Answer ||| Ateez

50

Hongjoong froze. Everything shut down within him, to the point that he wasn't even sure he knew how to move anymore.

The blank but scared gaze Mingi was giving him right now ripped through him and crushed the thin shred of hope he had been hanging on to.

No one else in the room seemed to know how to react either. They all looked between each other, rooted to the spot they had been in since Mingi opened his eyes.

Hongjoong heard San slip off Wooyoung's bed and run out of the room, but he couldn't bring himself to look away from the terrified look on Mingi's face.

"I-" He started to say, but his lips just couldn't form the words.

And the worst part was the almost blank look in Mingi's eyes when he met Hongjoong's gaze.

It felt like his stomach wouldn't stop flipping when Hongjoong realized... is this how Mingi felt when he first came to find the others?

What an awful feeling...

"Please, I don't understand. Where am I?" Mingi said again. He looked like he was ready to bolt. His gaze fell down to the tubes sticking out of his arm and he gasped. "What happened to me?!"

The door to the room opened and Dr. Kim came running in with San, who returned to Wooyoung's side while the doctor stopped at Mingi's bed.

"Mingi, I need you to take a deep breath. My name is Dr. Kim and I've been taking care of you. I'm going to ask you a few questions, ok?" When Mingi nodded, the doctor gave him a reassuring nod and held up his clipboard to write on. "Can you tell me what you remember?"

The thief blinked several times and stared at his hands. His face went completely blank. "I..."

"Alright, it's ok. We will start with something simpler. Can you tell me your name?"

Once again, Mingi blinked. Then he looked scared again and started breathing heavily. "I- I don't know. Why don't I know?"

"Alright, Son, please stay calm. You have been through a lot, but I am going to take care of you, I promise." Dr. Kim spoke slowly while reaching for the IV and turning a little knob.

Within a matter of seconds, Mingi's eyelids started to droop and he fell back into his pillows.

"What did you do to him?" Hongjoong stepped forward in a panic.

"He's fine, I just filtered in a sedative so he can sleep it off."

"Clearly he isn't fine!" Hongjoong felt the lid containing his anger fly off at full speed. "He can't even remember his name! What is wrong with him?"

Dr. Kim ran his tongue over his lips and scrunched his nose.

"Namjoon, you be-" Hongjoong started to growl, but the doctor cut him off.

"It's possible he has amnesia. That's why he can't even remember his name." Dr. Kim locked eyes with Hongjoong and kept his tone even. "It's not entirely uncommon for someone who's taken a blow to the head, especially with what happened to Mingi."

"A-Amnesia?" Hongjoong glanced down at the thief again and walked forward to take his hand.

"With how his brain scans have been, I don't think there is any long term damage, so I'm fairly certain he will regain his memory. However, there's no way to predict how long that will take. It could be hours, it could be weeks, or even months. Each case is different."

Hongjoong once agin felt like he was having a hard time absorbing everything the doctor was saying. It was like he was sinking and trying to inhale oxygen but all he was doing was gulping down water.