Hospital Visit Arrangement

Sugar, it’s quite addictive, no?

It’s the victim of any grubby kid’s hands prying to get a taste of that irresistible sweetness.

But what happens if a child is denied that sugary goodness, what will happen? Denial of something makes the idea of it more desirable.

The grown-up-sugar-denied child will overdose on sugar to compensate for the pleasure they were denied as a child. An endless craving, unable to be satiated as it had been built over years and years.

Of course Catheris had never been in that situation. However, from how sleep deprived he always was; he’d probably pass out randomly some day if he kept denying himself a decent rest. But said decent rest he was only treating himself to now was being interrupted.

What was it now? No matter how much Catheris tried to ignore the phone across from him, no matter how much he did not want to get up from lying down, it buzzed incessantly even after dozens of calls with no response. He could ignore it the first time, but not after a few more, it was the middle of the night and dead silent.

“Hnnn….”

It was irritating- the only noise currently echoed throughout the living room and rang in his ears. He buried his head down into his pillow, gripping and curling the ends to press them against his ears to block out the sound while his body writhed uncomfortably on the leather covered cushions of the couch.

Calls came and came once the previous one had ended, and Catheris couldn't do anything about it. Albeit he could've silenced the calls, but at this rate it seemed like an emergency.

Reluctantly, Catheris decided to look over and see who the caller was, he couldn't go back to sleep anymore. Depending on the person, hanging up would just show that he was able to see the calls. That’d just cause a mess for him to clean up.

Catheris’s eyes felt strained enough already. When he glanced over at the screen, the subtle light emitting from it made him feel like a migraine was starting already.

Upon inputting the passcode, Catheris was bombarded by the utterly shocking amount of notifications seen from the red circles on the apps against a default bland gray background- the noise of pings from messages still ongoing. He dismissed the ringing call while scrolling through the multitude of people that’d messaged him, almost every one of his social media apps were affected besides the ones he’d only use for himself. In fact- looking through his call history, Catheris noticed every single attempted call was from someone different each time, in particular, only people from his father’s side. Catheris disliked his aunts and uncles quite a bit, so no need to deal with the situation, just ignore it- that’s what he’d thought, until messages started pouring in from his cousins.

The situation definitely did not seem good, nor was getting involved with them.

He readied himself for whatever the call entailed while hovering over the green sideway phone icon, turning the volume down a bit so he wouldn't shock himself from the oncoming earful. Catheris sat himself down on the couch to get himself settled. After finally relaxing, he could notice the untidy ruffled bed head of his long hair from the brightness of his phone illuminating it. How long had it been since he’d slept this hard?

After feeling adjusted a bit, he moved the index finger of his right hand to press on the button to pick up the call, this time it was from one of his aunts. From the speakers, came a distressed middle aged woman’s voice with slight posh to it, “-Oh gods, you finally picked up. Everyone's been trying to call you for ages. Your grandmother is currently in the hospital right now, she’s been admitted after she was rushed from a car accident-”

What the fuck.

The woman paused in between for gasps of air, choking on her breaths “-The doctors say it might be detrimental to her quality of life, even if she does come out fine from the whole ordeal-”

What.

Catheris’s hand flung to cover his mouth, not really in horror but more shocked confusion.

…How, when, and where did things occur?

Catheris definitely got the emergency aspect of the whole ordeal by now. Maybe he shouldn't have thought it was way too soon to announce the car accident part, but he did.

He didn't even have the time to think properly to be upset since he struck with awe, missing the finer details as his racing mind could only pick up a few sentences.

“And we're all trying to pitch in.”

Ohh. Usually, one would not be suspicious of the situation. But the next thing she said was expected.

“-After calling everyone, we don't have enough. Please!- We’ve been calling around asking, and after a while we’ve accumulated almost enough, but if you cover a small portion we’ll be set. I don't know how long we’ll have to find another person before it’s too late-”

It was odd, now the hand that was flung over his mouth was holding his chin. His gaze drifted to the corner of the room while he questioned the situation. Why hadnt they called one of his rich aunts?

‘Pitch in for what exactly?’

Hell, why didn't they even call his mom? No matter the amount, she should've been able to pay the portion easily, …so why him? Catheris couldn't help to pry further, after thinking about it a bit no hospital ever required payment that quickly. But they couldn't fake a car crash.

“Please, Catheris, just please-” The woman begged in desperation, voice cracking somewhere.

“I’ll send the money when I get the details of this. What happened, and what hospital-”

“-They’ll be on the transferring details, just hurry.” She briefly spoke in a quick manner as it was urgent, but it seemed to have an underlying commanding tone.

-

Such a stern tone at the end, it didn't fit for the whole situation. But in the end Catheris paid, it was no use to argue with such people; he would have lost energy in trying anyways.

After a few calls with a few other older relatives he could somewhat decipher the outline of what the report probably looked like. It was late and there was difficulty managing the roads. With an old woman with deteriorated vision, one thing led to another and the other car’s driver called the ambulance, right after she was promptly admitted.

One of the few things about the car crash was the hospital’s name from the transferring details. Catheris didn't even get that crucial bit from one of the calls, as if it were being withheld from him.

Something was odd something he couldn't get to the bottom of,

-not by himself that was.

Raelina Derael, daughter of the aunt that just called him. She was the best pick to get the most information from a singular person, also no bullshit either.

Apparently she’d been able to squander over the hospital in the middle of the night due to her apartment not being too far from it. She was the only one who didn't leave him a plethora of messages either, She only left a simple “yo im at the hospital bc grandma got into a car crash lmaooo”.

Well, clearly the situation wasn't as dire as he was set up to believe.

Then he saw a message bubble with three dots going up and down, and a text from Raeliana popped up right before his eyes.

“Btw grandma wants you to bring those soft flower shaped honey cookies, also u better be coming bc ur the favorite grandchild smh”