Chapter 32: I'm Interested in You 4

Lifting his left sleeves upwards, Lin Que looked at the time. "I have to follow up on some patients. Visiting hours is about to be over. Johnson, you should head back to your room before the head nurse looks for you. Your medicine must be taken every six hours."

Throwing daggers at his friends with obvious intentions through his sharp glare, his buddies didn't dare play any more tricks up their sleeves to shamelessly stay. Alan was the first to stand on his feet, fold his chair and put it back to its original spot. Following his friend's action, Johnson repeated similar movements, but in a clumsier way.

Perhaps the angle he had forced the seat upwards irritated the screws; an awful sound squeaked into their ears. "Ahh." She groaned from the sharpness of the rusted screw. Digging her fingers into her ears, she squeezed her eyes extra tight until the screech sound was gone.

"Sorry. This chair must be old." Johnson explained as he inspected the chair in his possession. Lin Que worriedly asked as he noticed her odd expression after that nail scrapping metallic sound occurred. "Are you alright?"

Though she was fine after some time, it still took her a minute longer than them to adjust her hearing. Normally, even the interaction between a knife and surface of a plate would make her cover her ears; let alone a creaky chair from a close distance.

"I'm okay." Her expression changed slightly after that accident. As the crease between her brows continued to show, they didn't want to disturb her rest any further. Therefore, everyone exited the room and told her that they'll visit later tomorrow.

Johnson felt guilt for causing her ears to hurt, "I'm sorry about earlier. I didn't know the chair would make such a high microphone sound."

Lin Que made a quick text to someone and looked up, "No biggie. Those squeaky chairs won't be here after today. You didn't mean to make that noise anyways."

"Yeah. Yeah. Besides, our handsome doctor over here already got her number. That's a huge step forward. If anything, he could have her stay for ten thousand more exams to keep her close to him before letting her discharge." Alan jokingly said to dissolve his guilty conscience.

Unsure what his response should be, Lin Que kept quiet and permitted his friend to tease him until he reached his patient's room. He quickly shooed his buddies out of his sight to hide his shyness. Near the end of his shift, he received a text from Chase Bank.

It was a notification informing him about Lily's quick pay. Frowning at the thought of her paying for the snacks, he almost let out a sigh.

Ding

His sigh was interrupted by another text message. Lily Jiang...

Leaning back carelessly on his chair, he supported his head with his fist as he checked the message. Though he appeared calm and composed, his lightly tapping foot indicated that he was anticipating something.

Being completely absorbed in replying to her texts, he hadn't noticed how late it became.

Lily: "I've quick paid you the money for the snacks. Thank you~"

Lin Que: "No problem."

Afraid of his response being too dull, he purposely sent her a sticker of a bunny slapping a dollar out of its palm.

Lily: "... does that mean you are dollar-less? 😱😱😱🤣🤣🤣"

Lin Que: "It means I am so rich my wallet doesn't even have a single bill. My piggy bank is full though."

Lily: "Thanks for letting me know. I'll definitely dig through your gold pig for coins next time."

Lin Que: "Take it if you could guess the password."

Lily: "I_am_a_fish_520"

Lin Que burst out in laughter as it reminded himself in a fish outfit. He replied, "You'll never let me off that fish outfit, would you?"

Lily: "Never😈😈😈"

Lin Que: "It's getting late. Go to sleep."

Lily: "Kay~ Good night! Oh, are you on shift tomorrow too?"

Lin Que: "Yep."

Seeing the three dots on the screen, he backspaced the good night message and waited for her to respond first.

Lily: "Damn! When is your day off? You literally live in the hospital, don't you?"

Lin Que chuckled and texted: "Why? You want to stalk me?"

Lily: "Tch, fine. Fine. Don't tell me!"

Lin Que: "I'm only on shifts everyday of this week. Normally off on the weekends and weekday nights."

Lily: "😁😁😁 I'll talk to you tomorrow. Nights!"

Lin Que: "Night."

Staring at the last text, he sent, he felt he could've been a bit friendlier. 'Eh. Maybe I'm just overthinking things.'

He pulled the door shut from behind and twisted the knob to make sure it was locked. While waiting for the elevator, he received another text. This time, it was from one of the doctors from the same department, asking him to take over his shift if it was possible.

Calculating the hours of sleep, he could get from now till that shift, he replied, "Okay." He turned around and walked back to his office, where he set up his bed for the night. After setting up his alarm, he closed his eyes and drift into dreamland.

A loud ringing alarm grew louder and more insistent as his consciousness became clearer. His eyes forced open as his hand reached for his phone. He knew he would oversleep if he had placed his phone close to him. Hence, he left it flat on the desk, so he would have no excuses from getting out of bed to turn the alarm off.

Slapping his face with both palms, he washed up in his private bathroom and got ready for his first round of check up on patients. All he had to do was take a look at each of them to make sure they were stabilized in their sleep. Everything went smoothly until he came across Lily's room and heard her mumbling in her sleep.

At first, he thought she was having a regular dream talking situations. Then, he heard her calling out for help in a raspy voice. Turning on the lights, he realized the girl had no intentions of waking up. Regular patients would at least jolt or show signs of disturbance, but she showed none at all.

Patting her gently and whispering softly to prevent startling her awake, he said, "Lily. Lily. Wake up." Something was indeed weird with her. Her body temperature was higher than usual. Pressing the emergency button, he called for immediate assistance.

In the middle of getting fever relief treatment, she was conscious for a few seconds. She whispered, "Doctor Lin.."

All she heard before her world turned black again was his caring, soothing voice telling her, "I'm here. Everything will be okay."

By 7 A.M. in the morning, her fever had gone down. Lin Que quickly finished his shift duties and rushed back to watch over her. When she opened her eyes once again, she saw Lin Que by her side.

'Was he by my side all along?' She wondered as she observed the man's worried expression.