[CONTENTID3]Depression In Five Stages[/CONTENTID3]

[CONTENTID2]Bargain[/CONTENTID2]

[CONTENTID1]

“You have to eat, Mir!” Chanyeol poked at his lips with a spoon ladled with thick oatmeal. But Mir was too busy thinking of all the things he could have done. It had been playing over and over in his head, these past few days, perhaps weeks – how long had it been? What could he possibly have done to stop Joon from leaving? Risen in a zombie like state and given his life to stop Joon from being dragged away? Not likely to have worked. Said something about Joon just being a mere soldier like himself, and that he was only captain because the other one had died? Nah, his insignia said otherwise. His favorite, really, was just not getting stabbed in the first place. Would have been better for everyone…

“No I don’t! I’m on a hunger strike. And I don’t even like oatmeal!”

“Stop being such a child, you’ve been at war for two and a half years, man up!” Chanyeol almost laughed, smearing oatmeal over Mir’s lips.

“No!” Mir whined, “I want my Joon back!”

“Shhh!” Chanyeol looked frantic, dropping the spoon back into the bowl, “I warned you about that, didn’t I? You don’t want to be discovered do you?”

“Yeah, like you do such a good job of keeping your attraction to Baekhyun under wraps,” Mir rolled his eyes as Chanyeol blushed bright red all the way to his ears.

“Shut up!” he whispered harshly, “There is nothing between me and Baekhyun!”

“Which is why you are always buying him gifts and helping him with things he already knows how to do?”

“I’m just being nice!”

“Riiiiight. And he stares at your backside all the time just for medical purposes, I’m sure?”

“He does?” Chanyeol perked up, but Mir simply sighed.

“Chanyeol. They haven’t officially told us Joon is dead, right? So he’s out there somewhere. You were the one who told me that you and everyone here cares about my health. I won’t be eating anything until someone does something,” he threatened, but Chanyeol didn’t pay him any mind,

“Mir I’ve told you a thousand times, Joon is gone. He might as well be dead, you’ll never see him again no matter what you or I do. Ruining your own health and chances of survival will do nothing to change that. You need to stop thinking about it, realize you need to move on, perhaps find someone else? I have a couple contacts…”

“No Chanyeol –“ Chanyeol took this opportunity to shove a spoonful of oatmeal into his mouth.

“Then I will get people to force feed you until you regain your senses,” Chanyeol sternly held out another spoon heaped with oatmeal, the expression not fitting his features. Mir stared from the spoon to Chanyeol’s face and back to the spoon again before he finally gave in…for now.

--

The pain in his chest grew as he dropped the twelve feet from his hospital bedroom window to the dusty hard packed earth road beneath. The sword at his side, pilfered from the pile of his belongings in a locked cupboard of the hospital, clattered lightly as it brushed the ground. Quick hands stilled the ringing rattle that could alert, well, anyone to his presence. He had to make this quick and get back to his room before he was discovered. Scampering beneath an overhang, clinging to the shadows, he made his way to the center of the capital city. He had only been here a few tim