“If you don’t mind… Could you wait here?” JongHyun asked Key when they’d reached the waiting room in the ICU unit. He really wanted to be alone with TaeMin during his visit.

            “Sure, I’ll wait here,” Key agreed. He disconnected their hands (much to his displeasure) and sat in the chair closest to the magazine pile. In a couple seconds he had last month’s edition of Vogue opened on his lap and was studying the latest trends and styles.

            JongHyun smiled at the vision since it brought back memories of their first encounter.

            After one last look to his new boyfriend, JongHyun set off for TaeMin’s room. The hallway was long – taunting even – as he made his way down. A part of him begged to turn around and run out the sliding doors, but he pressed on even though it had been hard looking at TaeMin hooked up to all those machines the first time he’d come here. He had just looked so small and frail… So pale…

            The door with TaeMin’s name engraved onto the bronze name plate on it was the only thing blocking JongHyun from seeing his childhood friend. Pushing it open he was met with not only TaeMin, but MinHo as well. The tall boy was hunched over the bed, his head resting on TaeMin’s legs. One of his hands was laced with his fingers like he was holding on to the last thing he had in his life.

            “MinHo?” JongHyun asked quietly. He shook the boy lightly to get him to wake.

            The younger boy started out of his cat nap, his head whipping around frantically as he tried to locate the source of the voice. When his bug eyes landed on JongHyun his whole body seemed to slump in disappointment.

            He had probably thought I was TaeMin, JongHyun thought guiltily.

            “Have you been here all night?” he asked, cautiously moving towards TaeMin’s bed.

            MinHo sighed heavily, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. “Yeah… I didn’t want him to be alone on Christmas morning…” he said.

            A stab of pain hit JongHyun hard in the chest. The world must have been playing darts on his body. His heart was the bull’s eye and the dart had hit him dead center. He’d avoided TaeMin for so long despite claiming to be his best friend and here MinHo was staying overnight just because he didn’t want him to be lonely.

            One look at TaeMin’s paper white face and this current thought in mind, the tears pushed to JongHyun’s eyes.

            “Do you mind giving us a moment alone?” he asked. He kept his voice very soft, worried that he would give away his true feelings if he spoke at a normal volume.

            “Sure… I have to pee anyway…” MinHo passed a hand through his dishevelled hair. He gave one last look at TaeMin – taking in his face like it was the last time he’d be able to look at it – before leaving the room.

            Alone with TaeMin, JongHyun was really able to absorb the gravity of the situation. Wires hooked TaeMin up to a variety of different machines so they could monitor his vital signs. The tube pumping his lung for him hung out of his open mouth lifelessly. It was a depressing sight that made nausea rise up to JongHyun’s mouth. He was all but a bag of bones surviving on the artificial life all these anaesthetics and apparatuses were providing for him.   

            The chair MinHo had previously occupied was warm as JongHyun sat in it. He picked up TaeMin’s hand so he wouldn’t feel alone after all that company he’d had during the night.

            Everything JongHyun was feeling suddenly blew up in a surge of uncontrollable emotions. He gave the younger’s hand a squeeze before speaking. “Remember when we were little? I think I was, like, twelve and we had a fight because you were having a growth spurt and I didn’t like that you were getting taller than me… God, it was such a stupid fight… I remember thinking that I hated you for being half an inch taller… I don’t know how I managed to fall in the pool after that, but you saved me from drowning. Of course, you squealed to my father and he had to jump in the pool to come save me in his new suit… It seems like even then we were always fighting…” He shook his head in an attempt to get himself back on track. “Point is, you saved me from drowning… In not just water, but in the stress of my bills and school and when I had that fight with my father…” On the last word JongHyun’s voice cracked. His free hand shot to his mouth in a desperate attempt at keeping back his cries. The unfairness of TaeMin’s illness was hitting him hard and all in one blow. “Now you’re drowning… And I-I can’t do anything to save…” he managed to choke out before the sobs started up.

            They came hard. JongHyun felt his whole body shake as he was convulsed by his cries. So much for staying strong for TaeMin, he thought. Self-loathing settled in.

            “Why did it have to be you?” he asked to no one in particular.

            He prayed for a miracle to happen. Couldn’t TaeMin twitch a little? Could he not just breathe on his won? Open his eyes? Why couldn’t he get up and roll out of the hospital in a wheel chair like old time – smiling and laughing while complaining about how hospitals were stuffy and that they should buy him banana milk to help clear his sinuses?

            “Why couldn’t it be me instead of you?” JongHyun asked. He lowered his head until it hit the soft mattress of the hospital bed. For what felt like a long time he rested there, letting his tears fall to stain the plain, light blue threads of the sheet.

            The walls JongHyun has built up for weeks now crumbled like the twin towers had when being struck by that air plane. Crashed down to the ground and crumbling in on itself in a jumbo cloud of dust that suffocated what little was left of JongHyun’s happiness.

            He could have stayed there for hours on end had loud shouts not have risen from somewhere outside the room. There was a loud crash that suggested something had been tipped over.

            “Don’t! It’s you! I-I’m going to call the cops! NO! Don’t – don’t touch me!” It didn’t take a bachelor in health sciences for JongHyun to recognize Key’s voice.

            He was torn between staying with TaeMin and going to help his boyfriend. In the end, he decided that helping Key was more urgent. He swiped sloppily at his face as he raced out to the waiting room; ready to face off with whatever or whoever it was assaulting Key.

