It took Minho approximately fifteen minutes until the guilt and regret grew too painful to bear, slowly burning him from inside out. He rolled out of bed, his actions hurried and anxious. He had screwed up big time. Jonghyun was genuine and kind and impossibly compassionate, and how had Minho treated him? Like trash. Worse still, Minho had met no one who deserved it less than him.

A lump settled in his throat.

He didn’t bother tying his shoelaces or locking the door behind him, choosing to sprint down the stairs two at a time rather than waiting for the elevator. He had already wasted so much time. Jonghyun could be anywhere by now.

Stumbling out of the building, he scanned the street the best he could, his heart knocking painfully against his ribs. It sank when he couldn’t find any sign of blond hair or anything remotely similar to Jonghyun anywhere.

Of course he wouldn’t have stayed around. No sane person would after the treatment Minho had given him.

He cursed under his breath and hurried on.

Just as he reached the corner of the street, he crashed into someone and they tumbled to the pavement in a mess of limbs.

“Minho?” he heard Jinki groan beside him.

Minho looked up to see him nearly half sitting in his lap.

“Hyung!” he breathed urgently. “Did you see Jonghyun on your way home?”

Frowning, Jinki shook his head and untangled himself from him. He stood, holding out a hand to help Minho up as well. Minho accepted it gratefully, but once on his feet he couldn’t stand still, switching his weight from one foot to the other as he glanced around.

“Minho, what’s going on?” Jinki asked, eyeing him suspiciously as Minho moved around him to continue down the street.

“I don’t have time to explain now,” he said. “I’ll talk to you later.”

Ignoring Jinki's confused call after him, he turned and sprinted away, swerving in-between people, and narrowly avoiding crashes a few times, not even stopping to apologise, only shouting ‘Sorry!’ over his shoulder as he continued his search for Jonghyun.

It wasn’t until he stopped at an intersection, trying to decide which street to take, that his brain caught up to him.

Searching the streets was entirely futile, he realised. There were so many people and so much time had already passed. He had next to no chance of finding Jonghyun anywhere.

Defeat crashed over him and he stood panting, hand pressing to the stich in his side as he stared at the red light. Another crushing thought came to him and he had to fight to not scream in anger.

If Jonghyun had gone home, Minho had no idea which way to go. He’d never bothered to find out where Jonghyun lived.

The pain following the anger made it harder to breathe for a moment and he bent over, hands on his knees. He had never actually cared enough about Jonghyun, not the way Jonghyun had cared about him. And now that it was too late, the regret was unbearable.

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and tried to breathe thorough the pain and self-loathing filling him, listening to cars pass and people chatter around him.

Then it struck him.

The hospital.

What little he actually did know about Jonghyun was that he spent a lot of time in the hospital, so going there was his best bet for now.

He squashed down his feelings, straightened, opened his eyes, and turned in the direction of the hospital. It was a bit to walk, but he was too impatient to go back for his car, so he set off running once more.

When he arrived at the hospital he was nearly coughing up his lungs and his legs were shaky from the exertion. He hadn’t run this much since his high school years when he’d been in the track team. But he didn’t bother with the elevator, though he felt as if he would collapse any second. Instead he took the stairs, faintly remembering Jonghyun pressing the button for floor five that one time they had taken the elevator together.

Taking the steps two at a time, he soon arrived at a floor which looked more like a common room than a hospital ward. There were old people sitting around every table placed with even spacing throughout the room, playing games or drinking coffee or tea. Their voices were a soft murmur and it would have been soothing had Minho not been on his extremely urgent mission to find Jonghyun.

His heart sank as he scanned all the small clusters of people and only found slivery, thinning grey hair, not the blond, soft, glowing hair he needed.

“Oh!” someone said behind him and he swivelled around, coming face to face with a young nurse about two heads shorter than him, her dark hair pulled into a neat bun.

He gave her a questioning look.

“Are you looking for Jonghyun?” she asked.

He opened his mouth to ask her how she could possibly know that when she spoke again, clearly not expecting an answer.

“He’s not here right now,” she continued. “He went out somewhere about an hour ago and hasn’t been back yet. I’d tell you to come back this evening since he sleeps here a lot, but we don’t really let visitors stay after visiting hours.” She shook her head a little.

Minho was about to tell her he already knew that. They’d only let him stay late the first few nights of Taemin's coma because they wanted him to adjust to the hospital better. But he was interrupted once again.

“Though we make an exception for Jonghyun,” she smiled fondly. “It’s hard not to care about him and we don’t have the heart to chase him away. He’s just so warm and friendly and he often lights up our days.”

Minho swallowed harshly, his skin suddenly feeling way too small.

“Yeah,” he managed to croak out. “He has that effect on people.”

Smiling, the nurse patted his arm.

