as promised, here's the update, so enjoy reading! ^^

⇋

Sehun pushes Kai away the moment he gets over his surprise, but it’s already too late.

Jongin has seen everything.

“J―Jongin, this isn’t―” he stutters, but the other’s expression is unsettling him. Jongin doesn’t look particularly angry. He had looked briefly shocked when he first walked in, but then his face had morphed into something blank. Undecipherable.

As if he’s shutting off his emotions and shutting himself down.

“Jong…in?” Kai mumbles uncertainly. Seeing his own face reflected back at him, but older, must be so strange to him. “What are you doing here? You can go outside now?”

“Kai…” Sehun tries to say, but he is cut off again.

“Wait, Sehun, you know Jongin? How―” His face shifts from confusion to enraged realization. “Jongin, did you―I told you to stay away from Sehun! He’s mine!”

Jongin only stands there like a statue at them, watching quietly as Kai lashes out. Before Sehun can even try to diffuse the situation, a shriek breaks out.

“What is this?!” Sehun turns to the side to see Mrs. Kim staring at them, flabbergasted, and winces. He had forgotten the parents had been watching this whole time since Kai had kissed Sehun. “How is this―How is it both of them are in love with you? That they’re fighting over you? What kind of twisted spell did you cast on them, you wretched witch―”

When she lunges at Sehun, probably intending to slap or hit him again, Sehun braces himself for the pain. Kai is struggling off the bed, probably about to stop her, while Sehun squeezes his eyes shut and waits for the pain…

…that never came.

When he opens his eyes, he finds Jongin standing in front of him, broad back stretching over his pristine white collar shirt, such a familiar sight.

“Don’t you touch Sehun,” Jongin says, voice soft and low, but no less of a warning as he holds his mother’s wrist in one hand. “Don’t you hurt Sehun, ever again. I won’t let you.”

His mother wrenches her wrist away as if she’s been scalded, frantically sweeping over that spot like she’s trying to flick away some nonexistent germs off her skin, as if Jongin has a disease and he might spread it to her, too.

“She has always regarded me as a disease. A parasite, from her womb,” Sehun recalls Jongin’s words to him, and it makes his heart twist from the injustice the older boy is being treated with.

Mrs. Kim glares up at Jongin, but her son refuses to move, to let her grab at Sehun, so she screams, “Get out! Both of you, get out! Leave my Kai alone! He’s had enough, he just woke up from a coma! Get out before I call security on you!”

With the way she is screaming hysterically, it looks like the security guards will come to restraint her, instead, and Jongin simply sighs. He is probably used to his mother’s wild mood swings at him.

Mr. Kim is hissing at them to leave, so his wife can calm down, and Sehun spares a look at Kai. “Sorry, Kai, I’ll be back. Get some rest in the meantime,” he apologizes before following Jongin out the door, not wanting to agitate the woman further before the guards come and blow things up even more.

Kai can only watch helplessly as his arm is still connected to the IV drip next to the bed, along with many other wires still hooked up to his body.

⇋

They had went outside and found an empty bench to sit at, and now are currently looking at many patients out and about, taking a walk and exercising in their faded hospital robes.

Jongin hasn’t spoken a word, just gazing at the scenery before him, silent.

“Jongin,” Sehun calls out nervously, fingers clenching on his lap. “About before… I didn’t―”

“I know,” Jongin says, voice strangely calm. “He probably kissed you, right?”

Sehun nods. “Kai thought… When he woke up, he lost part of his memories, so he thought he was still in high school… He thought he and I were still dating… That was why he kissed me,” he sighs.

“I see,” Jongin says, voice deep like he’s in contemplation. Sehun nervously watches him for any signs of reactions, but the only thing that comes out of him is a whisper of, “Maybe this really is a sign.”

“Huh?”

“Maybe this is the way it’s meant to be,” Jongin speaks, louder, as he turns to him. “Maybe everything is righting itself again, to where they should be. Maybe this is all for the best.”

“Jongin? What are you talking about?” Sehun asks, confused.

Jongin takes a deep breath, and his voice is so calm, so serene when he says this, almost like he’s resigned himself to this―like he’s given up, “Sehun, let’s break up.”

Sehun feels the world stopped around him when he breathes, “What?”

“We originally went out because Kai was with someone else. He didn’t want to be with you anymore. I had wanted to heal your pain. I wanted to try making you happy. But now Kai had forgotten all about that. He is his highschool self who is still so in love with you. He wants to be with you again. So there is no reason for us to be together, now.”

“What are you saying?” Sehun protests, his ears ringing from the other’s words. “Just because Kai forgot his memories doesn’t mean we should break up! What he does has nothing to do with us!”

“But it does,” Jongin replies patiently to Sehun’s increasingly alarming tone. “It does, because you still love Kai, don’t you?”

“I…” Sehun feels his breath caught in his throat. Can’t seem to let a sound out.

“Maybe God had finally taken pity on you on all you’ve been through,” Jongin tells him, linking his hands together and dropping his gaze. “So he had returned Kai to you. Now you two can be together again, like how you were back in high school. Isn’t this a good thing?”

“But what about you―”

“I just want you to be happy,” Jongin cuts in with a soft smile. “I don’t want to chain you down when your heart is with someone else, and now Kai is returning your feelings. Let’s break up, Sehun.”

“But Jongin―”

“I love you, Sehun,” Jongin says, reaching up and brushing his knuckles across Sehun’s cheek in a fleeting touch as he gazes at him with a smile. “And because of that, I will let you go. Go back to Kai. Go back to the one you trul