too fragile for your love (too strong for your heart)

and when i begin to dream of you (fate begins its serenade) pt three

by the time they return to the med bay, it's around one in the morning, according to jake's watch. he was a bit hesitant about leaving the mess that he made in the ballroom, as it was, but a few seconds of heeseung's eyes glowing golden solved that problem, with ease. when they walked out the arched doors, the carpeted room was as pristine as it had been, before jake barged inside and started wrecking everything he could put his hands on.

"jake!" sunghoon's eyes light up with relief when he sees him. "oh, thank god. i thought you had left the building, or something!"

he swallows the guilty lump in his throat, with considerable effort. "sorry. i just- just needed a minute to myself." heeseung squeezes his hip comfortingly, and jake leans into the touch, making sunghoon smirk.

"you could have told me you wanted some one-on-one time with heeseung hyung," the blond vampire says, waving off jake's apology easily. "karina noona came by earlier, by the way. she left some stuff for you."

"stuff?" he repeats, confused. "what kind of stuff?"

"she was one of the first responders when we called in about ningning, right?" sunghoon says, shrugging. he holds up a package that he's been clutching. "she noticed this poking out of your mailbox. and, she picked up your grandma's diary, too. here you go."

"thanks," he says, reaching out for the package, curiously. he hasn't ordered anything online, recently. neither was he expecting anything from back home. whatever it is, it's probably a mix-up or his mom has sent him one of her care packages without telling him, again.

"what happened to your jacket, hyung?" sunghoon asks, eyeing heeseung's white dress shirt, with a scrunched-up face. "you had it on, when i saw you, earlier."

heeseung blinks. "did i? i must have left it back in the ballroom."

jake coughs exaggeratedly, resisting the urge to curl up into a ball like a particularly threatened pill bug. he's pretty sure that heeseung's suit jacket is ruined beyond repair, after all the tears and venom and water it was used to wipe off of his face in the aftermath of his breakdown. heeseung had casually tossed it into a wastebasket adjacent to the fiftieth-floor restrooms, while jake had been having an aneurysm, apologizing endlessly for destroying a designer clothing piece that probably cost more than his entire wardrobe put together. heeseung had simply smiled and silenced him with a long, lingering kiss.

"oh, and you're allowed to see ningning, now," sunghoon continues, brightly. "she's no longer feral, now that she's been fed!"

***

despite knowing that ningning isn't just ningning anymore, it's still a shock to come face-to-face with the girl, and be met with a pair of glittering red eyes, instead of her characteristic liquid black ones.

"hey," ningning speaks up, first, a nervous smile on her face, after jake's closed the door behind him. "so, this is... pretty surreal, huh?"

he stares at her, taking in the way she's gripping the hem of her light blue med bay gown, and shifting uncomfortably against the mattress, minutely flinching every so often. the walls of her sick room are blank white, distraction-less and soundproofed, but he can hear faint streams of conversation and laughter drifting in, through the gap between the door and the floor, and he's sure that ningning can hear it, too.

in fact, it's probably more disorienting for her, than it is for him, because of the post-transformation sensory overloads she's afflicted with.

"i'm sorry," he says, quietly. "i'm so sorry, ningning."