Chapter Text
Hospitals are not quiet places, but they have a kind of silence that gets into your bones.
It hums beneath fluorescent lights and settles between clipped footsteps. It lives in the soft knock of nurses, in the echo of wheelchairs rolling past. It gathers in corners where families once stood, whispering promises they couldn't keep. It lingers long after the machines stop beeping. It's not peace. It's not calm. It's waiting—the kind that stretches thin over days that all feel the same.
On the ninth floor, at the farthest end of the East Wing, there is a room that never empties. The lights are softer there. The curtains are always drawn halfway, like the sun might be too much or not enough. The vitals monitor beats slow and steady, as though time itself has started to measure its steps.
It is not a room for healing. It is a room for staying.
Boom stays.
He has lived in this hospital longer than anyone else on the floor. Not a visitor. Not a case to be solved. He is something in between—a presence folded into the routine, a constant in a place built on impermanence. His name is known by every nurse, every janitor, every rotation of doctors who come and go. Except for the ones who stay.
Like Dr. Mix.
And Dr. Phuwin.
His diagnosis is written in clean black ink across more charts than he's ever read: familial pulmonary fibrosis, complicated by cardiomyopathy. Terminal. Progressive. Monitored, not cured.
And yet, every morning, he asks for his coffee at 8 a.m. Sharp. Too sweet, barely warm. Every evening, he insists on the TV playing something terrible and dramatic. He says it makes the machines around him feel less loud.
He is dying, and has been for a while. But he is still here. That, in itself, feels like a quiet rebellion.
Outside his window, the clouds drift slow across a pale blue sky. Boom watches them sometimes—not like he's waiting for something, but like he's remembering it.
At 9:12 a.m., his door opens.
"Are you pretending to sleep?" Phuwin's voice, cheerful and too awake, floats in before the sound of his steps. "Because I know you're not."
"I was trying to," Boom murmurs, eyes still closed. "Then I heard your voice."
"Oh, the tragedy," Phuwin sighs, walking in like he owns the room, tablet in hand, coffee in the other. "He suffers again."
"Is that coffee for me?" Boom asks, opening one eye.
Phuwin raises an eyebrow. "This? No. This is mine. Yours is too sweet. It gives me judgmental thoughts."
Boom exhales a soft laugh, the kind that doesn't last long before turning into a quiet wheeze. Phuwin sets his tablet down immediately, concern flickering across his face—but it fades when Boom lifts a hand in weak protest.
"Not dying yet," he says. "Just regretting trusting you to be funny."
Mix walks in a beat later, sleeves rolled neatly, clipboard under one arm. His expression is calm, focused, but gentler here than anywhere else in the hospital.
"You're already giving him trouble?" he asks Phuwin.
"He started it," Phuwin says, like a child caught mid-prank.
"Good," Mix replies without looking up. He glances at Boom. "You look tired."
"I am tired," Boom says. "I've been talking to him for five minutes."
"He's emotionally taxing," Mix agrees mildly.
Phuwin gasps in mock betrayal. "I take vitals. I bring gifts. I listen to rants about reality TV. This is how I'm repaid?"
"This is your reward," Boom murmurs. "My company."
Mix moves to Boom's side, checking the oxygen levels on the monitor, adjusting a dial. His touch is careful, habitual. There is history in the way he works—years of proximity, of watching Boom's condition rise and fall like tide.
Phuwin, still sipping his coffee, leans against the wall. "By the way, you have a cardiology consult at eleven. Aou."
Boom lifts his brows just slightly. "Dr.Niran's coming?"
"Mm," Phuwin says, suddenly interested in the curtain. "Guess he missed you."
"He always comes in too quietly," Boom says. "Like he's afraid to wake me."
"Maybe he is," Mix says, not unkindly. "You do bite."
"Only when the coffee's bad."
The room lapses into something close to peace. Machines blink softly. The sky outside has begun to shift—light carving its way through the half-closed curtain. Boom watches it, eyes half-lidded, breath slow and shallow.
Phuwin is the one who speaks first this time, quieter now.
"Do you ever get tired of all of this?"
Boom doesn't answer right away. He closes his eyes again, exhales.
"Every day," he says. "But sometimes... it feels like the world slows down in here. Like the rest of life can't touch me."
"Is that a good thing?" Mix asks gently.
Boom shrugs—just barely. "I don't know. But it's real."
And outside, high above the hospital, the clouds move faster.
Because the sky doesn't wait.
Mix checks the monitor again, then the IV line, eyes flicking to the soft hiss of the nasal cannula beneath Boom's nose. Numbers scroll across the screen, steady but cautious. Boom follows the glance, unimpressed.
