Hongbin blinked his eyes open, squinting them against the bright, florescent lights above him. Everything was too white and too bright, and so he closed his eyes again. His mouth felt a little fuzzy and dry, and he could hear the lights above him buzzing. He reopened his eyes, this time focusing on keeping them open and avoiding looking at the lights.

            The hospital room he was in was pretty basic, big window, thin curtains, TV on the wall that no one ever watched or changed, and a couple chairs along one wall, one of which had been moved and was occupied by Hakyeon, who was holding Hongbin’s hand with his head resting on top. He seemed like he was sleeping, so Hongbin didn’t make any move to wake him. He wasn’t sure what time it was, or what day it was, really.

            Having observed the room, he took a moment to adjust, wincing when he moved his shoulder out. His head was throbbing, and he could feel bruises on his back and elbows. There was some sort of brace wrapped around his right shoulder, and he tried to remember what happened to get him here.

            Hongbin could remember going to work that morning, saying goodbye to Hakyeon in front of the store, and watching Hakyeon go over to the bakery with Taekwoon nestled in his bag, cat ears flicking. He’d opened the shop with Hyuna as usual, resigning himself to a long day up at the register. Towards the end of the day, when the store was empty, she called him down to the basement to help him move one of the bigger pieces in the store to the other side of the room where she was sorting things. What they hadn’t planned on was how heavy it was, and how much weight the drawers added. When he first felt the thing tip off balance, his first reaction was to shove Hyuna out of the way, and then try to brace himself against it, which, according to where he was now, had apparently not gone well, and it had fallen on top of him. After that, he didn’t really have any clear recollection of what was going on, except Hyuna calling someone and then hearing Hakyeon’s voice, and from after that he had no idea. Until, of course, he woke up where he was.

            Hongbin tried moving all of his joints and nothing seemed to be broken or not working, just painful and sore. He could definitely feel the lump on the back of his head, which was probably the injury that stood out the most as of yet. There weren’t any complicated machines or anything around him, so he figured it wasn’t that serious. He let his eyes close again.

            He wasn’t sure if he fell asleep again or not, but when he opened them again Hakyeon was awake, hand still closed around Hongbin’s, absentmindly running his thumb over Hongbin’s fingers. When Hongbin curled his fingers into his palm, Hakyeon started, looking up at him with tired and red eyes. Hongbin gave him a little smile. Hakyeon was silent though, and Hongbin started to move to sit up, before Hakyeon’s hand landed gently on his good shoulder, pressing him back down.

            “You aren’t supposed to move too much.” His voice was quiet, and Hongbin let himself relax again.

            “What time is it?”

            “It’s a little after three.”

            “In the morning?” Hakyeon nodded. Hongbin furrowed his brow. “Why are you still awake? You should go to bed.” The elf shook his head.

            “I wasn’t really able to sleep anyways. It’s fine, I’m not that tired.” Hongbin frowned.

            “You look tired. Your eyes are red.” Hakyeon looked down and drew his hand back into his lap.

            “Yeah, had a pretty rough day,” he said, sitting back in his chair. Hongbin wanted to reach out and touch him, but he suspected that neither Hakyeon nor his body would agree with that. So instead he just settled for talking to him.

            “I’m okay, you know.” Hakyeon stilled for a second.

            “Yeah, I- I know. The doctor said that you’ll be fine if you just take it easy and rest for a while.”

            “Are you still worrying?” Hongbin phrased it as a question but he was pretty sure of the answer anyways.

            “No, yes, I don’t know. I was just scared.”

            Taekwoon had just finished pulling a tray of cookies out of the oven when Hakyeon’s phone started buzzing, and Taekwoon looked over at him.

            “Who’s that? You don’t get a lot of calls.” Hakyeon flipped the phone over.

            “It’s Hongbin, I wonder if he’s on his break or something.” He answered the call. “Hello?” Instead of Hongbin’s voice, though, he heard a female voice, which he recognized as Hyuna.

            “Is this Hakyeon?” Her voice was stressed and she sounded almost panicky. Hakyeon sat up in his chair.

            “Yes, is everything okay?”

            “No, um, Hongbin, he had an accident, it’s kind of serious, I called an ambulance but I figured I should tell you before anything else happens.” She seemed to be picking her words carefully.

            Hakyeon’s mind was always ahead of him, and started throwing out absurd scenarios, all of which made Hakyeon loosen his grip on the phone and it slipped out of his hand, landing on the table with a clatter, and Taekwoon turned around.

            “What happened?”

            “I have to go, Hongbin is” he stood, pushing the chair back sharply. “Something happened, I think he’s hurt, so I’m going to go- go and see.” Hakyeon bit off the end of his sentence, already in motion out the door. He pushed his way through the group of people standing by the door, hyper-focused on what might have happened. No one was at the antiques store, and Hakyeon couldn’t decide if he was grateful or not, but he weaved his way through all the aisles and swung himself up and over the counter, moving before his feet hit the ground again. The door to the back rooms was open, and Hakyeon could hear someone talking from the basement.

