"I'm Choi Junhong." This boy could not be seventeen, standing taller than Yongguk with a baby face and a mop of bleach blonde hair. All his teeth showed when he smiled. "It's nice to meet you, Hyung."
    Yongguk groaned, leaning against the wall near the door. Doctor Kwon had left them to get to know each other while he went to go handle some business. Yongguk just wanted to go home, already.
    "Are you going to be working here now?" Junhong asked. He stood awkwardly beside the bed in his too large hospital gown with his IV pole, fluids pumping into his arm.
    "Volunteering." Yongguk responded, looking up at the kid. He didn't even look sick, standing there looking at Yongguk with that bright smile. 
    "Oh.." That smile faded just a little bit and he sat down on the bed. "You're from the Corrections place, aren't you? You've got to help out here cause you got in trouble. Doctor Kwon told me about you."
    Yongguk glowered at the boy, but Junhong continued to look at him, unphased. He continued to speak with a shrug of his shoulders. "You can call me Zelo, by the way, everyone else does."
    Yongguk huffed and rolled his eyes. Zelo watched him do this, but didn't show any signs of being upset with the older boy's rude behavior. Instead, he just continued to smile and watch Yongguk.
    "How did you get in trouble, Hyung?" Zelo asked, his lips pursing into a cute expression, not that Yongguk would ever admit he thought so.
    "I got caught." He responded with a clearing of his throat and looked away from Junhong again.
    Zelo, as he wanted to be called, chuckled, leaning back against the pillows on the bed to make himself comfortable. He scratched at the tape around his IV. "What did you get caught doing?"
    Yongguk started for a moment, opening his mouth to speak. The words to explain just wouldn't come to him and so he just shut his mouth again and looked out the window in silence. 
    Zelo took the hint, and changed the subject again. "It's called Glioblastoma." 
    Yongguk looked up at him, blank faced. Zelo had his head resting on his knees now, leaning forward on the bed and looking at Yongguk with a dazed smile on his face. "The tumor. Glioblastoma. Fun to say, not so fun to have."
    "You're really joking about cancer right now?" Yongguk's voice fell flat, his  harsh glare directed right at Zelo, who only shrugged and looked back at him with that smile still on his face.
    "It's just the truth." He played with a strand of his hair as he responded to the older boy.
    "I will never understand kids these days.." he muttered to himself.
    "Yah.." Zelo whined and pouted. "I'm not a kid. I'm almost eighteen."
    "That's a kid to me, Kid." Yongguk chuckled a little when he said this, watching the way Zelo responded to the teasing. The kid's face turned pinkish and his lips curled down, taking his puffy cheeks with them into a cherrub-like frown.
    Zelo huffed and crossed his arms over his chest. He stared out the window in a childish fit, but this only lasted for about two minutes and then he was smiling again and talking to Yongguk about things the older boy wasn't even listening to.
    Yongguk hadn't even realized that Zelo had been talking until he stopped. The sudden silence made him look back from staring out the window. Zelo had picked up a notebook and started drawing in it. 
    Yongguk watched this for a few minutes, waiting for Zelo to look up at him or start talking again, but it never happened. Zelo had begun to act as if Yongguk wasn't even in the room, which bothered Yongguk to no end. Not only was it annoying, but it was just  plain rude. With a huff, Yongguk pushed off the wall and walked closer to the kid.
    "What you writing?" He asked, leaning over to look. 
    Zelo ignored him. He continued to write in his book, but he angled the pages so that Yongguk couldn't see what was written on them.
    "Is it a secret?" Yongguk asked again.
    Still no answer.
    "Yah, brat. I'm talking to you." He finally snapped, and that made Zelo look up. Yongguk immediately regretted snapping. Though the smile was still planted firmly on the boy's face, Yongguk could see a very familiar emotion in the boy's eyes. Plain as day. Fear, written in big bold letters behind the dark brown veils. 
    "You weren't listening to me, so I decided to do something else." Zelo had paused for a moment before he spoke, his lips, and then started writing in his book again. 
    Yongguk frowned, "I was too listening."
    "What was the last thing I said to you?"
    Yongguk growled, his frown deepening. He his lips and tried to think. Had it been something about food? Or possibly his family? He just couldn't remember. "Um..."
    Zelo rolled his eyes and looked back down at his notebook. "It's alright, Hyung. I'm used to it."
    Yongguk didn't know what to say to that. He wanted to apologize, but saying sorry wasn't something that he did. Ever. In the end, he just repeated his earlier question.
    "What are you drawing?" His voice was softer than before, trying to make up for being so disinterested before.
    "Nothing, really." Zelo's lips turned down into a frown as he scratched something out and rewrote it. "I'm writing."
    "Writing what?" Yongguk tried again to look at the page, but Zelo hid it from his view.
    "I'm not ready for anybody to see it yet." He told the older, a sense of urgency in his voice. 