“I’m sure he’ll be here tomorrow,” she consoled and her face turned sombre. “His grandmother took a turn for the worse. He hardly left her side before, but I think it will be impossible to pry him away from her now.”

Minho's heart sank. He hadn’t known that. Of course he hadn’t known that, because he had never bothered to ask.

“His parents haven’t found the time to come either, so he’s all alone,” she continued sadly.

He wished she would stop talking.

“Nurse Lee!” someone called from down the hall and the nurse turned.

“I have to go,” she told Minho and he couldn’t be more relieved.

He returned her wave with a weak one of his own as she hurried down to where she was needed. When she was out of sight he staggered over to one of the couches and sank down on it, leaning his elbows on his knees and pressing his face into his hands, trying not to let the burning behind his eyes turn into tears.

It had been a mistake to come to the hospital. It only made him further realise how little he actually knew about Jonghyun. Had he ever even bothered? He’d just taken him for granted and this was his punishment for hurting his guardian angel. He hadn’t even put Jonghyun's phone number into his phone yet, though it didn’t matter much now since it was broken anyway.

His hands fell from his face and he sat up straighter.

Jinki had Jonghyun's number.

He shot from the couch, causing a few older women to jump in shock. Apologising hastily, he bowed and tried not to startle anyone else by half running, half power walking back to the stairs.

Once he had exited the hospital he set off at high speed again, down the street and all the way home, falling through the door.

“Hyung!” he yelled hoarsely, trying to catch his breath. “Jinki!”

Jinki stumbled out of the living room in his hurry to get to the hallway, his eyes wide and astonished.

“What?” he asked. “What happened? Are you hurt?”

Minho shook his head, bending over and clutching his side.

“C-call,” he coughed out. “Jonghyun.”

Jinki frowned.

“Okay…” he said slowly. “Why?”

Minho shook his head again, this time in frustration.

“Please,” he pleaded through his breaths. “I need… to speak to… him.”

Still frowning, Jinki pulled his phone out of his pocket, pressed a few buttons, and put it to his ear.

The silence that fell was only interrupted by Minho's heavy breathing as he watched the frown on Jinki's face deepen. After a few moments, which seemed to stretch out forever, he sighed and pulled the phone from his ear.

“The operator says the number is out of use at the moment,” he informed.

Minho groaned, punching the wall.

“God damn it!” he growled, barely noticing the throbbing of his hand. “I guess this is what I deserve.”

Jinki stared at him quietly for a moment. Then he put his phone away, grabbed Minho's arm and pulled him to the living room where he pushed him onto the couch.

“You really did hurt Jonghyun,” he stated.

His tone wasn’t accusing, nor was it angry, just laid out like a simple fact, as if he had been waiting for it to happen. Which, judging by what he had said yesterday, he probably had.

Minho leaned his head back and swallowed harshly; suddenly feeling very close to tears again.

“I did,” he admitted softly, barely audible, and his chest clenched. A tear escaped and ran down his temple into his hair. He closed his eyes to keep the others from doing the same. “I hurt him.”

Silence met him, but he didn’t dare open his eyes and lift his head to look at Jinki. He was ashamed and miserable and angry with himself.

“You know,” Jinki began slowly after a long stretch of silence, “this morning I read an interesting thing about love. I was going to show it to you, since I thought it might apply to your situation.”

This time, Minho did raise his head to look at him.

“What?”

“Yeah, something about love and how it has been viewed through different eras,” Jinki continued. “And it mentioned that in ancient Greece they used to believe there were seven different kinds of love.”

Blinking, Minho straightened up and turned so his entire body was facing Jinki, wiping his cheeks and giving him his full attention.

“Okay,” he probed.

“So, it got me thinking.” Jinki smiled faintly. “And, well… do you want to hear what I have concluded from the article?”

“Please,” Minho nodded. “If it means I can get Jonghyun to even want to look at me again after today.”

Jinki's smile widened, as if that was the answer he wanted, but still he shook his head faintly.

“Okay, first I’d like you to think for yourself what your love for Jonghyun means and the same with your love for Taemin,” he said. “I don’t want to influence you, though, by the happenings over the past hour and a half, I don’t think I will.”

Minho had no idea what that meant, but he decided not to question it.

“Okay, um…” He ran his hands through his hair and in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “So, it’s kind of hard to explain exactly why I love Taemin.” Jinki nodded. “But I guess I… began paying more attention than normal to his everything a few months after he moved in with us. He was just around all the time and we saw each other every hour of the day and I realised that we were touching more than normal, like his hand on my arm and my hand on his back and all the times he would sneak into my room because he couldn’t sleep alone. We shared my bed most of the time for a few years and the closeness grew and I started feeling very conscious of him and my heart would occasionally skip a beat when we touched or our gazes caught and he smiled.”

