung eodinga sonyeoui gido soriga deullyeoomyeon

geugeon jageun byeorui jamkkodaeil geoya

bam jung eodinga sonyeonui gobaegsoriga deullyeoomyeon

geugeon jageun byeorui dwicheogimil geoya"~

Hera sings the lyrics to AKMU's song little star to Shakespeare. Many years had passed and so much had hanged but one things that hadn't changed was Hera's love for Korea which Shakespeare had inherited.

After a while Shakespeare stops sobbing and listens to the sound of her mother's voice singing which soon goes quiet as they both fall asleep not noticing Lexis on the bed quietly observing them.

Hours later, Shakespeare wakes up to the sight of Lexis trying to get out of the bed.

"Oh!" Shakespeare says her eyes widening in shock at finding him in her mother's bed.

He places his hands on his lips, Shakespeare nods in understanding placing her hands on her lips.

Lexis removes the drip from his hands,cleans the blood and places a bandaid over it.

He then puts on a shirt and walks towards Shakespeare and Hera.

Shakespeare opens up her arms to him.

He looks down raising an eyebrow.

Shakespeare grins and shakes her hands signalling that she was waiting for him to carry her.

Lexis ignores her and keeps walking but stops when Shakespeare holds onto his shirt as he passes in front of her.

"I'll tell," She whispers a threat opening her mouth ready to scream.

Lexis quickly removes her from her mother's embrace taking care not to wake up Hera.

Shakespeare stifles her laughter behind her palms as they step out of the room and quietly shut the door

***
I lost my Godfather around this period last year to be specific on New Year's day but my mum hid it from me till around this time last year as she didn't want it to ruin my New year. I've been feeling out of it lately and down with the flu but apart from the few who demand updates without a care of what's going on with me, they're those who never fail to leave sweet comments, the past few days and hours those comments have been my strength while I've been moaning, to come on here and see your encouraging and kind hearted remarks and for that I just want to say thank you, you may feel I say it a little too much but I feel I don't say it enough and when I do I hope you know I mean it.

Love
~ A