sleepless cinderella ☆ ten | ✔

07

A few weeks after meeting Aojuan, Zhengting, and a few of Ten's other coworkers, you found yourself back at the hospital. This time you had met up with Ten for his short lunch break. He couldn't take lunch off-campus today because of a specific patient that had been barely stabilized in the ER earlier. At any moment, he could be needed.

But you were perfectly content with having your lunch date in the cafeteria, just happy to see him again. You had just swiped a fry from his tray—much to his annoyance—when his eyes drifted from you to something just past your shoulder.

You turned your head to see if you could spot what had caught his attention. Three figures were approaching you. Two were adults, elderly, with wrinkles that told of many years behind them, the man gripping a cane with his left hand and the wire of a hearing aid snaking behind the woman's ear. With them was a little girl who didn't look old enough to even be out of primary school. She clutched a small rabbit with both hands, eyes that barely peeked out from under bangs trained downwards on her purple jelly sandals as they all came to a stop beside your table.

When you looked to Ten for some kind of explanation, your question stopped in your throat. His knuckles were white as he gripped his fork too harshly, brow furrowed as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. A pained and pensive expression was across his features, emotional depth that you'd never seen him have before.

"Y/N," your boyfriend's voice was tense, as if he was forcing it to be emotionless and monotone. "I think I left my prescription pad in my office; would you mind getting that for me?"

"Sure, of course," you slowly stood up, accepting that he clearly did not want you involved in whatever was about to happen. You grabbed his hand that was on the table, giving it a reassuring squeeze before taking leave of the cafeteria.

☆

Taking your time with your fake mission, you made sure they had plenty of time to deal with... whatever they were going to deal with. You even took the stairs to the third floor where Ten's office was located, a much slower option than the elevator. As you opened the door to his office, your thoughts were stuck on the situation you'd just left.

Who were those people? His family, maybe? You couldn't be sure of anything, there were too many uncertainties and scenarios bouncing around your head that you'd give yourself a migraine trying to figure it all out.

Ten had in fact left his prescription pad in his office—as he always did, considering he didn't give out a lot of prescriptions as a surgeon.

With the pad secured in your hand, you made your way back to the cafeteria as slowly as you had left it. When you were at the threshold, you looked to your table to see if the other people were still there. It seemed as if they were just leaving, the man patting Ten's shoulder before the three of them turned and started walking away.

You stayed at the doorway, frozen. The sight they left behind was one that was new to you. Ten hunched over, taking deep but tremoring breaths as he hid his face with his arms and the table. The part of his forehead that you could see was red, and his chest heaved and shook. He was crying.

With wide eyes, you turned your gaze to the elderly couple and little girl as they came closer to you. You expected them to pass right by you and leave. But instead, they stopped in front of you. The man's eyes were clearly moist, the woman using her sleeve to dab at her own few tears that were falling, hand holding tight to the smaller hand of the little girl whose sniffles were muffled by her stuffed animal.

It was the woman who addressed you, voice surprisingly strong as she asked you, "Are you Dr. Li's girlfriend?"

"I..." You couldn't formulate an answer, still too shocked by the sight of Ten crying.

"Do you care for him?"

This question from the man brought you back down to Earth.

"Of course."

The woman grabbed your hand with the one that wasn't holding the little girl's, her grip warm and motherly as she requested, "Remind him that it's not his fault, every day. Please."

The entire experience felt surreal as you asked, "What's not his fault?"

She only gave you a sorrowful smile before the three of them continued their journey out of the cafeteria. You looked over at your table again.

In the time it had taken you to have that unreal conversation with them, Ten had managed to compose himself a little bit. He was sitting up straight again, fervently chugging from his water bottle as his breathing seemed a lot more even. As you carefully approached him, you could see that his eyes were still swollen and red, but his face seemed dry and free from tears at least.

"Here," you murmured quietly, holding the prescription pad out to him.

Ten immediately beamed up at you, accepting it from your hands, "Thanks, Y/N!"

You slid into the booth across from him, cautious, but concerned. With that resolve, you were able to question, "Ten, who were they?"

"Patient's family," he answered casually.

"They were crying."

"Oh, just overjoyed that I saved their son's life, happens all the time," the brash indifference that he brushed your concern away with only made you more deeply troubled. "Now, I have such a good story to tell you about Yangyang and Chenle from boarding school."

You weren't dumb, you knew full well that he was fibbing and changing the topic to avoid discussing it. And Ten knew you weren't dumb. But you both pretended to not have this knowledge, as he told you the story and you let him.

As he told this tale of Yangyang and Chenle breaking into the dining hall to steal ice cream on a dare from a couple of the older boys, you almost wanted to curse yourself for getting involved with your subject. If you were just purely a journalist and not also his girlfriend, you would've been able to push and get the truth from him. But you couldn't make yourself do that. You just couldn't.