The hospital was farther into the city than she had been before, and she watched the roads pass outside of the window with interest. It did not take long before she was certain she would be unable to find her way back on her own. The car stopped suddenly, and she jerked forward, whimpering as her wrist hit the door she was leaning against.
"Drive more smoothly," the man ordered from the other side of the backseat. Curiosity was not enough to make her look over at him, but she doubted that frozen face would look any different than when she saw him on the beach.
Annoyed, and a little scared by the development that had her in the car of the person she recently hit over the head with a lamp, she snapped at him, "Would you rather he ran over somebody instead?"
"Yes. If they walk in front of the car, then they are already tired of living," he responded, staring out his own window indifferently.
"Psycho," she muttered, pulling her arm more snugly against her chest with a wince. She did not miss the frightened look the woman gave the driver from the front seat.
The rest of the drive was done in silence. When they pulled up in front of a clearly marked emergency room, she waited for the car to stop and then undid her safety belt. "Just wait," the man said idly. The woman got out from the front seat and disappeared inside the building, reappearing a moment later, pushing a wheelchair.
"A wheelchair?" Zaria asked snappishly. "I hurt my wrist, I didn't lose my legs in battle."
"If you cut your feet walking in without shoes on, then you will likely blame me for that as well. Just ride in the chair." He pulled out a phone from his pocket and began typing something, clearly dismissing her.
"Well, thank you for the ride," Zaria said with a polite smile. "I hope that we never see each other again." She moved from the back seat of the car into the wheelchair, pushing the door shut without waiting to hear his response. As the chair rolled forward, she looked around at the quiet woman behind her. "If you want to just push me inside, I can walk by myself. He doesn't have to know you didn't take me all the way to the counter."
"Begging your leave, Miss Joseph, I will be staying with you while you are seen. CEO Gu insists." She looked down at Zaria with a hesitant smile.
"How did you know my name?" Zaria asked, but they were already approaching the counter, and her attention was forced forward.
Signing her in was a bit of a difficulty. She had no identification card and no address or phone number. The nurse was flustered and trying to turn her away when an attractive man in a lab coat approached them from the waiting room side of the desk.
"It's alright, Nurse, I was waiting for her to arrive. I will take care of all the paperwork later," He told the woman with a dazzling smile. "Come, Miss Joseph, let's get you in for an x-ray and fix you up!"
Zaria sighed and sat back, not bothering to argue anymore. The whole thing seemed surreal, and after spending a month in a world decimated by a super volcano, that was saying a lot. She did not raise a fuss through the tests, not uttering even a moan of pain until she was sitting in a small exam room alone. Just outside the door, she could hear the woman talking on her phone, and it reminded her to check on her own. Her jeans and top were still wet from her roll in the sand, and the phone was damp as a result. She lightly touched the dark screen, laughing softly as she thought that it didn't matter if it was wet.
"I thought you did not have a phone number, Miss Joseph," the woman said as she came in and sat in the visitor chair to the side. Her navy blue suit was unwrinkled, and the skirt smoothed out demurely to where it stopped at her bent knees. The white professional top under her blazer was buttoned all the way to the neck, and a simple gold chain hung around the collar. She pulled out a small hand mirror and checked her perfect lipstick before smiling again.
"I don't. My phone broke a while back. It makes me feel better to carry it, though. There are important things on it," Zaria responded, pulling herself back when she realized she was babbling. "I am sorry if I am unfamiliar with customs, but do you need to call me that? I would prefer to be called Zaria. And I do not know what to call you."
"My name is Liu Wen. Thank you for asking. And no, I can't do that, Miss Joseph. CEO Gu would not want me to take such familiar actions." She smoothed her skirt primly and continued to smile. Her long obsidian hair fell behind her shoulders like a waterfall
"What does it matter what he wants? I mean, if you are uncomfortable doing so, then I understand, but I am not sure what he has to do with anything..." Zaria leaned back against the wall behind her chair, hugging her arm gingerly.
Stolen novel; please report.
"It would be inappropriate to refer to the future Mrs Gu by anything other than her family name, miss."
Zaria jerked forward again before falling back against the wall with a hiss of pain. She squeezed her eyes shut and chanted to herself in her head to stop hitting her wrist against things. "What are you talking about? I'm not in a relationship with him! Where the heck did you get that idea?"
The smile cracked for a moment, and uncertainty flashed through Liu Wen's eyes. "He held your shoes and let you sit in the back seat with him."
"So you are saying... all it takes to get married in this country is to hold someone's shoes and sit in a car with them? By that token, you have also touched my shoes, and we were just as close in the car. Should we get married as well?" She looked toward the door, hoping to see someone coming in with some painkillers soon.