"You're doing that thing again," he says.
Mix doesn't look up. "Which thing?"
"The numbers thing. Like they're going to magically tell you something you don't already know."
"They might."
"They won't." Boom tilts his head lazily. "I'm still breathing. Still snarking. Still a full-time resident of Room 909. Just barely enough lung left to complain about everything."
Phuwin, still seated by the window, hums. "That's a pretty solid checklist of signs you're still alive."
Mix doesn't smile, but he does exhale through his nose—a Mix version of amusement.
Phuwin rises and walks over to Boom's bedside, glancing at the notes on his tablet. "Pulmonary function looks slightly worse than last week."
Boom lets out a small scoff. "Shocking."
Mix finally turns to him. "It's not dramatic yet. But you're trending downward again. I know you know what that means."
Boom rolls his head to the side, resting against the pillow. "As if I haven't been dying in years."
Phuwin's eyes flick to Mix, but Mix doesn't correct him. Doesn't soften it. He's long since learned that Boom prefers honesty laced with dry humor over false hope.
"Your O₂ saturation dipped below 89 again overnight," Mix says. "You'll need to increase your oxygen during sleep. We'll switch to high-flow tonight."
Boom grimaces. "That thing makes my nose feel like it's being microwaved."
"It's either that or gasping for air at 3 a.m.," Mix replies gently.
"Poetic," Boom mutters. "Why don't you write me a sonnet about it."
Phuwin snorts under his breath. "Maybe later. After I force you to take your meds."
Boom closes his eyes and holds out his hand like a child asking for candy. "Fine. Give me my rainbow of suffering."
Phuwin hands him the small paper cup—seven pills, all in dull shades of bitterness. Boom looks at them with vague suspicion before dry swallowing them in one go. He opens his mouth afterward, tongue out.
"Check me, Doctor. I'm a good patient."
Phuwin rolls his eyes. "You're the worst patient we like."
Mix begins preparing a syringe at the counter, tapping out bubbles with practiced hands. Boom eyes the movement.
"That one hurts," he says.
"I know," Mix replies.
"Still going to do it?"
"I still want you alive."
Boom huffs, but his shoulders go still. When Mix approaches, Phuwin moves to the other side of the bed and lays a hand lightly on Boom's forearm.
"You want to look at me while he does it?" he asks, teasing. "I'm prettier."
"I'd rather look at the ceiling," Boom says. But he doesn't move Phuwin's hand away.
The injection is swift, but Boom flinches anyway. Mix works efficiently—clean pressure, cotton swab, a soft murmur of "Done."
Boom exhales again, this one shaky. Not from the needle. From everything.
No one mentions it.
Phuwin walks to the sink, rinsing out the medicine cup. The small sounds of running water, of paper towels crumpling, fill the silence. It's the kind of quiet that feels normal in this room—not tense. Just... there.
"How's your chest?" Mix asks.
"Tight," Boom says. "Always. But I can pretend it's not if you want to feel better about it."
"I don't," Mix says plainly. "But we'll adjust the schedule. Push the anti-inflammatories earlier in the day."
Boom hums. "You ever get tired of keeping me patched up?"
"No," Mix says.
Boom's eyes flick to him, serious for just a moment.
"You don't have to say it like that."
Mix sets the clipboard down. "I'm not saying it like anything. You're not a burden, Boom."
Boom looks away. "Didn't say I was."
"You don't have to," Mix replies, voice quieter now.
Phuwin returns to the foot of the bed, leaning slightly against it, tablet forgotten.
"Hey," he says. "Let's argue about something stupid."
Boom raises an eyebrow. "Such as?"
"Cereal before milk or milk before cereal."
Boom smirks. "Neither. I eat dry cereal like a child in crisis."
"Unforgivable."
Boom closes his eyes again, head sinking into the pillow. "You're the one who wanted to get attached."
"I already was," Phuwin says, so soft he might not have meant to say it aloud.
Boom doesn't respond. But he doesn't tease it away either.
Outside the window, the sky shifts again. Blue sliding toward silver, clouds gathering in slow, feathered shapes. In here, the world has paused—but the sky never does.
The sky doesn't wait.
Boom's fingers curl around the hospital blanket. He tugs it up absently, like the warmth matters more than he wants to admit.
Phuwin notices. He reaches over and adjusts it properly, folding the edge beneath Boom's arm with gentle precision.
"You mother me more than the nurses," Boom mutters, not opening his eyes.
"They're busy," Phuwin says. "And you're kind of my favorite dramatic lung patient."
