Arcane

FOUR

Saturday morning sees Jisung waking up from an another raging hangover, this time mandatory.

"Oh, so you lived. It would be sad if you became a ghost with me without ever finding out how I died. How much did you even drink last night?"

"I don't know," Jisung groans, staring up at the ceiling for a moment before letting his eyelids flutter shut. His vision is blurry in both eyes as of yet, his good one still dry with the sands of soju-sleep. "They kept pouring, I just had to keep drinking."

"Rough first hwesik, I take it."

"The worst."

"You seemed to have stopped dreaming as much, though." Jisung cracks an eye open blearily when he feels the icy bottom of a water bottle come to rest on his forehead. "You didn't move at all till now."

"Is this pain medication?" he asks as he feels pills being forced between his chapped lips.

"No, I'm a malevolent ghost, trying to poison you, obviously," says Chenle. "Drink up. Your phone dinged a whole bunch of times last night, actually, it sounded urgent. But I thought I'd let you sleep off your self-induced coma first before bringing that to your attention."

"Considerate of you."

It's chilly this morning, and even though Chenle can't feel the cold he's donned one of Jisung's black hoodies with the big pockets on the stomach. He still hasn't changed out of the slacks, and constantly appears like he's between two schedules for the day. Casual on top, businessman on the bottom. "Here's your phone," he says, pulling it out of the pocket.

"Whatever will I do when you're gone," Jisung says, pausing when the words come out of his mouth. The smile stays on Chenle's face, but it pales, as though he'd been thinking the same thing.

There is a thread of increasingly worrisome texts on Jisung's lockscreen.

Hyuck: hey punk, when you have time call me

As he scrolls farther down, there's a string of texts sent from around midnight last night.

Jeno: Mark was found unconscious in his office this evening, he just came round at the hospital right now. one of the custodians found him, Donghyuck and his brother stopped by earlier to see him.

Jeno: he's doing fine, and the doctors said it was overwork. but...he insisted you come see him right away. said it was important.

Jeno: hope you're doing alright at that hwesik, sungie. let me know what's up once he tells you, he sounded worried.

"Oh, fuck."

"What? What happened?"

"My friend got hospitalized for overwork, of course he did," Jisung says. "He says he wants to see me, though I'm not sure why I'd be the first one on his mind."

"I guess that is pretty weird."

With some help of hangover soup and lots of water, the inside of Jisung's brain stops feeling like an industrial jackhammer. Going out is really still the last thing he wants to do right now, but something is unsettling about the way Donghyuck's text sounded—not that he wasn't always concise and clipped, but Donghyuck would probably sooner eat live scorpions than text someone to call him.

Weird.

"Hyung, it's me," Jisung says, sticking his hands into his pockets as he makes his way towards the subway station. "You wanted me to call?"