four ;

Hyukjae only had a fraction of second to gasp in panic when he saw a dark form jump on the road and right in front of his car before he madly pressed on the break. Clenching his eyes shut and painfully curling his fingers around the steering wheel, he waited for the collision.

It seemed to take an eternity, emphasized by the fact that he couldn’t see anything anymore. All he could hear was the horrible shriek of the tires trying to grip on the old tarmac of the road and his heart loudly thumping in his ears. He felt himself being thrown forward, his chest abruptly slamming against the seatbelt that was holding him back from going through the windscreen. He couldn’t even utter a sound despite the sudden fear that had took him and the pain spreading around his torso. The dreadful silence hovering in the car was oppressing, driving up the tension that had took him. The sounds of his ragged breathing and the loud beating of his heart were resonating all around the vehicle, too loud and too clear.

Hyukjae wasn’t even sure of what he was scared of. He was safe – he knew he was; except from a slight pain currently diminishing in his chest, he was well. Yet, the student couldn’t bear opening his eyes. They were closed so tight it almost hurt, but the student couldn’t care less than at this particular moment. What did I hit? a faint voice whispered in his head.

What did he hit? It had been too sudden and too fast for him to determine the nature of the dark form that had jumped in front of his car earlier. Although it had only been mere seconds, Hyukjae felt like it had already been hours.

And then, as he sat there, in his car and what he thought was silence, he started to hear another breathing he hadn’t before. It was weak and pained, echoing his own panicked own. Hyukjae perked his ears up, holding his breath back and tensing his whole body; the faint breathing was coming from outside. With a horrible pang of guilt, the student realized it was probably coming from the thing he had just ran into.

Hyukjae hastily unbuckled his seatbelt, his trembling hands trying to open the door of the car. Outside, the cold seemed to have dropped by some more degrees and he shuddered uncomfortably before he took cautious steps to move around the vehicle and take a look at the hurt animal. It only took him two seconds to fill up the distance from the driver door to the front of the car, and then another one to simply look up.

But at the next moment, the time itself seemed to slow down to an abrupt stop; there was a boy, laying on the road, at a few centimetres away from the car where the shock knocked him down. He was stark , shivering on the cold tarmac of the road, and looking incredibly hurt. Blood was spilling from the side of his head, over his face and down to his throat, while soft whimpers were uttered out of his slightly parted mouth. His whole figure was horribly shaking; from the cold, the pain or the shock, Hyukjae didn’t know.

In spite of the urgency of the situation, the student couldn’t help finding the boy simply gorgeous. His hair were of a familiar raven dark, falling over his forehead messily and wet with melted snow and sweat. They were sticking on his face, flawless and handsome. His features were soft and warm, while his tanned skin looked smooth and made Hyukjae crave to caress it. His chest was chiseled and sculpted while his legs were muscled and strong. The student’s eyes were avidly taking in the unconscious boy’s borderline perfection, then caught a glimpse of his bare manhood. It was thick and long, surrounded by curly dark hairs.

In another situation, Hyukjae would have spluttered in embarrassment and blushed, but at this instant, only one thought was haunting his agitated mind. He knew it couldn’t be real, that it wasn’t supposed to be possible. Yet, the boy was right there, in front of his eyes, and proving everything he used to believe wrong. He was almost taunting him, daring him to try and find a rational explanation to all this.

Hyukjae knew it was his wolf even before he even opened his eyes. The boy’s dark, beautiful blue orbs flicked open upon hearing him approach, his gaze steady despite his pained breathing. He didn’t move, staring right back at Hyukjae as if gauging the potential danger he could represent to him. There was a bunch of mixed emotions flashing in his dark orbs – some of them were pain, wariness and even despair – before he uttered a soft whimper.

With horror, Hyukjae realized that he had been ogling on a boy while he was hurt and bleeding to a possible death. Without any second thoughts, he rushed to the wolf’s – the boy’s – side and dropped down on his knees next to him to take a better look at the wound. It was dangerously large, starting from his right temple and disappearing beneath the line of his hair. Thick blood was continuously dripping out of the cut, which was covered with dirt and tiny stones, sullying his handsome face.

Worriedly biting on his lower lip, Hyukjae frowned with concern and did his best to remember the basic rules of first-aiding. Upon noticing the long shudders that were taking the raven-haired boy, and the way his eyes were threatening to shut close once again, he hurriedly took off his winter coat and draped it over his body. When he was sure he was mostly covered and hidden from the chilly wind, the student shot a last glance at the worrying wound before he took tissues out of his back pocket and firmly pressed them over it.

The boy cried out, his eyes abruptly snapping open at the sharp pain that was probably spreading through his head. He tried to struggle out of his hold, whining and grunting incoherently.

“We need to stop the bleeding!” he explained urgently, feeling guilty and panicked. “I’m so sorry – it’s all my fault –”

The blue-eyed boy grimaced but didn’t verbally respond, trying to hold back a howl of pain. His body still trembling slightly, he slowly raised a hand to his head and put it over the tissues, breathing hard as he applied the necessary pressure. His eyes then flicked to Hyukjae once again, and the latter was suddenly grateful to realize he could understand him – there, hardly glowing but definitely present, a familiar but slightly different sparkle was shining through his orbs; human comprehension was tempering the usual wildness he could see within them, telling him he understood and trusted him, somehow.

“Please,” he whimpered at this moment, pulling Hyukjae back to the urgent reality. His voice was tainted with blatant agony, sending frightened shivers through the student’s body. “Please – I need –”

“Hospital,” Hyukjae understood immediately, speaking with a sudden calmness he didn’t feel at all. “Press on the wound firmly, and I’ll bring you to the nearest hospital. Do you think you can get up? I’ll help you to move to the car.”

