Tao was sitting next to Yixing in his room. Talking to him, trying to soothe his nerves while they both waited until Junmyeon’s surgery was over.

 

“So today is your off day?” Yixing asked after he had munched on a gummy worm. Not only Minseok had fallen to Yixing’s charming way of asking for candies.

 

“Yeah, Yifan and I usually arrange so we can both have the same day off but I came in after Minseok called me in the morning and asked me to cover his shift”

 

“How is it?”

 

“How’s what? Because if this is about the gummy worms then I’m definitely a fan”

 

“No. How is it like…” Yixing wasn’t sure how to ask without sounding too invasive or obnoxious about the issue, but ever since he found out about Minseok and Doctor Jongdae and also Kris and Tao, he couldn’t help but being curious. They were the only gay couples he knew that were in serious relationships. The couples he usually saw around the school were just kids experimenting or fooling around and thinking about how long Junmyeon had been crushing on him made him think about the future.  “…to be in love?”

 

“Ah, young love. I don’t think I am the best person to ask to I’m not that good with feelings and neither is Kris. I guess that is why we even got along in the first place. I don’t think it is the same for everybody, but for me, being in love with Yifan was never like I imagined it would be. I always thought that it would be like in the movies, that I’d get butterflies in my belly and that I’d see fireworks whenever we’d kiss. But it was never that way. Our first date was in one of the hospital’s bed in a dark spare room and we had noodles. He was always calmed and he never made me feel nervous or anxious around him. Everything about him has always been soothing, calm… familiar. For me, whenever I was with him, I never felt like he was my prince charming but he has always felt like home”. Yixing could hear in his voice that Tao was starting to get uncomfortable talking about his boyfriend to him so he appreciated the effort the nurse was making even more. “I don’t know what else to tell you, maybe you can wait until Minseok comes back and then you can ask him”.

 

“It’s okay. Even if you don’t think that you do, you sound very much in love with my doctor” Yixing teased. Even if he couldn’t see it he knew he had made the nurse blush.

 

“Stop teasing, you little brat, or I’ll tell Yifan about your little crush so he can tease you about it too” Tao retaliated while taking another gummy worm from the bag Yixing had in his hand. “So you think you’re in love with this guy?”

 

“I wouldn’t say that I’m in love with him. I barely know him, but I did notice him around in school. He’s nice and I never gave a second thought about it but after I found out he has a crush on me I kinda started feeling all giddy and silly if he talks to me or even if I just start thinking about him. I don’t know, it’s weird”.

 

“It means you’re starting to fall for him” Tao said. “Maybe you didn’t notice him before but you have now, and there’s no turning back from there”.

 

“For someone that claims to know nothing about feelings you’re actually being really helpful” Yixing commented after he swallowed the last gummy bear from the bag.

 

“I have literally have done nothing but to tease you, but okay. Whatever floats your boat”. Yixing couldn’t help but laugh. He knew that Tao was actually making an effort for him. He knew it when he took him into the pre-op room to see Junmyeon and when he was handed the bag of candy from a reluctant nurse that knew better than to feed a hospital’s patient with that much sugar.

 

“Thank you, by the way. For sneaking me in to see Junmyeon”

 

“You don’t need to thank me. I feel like I am making a gay Romeo and Juliet love story come true. I wish I had had this kind of help when Yifan and I started dating” Yixing wanted to ask more questions about them but it seems like Tao had his own share of questions to ask.

 

“Why are you so scared that he sees you?”

 

Yixing’s hand immediately went to bag of candies. Even if he knew that there were no more gummies left, the bag gave him something to do with his hands.

 

“I just… I don’t know. He keeps saying how beautiful I am and that he likes my smile. Now I look like this”, Yixing said pointing to his uncovered face. “I guess that since I’ve started to like him back I’m kinda scared that if he sees me like this he won’t like me anymore”.