Humming Jinki tilted his head, regarding Minho thoughtfully.

“But now?” he asked.

“Now?” Minho blinked.

“Well, you said your heart would skip a beat,” Jinki clarified. “Past tense. It doesn’t skip anymore?”

Minho frowned and looked down at his hands, lacing his fingers together.

“Yeah, it hasn’t really skipped as much for at least the past year,” he admitted. “But I figure that’s just because in the beginning my feelings for Taemin were new and now they’ve had the time to sink in and grow deeper. It’s not a juvenile crush anymore.”

“I agree. But…” Jinki hesitated. “Does your heart skip a beat when you’re with Jonghyun?”

Minho's head shot up and he stared at him. His mouth fell open when he realised, that yes, it actually did.

“It does…” he answered. “It did that one time I actually accepted I was in love with him and… well…” His sentence died out and his cheeks felt a little warm at the memory of their one, and only, ual encounter. “But then everything just fell apart with Taemin and I… I pushed him away…” Minho snorted half-heartedly. “I’m so stupid. Jonghyun is caring and warm and soft and safe and wonderful and…” It felt like a hand gripped his heart and squeezed. “Everything I want.”

If only he had realised it earlier.

Minho buried his face in his hands, sighing.

“What’s wrong with me?” he moaned. “He is basically my guardian angel. And it sounds insane, but whenever we’re alone it’s like there’s nothing else and we’re in this bubble and nothing hurts and everything’s all right.”

He heard Jinki shift and take a deep breath.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with you, exactly,” he answered teasingly and Minho appreciated his attempt at lightening the mood. “Though, this kind of does fall in line with my theory.”

Minho looked up at him through his fingers.

“Which is?”

“Well, the way I would explain your feelings for Taemin is; it was the kind of love that tested out how it actually was to be in love for the first time, since you were young at the time,” Jinki explained. “It was a new sensation and it was exciting and maybe even dangerous or forbidden. And because you and Taemin spent so much time together it grew, though I think it grew more into a familial love, just that you misinterpreted the feelings once they settled down because in the beginning it had actually been another, non-familial love.”

Minho pressed his lips together in thought. It kind of made sense, if he thought about it. At least it felt as if Jinki was putting words to what he couldn’t explain.

“And I did tell you to confess to him,” Jinki continued. “Because that was the strongest feelings I had ever seen you have for anyone and I didn’t think to analyse it… until Jonghyun came into your life…” He sighed. “Jonghyun was this force stumbling in and you were just swept along, though you resisted. I cannot say for sure, because I really haven’t much to go on with the two of you, but I think your love for Jonghyun is very passionate once you allow yourself to let go of Taemin. And judging by the way you described what you feel with Jonghyun I would guess this could grow into a deeper love that would hold for quite some time… if only you weren’t so scared of letting Taemin go…”

Letting out a weak laugh, Minho shook his head.

“Yeah,” he croaked. “If only…”

“Why are you so scared Minho?”

He met Jinki's questioning eyes and sighed, shrugging faintly.

“I don’t know… I just feel like, if I let go of Taemin and move on he won’t ever come back.” He sighed deeply. “What if there is such a thing as a higher power or some sort of natural balance and the minute I let go of Taemin it will take him? I can’t let him die.”

Jinki smiled a little.

“I know for a fact that if he ever hears you say that when he wakes up, he’ll smack you to the other side of the country,” he chuckled softly.

Minho's lips pulled into a small smile.

“Yeah,” he huffed a soft laugh. “He would.”

“So, what do you think of my analysis?” Jinki asked.

Minho snorted.

“It feels like you just sorted out the jumbled mess in my brain,” he said. “I feel so clearheaded now.”

“I’m glad I helped,” Jinki smiled. “So… what are you going to do?”

“First, I need to find Jonghyun somehow,” Minho said. “Apologise to him and tell him… tell him I fell in love with him too. I don’t think he knows. Though he might not want to give me another chance.”

“Well,” Jinki stood up, “you won’t know if you don’t try.”

Minho grimaced.

“Yeah,” he agreed reluctantly.

Jinki stretched as he made his way to the kitchen.

“Didn’t you say he worked at the front desk in a hotel?” he called over his shoulder. “Maybe you should look there?”

Minho's eyes widened and he gaped at Jinki's retreating form.

“I didn’t think of that!” he exclaimed and shot to his feet.

He hoped Jonghyun had the evening shift.

A/N: So this was entirely Minho's POV. But he's finally made up his mind at least! :D Now he just needs to get a hold of Jonghyun and, let me tell you, that won't be easy :/

As always, nothing's proof read and everything might be crap, but I tried?

I hope you liked this chapter anyway! I feel like I haven't updated in ages...

Love to all of you <3

Bye~!