“Mmhh.”. Jiyong's head twitched to the side. His neck tickled. As he reached to scratch it, he felt something wet and sticky on his fingers. “What the..?” Jiyong opened his eyes with great difficulty, he was still drowsy. He blinked a couple of times to get a clear view, his eyes were full of sleepydust. He wouldn't have said no to a couple of more hours of sleep. His vision was still a bit blurry. Before him he saw the dirtiest ugliest rug he had ever encountered. And boy did it smell! Jiyong wrinkled his nose, appalled. Was this a dream? Or should he say nightmare? Disorientated, Jiyong did his best to shake off the drowsiness. His neck was steadily getting wetter. What was going on?

The rug was suddenly lifted up and under it appeared the now familiar face of Daesung. Jiyong gagged, the rug had been his hair?! Smiling, Daesung leaned in and started his cheek. Jiyong cringed. He realized this was Daesung's way of accepting him and showing him affection, and for that he was thankful. He was all too happy to say goodbye to the crazy dangerous wild animal boy that threatened his life every second he was near him. However, Jiyong had a thing with cleanliness. Germs were not his best friends. He liked things clean, was that too much to ask?

From the looks of it, Daesung hadn't had one shower in his whole life. There were layers upon layers of dirt on his skin. And who knew what that mysterious rug on his head was hiding! Jiyong shuddered at the thought. “No...No!” Jiyong exclaimed as Daesung stopped his face, only to start rubbing his head onto Jiyong's chest, purring slightly. Apparently Daesung was feeling better. The ends of the rug grazed against Jiyong's neck. He had never felt as dirty. That was it! He couldn't stand this a moment longer. He didn't know how he was going to do it, but Daesung needed a bath, that much was clear.

Jiyong sat up, pushing Daesung gently away, trying to touch only the least dirty parts of him. “You need a bath, boy.” he said softly towards him. “Ba-bo-i” Daesung copied. Jiyong giggled. Even though he was dirty, he sure was cute. “We should maybe start with something simpler to teach you, huh?” Jiyong was thinking out loud. “Yeah okay, let's do this.. see here..” Jiyong faced Daesung properly, getting his attention. Jiyong pointed at himself, saying slowly and clearly “Ji-yong.”. Daesung made no attempt to copy him. “You can do it, boy. Come on.. Ji-yong.” Jiyong wasn't about to give up that easily. “Ji-yong.” Jiyong repeated, getting no response at all. “Ji-yong, Ji-yong, Jiiii-yoooong.” he persisted. Daesung furrowed his eyebrows annoyed. He got on all three, since he was protecting his injured leg, limping passed Jiyong, pushing him a little. “Ehm.. okay. Not a morning person you say. Not a problem. We'll just try again later.”.

“No! Don't just waltz all over the place, you'll get everything dirty!” Jiyong yelled as Daesung started rubbing his head on the side of the sofa. He ran to stop him. Daesung hissed a bit. “No!” Jiyong said loudly, pointing at him. Daesung started, watching him with hurt eyes. “Yeah, you can't just do whatever you want here. I'm sorry I yelled at you, okay?” Jiyong was going to pet him, but thought better of it and just kind of poked him gently. “I bet you're hungry, aren't you?”, Jiyong kept talking to him out loud even though he understood nothing. Jiyong kind of liked having a little company after being so isolated for such a long time. “Come on, boy, let's get you some grub!” Jiyong said cheerfully with a hand gesture to indicate that Daesung should follow him. “Come on. You can do it.” he started walking towards the kitchen in the hopes that Daesung would follow him. He walked two steps and peeked behind him. Daesung just sat there, watching him. He turned and walked three more, when suddenly Daesung appeared by his side. “Good boy!” Jiyong said fondly.

“Hmm.. what are we in the mood for, huh, Daesung-ah?” Jiyong rummaged around in the kitchen cabinets for something to eat. “Aha!” Jiyong had found a banana. He put it on the floor in front of Daesung. Daesung smelled it carefully, nudging it a couple of times with his nose. “You really do look like an overgrown cute little puppy, you know that?” Jiyong chuckled. Daesung carefully took a small bite out of the banana. A sound of great dissatisfaction followed and he spat the bite right back out. It flew over half the kitchen floor. “Oh maaan.” Jiyong sighed. Couldn't he leave one spot untouched by his dirty mess, just one? Jiyong's world was being turned upside down by this strange wolf boy that had crashed his life unexpectedly, demanding more from him than he was ready to give. Jiyong had never wanted a pet, let alone a kid. Growing up as an orphan had shown him just how cruel life could be, he didn't want to bring a child into the world only to experience suffering and loneliness. Besides, he wasn't exactly parent material. He generally lacked compassion for other people. No one had ever given a damn about him, why should he give a damn about anyone else? Except Seunghyun of course. He was always the exception. His rock. His all.