 

“I think you’re being too hard on yourself on this one. Here.” Tao took Yixing’s hands and placed them over the patient’s own face. “It actually doesn’t look as bad as you think. The biggest scar is here.” He said guiding Yixing’s fingertip over his forehead. “This one starts here on your forehead and ends here, right at your nose’s level but the skin is not that damaged. You also have this one under your lip, your skin on this one doesn’t look as good as the other one but it’s a lot smaller.” Tao kept saying while going over all the scars that were covering his face. He went one by one, describing them. “You can still your cute dimple when you smile and your eyes still disappear when you laugh. I’d say you’re still pretty much the same Zhang Yixing that you were before you were admitted here, even if I didn’t know you then. Junmyeon would be very dumb if he dared to reject all of you just because of this”.

 

Yixing was still tracing the skin with his fingers, going through all the details Tao had given him. Hearing it from the nurse made him think that he was just over reacting and it did make him feel a lot better about himself. Tears pooling in his eyes, but he refused to let them out.

 

“Besides, some of them will heal on their own and even then Yifan said that you just needed to let the skin heal a little bit before he could do the corrective surgeries to reduce the scarring. And we also need your eyes need to heal a little bit more before we are able to do the transplant so you can see again. After that all of the scarring will be mostly gone”. By that point Yixing was already crying, maybe he was taking things too hard on himself.

 

Tao was sitting on a chair next to Yixing’s bed but he had decided to take a place in the bed next to the teenager so he could wrap his arms properly around him.

 

“What those kids did to you is awful and I honestly hope they get what they deserve for it, but you can’t take it out on yourself. The things they said are not true. Even if I didn’t know you before I can tell how much of a great person you are. These scars, your face and your eyes, all of this is going to heal and before you know it, they are going to be just a memory. You need to focus on that. Let your soul heal first, everything else will fall into its right place after that. Right now, there is this great guy who wants to go out on a date with you and I honestly doubt that happened just because of your dimple. No matter how cute you are with it”. Tao had managed to make Yixing smile through his tears, he would also wiped them if he could but both of them knew that Yixing’s skin was still tender and shouldn’t be touched so much. So he just let the kid’s tears run freely.

 

After Yixing had cried it out Tao pulled out Yixing’s music player and put some music to sooth the other one while he went off to do his round. Yixing was having some issues trying to skip the player to the next song without looking at the screen when the door to the room opened again.

 

“Hey, there” It was Doctor Lee the one who greeted him and he could hear at least two other persons in the room moving things.

 

“Sorry to scare you, Junmyeon just got out of surgery a while ago. We are moving him hear now that the procedure is done so he can rest. Don’t worry, he won’t bother you. He’ll probably sleep all the way until tomorrow but we just wanted to give you a heads up”.

 

Yixing couldn’t answer to what the doctor said properly. Junmyeon was there, right in front of him. Junmyeon had made it out and he was there. The Chinese felt a like he could breathe out all the worries that had been accumulating since 3pm when the surgery started.

 

“Some nurses will be coming every couple of hours to check on him but if anything happens you can always press the button and someone will be here, okay?”

 

“Okay. Thank you, Doctor Lee”

 

Doctor Lee and the nurses left after they made sure that Junmyeon was all settled in his bed. Soon after that, Tao came to give him his dinner and medications. Across the room, he could hear the other breathing. That was enough to sooth him and he was able to fall asleep with no problems. He had no nightmares that night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Minseok had been lying on the motel’s bed all day. He called in sick as soon as he woke up, and talked with Tao to see if he could take his patients for the day. After breaking up with Jongdae just the night before he couldn’t find it in himself to get up, much more when he knew that if he went to the hospital he was bound to cross paths with his now ex-boyfriend at some point during the day.

 

His phone had been ringing all day and he couldn’t even get up to answer it. He already knew who was calling anyways. Although most part of the day he spent it wallowing in his own pity, he liked to think that he actually did something productive that day. If thinking counted as something.

 

He was now homeless. He needed to find a place to live, one where there were no traces of his lost love. Then he needed to check if Amber could change his schedule so he could assist in a different department. He needed to coordinate his schedule so he could go and pick up his last possessions from his and Jongdae’s apartment without turning it in into an awkward circus. He sighed. He had a lot to do.

