He didn’t go to the hospital.

“He went out on a dangerous call. They said something about hostages and whatever. There was an explosion, and he got shot a few times because he gave his vest to one of the hostages.”

“He’s still in the ICU. He’s having trouble breathing by himself. The burns are…”

“HakYeon-ah, when are you coming? Please call me back…”

HakYeon deleted the voice mails after he listened to them. SeJung’s wavering voice did nothing to reassure him. He didn’t even bother with the bundles of text messages that flooded his notifications. He just swiped them away and dropped his phone to the floor.

The shock was still apparent, that was for sure. More than the slightly mortifying fact that it had been the second time HakYeon melted into a mass of tears at his workplace, the violent millisecond explosions of vivid color that burst through HakYeon’s blurred vision jarred his coherent thoughts. He was already stumbling into his room in his apartment before he even realized he had left.

Now he was jammed into his corner again, balled up tightly to hold himself together. But he kept his eyes trained on the stack of his paintings set against the wall. The colors were back, but they wavered, sometimes blurring together and sometimes fading to de-saturated hues. HakYeon would hold his breath until they steadied again.

He couldn’t keep track of the days that went by. In order to ensure that he’d be able to check the colors – to make sure TaekWoon was still alive – he always kept the light on in his room. He phased in and out of sleep, never sure of how long he slept or what time it happened to be.

His phone rang. It shocked him out of his doze, and he picked it up without thinking.

“Hello?” His voice was still strange.

Obviously, the person on the other side wasn’t expecting him to answer. There was a bit of a shuffle before the voice came through from the other side. “Hello? HakYeon-ah?”

“SeJung-noona…”

“Oh my God, finally. I’ve been so worried about you, too. You never called me back or replied to my messages, and I rarely leave the hospital, so I didn’t know if you…”

She trailed off. HakYeon tried to clear his throat. “TaekWoon is… How is he?”

“He’s doing better, actually. He sort of woke up the other day, and they said if he does well overnight, they may move him from ICU.”

“Oh…”

They lapsed into silence again.

“HakYeon-ah.” SeJung’s voice seemed small. “When will you come here?” HakYeon didn’t reply. “I know it must be scary, but please… I know TaekWoon wants to see you, too. When he wakes up, he’s always looking around like he’s looking for someone. I know he wants to see you. HakYeon, please.”

“Noona… I…” HakYeon gritted his teeth. “I want to, but…”

“I know, HakYeon. It has to be so scary for you. I’ll go with you, if you want me to.”

“No, noona, I just… I’ll go. Just not right now. I’m sorry.”

He needed to get himself together before he could even think of seeing TaekWoon. HakYeon had almost never budged from his corner, only pushing himself up to stumble to the bathroom and sometimes to the kitchen to force down water. Food was beyond his capabilities at the moment, but it would do no good for anyone if HakYeon dragged himself over to the hospital looking like a zombie.

It was still another day or two – or three? – before HakYeon could manage to convince himself to go to the hospital. He had already texted SeJung before he set out, and she excitedly texted him back, informing him of TaekWoon’s improvement and giving him a step-by-step tutorial on how to get to TaekWoon’s room. HakYeon could already feel the anxiety building in him again.

SeJung greeted him at the elevator, her parents right behind her. Only then did HakYeon realize he hadn’t seen them at all after he met TaekWoon for the first time. Before, he would occasionally visit the family on SeJung’s invitation and sometimes stay for dinner, but it never crossed his mind to actually tell the parents about…

Wait… Did they even know about TaekWoon and HakYeon? Apparently, TaekWoon never talks.

No, SeJung is a part of the family, too. There’s no way they couldn’t know.

All of this blazed through HakYeon’s mind when he stepped out of the elevator and spotted the Jung family close by. Everyone looked worn and tired, but their expressions lit up at the familiar face.

“Ah, HakYeon-sshi.” The mother patted him affectionately. “You poor thing. You look like you haven’t eaten in days.”

He laughed nervously. It was the truth. “I’m fine, though. I hope you’ve been doing well.”

“Well… You know. But SeJung said you were coming. All of us can be at ease, hopefully.”

The parents walked past to get into an elevator, leaving the two friends alone. SeJung reached out to lightly pull on HakYeon’s sleeve.

“Come on.” Her voice was a bit hushed. “I’ll go with you.”

His heart thudded wildly deep in his chest, each step causing him to tense up more and more. He thought he might suffer from a heart attack before they would even reach TaekWoon’s room, but they stopped at a door left slightly ajar. SeJung turned to HakYeon and gave him an encouraging smile.

Even the sound of day couldn’t cut through the heavy stillness of a hospital. The bright view of the window didn’t offset the stiffness of the angles of the room. HakYeon fought to keep his gaze low until he was completely in the room. SeJung guided him from behind with her hands on his shoulders until he reached the foot of the bed. He looked up.

So maybe he didn’t look as bad as what HakYeon imagined. Maybe HakYeon didn’t imagine any state TaekWoon was in. But, out of his tough-guy uniform and donned in sterilized hospital get-up, he looked small and vulnerable. From the left side of his face down to his left arm and maybe more that was concealed by the hospital gown and sheets was raw skin, marred from burn wounds, glossy from probably the medicine, gauze wrapped in various stripes up his left arm. Smaller squares of gauze were placed on the left side of his face to keep the elastic band of an air mask from aggravating the injured skin. His breaths were short and shallow, his chest barely moving. At least he seemed to be asleep.

HakYeon wandered from the foot of the bed to TaekWoon’s right side, too afraid to touch anything in case he might upset the delicate balance everything seemed to teeter upon. But he still felt so far away, so he slowly, tentatively reached out with one hand to TaekWoon’s free hand. On the surface, maybe due to the cold room, his skin was chilled to the touch. HakYeon wrapped both of his hands around TaekWoon’s cold fingers, taking care to avoid the pulse oximeter clipped to TaekWoon’s index finger.

He thought maybe it was the odd lighting. TaekWoon’s skin never looked this way. But focusing on his own hands, HakYeon realized the color of his own skin was a bit muddled. It was like someone was playing with a slider, fading the colors in and out.

He knelt next to the bed, pressing TaekWoon’s fingers to his forehead, almost as if he was in prayer.

TaekWoon… TaekWoon…

A/N: Because I have problems with being unable to wait until I've written ahead enough before I update. I really wanted to have the next section ready (and maybe more after that) before I uploaded this chapter because I don't want to fall behind and get distracted by some other idea that will put this on the back burner again *cough*

Also, it took me a while to figure out which line to use for this chapter's title. Random fact of the day.