Bandaids

Brotherly Guilt

Yeosang wasn't moving.

I had been his best friend for years and I could do nothing but stand outside his hospital room and watch as he stared off into nothingness.

He had been asleep for a day, hooked up on an IV the doctors gave him. From what the doctors could tell, he hadn't eaten anything for almost two days and he hadn't slept well enough at all.

Hongjoong, the poor guy, hadn't left Yeosang's room despite the numerous attempts by the nurses to tell him that he needed to leave after visiting hours were over.

He looked almost as rough as Yeosang did.

Mingi had to lock him in the broom closet in the hallway with a bag of food to get him to eat, which thankfully worked, and he had been sleeping but there were streaks of etched almost permanently into his face.

Yeosang woke up while Hongjoong was in the bathroom taking a shower, but he hadn't done anything.

The doctors were annoyed by the fact that Yeosang refused to communicate with anyone, he just sat straight up with his knees tucked into his chest and his eyes staring out the window.

Whenever I went to visit, he was either lying down with his back to all of us and facing the wall or he was staring out that window with his legs hugged by his arms.

Hongjoong had worked hard to try and get Yeosang to eat, which was working very slowly, but it was obvious that all of this was wearing Hongjoong down.

Seonghwa forced Hongjoong to go home and rest and start going to classes again like the rest of us.

But now I was forced into an uncomfortable position.

The doctors had decided that since Yeosang wasn't going to cooperate, they needed to get someone here that he would talk to.

That meant they were going to be contacting his family members.

I had only met Yeosang's parents a few times but they always seemed a little bit too intense to be parents. They reminded me more of fans that would threaten to fight the players of the opposite team.

And if what Yeosang told me the day he passed out in the quad was true, his parents wouldn't come.

But Yunho...

I'd met Yunho once and it was a very fast encounter.

Yunho had brought his younger brother lunch or something he had forgotten at home and introduced himself to me before he left to go to his own school.

Yeosang never seemed to hate his older brother even though it felt like Yunho was doing everything in his power to be away from him.

The doctors, since they didn't have access to Yeosang's contacts, asked me to contact the family.

I needed to get Yunho's number but I needed to do it with some kind of plan in place.

If I went into it in the same way I handled most of my problems, I could count on never seeing Yeosang again.

I dialed the number of his parents and lifted the phone up to my ear as I sat down in the chairs across from the doorway.

I could see Yeosang sitting upright again, his head pointed away from me.

"Hello?"

"Ah, yes, is this Yeosang's mom?"

There was a moment of silence on the other line.

"Yes. Is there something wrong?"

"No, everything's fine. It's San, Yeosang's friend."

"Oh San!"