The entire hospital atmosphere looked different at night. It's like, something big is going to happens and no one will be able to stop it.
During the day, they pretended to be orderly bright, efficient, ruled by schedules and protocols. It didn't even give a chance for a doubt to be surfaced. At night, the truth leaked through the cracks. Fluorescent lights hummed too loudly, corridors stretched longer than they should, the shadows gathered in corners no one bothered to check.
Xinyue had always preferred night shifts. That was until now.
She stood at the nurse's station, chart in hand, eyes skimming lines she already knew by heart. Room 712, male, stable, no name and no record in the system. A patient who officially didn't exist.
"Dr. Lin?"
She looked up. The nurse on duty Mei Ling hovered a little too close, voice a little too careful.
"Yes?"
"Administration called again." Mei Ling lowered her voice. "They want to know why the patient in 712 hasn't been transferred yet."
Xinyue kept her expression neutral. "Because he's not cleared."
"They said…" Mei Ling hesitated slightly and continued. "They said the bed was reassigned."
Xinyue fingers tightened around the clipboard. "While he's still breathing?" Mei Ling looked away bit uncomfortable and couldn't answer for it. That was answer enough for her about the hospitals atrocities which angered her more than it should.
"I'll handle it," Xinyue said bit roughly.
She walked away before the nurse could respond, heels echoing sharply against the floor. Each step felt like walking deeper into something she could no longer pretend was just coincidence.
Outside Room 712, she paused for a bit. The door was slightly ajar. That wasn't how she'd left it before going for other works. Her pulse ticked up not fast, not panicked, instead alert. The kind of tension that sat just under the skin. She pushed the door open slowly.
The room was dim, lit only by the city glow filtering through the narrow window. Machines hummed softly, the patient lay still, chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm.
And Taehyun stood beside the bed, which was unexpected.
This time Xinyue didn't jump like usual or she didn't gasp either. She just sighed in relief. "You need to stop appearing like that," she said quietly.
He glanced at her, mouth curving faintly. "You didn't scream this time."
"I'm learning," she replied. "Unfortunately."
He studied her for a moment, gaze sharp, assessing over. "You're tense."
"You're trespassing."
"Also true."
She moved closer to the bed, checking the monitors. "The administration wants him to be gone."
His jaw tightened at the new information. "Already?"
"They are not subtle," Xinyue said. "They just assume people won't question them."
"And you?"
She met his gaze and hold on to it while replying. "I always question."
That earned her a look something warmer, which is fleeting but unmistakable. "You shouldn't," he said softly.
"And yet here we are."
For a moment, neither of them spoke. The quiet atmosphere was different in there, thicker, weighted with thing neither of them were saying or like to admit.
"Who is he?" Xinyue asked at last.
Taehyun looked down at the unconscious man. "Someone who knows too much."
"Abou what?"
"About people who don't like witnesses, about who need his help."
She folded her arms. "That doesn't' narrow it down."
His lips twitched. "It's not meant to."
She shook her head. "You brought danger into my workplace."
"No." he corrected her. "It was already here, no invitation needed."
Before she could respond, her phone vibrated in her pocket. She froze seeming the name, the only person who called her this late without a warning. Her mother.
Xinyue stepped back, answering quickly. "Mom?"
"Xinyue." Dr. Han Soyeon's voice was crisp, controlled and professional even off duty. "Why am I hearing your name in a risk assessment report?"
Xinyue stomach dropped. She turned slightly, lowering her voice. "What kind of report?"
"The kind that doesn't include details," her mother replied. "Which means something is being hidden. That usually means trouble."
She closed her eyes briefly at the information. Of course it had reached her mother already. Soyeon didn't work in healthcare administration, she shaped it.
"I'm fine," Xinyue said carefully.
"That wasn't my question."
Xinyue exhaled. "I admitted a patient."
"A patient without any records," her mother said. "A patient someone tried to erase overnight."
Xinyue's grip tightened on the phone with the amount of information her mother knows. "You know?"
"I know enough," Soyeon replied coolly. "And enough to tell you this people don't erase names unless they're afraid of what happens if they stay."
Xinyue glanced at Taehyun. He was watching her now, his eyes were unreadable.
"Mom," Xinyue said, "this man needed help, I just want to be useful."
"That's not what worries me," Soyeon said.
"It's who else noticed you helping." There was a pause. Heavy but loaded pause between them. "You're being watched," her mother continued. "Not by amateurs." Xinyue swallowed. "Then tell me what to do."
Soyeon didn't answer immediately. When she did, her voice was softer but more dangerous. "I can't protect you from everything, Xinyue. Not if you keep stepping into shadows without telling me."
"I didn't choose this."
"No," her mother agreed. "But now you're in it."
The call ended before Xinyue could respond. She stood there for a moment, phone still pressed to her ear, heart pounding not from fear, but from something sharper. Anger or something more.
Resolve.
When she looked up, Taehyun was closer than before. "Your mother?" he asked. "Yes, and she knows."
"She always does," Xinyue said. "That's the problem."
His gaze softened slightly. "She's worried."
"So am I." He hesitated for a second, then said quietly, "This is the part where you tell me to leave."
Xinyue met his eyes. "Is it?"
"If you're smart." She considered him for a long moment. The danger he represented, the secrets clinging to him like smoke. The way everything had escalated since he entered in her life.
Then she said, "What happens if I don't?"
Something dark and honest expression flickered across his face. "Then you don't get to pretend you're uninvolved anymore."
Her heart skipped at his words not unpleasantly but something else which she couldn't even name it. "I stopped pretending days ago," she said.
Silence settled between them, charged and fragile. Outside the room, footsteps echoed down the corridor. Too many voices for her liking. Something too close, Taehyun's body shifted subtly, placing himself between her and the door without thinking.
Xinyue noticed. Her pulse betrayed her but she didn't step away. Hospital lights flickered overhead.
And somewhere in the building, another secret was being buried.
Also, it will not be the last.