            “Hongbin? Hey, look at me, keep- no, don’t close your eyes, Hongbin you have to keep focused on me.” Hakyeon almost tripped over the door frame down to the stairs, but caught his balance and took the stairs several at a time to get to the bottom. Hyuna was across the room, squatting next to a fallen chest, which, as Hakyeon approached, was solidly on top of Hongbin. She looked up as he crossed the space in big steps, and moved over for him. The elf sank to his knees, trying to steady his staggered heart rate. Without much hesitation he pushed up and against the chest, tipping it up and over to the other side and Hyuna stood and stepped away a bit.

            It looked bad, to say the least. Nothing looked broken, but Hongbin’s shoulder looked like it was out of place and there was blood pooling under his head. His eyes were open but out of focus, and Hakyeon leaned in front of his face, swallowing. Hongbin seemed to notice him, and looked up at him for a moment before he seemed to start slipping out of consciousness again, and Hakyeon felt his own stomach drop.

            “Bin, Hongbin, I’m right here, can you see-,” Hakyeon choked on the last word, and placed his hand against Hongbin’s face. The room filled with noise as the medical team came down the stairs, and Hakyeon was pulled back gently, as they surrounded Hongbin. The one who had pulled him was Hyuna, and her grip was tight, even though Hakyeon wasn’t making much of a move to get away, until the people who were carrying Hongbin started to get up and leave, and at that point Hakyeon started to try to follow, but Hyuna wasn’t letting him go. When the door at the top of the stairs swung shut, he sagged back and started to cry. She guided him forward now, and up the stairs. Hakyeon’s vision was blurry, and he was relieved when he saw Taekwoon waiting for him outside of the store. Taekwoon nodded at Hyuna and drew Hakyeon into his arms, and the elf curled his fingers into Taekwoon’s shirt.

            “Can we go, to-,” he didn’t finish his sentence, but Taekwoon nodded again anyways. He handed Hakyeon his jacket, and wrapped an arm under Hakyeon’s shoulders and around his waist, pulling him up and starting to walk. The distance to the hospital from the store wasn’t far, but it seemed ten times longer to Hakyeon, who worried every step of the way.

            When they entered the cool lobby of the building, they were directed up to the second floor, and given a room number. The nurse at the front said that Hongbin was being x-rayed right now, but that they could go wait, it wouldn’t take long. Hakyeon wasn’t sure exactly how long they were waiting in the stuffy little white room, if it was hours or just minutes, but he still wasn’t quite ready to handle seeing Hongbin stuck in a stiff white hospital gown, with a bandage wrapped around his head and his shoulder held in a brace. He was grateful for the blankets covering most of him, and Hakyeon settled down into a chair that he drew up next to the raised bed, barely listening as the doctor explained that Hongbin should be fine, he just needed rest and time to recover. The only thing the doctor said that Hakyeon caught on to was that the human might have a concussion, which to Hakyeon meant something big and serious, even though the doctor told him it wasn’t. When the doctor left with his little clipboard, Hakyeon drew Hongbin’s hand into his own, feeling the pulse underneath his fingers. Eventually he dozed off, pressing both their hands to his cheek.

            As Hongbin slowly adjusted to being awake, he watched Hakyeon watch him, taking note of the crease in Hakyeon’s forehead and the tightened lips.

            “What did you think was going to happen?” Hakyeon bit down on his lip.

            “Something bad, I thought about a lot of things. It’s all dumb though, since you’re going to be just fine, not damaged or disabled or anything serious.” Hongbin was silent for a second.

            “I hate hospitals, don’t you?” Hakyeon looked up at him, and let out a little smile.

            “Yeah, hospitals .”

            The doctors told him that he wasn’t supposed to do a lot of moving, and definitely no lifting for a while. They told Hakyeon to make sure he stayed in bed or still, and Hakyeon readily agreed, and Hongbin was positive he would stick to that one hundred percent. They estimated at about a month, and Hongbin wasn’t looking forward to being stuck for that long anywhere. He had to keep his head elevated, and his shoulder braced, and they gave him a bunch of free packs for the bruises on this arms and back.

            But if anyone was going to make sure that he healed right, it was going to be Hakyeon, so Hongbin figured that he was probably in the best hands he could be in.

someone messaged me on tumblr and asked if i could do something like this, so i did? maybe kinda? idk

poor bean

but he's fine hakyeon will def make sure of that one

umm yes

panicky and grateful and curiosity are my least favorite words to type i hate those words there are other ones too but i dont like them

it's been a while since i updated (it's weird four days seems like a lot to me but sometimes there are stories that i follow that go w/o updating for like weeks but i just like doing frequent things it keeps me working)

if you put antiques and all the oneshots together i have basically the average word count of a novel

whoops not what i intended but oh well good thing i'm majoring in creative writing

thanks for reading, commenting, voting and subscribing! 

~Win