"I'm your only one."
"Still counts."
A soft snort escapes Boom's nose.
Mix pulls a chair from the corner and sits, chart in hand, but his focus has drifted. It's something Boom has come to recognize—when Mix isn't looking at numbers or symptoms, but him. Not like a doctor to a patient, but a man trying to read between the lines.
"You didn't sleep much last night," Mix says, not quite asking.
Boom shifts. "I did."
"You didn't," Phuwin adds gently.
There's a pause. Boom opens his eyes, staring past both of them.
"Too many wires," he says after a while. "Too many things beeping. My lungs sound like rice paper. I could feel my heart skipping around like it couldn't decide whether to show up or not."
"Next time, call us," Mix says. "Even at 2 a.m."
"I didn't want to bother you."
Phuwin clicks his tongue. "You live here. Bothering us is your full-time job."
Boom smiles faintly. "Finally, someone acknowledges my contributions."
The joke lands, but its edges are worn.
Phuwin shifts the curtain a little, letting more light filter in. Outside, the clouds look almost still. The illusion of calm.
"Your check-up with Dr. Niran is in an hour," Mix says, glancing at the wall clock. "You should rest until then."
Boom blinks. "Why? He's just going to listen to my chest and tell me it sounds like an old accordion."
"He's going to do more than that," Mix says. "It's the quarterly cardiac evaluation. Echo, blood work, a few baseline tests."
Boom groans. "Sounds awful."
"You've done worse," Phuwin offers.
"Doesn't mean I want to repeat it."
"You say that every time," Mix says as he rises. "And you always survive."
Boom doesn't answer right away. Then, softly:
"Until I don't."
That hush falls again—not heavy, just familiar. The kind of silence that knows its place.
Mix places the clipboard on the counter, then rests a hand briefly on Boom's shoulder. Not long. Just enough.
Phuwin gathers his tablet, brushes nonexistent dust off his sleeve, and gives Boom a look that says you'll be fine, even if he doesn't say it out loud.
"We'll come back after your consult," Phuwin says. "Try to rest."
Boom doesn't protest. He only nods, the movement small.
As they both head for the door, Boom's voice stops them.
"...Tell Dr. Niran not to look so serious."
Mix glances back. "He always looks serious."
"Tell him anyway," Boom says, eyelids already growing heavy. "He listens to you."
Phuwin smiles. "Not really."
But they both know the truth in that.
Outside the room, the hall stretches long and clean and quiet. The sky, glimpsed through the glass at the end of the corridor, is starting to fade toward overcast.
Inside, Boom lets himself drift.
And in the stillness, his chest rises.
And falls.
And rises again.
Dr. Niran stood at the far end of the corridor, reviewing the file on his tablet for the fourth time that morning—not because he needed to, but because habit often disguised itself as calm.
He knew the numbers. He had memorized the slope of Boom's ECGs, the fine print of every pulmonary note Mix had left in the chart, the subtleties of a heart that kept beating more out of memory than momentum.
Boom Tharatorn. Twenty-three. Familial pulmonary fibrosis. Restrictive cardiomyopathy. Full-time inpatient. Condition: terminal. Prognosis: known.
He didn't need the chart to know any of this. He just needed the weight in his chest.
Aou adjusted his glasses, the clear rims catching the light as he looked up. The sky through the window was overcast, blurred gray and silver, and for a moment, it reminded him of lungs in shadow on a CT scan—soft, broken shapes where breath was supposed to live.
He walked slowly, clipboard held to his side instead of in front of him. His coat was neatly pressed, collar turned slightly inward, stethoscope looped once in his pocket instead of his neck. Always composed, always polished. There was something in the way he moved—calm, deliberate, like he didn't let emotions interrupt clinical thought.
Except here.
Except now.
Dr. Niran stood outside Room 909 long before he was supposed to be there.
The official cardiac consult wasn't scheduled until eleven. Mix and Phuwin had left just after ten, and the floor had fallen back into its usual hush. But Aou stayed. Not out of protocol. Not out of urgency.
He stayed because it was the only part of his day that didn't feel like work.
Inside, Boom was probably asleep—or pretending to be. The morning meds would've settled into his bloodstream by now, making his limbs heavy, his breath a little easier. Niran knew the rhythm of it by heart. He could read it in the gaps between beeps, in the way silence fell when Boom drifted off.
He didn't knock this time.
He opened the door quietly and stepped in, letting the soft click of it closing behind him blend into the ambient sound of machines. The curtains were half-drawn again, bathing the room in an uneven glow. Boom was curled slightly toward the window, oxygen tubing resting gently against his cheek, his lashes low, unmoving.
