“WHAT?!”

“Aron-sshi, relax! He’s fine!”

The nurse looked chocked at him when he clenched the phone in his hand and quickly got on his feet, much quicker than his health would benefit from.

“But how can he be fine?! He was pushed off a bridge for God’s sake!”

The leader sounded way too calm in his opinion.

“He was, but he was lucky. The stream wasn’t that powerful and his friend jumped right in to save him. Actually he is the one who got mauled the most from that incident, he broke three fingers and twisted his wrist too, but they’ll both recover”.

Aron’s heart was beating faster and faster as he with grave horror pictured Minki fall into the water. He had been in the hospital for a day, only a day, and then this happened.

“You know…” He bit his lip as he looked at the nurse, then he lowered his voice to a whisper. “This can only mean one thing.”
“Yes, you’re right”. The leader sighed. “There’s someone close to you who’s working for Solum. There’s no other explanation to why you would be poisoned like that. And by something as unlikely as chloroform… Have you any idea how you came to consume it?”

“U-huh. I left the class room for a while when you called. The spy must have slipped it into my water bottle while I was out.”

“If that’s the case, then you have to be extremely careful from now on. Eat by yourself, and make sure not to be alone with anyone but Minki or Fisher if you must, not until you have uncovered that damn spy, got it?”
“Got it.”

As he hung up he started to think that his cover would be blown in less than a second. If Solum tried to kill him again, or just get him out of the way while they finished Minki off, people would start asking questions. Just a small attempt or one slip-up from him, and everything would be ruined.

But somehow he had to find out who the spy was. Without asking anyone directly though. As far as he was concerned anyone could have went into the class room during the few minutes he wasn’t there, so theoretically everyone who had been to school that day was a possible suspect. Great.

Tired he asked the nurse if he could go see Minki and Jonghyun. She agreed, unwillingly though. He still had to rest a lot, but there was no way he could bear lying around without seeing Minki anymore.

Just a floor away, Minki and Jonghyun had their own room. Jonghyun didn’t really have to stay any longer, the doctors had already wrapped his whole arm in bandages, but he would rather stay until Minki woke up.

The skinny little blonde was still asleep on the bed next to him, his make-up totally spoiled by the water.

He would have drowned if Jonghyun hadn’t gotten him out of the river so fast, then performed first aid on him to make him breathe again. It had hurt like hell with his broken fingers, but nevertheless he had kept on until Minki had finally coughed up most of the water.

His lips still burned from the touch of the other boy’s soft little Cupid’s bow and even now he couldn’t get his eye off him. He felt terrible knowing that he had probably stolen Minki’s first kiss, and even worse knowing that Minki wouldn’t know about it. Still, he felt a great urge to lean forwards and kiss him again while he was still asleep, and he was about to do so, too, when the door opened and Aron came into the room.

He jerked backwards at once; on the doorstep Aron stood as if petrified.

“Aron… hi…” Jonghyun swallowed a great deal of astonishment and tried not to look Aron in the eyes.

“Hi there…” It was impossible not to notice how red Jonghyun’s face was, but he chose to ignore it. The silence filled the room around them for an unbearable minute, then Aron cleared his throat. “So, how is he? I just heard about it… You saved him”.

“I guess so…” Jonghyun looked a bit intimidated. “They say he will be fine, it’s merely a bit hard to believe when he is just lying there…”

“Yeah, I guess. What happened? I heard that someone pushed him off, is that true?”

The other one nodded slowly.

“I didn’t see who he was, he was wearing a hood. It was so surrealistic, he just came out of nowhere and ran off again… I chose to jump in after Minki instead of trying to catch him”.

“You did the right thing. Minki would be dead without you…”
“Speaking of which, how about you? Have you any idea where that chloroform came from?” He tilted his head and it was Aron’s turn to try and hide his blushing face.

“No. I guess someone must have slipped it into my food or something by a mistake or as a joke. It’s possible they didn’t even know it was deadly.”

“Come on, no one is that stupid”. Jonghyun crossed his arms and looked sceptically at Aron. “Two of my friends have been tried murdered during just one day. I fear for my life here, are you sure you didn’t notice anything?”

“I…”
“Aron?... Ungh… Is that you?” Minki’s eyes roved behind his eyelids for a second before he opened his eyes and looked tired at both of them. “Jonghyunah… What happened?” His voice was very low.

“Minki!” Jonghyun’s attention switched with the speed of light. “Thank God, you’re awake. We have been so worried”.

“I remember I fell, and there was a lot of darkness… and it was so cold…”
“It was the water… Minki, you fell off a bridge”. Aron hoped Jonghyun wouldn’t comment on his slight lie. “You’ve been unconscious for almost fifteen hours now”.

“What, I missed a day?!”
“Minki!” The door was opened again and Minhyun ran into the hospital room. He pushed Aron aside and put both arms around the younger boy, crying from relief. “Sweetie, are you all right?! I’ve been worried sick! And you, too!” He turned to Aron, then placed both arms around him as well. “How dare you all just being murdered around me while I have no idea of what’s going on?! I waited for you after school for two hours, then Dongho comes out as the only one, telling me you’re all off to the hospital because you have been poisoned and pushed off bridges and what the heck do I know! And I wasn’t even allowed to see any of you because you were in the emergency room, so I had to go to school and all sorts of meaningless stuff before I could go see you! Guys…” He broke off, his voice shaking with suppressed crying. “We have one single class away from each other, for the love of Christ, why can’t you just stay alive?” He clung to Aron, now crying inconsolably and no one had even the slightest clue of what to do.

It took the best of a quarter of an hour to make him let go of Aron again and getting him to sit down in a chair. He was trembling. The other three all sat around him, desperately trying to make him calm down.

“You’re so stupid, all of you” he cried. “I wouldn’t know what to do without you”. He looked as if he would drown in his crazily expensive designer’s coat. Minki kneeled beside his chair and put both arms around him, leaning his head against Minhyun.

“We’re sorry hyungie” he muttered, almost crying, too. “We really are…”

“Oh Minki!” Minhyun clung to the other one’s slim shoulders. “You shouldn’t be, I’m sorry I’m acting like this, I’ve just never been so afraid in my life before! God, I thought… I thought I might lose you”.

The two boys squeezed each other tightly, making Jonghyun unable to look at them. He could feel how the sight of Minhyun, beautiful, experienced Minhyun hugging Minki like that made his stomach want to rip itself apart. He couldn’t have been more grateful to Aron when he interrupted by asking where Dongho was.

“Oh, he’s probably still at school. Detention again, the teacher really hates him. Poor thing…” Then it looked as if he suddenly realised something. “Jonghyun! Your hand! A guy at school told me you had had your fingers cut off!”

“What?” His eyes dilated when he showed Minhyun his wrapped-up hand. “I just broke them that’s all. They’re all still here…”

Minhyun drew a sigh of relief.

“Thank goodness, I had the most awful pictures in my head...”
“Talking about pictures Minhyunnie…” Jonghyun smirked. “I would like to know when we can see that art project you were doing the other day”.

“Yeah, how much clothes were you wearing this time?” Minki burst into laughter along with Jonghyun and Aron.

“Same outfit as last time. You guys , you know that?” He joined in on their laugh though looking a bit uncomfortable. His eyes flickered a bit; nervously he tried to find out whether or not Aron found it disgusting that he was willing to pose without clothes on, but the older boy’s serious face didn’t reveal a thing.