"Key!" I rushed over to his side, but he was already splayed out over the floor. Blood was spreading, a pool, soaking his clothes and the wood, but that wasn't the worst. The worst was, when I peeled back his shirt with shaking hands, was the dark stain of black, spreading, infecting his skin with the sickly color of the knife, still stuck in his skin. 

"Oh my god, Key, no, don't die." His eyes flickered open, and the world spun, but I was safe on my knees, safe next to the assassin who saved my life. His dark orbs met mine, and the world froze. He lifted his chin, he looked at me straight in the eyes like he was staring death in the eyes. I risked darting my eyes down to his side. Several centimeters of skin was already poisoned, and the blotch was still spreading. 

I could hear my heart, loud and slow, ringing, ringing in my ear. He blinked, and his lips curled into something that looked like a bittersweet smile. 

"No. No, you're not going to die, you're not going to die, I'm not going to let you." I don't know what to do. I don't know how.

He almost laughed, but it came out as nothing. "You're not gonna let me, sweetheart?" It was as quiet as a whisper, but it still sounded like the Key I knew. "But what if I want to?" He blinked, slower now, almost like he wanted to give up, and I don't want him to give up, I don't want him to give up. 

I swallowed, shaking my head, not daring to touch the wound, or even pull out the knife. "No. No, I don't want you to, so you won't. Okay? You won't."

Another smile, so sad. "Don't be so sure, yeah?" He closed his eyes, and let out a slow, shaking breath. 

"No, Key! You can't just... you can't just give up like this. You can't just go. What about Taemin?" Fear bubbled to the surface when  realized he wasn't moving, he was barely breathing. "What about me?" 

Nothing.

"Key," I whispered. "I... I love you." 

No response. 

No.

A spat curse was let out with a blast of breath, and a hand shoved me to the side. Too suprised, too vulnerable to expect it, I collapsed on the floor to the sounds of Xuimin muttering  "move, lover boy." When I was able to scramble back to my knees, Xuimin was kneeling next to Key, whose breaths had become barely there at all. He was testing the knife with quickened fingers, jaw set and eyes narrowed in concentration. 

"Get water," he snapped at me, without looking out. "Two doors from the right, there's a courtyard with a working well." When he sensed I wasn't moving, he snapped. "Go!" 

Shaking, I stood up and dashed out, heart in my throat, wondering if he was already gone. 

***

I was in flames.

I was in fire, surrounded, choked, trapped. Fire burned my skin away, ate at my side with hungry, burning tongues, so much so that of all the pain I had felt in my life, every single scratch and arrow gorge, everything combined was nothing to this. 

Nothing.

I wish I could just die. I wish I could just go. But I'm not. They won't let me. I can't. 

Please. 

Please, save this. I can't bear this pain. I can't. 

Let me free. 

Let me go. 

Someone leaves, and his words echo in my ears, but I can't register them, I can only focus on them, make them as large as a thousand-year oak in my mind, for pain is always worse when you set your mind to it. 

And then someone else is there, and his fingers are so cold, but when he touches the fire, it doesn't make the flame die- it is like throwing a single drop of salt water into a raging forest fire. 

He's saying something, and so I try to focus on that, I try to lean out of the fire pit to hear him. 

Stupid idiot, he's saying, and the triangle of blue flame in my side is suddenly gone.

Saying you love him doesn't heal him. 

Love? 

That person was Jonghyun. That person kneeling was Jonghyun. 

Jonghyun said he loved me. 

Love.

I love Taemin. I love him with all my burning heart. Will I be abandoning him? I will be. I don't want to abandon him. 

I want to live. 

I want to see the ocean, with her crashing waves and spotted beaches. I want to taste the wind, I want to see the spring flowers, I want to see the people I know again, I want to see that idiot again, I want to live.

I want to live. 

***

He's alive. 

He's alive.

I didn't think I'd see anything but a body when I got back, but he was there, chest rising shallowly, but rising all the same. Xuimin is pressing his fingers around the edges of the stain, the knife out and discarded on the floor. 

I run over to him, and shove the bucket of slopping water at him. He looks up at me, and with barely a nod of thanks, takes the bucket and begins washing out the narrow slash. 

He works, with slender fingers, all through the day. Chasing back the stain, trying to wash out the poison, even sliding off a layer of skin with his own knife to try to draw the poison from his blood. 

I sit, exhausted physically, mind whirling, my blood running hot, my eyes never straying from Key. Sometimes, he's completely conscious, gritting his teeth, silent tears slipping down his cheeks. And others, he's barely, but he never relaxes. He never once releases the tension from his muscles, and he never once gives up again. 

The moon is up when Xuimin, finally, turns to me. His eyes are dark, shadows stretching down. He looks at me. "I've done what I can. It's up to him, now. I can't help him fight anymore. This is his battle; this is his decision now." He sounded so tired. I'm so tired. But I can't bear to look away. I can't bear to sleep, to give up on him, to find him gone when I wake.

And so we wait. 

And so I wait.

We sit vigil all night, as the hours pass by. Key's breathing never dies, but it never does grow stronger. 

At one point, Xuimin says to me, "he's a fighter, you know. He is strong. But I do not know if he wants to stay." And after that, a long pause that lasts the night, because I can't think of anything to say.

I hope he does. 

I hope I am enough. 

Xuimin doesn't sleep, I don't sleep, Key doesn't sleep. We are locked, locked in this state of stillness, of this certain being of closeness, even if one of us if almost gone. 

I have never waited this long. I have never sat still this long, but now I feel as if I would sit here, in this dark room with chains on the walls and blood on the floor, forever, as long as I could hear Key's breaths forever. 

Key has faded into a just barely conscious state now. He's fading, but I've never known him to be anything less than a star. 

Don't go. 

Please, don't go.

It's quiet. We've been here a long time, waiting. Xuimin is silent, watching the rise and fall of Key's chest, watching the poison in my is skin that looks almost grey now, not the ugly, tar black that it was before. We are silent, and only the exhale of our breaths alerts us that the others in the room are still alive. 

I close my eyes, squeezing them shut. I feel the exhaustion immediately, but I don't want to fall asleep. But I'm so tired. I keep my eyes shut as a compromise, but all too soon I feel myself nodding off. I open my eyes wide in response, fighting off the lingering cloud, but everything's slightly fuzzy. I blink, blink again. 

When I can see clearly again, I look at Key. 

And there he is. 

Eyes wide open, clear as day. Dark and pained, but open, and looking at me.

He's awake. 

He's alive. 

Hi guys! So I know the cliffhanger in the last chapter was really mean... so I hope this (or at least the last part and the part in the middle when Dino says iloveyou) made you feel better! 

I'm so thankful for all of your comments, they really really make my day. So thank you! Also thanks so much for the upvotes like omigodilovesyouallsomuch <3

*salutes* Until the next chapter!