𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐎𝐅 𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐒 || 𝐕𝐊 ✔

Fifty four : Cure

He's limping. As fast as he can. He scurried down the hospital corridor, shaking the buzz out of his head. It was only a few minutes ago that he woke up in an empty room. Everything in his line of sight was rippling and fuzzy that it took him a while to notice the presence of a nurse. She was startled by his barrage of questions, but somehow managed to stammer out that his husband is receiving treatment in a first-floor room.

He had been unconscious for the last seven hours. His head is wrapped in a bandage, and patches for pain relief are applied to his shoulders. There’s an unknown ache on his left knee. The amount of anxiety he is carrying is far greater than any physical pain he may have, and it will not go away until he sees Taehyung and gets assured that everything is well.

Faces sharpen into his fuzzy vision in his path. Namjoon, Yeonjun. Why did they come to the island? He stops, gaze drawn to the window wall of the hospital. Lights are strewn across Seoul's tall buildings and streets. It was still dark, but he could see dawn breaking in the sky.

Namjoon was the first to reach him, “Jungkook, what are you doing? You shouldn’t have left the room—”

Tuning out his voice, jungkook hastened past him. His eyes desperately searching for the room number that the nurse told him. Twenty-four. Twenty-four. It ran over his head until he finally found it above a room.

He barged into the room, almost tripping over the doorway. Startled by the sudden sound, Mrs. Kim got up from her chair. She's right next to the bed on which taehyung is lying. To his left, Mr. Kim is reclined on the couch with jungmin sleeping on his lap.

He averted his gaze from Jungmin and focused on Taehyung. Everything quieted down for him, as if the world stopped spinning. Despite the distance between them, he could still feel and hear every breath that Taehyung gently took in and released.

He trudged on, his chest tightening with each step forward. His heart slowed and followed the rhythm of his gentle breaths. What if its all gone when he reaches close to him? What if it's not his reality that he woke up to, but rather a dream?

By the time he gets close to Taehyung, he is completely drenched in cold sweat. His hands rests on the edge of the bed, eyes growing wide in realization. It’s all real. His soft breaths and the rosy tint on his cheeks, all real. His tended wounds and the fluid moving through a drip into his arm, real.

“He's been sedated.” He looks up at Mrs. Kim in a shudder. She audibly takes a breath in and concisely spoke the words which was the only thing he needed to hear, “He's alright. So is the baby.”

He flicks his gaze back to Taehyung, tears burning in his eyes. His wrists are heavily bandaged, so are his feet. His mind flashes back to the torment he endured. He's sure the pain must have been too much to bear that sedation was the only choice.

Namjoon dragged a chair for him and gently patted on his shoulder. Jungkook could not take his eyes off Taehyung. He reached out to touch his face, but an uncontrollable tremble stopped him halfway. He folded his arms against his chest and watched taehyung breathing in silence.

His emotions reminded him of the first time he met Taehyung. That day, his eyes refused to blink as he wanted to capture every little detail of his beautiful face. Simply looking at him soothed his racing heart.

Awkward silence stayed in the room for several minutes, something that jungkook was ignorant of. His only movement was brushing away the few strands of hair that occasionally fell over Taehyung's closed eyes. Nothing, not even his hair, should be bothering him when he opens his eyes, which he eagerly wants him to do.

Mrs. Kim nervously cleared her throat. “You should get back to your room and let your doctor check on you.”

Her voice broke the cloud of daze. Pain started drumming in the back of his eyes. The bandage around his head felt tight and heavy. The shin bone of his limping leg trembled with a horrible ache but still, a contrasting response came out of his mouth. “I'm fine.”