 

He knew he could do it; he had managed himself since he was fifteen. He had no one else before and he could move on his own once again. However, no matter how much he tried to convince himself of doing it, he knew that everything was different this time around.

 

When his parents kicked him out, he had been scared less. He had nowhere to go and no one to turn to. Now he had job, friends and he could easily find and afford another place to live, but for some reason he knew it would be harder. He had seen a future and he had seen Jongdae there. Now everything was shattered. When he was a teenager the image of himself at the end of the road would be enough to get him by, now it just made him want to cry.

 

The phone had stopped ringing a couple hours earlier so he was surprised when it interrupted his thoughts. Taking a chance, he extended his arm to see who was calling and he was actually surprised. It was not Jongdae.

 

“Amber?” he answered.

 

“Where the hell are you? Why weren’t you answering your phone? Luna just told me you called in sick”

 

“And this is why I told her, not you”

 

“Ouch, I’m offended”

 

“I’m sorry, Amber. But I’m not in the mood to deal with anybody right now”

 

“Now you are starting to sound actually sick. What’s going on?”

 

Minseok sighed; he was doing that a lot that day. Should he tell Amber? She was the closest he had to a best friend and he knew she was someone he could rely on. It was just a little bit hard when he was used to doing a lot on his own.

 

Later on that same day he found himself laying down on that same bed but now he had Amber next to him.

 

“We broke up” It didn’t take more than that for Amber to get the bigger picture. “I broke up with him, actually”

 

“Was he cheating on you? Because you know I’ll break his face if he did. Not even Doctor Wu will be able to fix him after I’m done with him”. At least that pulled put a tiny smile from the nurse.

 

“No… he was just… we were not on the same page anymore”

 

“What is that even supposed to mean?”

 

“It means that I wanted to be with him and that he wanted to be with me as long as everybody else thought we were both single for the rest of our lives”. Amber stayed there and just listened to Minseok’s whole story, she sneaked in a comment once or twice but it was mostly just the nurse letting everything out.

 

“Maybe you went a little too harsh on him” she said once he was done telling the story of how everything went down the night before. Minseok immediately turned his head towards her looked like if she had just grown a second head.

 

“I mean, yes, he lied to you and that is completely wrong… but Minseok… maybe you should put yourself in his shoes for a moment. I mean, he is a thirty-something year old man who had never had a relationship that serious before. He has big expectations from not only his family but also from his friends, colleagues and even his patients, and he has never gone against those expectations. Suddenly you come into his life with your own expectations and he doesn’t know how to deal with that”

 

“He could have talked to me. He didn’t have to go behind my back to make his way around the problem” Minseok answered with a rough voice since he had managed to start crying again.

 

“I know that. As I said, that is the wrong part. But you have to keep in my mind that not all of us are brave enough to turn our back on everything we know, Minnie. We can’t all be like you and leave everything behind” she said right before she found a better position on the bed, one that would allow her to hold her friend. Although Minseok kept crying, he did see her point of view.

 

“Now let’s go” she said once she made sure that Minseok was not shedding tears anymore.

 

“Where?”

 

“What do you mean where? Out of here. No friend of mine is going to stay in a cheap dirty motel while I can do something about it” Amber was gathering all the things she could see on an open traveling bag she saw close to the bed.

 

“You can’t do anything about it. I don’t want to go back to my apartment, I can’t. And I can’t live with you, I know you live with like other three girls”

 

“That doesn’t mean I don’t have a plan. See, I have this friend, his boyfriend and him will be more than glad to take you in for a couple of nights” Minseok opened his mouth trying to protest to Amber’s plan but she cut him off before he could speak. “I already talked to him about this; he says they have a spear room you could use. The don’t have much friends so the company would be nice for them and it’s only for a couple of days, Minnie. Just until you can get yourself back on your own two feet, okay?” Seeing the pleading look on Amber’s face he couldn’t find it in himself to say no, besides there was only hot water in the motel for three hours a day so he didn’t really need that much convincing.

