He could have sworn he had called the day off. As his delirious state would have it, he apparently had not. Wonho had hallucinated it so vividly that it was really a shame, because he truly felt like he was dying. His body ached, and he felt like his fever was going to send him into a new dimension.

“H-Hey Wonho,” The newbie Seungjun timidly grabbed his attention. “I hate to bother you in the state that you’re in,” Seungjun grimaced, which seemed more like a smile with how wide his mouth was. “It’s just that… Eunbi… Is at table five asking for you. I-I tried to tell her I could serve her for today instead since you weren’t feeling well, but she insisted,” He rambled on which in turn made Wonho’s head spin.

“Alright. I’ll take care of it.” Wonho nonchalantly waved him away as he tried his best to get himself together. He needed this tip today. Rent was due soon and it looked like they were barely gonna make it.

Exhaling a deep breath, he made his way over to her as best he could, but the floor was starting to warp under his feet. He stopped midway and shook his head to see if it would help, but that had seemed to only make it worse.

“Hello, what can I get for you today?” He inhaled, trying to keep himself looking perky and awake. It felt like his eyes were giant saucers with the way he was widening them, to the point that they were starting to burn. He didn’t even bother with formalities. “Oh, honey, what’s wrong? You look awful.” Eunbi leaned in and touched his sweaty forehead with her perfectly manicured fingers, and it took everything in his power not to pull away.

“Sorry, I’m not feeling too well. I can get s-someone else if you’d like.” He stared past her at the window, black dots slowly creeping into his vision.

Well, that was odd.

“My poor baby,” She said breathily, continuing to caress his face with newfound selfishness. Wonho was nothing but a piece of meat to her, something she could freely lust over. He knew she didn’t really care about him, but he needed to keep reminding himself that she equaled rent money they needed. Before he could ask her what she would like to order again, he felt his vision go black. Kyungil really needed a swift kick in the . He couldn’t be doing that to him while he was with a customer. At least, he had thought it was Kyungil, until he felt a sharp pain at his shoulder to go with his throbbing head.

All that remained after were a mix of purple and silver across his vision.

Always purple and silver.

It wasn’t hard for Haru or Kihyun to take the pictures they needed for their portrait project. That was all thanks to Kihyun, though.

To Haru’s excitement, Kihyun was an amazing photographer. She couldn’t really say that about herself, but she admired how he had made her look in his photos. The lighting had been just right, the sun casting shadows across her face that had quite frankly taken her breath away. The number of compliments that had ensued were like word vomit, but Haru just couldn’t help it. She was truly grateful to have such a talented person as her partner to learn from.

As Haru snapped the last shot of Kihyun, his phone rang and echoed across the park. Kihyun looked at the screen curiously and signaled that he’d take the call. She moved away a little more to give him some privacy and looked through her shots. She had to admit that with his advice, they had come out stunning. The excitement of how great they turned out surged through her fingers, making them restless.

She unfortunately had to ask Kihyun if she could borrow his camera for the project, since hers had yet to be repaired. And although she had taken her camera to a shop, there hadn’t been anything left for her to get a new lens. So, apart from her spare memory card, he was honestly saving her .

Though admittedly, compared to her baby Nikon, Kihyun’s Sony camera felt alien in her hands.

Looking up from the camera’s screen, she glanced around the half-empty park. The same park where she had broken her precious camera. Her thoughts floated back to the incident that had let her get to know Wonho, beyond his glowing gold hands. Breathing in the cool spring air, she closed her eyes and smiled.

It was strange how life ebbed and flowed, ever-changing and stopping for no one.

The feelings she had harbored when she had first seen Wonho to what she felt now were tremendously contrastive. Even if she wasn’t the least bit comfortable being able to see his emotions, he seemed to be a wonderful guy. That alone was a relief. She couldn’t control what she saw, but if she had to pick whose emotions she could see out of the entire population, she would probably pick Wonho all over again.

What about Jungkook?

Haru knew it, felt it so much that she didn’t need to see the blue-black swirls swallowing up the yellow-green on her hands.

Never could she bring herself to want to see Jungkook’s emotions. Guaranteed, she would run away from him every chance she got, for fear of seeing the color of his hands at the sight of her. Especially when he got to talking about Mei. She could only guess what color they’d be then…

“H-Hey Haru, all good?” Kihyun asked, an odd tone to his voice. “Oh, yeah,” She replied, ejecting her memory card from his camera. “Okay, cool.” He retrieved his camera from her and stood there frozen, before something seemed to click. “Haru, I really have to go now. A friend of mine is in the hospital,” He said in one breath, his frantic eyes making her stomach sink as he attempted to stuff his camera into his bag without much success.

He was shaking.

“Oh, god. I’m sorry, Kihyun. Do you need help with anything?” She gently grabbed the camera from his hands and placed it carefully in the bag for him. “No, I just really have to go,” He exhaled, voice trembling. As much as she wanted to help, they didn’t know each other that well yet. She resigned to asking Kihyun to tell her when he got to the hospital, because driving with how frantic and nervous he looked worried her. He simply nodded, dashing to his car at lightning speed.

