“He’s stable,”

All at once a wave of relief washes over us. There are sighs as breaths that were kept in with tense worry at released like grateful gusts of wind.

“He’s stable,” The Doctor repeats; his voice slow and heavy as if the knowledge in his head is a weight that rests directly on his vocal cords. “But we still need to monitor his condition closely. He may need a blood transfusion but it doesn’t seem likely.”

“Can we go and see him?” I ask quickly, my eyes already focusing towards the metal door.

“As long as you don’t overwhelm him; he’s still very fragile,” The doctor warns, “I don’t even think it would be a good idea for six of you to be in there at once…”

“We’ll be on our best behaviour Doctor,” Suho promises, and the rest of the boys all nod earnestly.

“We won’t make a sound,” Chanyeol does the motion of zipping up his lips.

A vague tired smile fills the Doctors features and he nods, waving us forward with one of his arms.

“Best behaviour, remember,” He says, before disappearing down the corridor.

“We shouldn’t stay for that long,” Suho murmurs, “We don’t want to overwhelm him like the Doctor said,”

Kyungsoo takes my hand and squeezes it. I look into his eyes; they’re wide with worry and a shadow of something like fear. Probably of what he’s going to find when we step into the room. I squeeze his hand back.

Suho pushes open the door.

The room is quiet except for the repetitive beeps of a machine. I hate the sound of them; it sounds as though they’re helplessly counting down to an inevitable event and I keep thinking that it’s going to flat line at any second. Just one steady long beat, taking away my life as well as his.

There’s a nurse fiddling with the fluid bag connected to Jongin’s hand and fixing the covers on his bed. We all awkwardly crowd into the room and wait for her to finish. Eventually she appears satisfied with the result and steps back, giving us our first full view of Jongin.

 Jongin is a dancer. Even when he’s waiting at the bus stop or in the lunch line, one of his legs is always tapping along to some invisible beat. He finds it impossible to stand still, he’ll always find some excuse to walk around or pace about the room and even those few times I’ve lay beside him in bed, his hand is either always my hair or his foot is fidgeting somehow.

So to see him now, so utterly still and lifeless in the bed hits me like a physical slap to the face. He’s lying on his back with his arms beside him and if it wasn’t for the visible rise and fall of his chest, I’d almost believe he wasn’t breathing. His broad shoulders and stark collarbones peek out from underneath the bed sheet. His injured arm is carefully laying on top, all neatly and tightly bandaged.

I take a deep breath, blink hard and grab the two nearest hands either side of me, pulling them to the bed with me. They happen to be Suho and Baekhyun, both with looks of shocks upon their strained faces.

Up close, I can see dark shadows around Jongin’s eyes, evidence of the trauma his body has been through. On closer inspection I can several scratches on his neck and even a faint scar just below his ear.

“What has he been doing?” Baekhyun whispers, his eyes tracing the marks on Jongin’s skin.

Hesitantly, I reach out and run my fingers through his hair. It’s not as soft as usual so I know it hasn’t been washed in a couple of days. His eyebrows, eyelashes and hair are a dark contrast to his ghostly pale face. It’s as if someone has the gold tint out of his skin, leaving it washed out and worn.

“Look at him,” Kyungsoo whispers. He doesn’t need to say anything else; that one phrase is enough to register with all of us.

“At least we know he’s stable,” Sehun says shakily and Suho nods, his jaw tight.

“Yeah…” Chanyeol says but he doesn’t sound convinced. And neither am I.

Jongin is full of life and passion and dumb jokes and kind words. Stable is not something that relates well to him.

I take one of his limp hands in my own. My eyes refuse to leave his face for even a second, should he choose that moment to open his eyes. I want to be one of the first things he sees when he opens his eyes, to show him I’m waiting and I’ll always be waiting. Enough for both of us.

Suho pulls Kyungsoo forward to stand beside the bed. For a while Kyungsoo just stares down at Jongin as if he’s turned to stone. He’s a neat creamy soft skinned statue that stands loyally beside his best friend’s hospital bed. He carefully takes Jongin’s hand and holds it for a second, gazing down at it. I wonder what’s going through his head, if he is indeed even thinking of anything. His eyes travel slowly up Jongin’s body, almost as if he has to drag them, before they rise to Jongin’s face.

Eventually he speaks; a pure and simple sentence full of so much suppressed emotion.

“Be okay Jongin. Please.”

Then he lays down Jongin’s hand back down on to the covers and steps back. Chanyeol squeezes his shoulder.

Sehun steps forward and his mouth is parted in shock as he looks at his dance partner.

“J-Jongin-ah,” He stammers shakily, almost as if he can’t quite believe it’s him. “G-Get better soon. Dance class isn’t the same without you, so you need to come back soon. Who else will I dance with?”

He says it like a lost child, and so genuinely that it’s clear to see he can’t imagine being able to dance with anyone else.

“Yeah get better soon we all need you Jongin,” Chanyeol says, trying to smile down at the form on the bed, but even that is pained and forced.

