They are told that they are only allowed to go inside in groups of three. There are some disgruntled faces, some frightened faces, but everyone splits themselves up easily. EXO-K go in first, since they had not seen Yixing in a long time.

The five minutes allocated time frame per group (of which the total twenty minutes scandalizes the nurses until the manager promises one of them an autographed CD, which mollycoddles the younger nurse who in turn plead on their behalf) go by too slow. They all stretch out their legs on the two long white benches that line the brightly-lit corridors. At long last, Baekhyun, Chanyeol and Suho tumble out of the door – and their pale faces, with wide eyes, do nothing to reassure the rest.

“Quickly, next,” the manager says brusquely, ushering the other three EXO-K members in. Suho goes to where Jongin is sitting and bends down to whisper in his ear. Jongin closes his eyes, and then blinks hard, putting his bravest face on. He gets up when Kyungsoo tugs his hand, and they go in.

Luhan uncovers his face with his hands when Suho sits down next to him. When Sehun had gone in, there was a wide breadth of space between him and the other members.

“What did you say to him?” Luhan asks, looking down at the floor.

“Who? Jongin or Yixing?” Suho asks back lightly, not missing a beat. He stares straight ahead at the wall, his smile gone for the moment.

“Jongin.”

“I said he had to be strong for Yixing,” Suho says slowly. “Jongin’s still shaken up by the… accident. It wouldn’t do Yixing any favours if he worries for us as well.” Suho tilted his head slightly in Luhan’s direction. “You’re not going to freak out on Yixing, are you?”

“A ha ha,” Luhan laughs weakly. He gestures to Kris, who is conversing quietly with the manager. “He’s following me in to make sure I don’t do that. You leaders have no faith in me, do you?”

“It’s not that.” Suho falls abruptly silent. Then, he says very quietly, “Actually, after all that’s happened, it’s surprising all of you still think of us as leaders.” We have done an abysmal job of protecting all of you.

Luhan furrows his brow – there is enough on his plate without the leaders’ self-pity imposed on it – but it is like a switch had been flicked in Suho. He closes himself up before Luhan could question him.

Luhan looks curiously at him. He wonders exactly how bad Yixing looks, if Suho reacts by trying to reassure everyone when it was obvious it was he himself who was shaken up badly by the ordeal.

Everyone except Luhan and Kris has gone into the room, and all of them come out like a changed man. Tao is wiping his eyes with the heels of his hands. Kris looks over at Suho as he briefly hugs the EXO-M maknae. Tao does not protest when Suho asks him quietly if he would like to follow him to the vending machine at the other end of the corridor for a drink.

The smell of antiseptic hits Luhan even harder as he edges the door open. The management did not allow fan gifts into the room; so it is sparse. There is only Yixing sitting upright on the bed, waving and smiling at them to make them feel better. There is a yellowish translucent tube that connects from his nasal passages to a machine; and he has an IV drip as well. Yixing looks pale, dressed in the paper blue hospital uniform. His dark locks give him a sickly complexion in its contrast.

“Sorry to make you worry,” are his first words, sounding automatic and practiced by then, but Kris has already stridden across the room and stopped barely inches away from the bed, so that Yixing is forced to look up. In the fluorescent light, they can see the red-rimmed eyes and the slightly coloured patches on his shirt where he coughs or sneezes on.

“Kris?” Yixing says uncertainly, before swiping the leader’s pants with his hand. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Well, how else do you expect me to react?” Kris demands gruffly, folding his arms. He sits down on the hard visitor chair. The anxiety lines on his face have lessened considerably, but his eyes are still abnormally wide, and he is sitting on his hands to prevent them from shaking.

“I’m sick,” Yixing returns, He looks wary for a second; unsure as to how the other two will react. Their passive behaviour seems to have passed judgement, for his smile returns cheekily. “You’re supposed to be nice to me. Did you bring my guitar? No? What kind of leader are you? I’m going to die of boredom in here.”

At the word ‘die’, Luhan jerks his hand involuntarily. Yixing’s gaze moves to Luhan, and it becomes more serious. “Are you okay? The manager told me you were sick yesterday too.”

Luhan moves closer. “That’s all he told you?”