 

It was already late at night by the time Minseok went to the motel’s reception room and handed the keys back to the receptionist. They hoped in on Amber’s car and she drove them to her friend’s house. Minseok was only hoping that things went better from there.

Seeing Doctor Wu out of his white lab coat and wearing the most informal t-shirt and sweat pants Minseok had ever seen in his life was not how he envisioned his new beginning would look like.

 

“Hey, Amber. I thought you were dropping by later tonight” Doctor Wu said calmly.

 

“Well, I thought my little friend here was going to take longer to empty his eyes out, but we’re here” she answered making her way into the house after Doctor Wu moved aside to welcome them into his home.

 

The host offered something to drink and Amber accepted a cup of water while Minseok remind silence next to her on the couch. Once that Doctor Wu was out of hearing range he starting asking Amber all the questions that were burning in his brain from the moment the door was opened.

 

“Why didn’t you tell me you were bringing me to Doctor Wu’s house?”

 

“Because you would have said no. I know this is a little bit weird for you, but they are nice people and they are more than happy to be able to help you”

 

Doctor Wu was kind enough to bring one more cup of water for Minseok even if he had not asked for one.

 

“Knowing Amber I bet she didn’t say much before dragging you here, right?” he asked while taking a seat on the café table in front of both his guests.

 

“Yeah, well, that’s Amber for you”

 

Doctor Wu chuckled lightly. Yes, fortunately he knew how Amber could get sometimes.

 

“I’m Kris Wu, you’ve probably seen me around the hospital a couple of times. If not, then you might have heard the rumors about Tao and me. He’s my boyfriend, yes, although we definitely have not spread the gay disease to any of our patients yet” Kris had a serious tone of voice even if he tried to crack a little joke just to make sure that Minseok felt comfortable around him, but Minseok was more than grateful for the effort.

 

“Thank you” was the first thing that Minseok wanted Kris to hear from him, “I do appreciate that you let me stay here for a couple of days, you didn’t have to. I’ll make sure to find a place to stay so I don’t have to bother you that much”

 

“It’s no problem. You are one of the nice ones there in the hospital. When Amber explained your situation Tao and I both agreed that we would do anything to help you”

 

“Not that I’m trying to be rude or anything but, why? I know that I don’t go around bullying you or Tao but we’re not close either”

 

“Well, I guess that we’ve been there before. Tao and I came here with almost nothing but an accepted job proposal at the hospital. We were all alone and even if things here are better than in China, we are still on our own. Amber here became a good friend of ours, but she can’t be there for us all the time. We know what is like to need a friend in tough times and have no one to turn to. So, even if we’re not close and this might be weird for you we would be honored to lend you our hand in help” Minseok didn’t even know what to say. He suddenly felt regretful and ashamed; he should have been a better person and approached the pair before.

 

“I guess that is a ‘yes, thank you’ from him” Amber said translating Minseok’s silence.

 

“Yes. Thank you. A lot. I really don’t know how I will pay you back for your kindness,” Minseok said once he finally was out of his trance.

 

“Don’t worry about it. Tao will be happy to hear you agreed on staying here for a while” Kris said getting up. “Let’s go and show you to your room” Kris was smiling so honestly to him that Minseok couldn’t find it in himself to refuse the help they were offering. Amber was right, they really were nice people.

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------

As always, there are a lot of mistakes in this chapter.
I'm happy that after all the stress that school and work have been given me I managed to write this today.
I was actually going to wait until next chapter to write about Yixing's injuries and about the reason why he was avoiding Junmyeon and that scene was originally meant to be something between Yixing and Junmyeon but I liked how things turned out. I have other plans for Sulay. <3

Fun fact for this chapter: Kris and Tao's first date was indeed in one of the rooms that hospitals keep for the staff. It was also where they got down and dirty for the first time. They were both bussy and didn't have that much time for each other. But they love each other and always find a way to make things work.