He wore clothes he hadn't worn in a long time. A pair of faded, old jeans and a t-shirt that had been shoved in the back of the closet for a really long time. Shoes with a hole in one toe and a brown tattered jacket. He looked like he had two years ago, when he first stepped into the apartment that he was walking to now.

HaeRim was in school and Ha Yul had ushered him off to go make things right again. A stone hung in his gut as he drove his car across town. He parked a few blocks from the building to walk and give himself some time to think, to figure out what he was going to say.

However, all the words flew from his mind like the birds in a panic in the sky as they flew away from the great cloud of smoke. And Hongki turned the corner to fine a sight that would chill him to the very bone. A great crowd had gathered behind the police tape as the firefighters shot water into the flames spouting from the building walls.

The apartment was on fire. Hongki panicked. He screamed out for Jonghun, tried and failed to find him in the crowd. He checked his watch. It was not early enough that Jonghun would be safely away playing his guitar at the store.

“He's still in there!” Hongki screamed, pushing his way to the front of the police line. “Jonghun, he's still in there!”

No one seemed to be listening. No one was rushing in to save him. Logic failed the desperate man and he darted below the line and charged into the apartment. A few tried to stop him, but none succeeded. He dodged past them and slammed into the apartment. Smoke had not yet reached the first few levels as Hongki rushed his way up the stairs and flight by flight made his way closer to Jonghun's floor.

Smoke began to fill the stairs and each floor became harder and harder to reach until he finally found the floor level he needed. The door was hot, warmed by the flamed of the building around him. He threw his shoulder into the door, forcing it open.

He took off, running down the hallway, turning a sharp corner and slamming into the wall. He took a deep breath an coughed in the smoke, looking around to try and orient himself. He felt lost, unable to get a sense of things through all the smoke in the air.

Doors were left open and flames out of them. Hongki pressed himself far away from the fire and scooted around the doors until finally reaching the one that he needed. Locked, of course it would be. He beat on the door, shoved against it, and screamed out Jonghun's name.

Finally, the door gave way. Hongki fell into the apartment, rolling onto the floor and slamming against the wall. He laid there for a moment, eyes watering and lungs burning. There seemed to be more smoke in the apartment than anywhere else in the entire building.

“Jonghun!” Hongki screamed out, coughing again. He listened but heard no reply.

He rushed through the apartment, checking first the living room and the kitchen, the balcony and Jonghun's bedroom.

“Jonghun!” He screamed again, and then heard a faint reply.

“Hon..Hongki?” The sound was weak, coming from the second bedroom. The one that had always been Hongki's.

He burst through the door, and that's when he found him. Jonghun, curled up on the floor fire in the room. It had spread through the entire building, every apartment. A great wall of it seemed to separate him from Jonghun.

“Wait right there!” Hongki pulled back, taking a look at the flames. He ran into the bedroom and grabbed a blanket.

He'd seen it done on movies, but he didn't know if it would really work. Still, it was all he had, and he needed to save Jonghun. Hongki wrapped the blanket around himself and took a running leap through the hot flames. He came out on the other side relatively unscathed and rolled next to Jonghun.

“Are you alright? Are you injured?” He fretted over the man who immediately clung to him, tears pouring down his face.

“What's going on, Hongki? I don't know what's going on!”

“It'll be alright. I'm here.” Hongki soothed him and pulled him to his feet. He wrapped the blanket around the two of them and they took the leap together, on Hongki's instruction, back through the flames.

The blanket had burned to a crisp and fell off their shoulders to burn with the rest of the things. Hongki didn't have time to think about that, or to try and save any of Jonghun's precious belongings. He took the blind man's hand and ran, taking them back into the hallway and back down the stairs.

Coughing a spluttering, the stepped into the light. Wincing from the sun after the dim of the smoke. Paramedics immediately took the both of them, separating them and taking them to ambulances. Hongki tried to fight to get back to Jonghun, but it was no use.

The paramedics took him, placing him in the ambulance and reassuring him that they would be transporting him to the same hospital as his friend. Hongki's head was swimming and his lungs and eyes were burning and he felt like throwing up.

He finally gave in and laid to rest on the cot he was on, passing out before they even got him to the hospital.