Kris kicks Luhan surreptitiously in the shins from his sitting position. “He just woke up an hour or two ago,” he says, glaring pointedly to Luhan. No talking about superstition here.

“Ah.” Luhan nods, and then tries his best to smile at Yixing as if everything is fine. It is not. The image of Yixing with tubes going into his nose, with machines around him, with an IV drip hanging idly around the corner – it is a far cry from Yixing jumping on Kris’s shoulders during their last dance practice because Yixing had about his stiff movements and Kris answered back ‘midget’ in English in such a deadpanned manner that everyone else laughed as Yixing tried to get his revenge.

Luhan is daydreaming, so that he did not notice he is very close to the hospital bed already. Yixing reaches out to get a list from the bedside table – he is telling Kris about every single thing he wants to make himself comfortable during his (“short” he emphasizes) stay, including his guitar, composition book and stuffed unicorn doll fans had given him – when he brushes against Luhan’s arm.

Kris sees the physical contact, and he is already halfway up from his seat as he watches Luhan’s expression change. He has gotten better at controlling his facial features – he just presses his lips tightly together, and staggers back. Kris catches the weight of his body and steers him towards the door immediately. It all happens in a blink of an eye – it makes it look as though Kris was pushing Luhan out of the door in jest. “Five minutes are up!” calls a nurse conveniently. Kris jerks open the door, shoves Luhan out, and closes it before Yixing could see Luhan fall onto the ground outside. There are some noises outside, but the door blocks them out effectively. He takes a breath to calm himself down, and turns around to quickly say, “Where’s the list? Hurry!”

Yixing looks confused, but there is a pinched look on his face. He is tired, having entertained eleven people in the space of twenty minutes, faking his cheerfulness and pretending not to see their terrified, horrified, pitying expressions. “Visit tomorrow?” he asks, giving up on following what just happened.

Kris gives Yixing a one-hand hug, careful not to tug at any of the wires. “Definitely,” he promises. He lets himself out, with a heavy heart.

The manager is bent over Luhan, who is slumped against the wall, inhaling deeply to force oxygen to his brains. “You need to be hospitalised,” the manager says critically, putting a hand on Luhan’s forehead.

Luhan cries out, shoving his arm away. There is a wild look in his eyes. Kris bites down on his lower lip – this is also not the same Luhan they are used to. Paranoia and exhaustion are taking a toll on his mental state.

“Where’s everyone else?” Kris asks the manager, looking around at the deserted corridor.

“Both groups have schedules at ten,” the manager says wearily. Even having spent the whole day in the hospital, he is still up to date with their schedules. “It’s nine-forty.”

“Can Luhan stay here?” Kris asks. The two of them look at him. The manager is frowning in thought, while Luhan shakes his head.

“No, I need to check,” he says uneasily. “I’m fine. We don’t have to put on public appearances today.”

“Okay, but both of you have to go down to the carpark now,” the manager replies, standing up straight to dismiss them. “It’s in basement two. Hurry.”

In the lifts, Luhan unexpectedly grabs Kris by the hands, and then falls back to grip the railings that lines the three walls.

“By the count of three, if you don’t tell me what’s causing you to act so strange –”

 “I can’t feel anything,” Luhan says, wide-eyed. It gives him the look of a confused twelve-year-old and Kris tries but fails to reignite his annoyance at the other man. “I just feel all numb.”

“What do you mean, numb?” repeats Kris dumbly. “You predicted the boy this morning and you were right. That convinced everybody, Luhan.” They are all scared for Yixing now.

“I know!” Luhan shouts back, just as the elevator dings. It opens on the wrong floor. Kris jabs impatiently at the ‘close door’ button. “I know,” he says again in a quieter voice. “I never felt anything like that before.” It was painful.

“What happened when Yixing touched you?”

“Nothing.” It was like a brief white flare of pain, before… nothing. Luhan could compare it to touching a boiling kettle for a hot second before withdrawing his hand quickly. There was no prolonged ache in his stomach or in his bones, and there was no lasting headache from being around Yixing. Something was not right… or something was not wrong anymore?

Kris looks up slowly from his finger still stuck on the elevator button to Luhan. His face is unreadable. “Nothing?”

