Suho wasn’t one to hold a grudge, luckily for Sungmi, Luhan and Yixing. He didn’t even demand an apology of any sort, and in fact the next day when he saw them he acted like nothing had happened at all. At first, the three of them had been a little nervous about turning up, but as it happened, he wasn’t the sort at all. That didn’t shake the guilt that the three of them felt though, and on their lunch break together one day later that week, it was the main topic of conversation.

“We should say something,” Luhan began, looking expectantly to the other two. “We can’t just let this slide under the mat.”

Sungmi agreed with this. “I don’t know what to say to him, though.”

“How long have you known him for?” Yixing asked her, veering slightly off topic.

“About three years,” Sungmi told them, thinking about it. “But he’s only been my mentor for one of those.”

“So how do you usually get him to forgive you?” Luhan pressed, leaning forward a little.

Sungmi had to think about this again, but she found that she couldn’t come up with anything. “He’s never said anything like that to me before. I’ve never actually seen him get that angry, except when the younger trainees used to ignore him when he was speaking.”

“Well, how did they apologise then?”

“I’ve never seen them doing it,” Sungmi admitted. “Actually, come to think of it, I never saw those trainees again… ”

Luhan’s face turned white, his mouth parting slightly. “What? No. No, that can’t happen. My family – what would they say? No. No, that definitely can’t happen. Let’s just go and beg for forgiveness.”

Yixing and Sungmi just stared at the usually cool and collected Luhan as he became increasingly hysterical, his brow creasing almost unnaturally.

“Let’s buy him something, too,” Luhan suggested, looking between Sungmi and Yixing expectantly. “Hm?”

“But Suho doesn’t seem angry,” Yixing calmly replied, looking to Sungmi for backup.

She nodded along. “Yixing is right, he really doesn’t look mad at us.”

Luhan shook his head profusely. “It’s all an act! Don’t you see? He’s probably filing the paperwork right now to get us all kicked out of here.”

Sungmi highly doubted that Suho would do that to them, but was sort of interested to know how Luhan had made that jump himself.

“Why do you think that?” Sungmi asked.

Luhan let out a frustrated sigh, almost throwing his lunch to the side. “Don’t you two get it? It's the only thing he could possibly do to us! But I need to be here. I need to prove myself.”

For a moment, Sungmi didn’t quite get what he was saying, but then she slowly understood. “For your family?”

Nodding once, Luhan crossed his arms. “Pretty much,” he mumbled.

“Are they medics too?” Yixing asked, sounding very interested.

For a moment, Luhan was quiet, gently chewing on his lip before shaking his head. “No. They’re professional soldiers. Even my mother works for the strategic core of my city’s council.”

Sungmi knew that in order to become a professional soldier, one had to perform exceptionally during their mandatory military service, and were then offered a position. The benefits were great, least of all because of the large pay packet that would be coming their way. It was among one of the highest paying professions, but that didn’t attract nearly as many people as they might have hoped it would. The risk only got worse the longer people were out here, after all.

“Are you training to be a medic because you don’t want to be a soldier?” Sungmi asked, not quite understanding.

To this, Luhan let out a rather dismal sigh. “Not exactly… ”

Sungmi and Yixing exchanged a quick glance at one another, each confirming that the other was just as confused before looking back to Luhan and waiting for him to go on.

“During my time in the military I was put on the frontline,” Luhan explain, his voice almost sad. “I was in the first regiment; the best regiment. Everything looked set for my life. But when I was only halfway through my service, I injured my arm and pretty it much severed my brachial plexus.”

Almost instinctively, Sungmi looked to Luhan’s arm, a small frown forming. She never would have guessed that he’d had such serious nerve damage to his arm. He had certainly recovered very well from it, that’s for sure. There was little doubt in her mind that he had had to undergo surgery and extensive rehabilitation to get his arm back to how it was.

“I was obviously removed from my regiment and taken for emergency care, but by the time I had the use of my arm back my regiment had finished their service and all returned home. I was sent home, but without the recommendation I needed. Becoming a medic is the only way I can redeem myself to my family. I won’t just allow myself to be kicked out like this,” he finished in a hard voice, getting up and leaving the room without sparing the other two another look.

Sungmi and Yixing sat in silence for a moment, both thinking about Luhan and his story. Although Sungmi couldn’t speak for Yixing, she guessed he must have been feeling just as bad about hearing it. Looking at Luhan, she never would have guessed that something like this had happened to him, or that he had such pressure on his shoulders. It was no wonder he was so serious in all their practical lessons. After all, he knew how important getting the correct treatment was and quickly. He was a good example of what could be done if the medics did their job properly.

“I think Luhan’s right,” Yixing mused after a moment, his voice oddly light. “We should buy something for Suho.”