    Yongguk sighed and walked to the chair beside the bed, sitting in it. "But what is it?"
    "Lyrics."
    "You write lyrics?" Yongguk tilted his head to the side, looking at Zelo. 
    Zelo shrugged, reading over what he'd just written. "It's nothing special. It's probably not even good, but it's fun."
    Yongguk nodded. "I write my own raps."
    Zelo's head shot up. "You rap? Like...in public?"
    Yongguk couldn't even try not to laugh at how cute Zelo looked, deer caught in headlights expression stuck on his face.
    He nodded. "On stage. In front of people."
    Zelo's jaw dropped and he just stared at Yongguk for a while. "That's  the coolest thing ever, hyung! Can I hear you rap?"
    Unprepared, the question caught Yongguk a bit off guard. "Ah..um.." He stuttered out, searching  his mind for something, but drawing a blank. "Maybe another time, yeah?" He muttered out. "I'll prepare something for you, kay?"
    Zelo nodded so forcefully, his blonde curls flew all over the place. He giggled, fixing his hair back into place and attempting to flatten it down on his head unsuccessfully.
    Yongguk watched Zelo, a knot growing in the pit of his stomach. Zelo was smiling again, running his fingers through his bright yellow hair and looking up as if he were trying to see the strands. He was completely ignoring Yongguk again, absorbed into his own little world. 
    Yongguk was fine with letting the kid play by himself. He had grown bored with the conversation anyway. He pulled out his phone to check his messages. 'Three unread messages' flashed at the top of his screen above a picture of a beautiful red haired girl in a black dress. Two from Himchan and one from his twin brother. 
    He opened the message from his brother first. 
    'It's mom's birthday tomorrow so don't forget to go see her ok?' Yongguk held back a physical groan. He'd forgotten completely. He typed back a quick reply that only said 'Ok.' and then moved on to Himchan's messages.
    The first one read. 'This is ing crazy ive got to watch  this mental kid for three months?! me...' and the second one was similar. 'Seriously... this kid is ed up I thought theyd give me something like a depressed kid or a suicidal kid..but this creep ing sees dude i did not sign up for this .'
    Yongguk chuckled a little at Himchan's messages and shot back a reply. 'That's got to be more interesting that me. I'm stuck in a room with a little kid watching him draw.'
    He hit the send button and then looked back up. He jumped in his seat when he found Zelo looking at him. The boy was hugging his legs, resting his chin on his knees, and watching Yongguk like he was the most interesting thing in the room.
    "What?" Yongguk asked, looking behind him, just in case the kid was staring at something else. "What are you looking at?"
    Zelo smiled again, the corners of his lips turning up softly. "You're really handsome when you smile, Hyung."
    Yongguk's eyes widened and he coughed, standing up from the chair he was sitting in. "Wh..what? no..um..wait..what?"
    A pink tint began to coat Zelo's cheeks and he looked away from the older man, chewing on his lip. "I just meant..you..look really nice when you smile..you haven't smiled the entire time you've been here with me...until just now...looking at your phone.."
    Yongguk sighed, sitting back down in his chair. His heart slowed and climbed back down out of his throat. He looked at the phone in his hand.
    "Yeah, that was just my friend, Himchan. He was telling me about the kid they've got him watching upstairs." Yongguk offered the information as a change of subject.
    Zelo nodded. "He's in trouble, like you?"
    "Yeah."
    "It's nice that you both get to do your community service at the same place."
    "Yeah."
    Silence spilled into to the room. Yongguk's phone buzzed again, but he didn't check the message. He just stared at the screen and avoided looking back up at Zelo.
    Zelo sat on the bed, looking at the door. Every now and then he would glance at Yongguk, but neither of them said anything until Doctor Kwon came back in the room.
    "Have you two been getting along?" He asked the two boys.
    Zelo's smile returned as Yongguk looked up from his phone. Zelo nodded, his curls flying again. "Yup!"
    Doctor Kwon looked at Yongguk with an eyebrow raised, but said nothing. He turned to Zelo and picked up the clipboard hanging at the foot of the bed.
    "You've got to go get your head scanned again in a few hours." He told him. "Your brother should be here by then."
    Zelo nodded.  Yongguk, who had been staring at the door, looked over at Zelo suddenly. He seemed to recall something about a brother, maybe Zelo had said it when Yongguk wasn't listening. Yongguk's chest clenched again, but he ignored it and focussed again on the doctor.
    Zelo waved goodbye to Yongguk, smile still on his face, and told him that he couldn't wait to see him again, before Yongguk followed Doctor Kwon out of the room.
    He then spent the next three hours cleaning the ward. He cleaned the three new empty rooms, the break room, the desk, and even tidied the waiting room up. He continued to text with Himchan, and even met up with him in the hospital cafeteria. He helped with the other patients and one oft he nurses attempted to flirt with him. He didn't go back in Zelo's room for the rest of the day.