Luhan wrings his hands together, and shakes his head miserably. “What does that mean, Kris?” he asks, not succeeding in keeping away the desperation in his voice.

Does that mean Yixing is not dying anymore?

Or has Luhan’s intuition failed him?

“Don’t tell the others,” Kris instructs, and he grasps Luhan’s shoulder firmly to reassure. The fact that Luhan does not react is testament to his earlier statement. I can’t feel anything.

“But –”

“If you keep telling everyone conflicting ideas, they’re not going to trust you, Luhan. We want Yixing to pull through, but we don’t know if it’s possible. You said he wouldn’t make it, causing Sehun to panic yesterday. What do you think will happen if you say he’s going to live, but something happens?” Kris stares hard at Luhan. “Maybe you’re still not well from your fainting spell, and it’s messing with your precognition, or whatever.”

“I told you I’m fine.”

Pale face, overly-anxious, emotional. The elevator dings again.

No, you’re not, Kris thinks.  

EXO-M and EXO-K are going to SM building for dance practice. So they all pile in the two different vans as and how they liked. Suho, Chen, Xiu Min, Luhan and Sehun are in one car. Jongin, Kyungsoo, Baekhyun, Tao, Chanyeol and Kris are in the other car. The two leaders have their phones calls connected, and on loudspeaker, as Chanyeol reads in his deep voice from his iPad. The illness the doctor had told them.

It becomes a mess, as Chanyeol does not understand most of the medical jargon, so Kris can hardly translate it for the Chinese members. There is loud squabbling in Chanyeol’s car, while Suho’s car remains relatively quiet as they listen to the other end in bemusement.

“Oh!” Jongin exclaims suddenly, scooting to his right so that he is squashing Baekhyun and Tao uncomfortably into the corner.

“Hey!” Baekhyun cries out, stuck between the two, limbs tangled and flailing. Then, Jongin suddenly grabs Baekhyun’s hand in a vice-like grip, staring outside the window in horror.

Kyungsoo turns around in his seat next to the two rappers. “Close your eyes!” he orders, concerned.

“What’s going on?” Suho asks, but Chen pokes him in the shoulder, one hand covering his mouth as he resolutely turns his back to the window. Suho peers over Chen. They are passing the road where the boy was knocked down by the taxi. The glass pieces on the ground have not been removed. The green railings that divide the two roads are crumpled like broken toothpicks. There is dark crimson discolouring all over one side of the railing, staining the ground as well.

Both cars go silent. Baekhyun wraps his arms around Jongin, who has his eyes squeezed shut, until Kyungsoo says softly, “We’re on the expressway now.”

The mood is sombre, so Chanyeol picks up where they left off. Some members jump in surprise, forgetting the call. “Con heart disease,” Chanyeol begins again.

Tao interrupts before he could get any further. “I’ll look in up in Chinese when we get back to the dorms,” he says, and Kris throws him a grateful look at his displayed maturity.

“Typical symptoms of heart failure are shortness of breath-”

Chen wails about Yixing vomiting and turning blue from shortness of breath.

“-poor exercise tolerance, fatigue-”

Yixing is taking the opportunity during the break before their live performance to catch some much-needed sleep. The main dancer is surprised by his sudden onslaught of exhaustion these past few weeks. He thinks he has underestimated the toll of debut.

“-cough and fluid retention. If your heart failure symptoms and heart function cannot be improved by medications or surgery, you may benefit from a heart transplant. Oh! We’re reaching!”

The SM building looms into sight.

“There are cameras,” Suho reminds them, before he disconnects the call. There is an unspoken command in the sentence. Real life still continues eventhough the clock may be ticking for Yixing. They may be upset, but they had to pretend everything was fine.

Still, none of them smile as they head for the building.

A/N: Thanks for subscribing and commenting to the story! I really appreciate it. We’re not yet at the , but we’re pretty darn close.

Will Yixing live or die? And what’s up with Luhan’s intuition?

P.S. This story doesn’t have romantic pairings, so it’s quite hard for it to be recommended through tags or pairing recommendations LOL. Nevertheless, try to recommend this story to other people okay? Thanks so much <3