Spring Day | BTS ✔

03

I watched as a nurse I hadn't seen before came in and silently walked over to J. She checked his blood pressure, temperature, IV bags, and his monitors. I felt my own heart monitor increase and she only looked over to shake her head. My hope deflated and I sunk back into my pillow.

"I'm going to sit him up a bit, it might help his cold," the nurse informed. I wasn't sure if she was talking to herself as a focus mechanism or if she meant to direct it at me. I was silently wishing she wouldn't sit him up. Then I'd definitely be able to see his face.

But, my wishes weren't met. I adverted my eyes to the ceiling, not wishing to see his face as the mechanical whir of the hospital bed put him into the same sitting position that I was in. I wanted to pull the IV needle out and run as his pink hair still caught itself in my peripheral sight.

I looked down at the boy after the nurse left, not able to keep his hair from my conscious or unconscious sight. I tilted my head down and took in the broken sight in front of me.

His cotton pink hair lay over his forehead, sticking to it in wet strands. His face and neck glistened in shiny sweat and his neck looked strained as he slept, as if he was still struggling. The soft groans of pain were gone now, but the image of him laying unconscious and dying next to me in the passenger seat of the car hadn't left me at all.

His arm was in a sling, suspended from the ceiling, his short chubby fingers poking out from his cast sleeve. I knew that under the blanket, his legs would be wrapped in bandages and one might've been through realignment surgery as mine had. The thin fabric of the hospital gown couldn't conceal an outline of the bright gauzy white of the rib brace from underneath of it.

He'd gotten hit so much worse, being in the more direct line of impact to the damn tree that sent us here in the first place. If hadn't have been there, we'd have spun out, maybe hit a guardrail. We'd be fine though. He'd be fine.

I thought back to Hoseok, trying not to focus on J any more than I had to. Three of us would be back in one room and I was sure another might be on the way. I knew one of us had stayed with J when everyone else had parted ways. What would happen then? How would we all react? Even I didn't know.

I knew it was foolish to hope that we'd all smile to one another and find it in ourselves to forgive each other. It was a dumb fight that sent us all away from each other, one that could be fixed through apologies, but four years of being angry at each other? How could that be fixed? Nothing could fix something that complicated so quickly.

"God, J," I turned back to the cotton haired boy, "You were always the angel of the group. You fixed everything..."

I sighed and shook my head.

"There's no use asking you to fix this now, though," I sighed, "Please just come back. If it means anything to you, I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry..."

I closed my eyes, wincing as the massive bruise on my ribs burned from moving too much.

"What happened to us?" I sighed, not opening my eyes again.

"All I wanted was to apologize to you, at least," I sighed, "I hate that I couldn't even do that right. I hate us. The way we are. I wanted to change that, not make it worse, J. Time's so cruel, I hate us."

Seeing each other for once is now so hard between us.