“How,” Baekhyun breathes out, rubbing his forehead, “in the hell could you lose him!?” he screams, slamming his hand down on the desk.

    “Baekhyun, please be quiet, we have patients sleeping-”

    “Sulli, not to be rude, but does it really look like I give a damn?” Baekhyun snaps and Sulli flinches. He lets out a breath and shakes his head. “I’ll fix this myself.” He walks away and makes his way to Kyungsoo’s apartment. He’s quiet in the car, only rubbing his forehead to try and relieve the pressure and pain currently making a home in his skull.

    When he pulls into the apartment’s parking lot, he just laughs at himself. He really didn’t think that Kyungsoo would be dumb enough to go home, but it was a start. Baekhyun makes his way into the building, using the key that he had when he lived here, and taking the stairs up to Kyungsoo’s apartment. The door is open when he gets there and he hesitates to go closer until he sees Jongin walk through the living room and he lets out a breath of relief.

    “You scared me,” Baekhyun says, walking in and shutting the door behind him. “I thought someone broke in.”

    “You’re not wrong,” Jongin says. He looks like hell, even worse than he did last time Baekhyun saw him when he was sitting outside of Kyungsoo’s door. “I thought I would clean up for him. Make it nice for when he comes back.” Baekhyun looks around the room and sees no progress whatsoever. He gives a side eye to Jongin who just chortles. “I said I thought I would. I haven’t gotten myself to.”

    Baekhyun smiles and pushes some miscellaneous items off of the couch so he can sit down and take a deep breath. “I went to visit him. Kyungsoo,” Baekhyun starts, closing his eyes and leaning his head back.

    “How is he?” Jongin asks, sitting in the chair next to the couch.

    “Hard to tell,” Baekhyun says. “He wasn’t there.”

    “You didn’t wait for him to get out of the bathroom?” Jongin asks and Baekhyun shakes his head.

    “He left the hospital. Just got up and walked away.”

    “What!?” Jongin sounds panicked. “Didn’t one of the nurses see him? Didn’t they notice?”

    Baekhyun shakes his head. “Trust me, I was surprised as you are when Sulli said she really had no idea where Kyungsoo was. So I figured I’d start here.”

    “And?” Jongin asks dumbly and Baekhyun straightens his head to give Jongin a look. “Oh, right. Well do you know where he might be?”

    Baekhyun shakes his head again and lets it fall back against the couch. “He’s been really private these past few months. Always sneaking off to places, never talking to me. He could be anywhere.”

    Jongin bites his thumb and shakes his head. “I shouldn’t have left. I should have stayed-”

    “Jongin, this isn’t your fault,” Baekhyun reassures, but Jongin isn’t taking it.

    “I should have seen how hurt he was. I shouldn’t have been selfish and gone back to France. God, I’m such a ,” he hisses at himself, pounding his fist into the chair arm.

    “Jongin,” Baekhyun says, picking up his head and straightening himself out. “You can sit here and blame yourself, or you can help me find him. Your choice.”

    Jongin chews on his lip for a little before nodding and getting up to start searching the apartment for anything they could to help find Kyungsoo.

    After searching the bedrooms and the living room, Baekhyun takes the bathroom and opens the cabinet to find different types of painkillers. From off the shelf to the med drawer at their work. He feels shaky when he sees just how much pain his best friend was going through and he didn’t even realize it. What’s even worse is at least half of them are empty or close to it.

    “Baekhyun-” Jongin stops when he walks to the entrance of the bathroom and sees what Baekhyun is looking at. “What is this?” he asks, slowly walking over. “These weren’t here when I stayed here.”

    “Three months is a long time,” Baekhyun says softly. One bottle catches his eye. It has Jongin’s name on it and it seems to catch Jongin’s eye, too, when he picks it up.

    “These were from my accident. I never took them, but I wondered where they went.” He turns the bottle around in his hand. It’s empty and Jongin can’t help but wonder why Kyungsoo would keep this in his cabinet.

    “He’s got a lot of them from the hospital,” Baekhyun says, picking up a couple of the little packets with pills in them. “I don’t understand how he got them, though. It’s so secure.” Baekhyun shakes his head and quickly closes the cabinet door. “I-I don’t want to look in there anymore. He takes a deep breath and searches other places while Jongin just stands and looks at the bottle in his hand.