“We’re lost without you,” Baekhyun says helplessly, his eyebrows furrowed.

I sit in the arm chair beside Jongin’s bed and take the hand of his uninjured arm. I bring it to my cheek and close my eyes. His hand is warm and I can just feel his pulse, beating with the promise of life.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you Jongin,” I hear Suho whisper.

“We’re all here now,” I whisper, “That’s what matters.”

I feel Chanyeol’s heavy arm around my shoulders.

We stay in that room for hours, like a silent vigil around Jongin’s bed. I stay with his hand against my cheek, eyes closed, just breathing in his scent. Baekhyun and Sehun sit with their backs to the wall, mumbling softly to each other. Suho let’s Kyungsoo take the other available arm chair and stands behind him, gazing sadly at Jongin. The nurses and Doctors that come in frequently to check on Jongin’s vitals seem surprised at how silent we are. I think that’s why they allow is to stay for so long.

“Maybe you should talk to him Ara,” Kyungsoo says softly, “I’m sure he’d like to hear your voice.”

My first instinct is to say ‘can he even hear me?’ but then I remember Jongin’s just unconscious. He looks so blank. I keep forgetting he’s ‘stable’.

I look at his pale face with the dark shadows on his eyes. Naturally my hand comes up to one of his cheeks.

“Hey Jongin,” I say softly. What I wouldn’t give for him to open his eyes and reply. No, no crying. He’s fine. He’s just sleeping. Get it together, “We’ve all missed you so much. More than I can put into words. I can’t even remember what I’ve been doing for the past couple of weeks, everything’s just been a blur,” I give a soft laugh; “You see what a big impact you make in our lives? If you didn’t see it before, then you’ll see it now when you wake up. I think you underestimate your importance to each and every one of us. If you knew how much it would hurt us when you left, I don’t think you would have.” I let my head drop on to his hand that I’m holding, so my voice is all muffled. Tears are threatening to spill but I just can’t stop talking. My body has cut off the cord from my vocal box to my brain and redirected it to my heart. “At least that’s what I kept hoping. I kept hoping you’d come back with a silly reason as to why you left like, I don’t know, like ‘you needed to think about things,’ or ‘you didn’t want to hurt me anymore’ or some other protective , see like I would have been able to handle that Jongin. I would have shouted at you and set you straight and told you you were an idiot for leaving, and to never do it ever again. But then you appeared on my doorstep in that state and all that’s in my mind is how you even made it to our apartment block, how you even made it up the stairs. How you must have stumbled and fell and crawled yourself down the hallway. How you didn’t even have the energy to knock on the door. How it feels like you dragged yourself to my doorstep to say goodbye because you thought you wouldn’t make it,” The cotton bed sheet is drenched in tears and pain. I raise my head to look at his beautiful face. “So I just really need you to wake up right now. I need you to open your eyes and smile at me and tell me to stop being silly and crying over you because you’re fine. And I need you to tell me you were stupid for leaving and that you’ll always stay by my side like you promised.”

My tears are like a thick screen before my eyes, making everything blurry, so at first I think I’m imagining things. But then I open my eyes wide and it’s true.

His eyes are open; clear smouldering brown eyes are looking at me again just like they used to. His lips part and his tongue darts out to sliver some moisture on the cracked pink skin. I can’t even speak; the sight of seeing him awake has ended the torrent of speech like someone pulled the cord.

Slowly his lips open wider and his voice, faint and hoarse but still recognisable as his own, enters the room, and I treasure each syllable. I lean right over his face, still holding his hand tight and the tears still falling down my face.

“S-Stop being silly,” The effort to speak causes the breath to hitch in his voice. I go to stop him but the determined look in his eyes shows me he won’t be deterred. “S-Stop being silly. And stop…crying over me.” The hand that I’m holding twitches in my grasp, the finger tips slowly unfurling and coming to rest over my cheeks. With a huge effort, Jongin uses his thumb to methodically wipe away each of my tears, his gaze focused. I lean into his touch sobbing quietly. “Because…I’m fine.”

The boys crowd around the bed, each needing to see Jongin’s eyes open with their own eyes to confirm that he’s truly awake.

“I was stupid for leaving,” With each word his voice gets stronger and the light in his eyes burns brighter with each second like a flame gathering fuel. His eyes flicker over all of his friends standing beside his bed, and they soften as he finally realises what he means to them. To all of us. “I was stupid for leaving. And I promise I’ll always stay by your side.” His eyes drift back to me, “Always,”

And then, slowly but surely, the smile that I love more than anything slowly lights up his features. It’s like the sun is coming out in his body, even his skin is getting that golden lustre back and it seems to have a palpable warm effect in the room. I commit that smile to memory, remembering how it felt when I thought I would never see it again.

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A/N: Whassup honeybugs, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Jongin is okay, woooo! Thanks so much for your comments and up votes it means so much! I've written a Kris one shot and opened up a recommendation list that you guys shoud check out! Take care <3