            He was expecting to see someone big. Maybe a biker going insane on a doctor while security and nurses tried to hold him down so they could get the mirror out of his side or something of the sort. What he saw, though, was definitely not what he had been expecting. Key was cowering in a corner like a beaten child, on the verge of tears, while MinHo tried to slowly advance on him. His large eyes had widened trice, giving him the look of a deer in head lights. Every visible muscle in his body was taut and ready to spring on a moment’s notice.

            “Get away!” Key shrieked.

            “Just hear me out!”

            “No! I’ve heard enough!”

            The nurses tried to intervene so the peace of the waiting room could be kept. They didn’t want any of the patients getting panicked – in this section of the hospital especially. Their feeble attempts at calming either of the boys proved to be fruitless. All they did was say in their quiet nurse voices to please settle down as they were too afraid to actually do any of the intervening.

            Even though JongHyun and Key hadn’t even been a couple for a full two hours yet he still nurtured that deep feeling of protection for the younger guy. This passionate emotion was what led him to be the wall between him and MinHo. He put his back towards Key, holding his quivering hand between his, and squared up to the frightened boy in front of him.

            “What did you do to Key?” he asked suspiciously.

            “I-I didn’t do anything!” MinHo blurted a little too quickly.

            “H-he’s the one who – who robbed the story a-and beat me up!” Key yelled. His voice broke off into hysterical sobs. That one night’s events came rushing back to him a blur of images that made his temples pound horrifically. At any given second he was sure he could just collapse. It was like there was a sledge hammer repeatedly pounding down onto his face and all he could do was watch as blood poured out of his orifices and his bones shifted and cracked beneath the pressure of the blows.

            His mind replayed the postcard stand tipping over and his ribs being jabbed by the thin metal bars. Those fists flying into his face; the knee slamming down hard on his wrist. The sickening cracked that ensued. The happy jingling of the bells as he ran out with all the money packed firmly in his hands.

            “MinHo? No, he couldn’t be…” JongHyun stuttered. He peeked over his shoulder to Key who had tears streaking down his face then back to MinHo whose every feature was displaying an absolute sense of horror.

            “You know him?” Key asked.

            “That’s TaeMin’s boyfriend…”

            “N-no… It can’t be! That’s the g-guy that – that! H-he’s the one, I swear he is! I wouldn’t forget that face!” Key screamed.

            “Calm down, Key… Let’s try to get this straightened out,” JongHyun said. Despite his best attempts at keeping cool the tremor in his voice gave away just how nervous he was. If it turned out to be true and MinHo was the guy Key claimed to be, he didn’t know how he would react.

            “MinHo… Tell me this isn’t true…” JongHyun whispered.

            The look of desperation turned to JongHyun. MinHo’s mouth moved like a fish’s gasping for air as he tried to stutter out a response. How could he reveal his darkest secret to his boyfriend’s best friend? And how could he reveal that his darkest secret seemed to involve his boyfriend’s best friend boyfriend? The truth had to be let out, though. MinHo would finally have to face the consequences of his actions… Even if it would take him away from his love. If this was the way it was going to be, MinHo rather see himself being taken away so he could save TaeMin from his horribleness.

            “I can’t…” he whispered alas. “I-it’s true…”

            World War II couldn’t compare to the ultimate battle JongHyun was facing at that moment. He looked at Key – thought about all that he’d been through to get him. Everything that had happened with them just so they could get to the spot they were in now.

            Then he looked at MinHo… His best friend’s boyfriend. The guy he’d had suspicions about from day one. Who had nearly beaten someone to death all to get money.

            Which side JongHyun choose turned out to be a simple decision.

            “You’re the one who put Key in the hospital? You’re the one who robbed Onew hyung’s store?” he demanded. His eyes narrowed towards the taller boy and he got a pleasure from seeing the pain contorting MinHo. When he bowed his head it only served to fuel the anger raging inside JongHyun. Like a forest fire in the middle of drought season it spread through every one of his limbs and made him see red. He was livid and as he advanced on MinHo it was quite obvious to tell that he was.

            “Who the hell are you?!” JongHyun bellowed. “You’ve been dragging TaeMin’s heart around like you’re the best person in the world while you’ve been hiding… This! You’re a criminal! I bet you had plans to do the same thing to TaeMin, huh?”

            “I-I would never do that to TaeMin…” MinHo whispered. It didn’t matter if JongHyun heard him or not since at this point he was surely not going to listen to anything he was saying. If JongHyun had been listening, though, he might have heard the sincerity that dripped from each syllable. Hell, tears had even begun slipping out of the corners of his eyes at the mere thought of doing to TaeMin what he had done to Key.

            “I’m calling the cops! You’re not getting away with this,” JongHyun threatened.

            “Please don’t… T-TaeMin, what if he-”

            “TaeMin would have been better off never meeting you.”

            His words came as a hard slap to MinHo’s face. He might as well have had water dumped on his face and had a belt connect with his skin. He could do nothing but succumb to his fate after that. He watched with sullen eyes as JongHyun talked with nurses and police officers. A man he suspected was the owner of the store he’d infiltrated rushed into the waiting room in frenzy. He watched him console Key who looked worn out. The effeminate boy couldn’t even look in his direction. Not even when the nurses walked around him and handed him water or when JongHyun placed himself at his side…

            None of it mattered, though.

            As handcuffs were clipped around his wrists MinHo glanced over his shoulder. He stared at the hallway leading to TaeMin’s room. His heart heavy in his chest, he whispered a silent apology to the dying boy in his head and promised he’d be back to see him before he was taken away from the earth.