All she could do was stare after him and hope that whoever his friend was, that they’d be okay.

He wasn’t the type to cry and he definitely wasn’t going to start now, although he was damn close. So close, because the rock that they had all depended on had finally crumbled. He should have known it would happen eventually. He worked so hard for them all, tirelessly and endlessly.

All Kihyun knew was that he’d rather take Wonho’s place one hundred times over if it meant that he’d be healthy.

“Where is he?!” He ran over, visibly panic-stricken, to his brothers who had caught his eye as soon as he had entered the emergency room. Minhyuk was puffy and red from crying and the rest were no different, except for Shownu.

No surprise there.

Besides Wonho, Shownu was the pillar that held their household together in every way.

“They said his fever was extremely high, so they’re pumping him with strong drugs to bring it down. They’re concerned because he hasn’t woken up yet,” Shownu looked away from Kihyun and down the hall, no doubt holding back tears of his own.

Kihyun sat down on the chair next to Shownu and stared at his hands. How was that possible? He only had the flu, so there was no reason for him not to wake up.

Had he hit his head too hard when he fainted?

Even if he went through the thousands of reasons why, it wouldn’t fix anything. He wasn’t a doctor. Kihyun rubbed his face and stared at the ceiling. Minhyuk’s sniffling could still be heard, the only one still crying silently. He quickly decided that the emergency room was too claustrophobic, his anxiety kicking in and signaled to Shownu that he’d be right outside.

The fresh air welcomed him, and he took calming breaths, settling himself on the single bench outside of the hospital entrance. He didn’t want to go too far just in case there was more news.

He took out his phone from his jeans, a single text lighting up on his screen. “Oh, !” He exclaimed. Dialing the number from said text, he heard a worried voice on the other line quietly stutter a hello. “Haru, I got to the hospital safely!” He shot out rapidly, not bothering with a hello himself. “Oh, thank goodness,” She sighed out in relief. An awkward silence followed. Kihyun didn’t really feel like talking to anyone right now, but she seemed to be genuinely concerned. “Uhm, I- W-Well, you don’t have to answer if I’m being too nosy, but is your friend okay?”

Kihyun pouted at the uncertainty that they were clinging on to. “Wonho? Well, we don’t know at the moment. We knew he was sick, but he ended up fainting at work. They said that he had a high fever so they’re giving him strong drugs to bring it down. Other than that, he hasn’t woken up yet.” Kihyun fiddled with the hole in his jeans, the frayed ends becoming unexpectedly entertaining.

“W-Wait. Did you say Wonho?” Haru’s voice seemed to shake, which made Kihyun’s brows pull together in confusion. He hadn’t even realized he had said Wonho’s name, only thought it, but he didn’t think it really mattered. Unless, Haru knew who Wonho was? They all went to the same university, after all. “Yeah. Do you know him, by any chance?” There was another moment of silence before she replied. “O-Oh. Kind of… I mean,” Going silent yet again before Kihyun heard a tremulous exhale through the speaker. “Yeah I do.”

“Really?” Kihyun sat up, utterly amazed. “How?”

Haru sat at the edge of her bed, gripping the sheets tight with her left hand. She didn’t know what to tell him or how to really recover from the information she had just been given. Kihyun was one of Wonho’s brothers and Wonho was sick and unconscious in a damn hospital.

She didn’t know what to feel.

Time almost seemed to slow down for her and an all too familiar numbness crept up her body. Suddenly, Haru felt Butter cuddling up to her arm and snapped out of it.

“Well, um, he returned a camera lens to me that I had left at the park. I think he talked about you, too," She bitterly laughed, "It all makes sense now.”

“Me? Why would he have talked to you about me?” Kihyun asked with wonder and Haru cracked a smile at the memory. “Because he told me he had heard from his good friend how expensive lenses could be, so he brought mine to me.” Haru choked out a giggle, feeling tears welling up as the conversation continued. “He worked incredibly hard to get it back to me that day. I’ll always be grateful for that.”

“Sounds just like him,” Kihyun huffed out a small laugh of his own.

Haru let the awkward silence hang between them for a few seconds but felt like she should fill it in somehow.

“I hope he gets better soon.”

Silence.

And then there was the sound of shuffling and… was he running?

“… Can see him now.”

It wasn’t Kihyun’s voice that was resounding through the speaker. Haru couldn’t decide whether to hang up or stay on the line.

“Uh... Kihyun?”

Nothing.

Looking at the screen of her phone, it showed that the call was still connected. Had something happened or did he just forget to hang up? She figured she’d just text him later to see how Wonho was doing. As she reached for the red button that would hang up the call, she heard sound coming from the speaker again. Haru jumped up and scrambled to put the phone to her ear again. “H-Hello?!”

