Junmyeon woke up to the sound of the ambulance siren. He realised that they hadn’t even arrived at the hospital yet. He tried to sit up, but was urgently pushed back down by the nurses.

“No, Suho, um, sir. You have to rest,” one of them said, eyeing the nametag on his uniform which clearly read ‘Kim Jun Myeon’. It was awkward for her to be referring to a high school student as ‘sir’.

He quickly ripped his shirt off before shouting at the driver to pull over. His uniform was a dead giveaway and he couldn’t have more people knowing who he really was. Probably everyone in school was speaking about it at the moment. He’d never get peace if that were really the case.

Looking away from the lady nurses who were clearly ogling him, he caught sight of the red traffic light ahead of them. Trying not to seem too embarrassed as a plan formulated in his head, he waited till they came to a stop before grabbing the keys from one of the staff to open the doors. It all happened in the blink of an eye and before they could come to their senses, the lights turned green.

Luckily, his phone was in the pocket of his pants and wasn’t damaged in any form, even through the heavy action earlier that day. Quickly ringing Jongdae, he tried to conceal himself to look like a shirtless jogger. He put up a brisk pace, trying his best to look as natural as possible.

“Where are you right now?” was the first thing that Jongdae said when he picked up. “And you’re already awake? You just left like five minutes ago.”

“Yeah, I just escaped the ambulance. Long story short, I’m half- right now and I really don’t want people seeing me in my school uniform.”

There was a short pause on the other end. “You can’t come back though. Right now, they don’t know that you’re Suho and I just told a teacher that you were carried onto the ambulance as well. So they think that you boarded the ambulance with Suho while Chanyeol and Sehun went on the other one. Also, I knocked the lunch ladies out with a little electric shock so I can tell them it was all a dream when they wake up. Is that bad?”

Junmyeon snorted. “As long as you didn’t kill them, I’d say it was a wise choice. What are you going to tell the teachers if they question you later? And what am I going to do when they find out who I really am? There were definitely people who saw me in my uniform. If not, the paramedics already did.”

“I’m going to tell them that I was giving Chanyeol a tour around the school when the fire happened and I didn’t see anyone, or see how it started. As for you and Sehun, they’ll ask you themselves when you get discharged. Speaking of which, you have to get yourself admitted in case the school staff or reporters come looking for you,” Jongdae responded. “That itself is kind of tricky. Like you said, the paramedics already know who you are. Could you get them to sign a confidentiality agreement?”

“I’m trying to pose as a jogger, wearing school trousers, and this is probably my second time around the block. What am I supposed to do now?”

“I don’t know! Make something up! Go to the emergency unit where Chanyeol and Sehun are as Kim Junmyeon, and say you have smoke inhalation or something. There couldn’t have been more than five people who saw you anyway,” he suggested, and there was a sound of a door closing shut. “In school, people are debating over what really happened, but no one is really sure so the majority is buying my story- oh Seungwan!”

Jongdae’s suggestion wasn’t very good, but it was the only one he had at the moment. He could create an excuse, saying that his shirt got burnt in the fire. Seungwan’s livid voice filled the speakers, cursing Jongdae out, and Junmyeon knew it was time to hang up. He uttered a goodbye, sprinting towards the direction of the hospital.

He obviously couldn’t fly, which would’ve saved him a lot of time and energy, but it also made sure that he wasn’t in anyone’s focus. He snuck in towards the emergency ward, where he caught a glimpse of Sehun being wheeled into the room. He still wasn’t awake.

Chanyeol, on the other hand, was sprawled out onto one of the beds there, looking terribly exhausted. Junmyeon speedily occupied the bed next to Chanyeol’s, filling out the details on a clipboard which someone had left on his bed. The hospital surely seemed to be understaffed, with no one even noticing what Junmyeon had done.

However, there was a problem. Who would believe that he was caught in the fire when his bare upper body was unscarred? What type of shirt would burn off but leave the skin underneath it untouched?

Junmyeon spotted a table where they put random items like tape, cotton pads, and even various ointments. People were rushing in and out of the room. Making sure that no one would see him, he quickly grabbed what he needed to wrap himself up. It looked very unprofessional, like how a child playing doctor would wrap his friend.

He could feel Chanyeol’s eyes on him, and when he turned to look, the said man didn’t bother turning away. His eyes looked like that of a zombie’s; totally lifeless. At that moment, Junmyeon felt sorry for his cousin. There was a point in their lives when they were practically best friends, but all it took was that fateful week to destroy their relationship. It was miserable.

Just then, a woman, presumably one of the staff, approached him distractedly before reading the writing on his clipboard. “I think we can let you go now. According to the report, your burns are not very serious, so you won’t need further treatment. You can come by in a week for us to check on the burn. For now, you can go speak to the person at the front desk to call your parents or teacher.”

Junmyeon marvelled at how lucky he was. His identity was more or less hidden, with the exception of the ambulance riders, and he had receipts to prove that student Kim Junmyeon was adm