After getting diagnosed with a rare, terminal illness and being forced right out of his perfectly normal life, Jeon Jeongguk lost all his faith in living. Just six more months and he'll be dead. Gone. Forgotten. However, when a new hospital friendsh...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Jeongguk wasn't a stranger to the feeling of a hospital bed.
He stirred awake in place, eyes groggy, heavy, and his body aching with exhaustion. He blinked away the weariness, attempting to focus on where he was. Or well, at least attempt to remember how he got here. Jeongguk glanced down at the IV taped to his arm, and as he reached up to itch his mouth, his fingers bumped against a plastic oxygen mask.
Jeez. What happened last night?
All he remembered was going out with Taehyung to see the city at night, and while bits and pieces of his memory were still trickling into his conscious, he supposed he passed out. However, passing out for him wasn't exactly the best case scenario.
Well shit. That wasn't supposed to happen at all.
However, before he could press the handy button to call a nurse, he heard footsteps approaching his door over the robotic whirs of machinery calculating most of his vitals. Jeongguk leaned back into his pillow, sucking in a shaky breath as he forced his eyelids to fall shut. And as if on cue, the door swung open.
"You're lucky he didn't die last night." Sae. That was her voice. She didn't sound too happy. Of course she didn't— he must've pissed her off.
"I said I'm sorry." Hold on. Taehyung? Why was he here?
"What you two did last night was extremely irresponsible, Taehyung." Namjoon, too? "Jeongguk isn't a typical patient."
"I-I didn't know ma'am. I-I'm sorry," Taehyung sounded small, defeated. Jeongguk's fingers curled into fists at his sides. He wasn't sure if he wanted to see his face if it wasn't harboring that usually, shit-eating grin. "He didn't tell me any—,"
"—Of course he wouldn't tell you anything!" Sae's voice boomed, silencing him and even the monitors for a second that lasted for what felt like eons.
"I allowed you two to go out, live life, and be responsible. What I didn't ask was for you to kill my nephew faster."
"Dr. Jeon," Namjoon stepped in. "I think that's enough. You should calm down."
"How can I "calm down" when Jeongguk, who's basically my son, nearly died last night?" She shrieked, her voice trembling. "Do you not know how terrified I was to see that he wasn't in his room? All night, I was afraid, wondering where he went because he didn't even bother to call me."
The room fell silent, all except for each heavy drag of Sae's breath overlapping with the occasional drip of the liquid IV. He could picture her behind the darkness of his eyelids: her disheveled graying hair toppling out of her ponytail, the worn-out creases on her face, and the glossed-over look in her dark eyes whenever Jeongguk did something dangerous.