It didn't really matter though, that he didn't want kids, since it took two to tango but he was used to dancing solo. Lack of girls wasn't really the problem. Although the girls he usually met were false and stuck up, and most were only after his money. Being as famous as he had become, he was often surrounded by girls. He could have his pick of anyone he liked, but he hadn't liked a single one. Not one. Well, to be honest, he wasn't sure he liked girls at all. Only once had he thought he was in love. Not like in the movies, head over heals, fireworks exploding kind of love. It was more subtle than that. It ran deep, down to the bones. Somehow penetrating his entire existence. It became his beacon of hope. It still was and probably always would be. But this was a love that could never be. He had always known that Seunghyun didn't feel the same way and he was pretty sure he was straight. He had at least had a girlfriend for as long as Jiyong could remember. Granted, it wasn't always the same girl, but one always replaced the other, making a continuum throughout Seunghyun's life. Jiyong wasn't sure that Seunghyun had loved them all, some appeared to have been more a distraction than anything else. An attempt to quiet down the screaming loneliness in his heart maybe. Jiyong had never asked him about it. It was strange, Seunghyun usually confided everything to Jiyong, but he never really talked about his love life. Jiyong couldn't hold it against him since he had never told him about his feelings for him. He could never. That would ruin everything.

Daesung's whine brought Jiyong back to the present. “You are one fussy little wolf boy, you know that?” Jiyong joked. “If you could just tell me what you want to eat, that would make everything so much easier.” Jiyong told him, almost hoping for him to spontaneously start speaking like a normal human being. Not so shockingly, that didn't happen. Jiyong grabbed some ham from the refrigerator and held it in front of Daesung's nose. His behind started to wag like crazy as he sniffed and sniffed, trying to get a bite of it, but it was still in the plastic. “Hold your horses! I'm opening it.” Jiyong cried out as he held the ham as high as he could, with Daesung starting to climb up his legs to get at it. “We really need to train you, you know that?” Jiyong said tiredly, blindly attempting to open the container above his head.

Ah, finally it opened. With his free hand he tried to unhook Daesung's arms that refused to let go of him. He really stunk and Jiyong could feel as the filth rubbed on his handmade, one of a kind, suede trousers. “Down, boy. Down!”. Yeah, that didn't work at all. It was worth the shot though. He ended up throwing the ham on the kitchen floor. “Fetch!” Jiyong said smirking. And fetch he did. Or well, half a fetch. He released Jiyong from his iron claws and ran to the packaging, pawing it excitedly, trying to get the ham out.

Jiyong welcomed the break and checked his phone. 7 missed calls and 14 messages. Jiyong got a guilty knot in his stomach as he remembered he was supposed to check in with Youngbae. He had completely forgotten.

'Time to change!'

'When it's time to change, then it's time to change!'

'When it's time to change, you've got to rearrange'

Jiyong shook his head at Youngbae's silliness. It was probably some obscure quote, Jiyong never got his quotes. The TV in the nurse's lounge was stuck on a 'Golden Oldies' TV station that only aired ancient TV shows that nobody watched anymore. Except the nurses at the hospital that is, and they constantly played around with silly quotes to brighten up the dark days. It had become a sort of a secret lingo only the nurses understood. Youngbae was a complete workaholic, although it would be hard to get him to admit to that, so everyone he interacted with were either nurses, doctors or patients. Jiyong guessed he should be honored to be spoken to in nurse's lingo, since that probably meant that Youngbae thought of him as a friend and not as a patient.

'Hey lazy boy, did you change it yet? ^^'

'Change it! Change it! Change it! >.<'

'I haven't heard from you in over 2 hours, didn't we agree on Every hour?!'

'Jiyong, I'm not kidding around, please answer my texts.'

'I'm getting worried, did something happen to you?'

'Please. Jiyong. If you are alright, please answer. I'm worried sick over here, but I can't leave work before my shift is over. :s'

'I've asked everyone, but we are short staffed so nobody can cover for me. Hang in there!'

'If your phone is out of batteries and that's why you're not answering, I'm seriously going to beat the crap out of you. I mean it! I'm stronger than I look.'

Jiyong's knot of guilt grew bigger with every message. Why hadn't he messaged him last night and told him they were going to sleep? The effects of the painkiller had been stronger than Jiyong had expected, there had been no time.

'Okay, if I don't hear from you in the next hour, I'm coming to check on you. Even though I'll be putting my job on the line. If I lose it and you're fine, it's on your hands!'

'55 minutes, I can't believe I'm going to do this...'

'You better be dying, you hear!'

Jiyong checked the time, the last message had been sent only a minute ago. Oh, thank heavens! He did not like his odds in a battle with a pissed off Youngbae, that was one tough little nugget. Jiyong hurried to type in a message, 'Sorry. Fell asleep. Both OK.'. Jiyong awaited the reply anxiously.

'Seriously! Jiyong! I'm so.. How is the boy's wound? Did you change the bandages?'

'Yeah. It's fine. Sorry again.' Jiyong lied. He didn't dare tell him the bandages hadn't been changed since before they fell asleep, he would definitely eat his head off. He only hoped the wound really was okay, else he would be in big trouble. Daesung did look perfectly happy, ham off the floor, so he couldn't be hurting that much, could he?

Jiyong clapped his hands, instantly getting Daesung's attention. His face was one big mess, squashed ham everywhere. Jiyong took a deep breath, “Time for a bath!”.