Sungmi didn’t have it in her right now to argue with the boy, so instead she just bobbed her head along. “Whatever you think.”

This answer seemed to satisfy Yixing who flashed a dimpled smile at her before getting up and stretching lightly. “Good. I say we buy him a coffee.”

All Sungmi could do in response to this was just stare at Yixing. When he had said buy something, she had envisioned flowers or some chocolates or something. But no. Yixing just meant one of the nasty coffees from the dining cabin. Well, if nothing else, Yixing certainly had his own way of doing things.

But in the end, Suho was more than grateful for the coffee bought by the three of them for him, puny as it was.

The camp had a curfew, and Sungmi soon learnt that she didn’t have much of a problem breaking it. Whether it was leaving a little late, or sneaking out in the middle of the night, she found that she could always find a justifiable reason for it – at least to her.

Tonight’s reason was that Sunghee had collapsed during his training today, and although he had already been treated by the qualified medics, she still wanted to see him. She had spent the entire evening with him until the camp’s lights were going out, which meant everyone should be in their own cabin. No ifs or buts. Sungmi complied, of course, but as soon as she was sure Boah was well and truly asleep for the night, she dawned her boots and headed back out as quietly as she could.

Sungmi never really considered herself to be a rebel in any sense of the word. But as she crept back towards the boys’ cabin in the middle of the night, she was beginning to wonder just how accurate that belief was.

Knocking rather tepidly on the door, she waited for it to be carefully pulled open and for a sleepy face to appear, peeking through the gap. When the face saw her, it became agitated almost instantly.

“What do you want?” Sehun asked, sounding well and truly irked by her appearance at this hour. Something Sungmi had found out about Sehun, was that he was a bit of a stick in the mud for rules. 'There for a reason…' and all that.

“What do you think I want?” she retorted back with a quiet tut, pushing against the door which he moved away from to allow her entry.

He didn’t answer her, and she didn’t wait for one from him, either. Instead she scuttled past and over to Sunghee’s bed. There was a loud coughing, and from the sounds of things, there was also someone trying to soothe the boy gently. There was little doubt in her mind that it was Kyungsoo, despite the darkness in that corner. A distinct snoring could also be heard, and Sungmi assumed that was Chanyeol who had somehow managed to sleep through the racket.

“How is he?” she asked quietly, stretching through the darkness to where she thought either Kyungsoo or Sunghee was. Her hand met a shoulder, and she could tell instantly that it was Kyungsoo’s.

There was another round of coughing.

“Not so good,” Kyungsoo mumbled back, sounding incredibly tired. “He was coughing up blood earlier but the medics say there’s nothing to do but give him more herbal pain relief.”

Sungmi felt herself release an infuriated sigh at this news, not being able to stave off the anger she felt about her general incompetency in dealing with Sunghee’s unknown condition. There would always be a limit to what she could do for him, and that limit came the moment his team departed this place, leaving her behind.

“There must be something we can do,” she muttered, placing herself on the bed next to Sunghee and raking through her brain for something – anything that could help him.

A dim light suddenly flashed on near to them, causing both Sungmi and Kyungsoo to jump a little. Sehun sighed at the sight of their pathetic little hop, before handing Sungmi the light in his hand and silently slumping his way back to his bed beside the snoring Chanyeol.

“Why did he give us this?” Sungmi asked Kyungsoo under her breath, turning the dim torch towards Sunghee but not in a way that would hurt his eyes. There was a small trickle of blood from his left nostril, and his eyes were closed over in what appeared to be exhaustion. What a lot of people fail to mention about being constantly ill is the fact that it’s just about the most tiring thing ever, yet healthy people don’t seem to understand that because to them, all a sick person does is lie there. Sungmi knew that wasn’t true though, she knew the daily battle that Sunghee had to face. If she could have, she would have swapped bodies with him a long time ago.

“Could you hold it up a little?” she asked Kyungsoo quietly, handing him the light and reaching into her pocket to pull out a cloth that she carried around almost by default before using it to clean the blood off Sunghee’s face.

“What’s wrong with him?” Kyungsoo whispered to her, only to see her shaking her head gently.

“I don’t know. I can only guess it’s the dry air here that’s aggravated his sinuses again. We see a lot of dehydration cases here, it’s very different to how it is back home.”

Kyungsoo nodded gently, leaning a little closer to her. “It’s hot, too.”

With Sunghee’s face now cleaned up and his coughing seeming subsiding for the night, Sungmi gently rested his head back against the rock-like pillow, taking a moment to watch as he gently turned his head against its rough texture as if trying to seek comfort. Sunghee was getting worse and worse here. Sungmi had always been perpetually optimistic about her brot