Without waiting for an answer, Hyukjae slipped an arm under the boy’s armpits and hauled him up. The other winced but didn’t protest, gripping on the sleeve of his shirt as he staggered his way to the car. As soon as they were in, the student grabbed a bunch of blankets at the back and carefully wrapped them around his wolf. When he was sure he was the least uncomfortable as possible, he pressed on the pedal and tried to drive to the hospital as fast as possible.

=

He wasn’t completely a wolf, but he wasn’t human, either. Lost somewhere in between, it felt as if winter and summer were meddling together into a horrible mess, sunshine and snow mercilessly battling over the dominance of his distressed mind. There was cold and intense pain everywhere he could think of, spreading through his body like frozen ice and molten lava. Trembling so hard it could have been mistaken as convulsing, the raven-haired boy craved to shut everything out of his pained world. He wanted to be in peace, to be sent back to sleep into the safe haven of slumber.

His primal instincts horribly tore at his senses, fighting with the semblance of human sanity the pain granted him. One wanted him to go back to his lupine form, soothingly murmuring that the simplicity of his mind then would make disappear everything that were trying to hurt him, while the other needed him to stay and fight for his life.

But everything was so noisy and loud. It prevented him from thinking clearly about his situation, blurring all his thoughts into a messed-up bunch of confused and bruised feelings. He wanted to cry out and tell the incoherent voices in his head to stop, but he couldn’t utter a sound. Instead, he clenched his head in his trembling hands, whimpering and inwardly begging for something that would put an end to this hell.

“What’s your name?” a restless voice rose up in the air, breaking away the infernal buzzing for a fraction of second, so fast the blue-eyed boy almost didn’t have the time to realize it.

He was sure it was going to make him mad – it disoriented him in the worst ways possible, leaving him ignorant as to what he was supposed to do. He felt helpless, deprived of any kind of issue that could help him to find back the order of things he was used to know them as. His head thumped louder, fuelling the madness that burnt his mind and made the ruckus in his head grow even louder. Pain throbbed in his temples, akin to thousands of needles sinking in his brain.

“What’s your name?” the other boy repeated, and suddenly, there was silence.

Only his voice resonated in his pained mind, bringing back the peace he was desperately yearning for. He breathed in relief, and as he whimpered softly, that familiar blissful fragrance was suddenly reaching his nostrils. It floated around in the air, slowly appeasing him as the silence continued to prevail.

“Donghae,” he finally managed to croak out. He took a deep breath, groaning as more of the delicious perfume tickled his senses and helped him a little to get back onto a known territory. “My name is Donghae.”

The boy didn’t say anything for a moment, but it was long enough to make him panic. He needed him to say something, anything, just so he could keep his head quiet.

“Donghae,” he said, then. His voice was firm, but its slight shakiness betrayed his anxiousness. The raven-haired boy – Donghae ­– managed to look at him for a second, before his eyelids dropped shut once again. “Donghae, you’re going to be fine. I promise.”

He didn’t understand any words he said except his name, but he knew it was meant to be reassuring. The voice was quiet but clear, soothing his pain away little by little.

Donghae didn’t grasp the meaning of his words, but it was really all he needed to hear.

=

The nearest hospital was thankfully far enough so most people there wouldn’t know Hyukjae, but also close enough so it didn’t take more than twenty minutes to get there. But by edging awfully close to the very limits of the authorized speed on the highways, the student had managed to reach the building in only fifteen. As soon as he had stepped in, a nurse had rushed to his sides, helping him to carry the boy – Donghae ­– to the casualty department. When he was left to the appropriate doctor, the student was told to stay in the waiting room until someone would come to inform him about his situation.

It was exactly one of the reasons why Hyukjae hated this place. Waiting was an inherent part of hospitals that gave him too much time to think about what happened, and worry about what will. He could feel restlessness eating his heart little by little, pushing him toward the limits of his sanity. The need to do something was itching at his senses, making him fidget nervously on the uncomfortable chair he was sitting on. Nurses were running around the building entrance, a feeling of emergency following them around and emphasizing the fact that he was totally helpless. All those people in white blouses were saving lives, while all he could do was stay still and wait, in hopes that everything would turn out well.

Staring at the big quote hanging on the wall in front of him, firmly stating in bright blue letters EVERYTHING IS FINE. SMILE!, Hyukjae felt the urge to throw up. Letting out a heavy sigh, he propped his elbows on his knees and agitatedly ruffled his already messy hair. A stench of sorrow and death seemed to be floating around, clumsily hidden behind the disinfectant products. All that could be heard were cries and whimpers of pain, desperate pleas for relief, while hurt and sick people could be seen everywhere he looked. Hyukjae almost felt as if he had been waiting for an eternity already. Seeing people walk in and out of the hospital, pacing back and forth in front of him, the student lost the notion of time. He was only blankly staring at a random point in front of him, inwardly begging for someone to come up and tell him that Donghae was fine.

Therefore, when a nurse walked up to him half an hour later, wearing a distracted smile on her face as if to say that she had better things to do than talk to him, and told him that Donghae’s wound had been treated, Hyukjae couldn’t have been more relieved. He hastily got up, drinking up her words as she told him which room he could find him in. She also said that the injured boy had been heavily sedated which meant he probably wouldn’t wake up until next morning, and that Hyukjae should probably go home and take a rest instead of waiting for him to wake up all night. But the student only ignored her, curtly bowing his head at her and thanking her with a mumble, before he was rushing through the hallways to find Donghae.