“That will be 40.000 won.”

Yura stared at the stoic pharmacist, her brows furrowing together in distress because the said amount of money was both too much for her slim wallet and at the same time, not convincing enough.

She swiped the drugs she didn’t understand anything about into her bag, frowning and praying in her heart that whatever they were, they would be potent enough to save Joohyun from her misery.

“Are you sure these will be good enough to cure the symptoms I told you about?”

The pharmacist merely received her payment and blinked her a disinterested look. “These are the best you can get without a doctor’s prescriptions. If you want stronger medicines, you will have to bring a legal prescription.”

“But I can’t. I told you the person doesn’t want to see a doctor. Can you just give me the good stuffs without the legal, mumbo jumbo hassle? I promise I will pay. She is so sick she may actually die –“ She stopped speaking because the old lady now glared at her with annoyance.

“I can’t, young lady. It’s against the law. I can’t hand out strong medicine without knowing what the diagnosis is. You need to bring your friend to a doctor. From what you said, she sounds like she has serious pulmonary infection and possibly sepsis. If you don’t get her wounds properly disinfected and sutured, and if she doesn’t get adequate antibiotics as soon as possible, she can die of systemic infection.”

The old lady handed her the change and grunted. “Haul her stubborn self on your back if you have to. She’s practically being suicidal right now. Youngsters these days.”

Yura gloomed and took her change, nodding out of the little pharmacy with slow, uncertain steps.

Once outside, she contemplated on what to do for a while, and finally decided to take the middle path.

She would not drag Irene to hospital against her will, but she would not let her die pathetic in her poor, unkempt apartment without any fight too.

She would go to the hospital herself and see if she could get some help for the miserable girl.

At the end of the day, she knew how it felt to be forcefully taken to a place she didn’t want to go, where everybody treated her like she didn’t have a mind for herself.

She switched route and aimed for Seoul Hospital instead of home.

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

“Tell Kang Seulgi she is expelled from this rotation.”

The old neurologist lashed out the verdict with less than friendly manner, making Joy incapable of doing anything other than hanging her head low and staring at her shoes.

“What does she think this is? A joke or something? A medical intern, a future doctor with zero sense of responsibility is about as good as dirt on my shoes! Medical field doesn’t need cocky, irresponsible people like this. Tell her that she fails this rotation. I’ve had enough of her absences.”

Joy merely nodded weakly and exited the room after bowing, having no words to fight for her friend because it was indeed an unsalvageable damage.

She blew out a deep breath once she was outside and walked down the corridor with her mind flying around somewhere else, until she reached the neurology nurse counter and spotted a figure that seemed oddly familiar.

Bright, flaring red hair and extremely shiny, big fake jewelries brought her back to the hysterical entrance in mental ward some months ago.

Is that…Yura…? Kim Yura, the histrionic patient…?

“Yura…?” She mouthed slowly, unsure if she even remembered the name correctly. “Yura from mental ward?”

The girl in tight, pink tank-top whipped around to see her immediately, and once she did, her eyes widened in pure, bright wildness, Joy freaked out for a moment.

If she was going to start throwing herself all over her –

“Oh my god! Thank goodness! It’s you! You – you are the intern who is friend with Seulgi, right?! Kang Seulgi??”

The erratic girl barreled into her way in five frantic steps, clutching at her shoulders and shaking her vigorously which made her feel even more alarmed.

“Um…please – oh, my, geez, please let me go – I said let me go! Christ, thank you. Nobody would appreciate getting grabbed all over like this.” She peeled Yura’s grip off of herself and frowned at her. “What are you doing here? Is there something you need help with? This is neurology. Mental ward is the other way around --”

“I’m not here because I’m having insanity relapse!” Yura threw her hands up dramatically. “I’m here because I have something important to tell! This is urgent. I need to meet Seulgi immediately. Where is she? I went to the mental ward but they said she had moved here.”

Joy raised a questioning eyebrow at her. “Are you…stalking her now? Like, are you still into her?”

Yura’s eyebrows vanished into her fringe and Joy took the surprised expression as shock for being caught instead of shock for disbelief. She heaved a deep sigh and immediately turned around with tired disinterest.

“I don’t have time for this. Seulgi doesn’t have time for this. We are all banged up because of certain event. Now, can you please leave this place before I –“

“Oh my god, hear me out!” Yura screamed, which led all the other nurses, patients, and families to look at their direction with surprise.

Joy’s face turned red and she finally grabbed the frantic girl’s wrist to lead her out of the ward.

Once they were outside and away from any unwanted attention, she let go of her wrist and hissed at her.

“What the hell is your problem?”

The redhead barked back. “Well, my problem is that I was perfectly happy sipping my drinks and flirting with a bartender in a club few days ago, until a nearly dying voice called me on my phone out of nowhere and spoke to me in a series of nasty cough that left me no choice but to pick her up because she sounded like she was actually dying!”

She vomited the flood of words in one go and breathed out heavily, Joy’s face going from annoyed to utterly, extremely, bat confused.