Liu Wen leaned forward conspiratorially and whispered, "With his mysophobia, he has never shared a seat with anyone . And he won't even hold a pen that someone else has held, let alone pick up someone else's things. He even offered to carry you to the car! He must care about you deeply to do those things for you..."
Zaria looked back at her again, the weird sense of familiarity finally clicking into place. "Holy shit this is a trope world. That man is a living, walking, breathing modern romance trope."
"I'm sorry?"
"Cold, unemotional CEO, has mysophobia and no regard for women, drugged at a banquet and ends up in a hotel room with some innocent bystander. Then he gets to chase after her and be all rude to her until she falls in love with him? Like every one of the worst light novel tropes for this setting. Oh, hell no." Zaria cut herself off from going further because the blank look in the other woman's eyes told her that what she was saying made no sense.
"I don't -" Liu Wen cut off when a knock sounded on the door frame. They both looked up to see the young doctor walk in with a smile. He pulled a rolling table from under a counter and moved up to the side with the injured wrist.
"Thank you for your patience, Miss Joseph. You do have a fractured wrist, but it looks clean, and we don't need to do surgery or anything like that. A nurse will be in in a moment to give you a shot to numb the area, and then I can fix you up and give you a very stylish cast. Would that be alright?"
Zaria smiled ruefully, then bit her lip hard as he gently moved her arm over onto the padded table. "If it means it won't hurt for a while, then I am all for this plan."
"You have not had any painkillers yet? I am deeply apologetic about that. Normally, the wait to be seen and the examination time would be longer, and somewhere during that process, you would have been given something for the pain while waiting for your tests to be done. Since you saw me immediately, it was overlooked. I really am sorry about that." He began to gather materials and placed them to the side of her swollen wrist.
She grimaced at the sight. "Then I was lucky that you happened to be there so quickly, and I thank you."
"Oh, that wasn't luck. Old Gu sent me a message and pulled me out of a meeting. I was happy to go. I hate all those stuffy board members." He smiled that high wattage smile again, and Zaria found herself dazzled by it.
She smiled back and then shook her head, dispelling the after images of pearly white teeth. She glanced at his name badge before asking, "You left a meeting to deal with a broken bone? Isn't that too extreme, Dr. Chiu?"
The doctor leaned in with a wink of his beautiful brown eyes. " I don't mind at all. It was a really boring meeting."
When the nurse arrived, he stood up and moved to the door to confer with her about dosage, leaving the flustered Zaria to look helplessly at Liu Wen. The older woman smiled, hesitantly this time after Zaria's odd outburst. "Director Chiu and CEO Gu are old friends. See, he really must care if he did that..."
"Wait, Director Chiu, not Doctor?"
Doctor, no, Director Chiu came back over and leaned forward until she looked up at him. "The nurse will give you the numbing shot now. If you have a problem with needles, you can feel free to hold my hand."
Zaria stuttered, "N-no, I am fine." She could not tell if the man was flirting or just very, dazzlingly friendly. The needle went in, and soon, the pain faded as well as all feeling from her elbow to her fingertips. "Oh, that is great, thank you."
With the numbing taken care of, everything else went by in a flash. Soon, they were given one more radiant smile and left alone again to wait for the cast to harden enough that she could leave. Zaria finally had the chance to ask, "DIRECTOR Chiu?"
"The Chiu family owns all the hospitals in City C. Director Chiu runs everything from his main office here." Liu Wen seemed to be getting into her role as informant.
"But he's like, 22, 23 years old. How can he be running a hospital?"Zaria scoffed and shifted her shoulders and hips to keep feeling in her limbs.
"Director Chiu is a genius! He graduated from medical school when he was 17 years old, and he is one of the leading Thoracic surgeons in the world!" There was no zealous gleam in the woman's eyes. She seemed to be stating a fact, like 'This building is big' or 'The beach is sandy'.
"What about your CEO? What is he CEO of at his age? He can't even be 30..."
"CEO Gu runs Shooting Star Entertainment, the largest entertainment company in the world." Liu Wen spoke proudly, straightening invisible wrinkles from her skirt. "He retired from the military as a Colonel two years ago when he turned 24 to take over his family's businesses, and he started Shooting Star Entertainment last year. Do you...do you really not know any of this? Everyone knows CEO Gu..."
Zaria shrugged and gave her a wry smile. " I never heard his name before today. I'm not from here, though. But that doesn't seem weird to you? Being so accomplished at such a young age?"
"He is very talented. Why would he not be accomplished?" Liu Wen looked genuinely confused. "He is also very rich, you will not be sad being by his side! Every woman in the city is in love with him, but he is only kind to you."
"Oh my -" Zaria sighed. "I can't emphasize this enough, Liu Wen, there is absolutely nothing between us. He feels he owes me after a misunderstanding the other day. That is all. And I have zero interest in him, so you don't have to worry about me at all. After today, we will never see each other again."