THE BODYGUARD | JAEYONG NCT

26: Goodbye

Taeyong steadied his breaths to follow the sound of the beep coming from Johnny's heart monitor. He was pressed up by his bedside squeezing his best friends hands, willing to pass some of his life to Johnny just so he could wake up. Johnny wasn't in critical condition but he had been asleep for two weeks now and no matter how much to doctors told Taeyong to give him some time, he still couldn't help being on edge.

This is all my fault.

As he was sweeping hair from Johnny's forehead, the door to the room creaked open. Taeyong didn't even have to look back to guess who it was. He could feel the sadness flood off their body as the they shuffled over to stand beside him.

"I'll take over from now," Ten whispered. His voice always cracked as if he could and would cry at any moment.

Taeyong stood up and they switched positions so Ten was sitting beside Johnny and caressing his hand softly. The first day Taeyong was allowed to leave his room he asked all the nurses to point him to Johnny's, not stopping until he found a direct answer.

"Johnny, Johnny Seo? Tall guy, reddish hair?"

His anxiety wasn't helped when he finally found the room and saw Ten's head buried in the bed crying, sniffling and snivelling his lungs out. In that moment he genuinely thought Johnny was dead seeing him so pale, so lifeless, a hollow shell of what he once was. He cried alongside Ten that day until their eyes were red and their noses were running and their throats were cloggged.

From then on, they've been switching positions so Ten could rest. Taeyong knew he wouldn't leave his bedside otherwise.

"Please take care of him for me," Taeyong pleaded. Ten just looked up at him with his big doe eyes and quivering lips and Taeyong knew his best friend was in safe hands.

He gathered his belongings and went back to his room, but not without one final glance back at the couple. Taeyong had always wondered what Kun was thinking, what he was doing in that moment, whether or not he knew Ten was visiting Johnny everyday. He decided he didn't want to know, he didn't even want to care. What's done is done and that's their story.

Taeyong picked up his things, today was the day he was being discharged and Doyoung was in the parking lot waiting to pick him up. For a brief moment his mind wandered to Jaehyun. He was well alive, Doyoung assured him, even when he never asked. Doyoung always seemed to have that annoying trait where he knew when Taeyong was thinking about Jaehyun even when the other vehemently denied it.

Jaehyun, his mind was plagued with Jaehyun.

He should've been angry, that he knew, angry at the fact that he hasn't seen or spoken to Jaehyun in the two weeks that he was admitted. Doyoung told him Jaehyun had visited one day during his drugged out naps and Taeyong ran out of the door in nothing but his gown. He was embarressed to say the least.

But that incident made Taeyong realise he didn't hate him like he tried to convince himself he did, no, if anything Taeyong missed him. He missed him so much it hurt. He would gladly hear the sound of another bullet if that meant he'd be with Jaehyun again. Taeyong didn't want to confront his feelings to that though, how fucked up it was to want him more even after all that had happened. No, his feelings were a scary thing.

As usual, and as always with fail, he pushed his thoughts of Jaehyun back as far as his mind would allow and continued to pick up his things.