37 What Happened? (2)

Aria shifted around in bed and groaned when she realized her entire body still felt almost as awful as before. She vaguely remembered waking up in the middle of the night and then throwing up, but after that everything was just a blur.

When she was about to go back to sleep and worry about everything else later, she noticed that the bed she was lying on was most definitely not hers. Slowly, she opened her heavy feeling eyelids and looked around the very boring room.

All she saw was the bed she was lying in, a chair a bit to the side, and plain white walls, as if the room had never been used and wasn't going to be used any time soon. Confused, she pulled herself out of the comfortable bed and shuffled across the room and into the hallway. The hall looked a bit more lived in but even it seemed unnaturally clean and boring.

In the distance she heard slight sounds and walked towards them, eventually reaching a doorway that noise was clearly coming from. Aria pulled open the door and peered inside, releasing a breath she didn't know she had been holding when she saw Aika and her parents.

"What happened?" Although she was relieved to see familiar faces, she couldn't just ignore being somewhere new after waking up.

Aika quickly rushed over to her and looked her over for nearly a minute before disregarding the question and bringing her to the table. "You're supposed to be resting, not wandering around."

Reaching over, Aria stole Aika's glass and took a sip of the water in it and looked at her funnily. "How was I supposed to know that?"

Once she spoke, everyone at the table felt slightly stupid because it only just came to them how weird it would be to wake up in a strange room feeling sick and have no note or anything to explain what's going on.

"Well, our precious little Aika over there called me in the middle of the night saying she found you collapsed in the bathroom and was going to take you to the hospital. I told her to bring you here instead and that I'd call the best doctor in B City so you could be comfortable and not surrounded by other sick people." After speaking, Yuna smirked and looked over at her daughter.

"Annnd.. Aika showed up here only 20 minutes later despite it being an hour long drive usually, wearing two different shoes and her pyjamas. Imagine our shock to see our usually collected daughter panic stricken and anxious."

Hearing what Yuna said, Aria glanced over at Aika and saw her slightly red face confirming everything that was said. "Thank you..."

Even though she felt awful about causing a commotion in the middle of the night and disturbing people, a larger part of her felt smugly satisfied that Aika would panic over her well-being.

Aika coughed and turned so she was facing Aria again and smiled. "Anything for my bestie."

"Such a suck up, I bet you're just saying that so I take extra good care of you once we start the company."

Feigning hurt, Aika pouted and played along. "Oh, Miss wise and incredible CEO, I would never even dream!"

"While I would love to let you two just banter happily for the rest of the day, I think I need to ask this to relieve my own worries. Aria, how are you feeling? Is anything bothering you?" Max interjected in the two girl's conversation, his serious attitude not fading at all.

"I feel really hot still, and really sore and I don't wanna eat anything... but I feel better than I did when I woke up last night?"

"Hmm... Mama, can we go to the living room since we're all done eating anyway? Aria should be lying down..." Though she asked, Aika was already standing up by the time she finished speaking.

Soon, the group found themselves in the living room with Aria's head resting on Aika's lap while she lay on the couch. She'd never done this before, but she knew what a lap pillow was and couldn't help but think that this was infinitely better than a normal pillow and she wouldn't mind getting sick constantly just to enjoy it more often.

At this point, Max's seriousness had faded somewhat and he looked Aria up and down seeming to hesitate several times before finally speaking. "So... why a white tiger?"

It was only then that Aria realized she was still wearing her white tiger pyjamas and not something normal, so she looked up at Aika and pouted before finally speaking. "White tigers are my favorite animal... especially when they're babies, they're soooo cute."

Aika leaned down and whispered conspiratorially, "Oh, so is that why? Not because you like pouncing on my bed to wake me up?" After she finished speaking, she schooled her face to normalcy instead of a teasing smirk and contained her laughter.