varsity | vmin

34

The frosted glass doors were no match for Park Jimin as he barreled through the entrance to the emergency room with ease.

"Somebody, please help my mother!" His voice drenched in agony, the boy who carried his limp mother through the double doors called out to anyone. As loud as his cry was, to him it felt as if no one could hear him to the extent that he wanted to scream. It was like in all the movies, when everything goes in slow motion once something traumatic happens. That was it. That's what it felt like.

A young blonde lady who couldn't have been a day over thirty sat behind the reception desk, gawking at Jimin with pained eyes. Not that anything that walked through the emergency room doors was even remotely pretty, this particular sight of a teenage boy being hysteric over his ill mother in his arms seemed to poke at the lady's heart a bit more than usual. With a quick motion of her hand, she summoned Jimin towards her desk, picking up a nearby phone to page any available doctors.

Jimin waited patiently before the receptionist hung up the phone, and turned her undivided attention onto the boy. "What seems to be the problem, sir?" As hard as it was to be professional, she kept her voice upbeat and level.

Jimin inhaled deeply, his eyes focusing on the nice lady in front of him rather than shifting frantically around the well lit room. "My... my mom is a regular patient h-here. Park is the surname, y-you can look up her files."

The receptionist nodded while turning to her computer, soon typing in the given name to pull up her past records, Jimin pointing out which file withheld her information.

Jimin took this time to elaborate. "Sh-she has osteosarcoma, and this—this morning I found her on the bathroom floor after she had f-fallen last night." Jimin briefly paused to look down at his mother in pain, shutting his eyes to let the hot tears fall down his face. "She never told me it had gotten this bad."

The blonde lady replaced her attention on the shaking boy and nodded with sympathy. "It's gonna be okay..."

"Jimin," he answered through a subdued sob.

"It's gonna be okay, Jimin," she picked back up. "I've already paged a few doctors to take good care of your mom, and I've already got her files on hand so everything is under control. Now, is there anything specific they need to focus on?"

"She just told me she was hurting." Jimin wiped his own cheek with his shoulder. "This can't be the last time I see her. I know all too well what this means, and I need somebody to help her be able to come home."

The young lady was caught off guard by Jimin's bluntness but decided on nodding along. As much as she wished to promise the boy that his mother would make it out alive, she knew it was much easier said than done.

Within a tense couple of seconds, three doctors rounded the corner and dragged a stretcher along with them to meet Jimin and his mom. Obediently, Jimin handed over his mother and watched as the doctors situated her onto the stretcher and get in position to leave.

Of course, he embarked on following his mother before he was stopped by a forceful hand that took him off guard.

"I'm sorry, sir, but I have to ask you if you would please wait in the waiting room. I'm afraid we can't allow you to see your mother until we run some tests and do what we need to do." The harsh male voice asserted himself over Jimin which worked like a charm, causing Jimin to shy down and nod compliantly.

He just stood there for a moment. Watching intently as doctors took away his precious mother and left him to wait. Wait and worry? Wait and cry? Wait and lose all hope? It was all of the above for Jimin.