“It’s Irene!” Yura finally hissed, patience running out. She threw a look around to make sure nobody heard her and spoke again in lower voice. “It’s Irene! I gave her my number before I left months ago but I never, honest to God, thought she would actually call me. I never expected her to do it after causing major car crash and killing people too!”

Joy’s expression turned wild as understanding washed over her, her eyes snapping open so wide they doubled their normal sizes. She clamped with a hand.

“Holy , that’s --” She halted speaking and looked around worriedly, dragging Yura even further away from any possible passerby.

“Irene called you? Is she with you now? Is she fine? Is she alive? Where is she –“

“Calm down, she is alive and breathing in my apartment right now!” Yura cut, careful to keep her volume low too. “Well, I mean damn sick and very likely dying at an alarming rate but still, alive. You need to get Seulgi as soon as possible and tell her to do something. Irene refuses to be brought to any hospital and I honestly have no flipping idea about what to do. I don’t want a dead person in my apartment but I don’t have the heart to hand her out to the wolves too. You know they are running mad search on her right now and the media is on rampage. She so doesn’t need that ruckus right now.”

Joy looked stunned as she tried to digest all the unexpected informations, and finally cleared once she managed to calm down.

“Okay. But is she okay? Like, how bad are her injuries?”

Yura’s expression fell a bit and it prickled her with worry. “Bad. Very bad actually. I think she has pneumonia. I tried to do whatever I can to clean and dress her wound but I am not professional. Her wounds are still oozing and I am afraid the infection will spread if they are not handled properly. She got a couple of serious bruises too.”

Dark cloud loomed over Joy’s face and her eyebrows knotted together.

“Alright. Thanks for coming here and for telling me. I will get to Seulgi as soon as possible. Leave me your apartment address and oh,” she paused, biting her lip in worry. “Please go back there as fast as you can. I have bad feeling about Irene being alone. She is not in a sound mental state to be left unattended.”

Yura nodded and pulled out a piece of paper from her bag to jot down her address, handing it out in hurry. “I’m going back now. Please, let Seulgi know as soon as possible.”

She said goodbye and dashed away to leave the hospital then, praying in her heart that Irene would not do something stupid while she was away. Joy’s warning rang on her ears the entire journey.

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

Of course Irene would do something stupid.

Yura flung her apartment door open to the sight of broken glass shattered on her floor and the said girl halfway falling off her bed trying to reach for a shard to slice her wrist with.

She dropped her bag on the floor and ran to the bed immediately, seizing Irene’s arms so hard she might actually squeeze some wounds open again.

“What the hell are you doing?!”

She pushed the feverish girl back to the bed and shook her by shoulders, eyes wide and panicked as she realized just what exactly could happen if she was one minute late.

“Are you crazy? You can’t just kill yourself like that!”

Irene regarded her with half-lidded eyes, weak and unfocused and half delirious. “Let me die…please, just let me die. I don’t want to go on anymore. I want this to stop.”

She tried to move towards the shards of glass one more time, and Yura had no choice but to pull her back by arms so strongly she was shoved back into the bed.

“No. You can’t do this. You are not thinking this thoroughly. Trust me, Irene, you don’t want to do this.”

At this, Irene’s hazy gaze seemed to focus on her, and the helpless plea in her eyes finally morphed into red, pent up anger. “You don’t know about that. You don’t know anything about me. You have no goddamn idea about what I want or do not want!”

She attempted to peel Yura’s grip off of herself, but weakened and sick as she was it was an impossible task.

“Let me go!” Frustrated, hopeless scream was all she could resort to, crying and trying so hard to thrash against the taller girl’s hold to no avail. “I want to die! Just let me end this pain and let me be done with it forever! Let me die! Please!”

She pushed, hit and sobbed, fighting for no result until her last bit of power left her altogether.

“Please…” She begged, crying into the redhead’s shoulder and clutching at her shirt. “Please…let me take my life. I don’t want this anymore. I’m tired… Please…”

Yura kept her arms strong around her and let her cry away at her all she wanted, having no words to comfort her with because she knew there were times in life when no good word or coaxing would make you feel better.

Because sometimes things were that ty and you just couldn’t lie to yourself that they weren’t even though you wanted to.

They stayed in that position for some time until Irene cried all of her heart out, Yura waiting until her breathing calmed down and her body stopped shaking.

When the smaller girl’s noise finally turned into slow, steady breathing, Yura knew she must have fallen asleep because she had no more energy left to exploit.

She laid Irene’s head back onto the pillow slowly and pulled the blanket over her, frowning as she stared at the girl who reminded her so much of herself once upon a time.

She heaved a sigh, stood up to walk to her bag and picked it up from the floor.

Some people were really born unfortunate.

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

Seulgi threw her bag open onto her bed and crossed her bedroom in three long strides.

She snatched whatever pieces of clothing she laid her eyes on and carried them to the bed without words, jamming them into the small bag haphazardly before zipping it off and slinging it over her shoulder.

Beside her, Seungwan finally took a deep, relieved breath that she wasn’t capable of taking for almost a week.

“So she is alive. She is okay and she is staying at your friend’s