    “One pain killer for you, Mrs. Lee,” Kyungsoo says, smiling as he holds it up to show her. She smiles at him and he turns around to work on the small counter in her room while she returns her attention to the television playing some drama. Kyungsoo scans the painkiller he showed her and then pulls one out of his pocket, scans it, looks at it before taking a deep breath and sticking it back into his pocket. He pops the one he’s giving to Mrs. Lee into a small pill holder and turns around, giving her a smile and handing it to her. “If you need anything else, just let me know, okay?”

    She smiles again at him and puts the pill in and chases it with water. Kyungsoo can only watch with envy. He’s still got a couple more hours before he can take his next one, even though he’s already starting to feel it wear off.

    “Kyungsoo,” Kris says, smirking as he leans against his door frame. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

    Kyungsoo rolls his eyes and pushes past Kris. He’s thankful he could grab his clothes out of his locker so that he didn’t just walk through town in a hospital gown. “I need a place to crash and some drugs.”

    Kris watches him and closes the door before following Kyungsoo into the kitchen where he’s rummaging through the cupboards. “I thought you said you didn’t need my help anymore.”

    “That was before I snuck out of the hospital. Besides, my stash is back home where I’m sure Baekhyun is right now.”

    “Wait, you snuck out of the hospital?” Kris asks, sounding more concerned. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

    Kyungsoo shrugs, looking through the last cupboard before groaning and slamming the door shut. “Where are they?” Kyungsoo asks.

    “Where are what?” Kris asks and Kyungsoo juts out his lower jaw.

    “Don’t play dumb, Kris, it looks horrible on you,” Kyungsoo says coldly, pushing past him again and into the bathroom, Kris still following. “Where do you keep them?”

    “What makes you think I would tell you?” Kris asks.

    “Because you want to help me and you’ll give them to me if you ever want this again,” Kyungsoo says impatiently, opening and slamming cabinet doors. “Jesus Christ, Kris! Where the hell are they?!”

    “I don’t have any!” Kris exclaims, watching Kyungsoo start searching in more bizarre places.

    Kyungsoo laughs, lifting up the toilet cover and checking inside. “A drug dealer doesn’t have any drugs.” He slams back down the lid, cracking it a little and moves onto the bedroom. “Kris,” Kyungsoo takes a breath and runs his hands over his face. “I’m detoxing Kris and it really and I want it to go away, so please. Please just tell me where they are.”

Kris doesn’t say anything. He just stands in the doorway and looks at Kyungsoo he starts to grow more angry with each passing seconds.

“If you don’t give them to me, so help me God, I will tear this room apart until I

find them.”    

    “I don’t have any Kyungsoo-”

    “That’s bull! That’s bull and you know it!” Kyungsoo screams.

    “I don’t have any because I never used them! I only ever got them to give to you!” Kris screams back and Kyungsoo clenches his jaw.

    “You’re a ing idiot.”

    “I’m not the one who was dumb enough to overdose,” Kris mutters under his breath. Kyungsoo hears it, though, and just laughs. “What?”

    “I’m a nurse, Kris. Do you really think I overdosed on accident?” Kyungsoo asks and Kris swallows.

    “Why?”

    “Because everything that I loved was falling apart around me. Everything that I had come to accept and love was ruined when Jongin showed up and then I learned to love him again and then you showed up and then Jongin left and-”

    “Kyungsoo, hey,” Kris says, taking a long step to pull him into his arms. “Stop, it’s okay. Forget I asked.”

    “I watched everything around me fall apart and I couldn’t even try to fix it. It was falling too fast.”

    “That’s because you were trying to fix it alone, Kyungsoo. You have friends who love you and who want to help you. All you need to do is stop pushing them away and let them help you.”

    Kyungsoo breaks down into Kris’s chest and the stand there for a while before Kris speaks up again. “You must really love him,” he says. “Jongin, I mean. “

    “Yeah,” Kyungsoo sniffs, “I do.”

    “Just,” Kris takes a breath, “take it from me. You can’t love someone until you learn to love yourself.”

    Kyungsoo hesitates to nod, but he does and pulls away. “Thanks, Kris. For everything.” Kris gives him a light smile and watches Kyungsoo leave.