Stay ||| Wooyoung/Jongho/San (Ateez)

37

The next few days continued to be a bit of a blur for Wooyoung.

Dr. Fields insisted on keeping him on pain killers, which meant he slept most of the time because they made him so drowsy.

San and Pierre would come and go, but Wooyoung ended up seeing very little of his boyfriend. If he was being honest, part of him was disappointed. But he couldn't be too upset about it because he had told San to not put his life on hold.

Wooyoung was in no position to be selfish right now.

On the day Dr. Fields promised the results for his test, Wooyoung found his mind wandering to his parents and how they would react to the news if he did have cancer.

Would they care? Would they offer to pay for his treatment? Or would they keep him cut off from their lives?

It was too hard to say.

Nova shifted in his lap and rolled over so that she was laying on her back. Wooyoung smiled and lifted his hand up slowly to tickle her stomach. She chirped at him and pawed at his hand twisting beneath him.

Then she suddenly twisted around and sprang from the bed.

Wooyoung could hear her little paws scampering across the hard floor, but he couldn't tell what had her so excited.

He started to doze off again when he heard muffled shouting from somewhere in the building. It slowly got louder, then a door slammed open.

"Sir! Please! You can't go in here without permission!" A woman said, sounding incredibly stressed.

"Do I look like I care?! I want to see him now!"

Wooyoung recognized the voice immediately and his heart constricted in his chest. If he wasn't forced to stay in his bed right now, he would have found some place to run and hide.

All the air was knocked out of him, just like it was every other time, when he saw Jongho stumble into the room. He had a panicked look on his face and his clothes were covered in hay and dirt.

"W-Woo..." He gasped, walking forward slowly.

"Sir!" A woman rushed up behind him, but Jongho continued to ignore her.

"How... Why..." Jongho stepped slowly into the room, never taking his eyes off Wooyoung.

When the woman started to follow him, Wooyoung held up a hand to tell her it was ok. She pursed her lips, but left them alone.

Wooyoung still felt like he was having a hard time breathing as he watched Jongho walked up to the end of his bed. How was he going to explain this? How did Jongho even find out?

They stared at each other for what felt like an eternity before Jongho asked, "This is because of other day, isn't it?"

"Yes..."

"What... What's wrong with you?"

"I... don't know yet..." Wooyoung closed his eyes and tried to calm his racing heart. Having Jongho here just made everything feel so much more real. "How...?"

Wooyoung couldn't bring himself to finish the question, but the younger understood. "Mom." He choked on his words and took a second to clear his throat. "She started talking about h-how San is really stressed about work, and when I asked why... she said that he was splitting his time between here and the office. It must have been a slip up, like he told her not to say anything, because I had to pry it out of her." Tears came to Jongho's eyes and he braced himself on the bed so he could bend forward while bowing his head. "I left just as soon as I found out."