Sleeping, then. Really sleeping.
Niran let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.
He crossed the room with practiced ease, checking the monitor first—oxygen sat at 91%, heart rate drifting between 52 and 55. Slow, but stable. He noted the values without writing them down. He'd memorize them the same way he memorized the sound of Boom's voice when it got rough around the edges, when he'd been talking too much, laughing too hard.
He moved closer to the bed.
Boom's blanket had slipped slightly, baring a line of skin along his collarbone. Niran hesitated, then—without thinking—gently adjusted it, tucking the edge back up to Boom's chest with clinical hands that didn't feel clinical at all.
His fingers lingered a moment too long.
He told himself it was just habit. Care. Nothing more.
Boom stirred.
Aou stepped back half a pace, not wanting to startle him—but Boom didn't flinch. He blinked slowly, like waking up had taken effort, and when his eyes finally opened, they found Aou like they always did—directly, immediately, as if he'd been expecting him.
"You're early."
Aou didn't flinch. "I had time."
"Check-up's not until eleven."
"I know."
Boom's eyes opened then—slow, heavy, unfocused for a second before finding him.
"You're always early," he said softly.
Aou didn't answer right away. Instead, he pulled the chair closer to the bed and sat down, posture careful.
"I like to monitor the baseline before you're talking too much," he said. "Less variation."
Boom gave the faintest smile. "That a fancy way of saying I talk too much?"
"I didn't say that."
"But you think it."
"I think a lot of things."
Boom let the quiet settle between them. The machines filled the space easily—gentle, steady, unchanged.
"Heart was acting up last night," Boom said eventually. "Skipped a bit. Felt like it was pacing itself."
"Were you short of breath?"
"Always," Boom said. "But not more than usual."
Aou reached into his pocket and pulled out his stethoscope. "Mind if I listen?"
Boom didn't move. "Do I ever?"
He pressed the stethoscope to Boom's chest, just under the collarbone, hand steady against thin fabric. The rhythm beneath was uneven, but not erratic. Slow, but not weak. It reminded Aou of a clock ticking underwater—measured, but muffled by something larger closing in.
He stayed there a few seconds longer than necessary, listening.
Then he pulled back and returned the stethoscope to his coat.
"Still holding," he said.
"For now," Boom replied.
There was no fear in his voice. Just a quiet knowing.
Aou looked toward the window. The sky outside was shifting again—clouds stretching thin over early sunlight. Everything looked slower from this side of the glass.
"You should rest a little before the consult," he said.
Boom's eyes stayed half-open. "I wasn't really sleeping."
"I know."
"Just lying here. Waiting for time to pass."
"You're allowed to rest," Aou said gently.
Boom didn't answer. But his eyes drifted closed again—not all the way, just enough.
Aou sat quietly for another minute, hands folded. Then he rose from the chair, smoothing the blanket once more, and stepped back without a sound.
He didn't need anything more from the visit.
Not yet.
Time moved differently in the room after Aou stepped back.
Boom didn't speak again. He didn't need to. His eyes were closed, the rhythm of his breath faint against the hush of the machines, and for a moment, Aou let himself believe this was peace—however fragile.
He stood for a little while longer, glancing once more at the monitor, confirming what he already knew. Nothing urgent. Just decline, slow and steady. Just the quiet erosion of time.
He didn't touch his tablet. Didn't take notes. He knew Boom's numbers by heart.
At 10:55, he checked his watch. Then, as if following some invisible cue, Boom stirred again.
"Time?" he asked, voice roughened by rest.
"Five to eleven."
Boom didn't open his eyes yet. "You're going to start asking me questions now, aren't you?"
"Only a few."
Boom finally turned his head toward him again, cracking one eye open. "Be gentle."
Aou gave the smallest nod. "Always."
He moved to the counter to gather his tools—tablet, cuff, the ECG leads already prepared. It was the same every time, and yet, each movement felt different here.
When he turned back, Boom had already started to push himself upright, slowly, with more effort than he let show. Aou crossed the room without hesitation, slipping a steady hand behind Boom's back to ease him upright.
Boom didn't resist, didn't say anything. But he didn't thank him either.
He never had to.
As the blanket slid down to his waist and the cuff wrapped around his arm, the shape of the moment changed. The stillness became something else—familiar, but slightly sharper.
"Let's begin," Aou said softly, tapping a few lines into the chart.
Boom just nodded, letting his gaze drift back to the window.
The sky had brightened a little.
But it still didn't wait.