“Yeah, Haru?!” Kihyun sounded winded, as if he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs no matter how hard he tried. “That was the doctor just now, sorry. We can go in to see him now, but he still hasn’t woken up yet. He said it’s not a good sign.”

Haru felt the room in front of her spin, and as much as she tried to focus on Butter sleeping next to her fisted hand, the thought of Wonho not waking up made her feel… empty. Lonely. Like she would no longer have a place in this world again.

“Do you think I could go visit him, Kihyun? Would that be okay?” Her brain had no time for rationality. It was as if her body was on autopilot and she was just there to observe what was happening. “Of course. Visiting ends in two hours, but you could always come tomorrow.” The tone was meant to come off as kind and unaffected, but she had caught the sadness in his voice, the uncertainty of everything laid out in that last word.

“I’ll be there soon.”

Without a hint of hesitation, Haru hung up, changed into whatever she could find on her floor and ran out of the door; finding that the air in her lungs felt like ice.

In a sense, everything inside of her had felt that way before he came along.

Could it be that Wonho had planted something in the center of her icy atmosphere, leaving nothing but beauty and warmth in his wake?

A golden, glistening flower amongst a world full of thorns.

Haru burst through the automatic doors so fast she nearly crashed into the front desk of the emergency room. Catching her breath, she attempted to squeak out Wonho’s real name. The nurse at the desk got up from her seat with concern etched all over her face. Haru held up her hands to signal that she was fine and that she didn’t need help. “Shi-”

“Haru!” She heard Kihyun’s voice shout. She turned around and searched for him, only to find him walking up to her sheepishly, hands in his pockets. “Sorry for the disturbance,” He told the nurse as he arrived and Haru quickly bowed in apology. She felt awful for making such a scene, but she just wasn’t in her right mind.

Kihyun hovered his hand at the small of her back and began leading her to a corner where a bunch of guys were seated, most of them with curious puffy eyes. “Sorry, Kihyun. That must have been embarrassing for you.” She walked next to him noiselessly, trying to shrink into herself as much as possible.

“Don’t worry about it. If anything, it’s good to know that there’s someone else who cares about him just as much as we do.” Haru felt her heart jump into and it took all her strength not to visibly choke. Is that what it looked like to him? Was what she felt for him really to such an extent?

“Any change in how he’s doing?” She inquired. Kihyun bit his lip and tilted his head, “Something about his brain waves improving or something? I didn’t really understand anything the doctor said, to be honest.” Looking up at him, she could see how worried and drained he was.

“He’ll be okay,” Haru affirmed as they arrived. Her eyes swept across each of the five faces that were seated, recognizing most of them except for two. “Guys, this is my classmate and Wonho's friend, Haru," Kihyun introduced.

The first one she recognized was Wonho’s duet partner. Hyungwon, was it?

“Hi,” Hyungwon timidly waved from his seat.

"Ah! It's the pretty lady from the venue!" The adorable boy, whose name she vaguely remembered as Minhyuk, pointed at her frantically, his nose clearly stuffed up from all the crying. Her heart clenched at the sight of his face. It seemed like he was taking it the hardest.

"That would be me," Haru giggled, feeling an embarrassing blush creep up her cheeks from the compliment. Although she hardly thought that about herself, she didn't have the heart to shoot down Minhyuk's compliment in their current situation.

"Hey, how long have the both of you been hiding such a beauty from us?!" A boy with deep brown hair styled similarly to Kihyun's stood up and grabbed Kihyun by the neck, nearly putting him in a chokehold. Haru couldn't help but smile at the sight. It reminded her so much of how her own boys were with each other. It was always heartwarming to see.

"I don't really know about that," Haru interrupted. "Kihyun and I barely met. I've known Wonho longer, but not by much."

"Well, if that's true, then why are you even here? I doubt you guys are that close if he hasn't mentioned you to us."

"Shownu, what’s wrong with you?!" Kihyun said in astonishment as his other brother released him from his grip.

This Shownu guy was similar in build to Wonho, muscular and tanned, full lips with short black hair. One could assume he would be intimidating, but Haru didn't get that vibe from him. She was sure that if anything, he was just trying to look out for his good friend. Hell, Haru would act the same way about her boys, too. She understood and respected where he was coming from.

"You're right, I can't really say that I'm a close friend of Wonho's or anything like that, but I came here because I'm worried about him." She looked him dead in the eyes and didn't dare look away for even a second. She wanted her sincerity to reach him. "Even in the brief time that I've known him, he's become someone special to me."

No… Wait. That came out wrong?!

"Oh?" Kihyun squeaked, his voice rising an octave. Haru took a glance in his direction and saw a smug smirk in her peripheral vision.

"I mean, he seems like a wonderful guy and we get along well. He’s helped me out a lot. That's all," She attempted to save, but looking around at all of them, none really seemed convinced. Haru internally cringed at what they could p