The Sunchaser - Chapter Nine 

By Eiryia

The first thing the firemen did when they arrived was to move him across the street and he was thankful for that. He had been able to feel the heat of the flames against his face while he’d been sitting there and he was well aware being under a very flammable tree was a bad idea. 

Now he was sitting propped up against the same stairs that the creepy guy, Alexander he presumed from the descriptions told to him by the old lady, had been sitting on just a short while earlier. 

An ambulance had been called for him, but he had yet to message Mino, he should though, because he didn’t want to worry him by not showing up, but then again telling him he would be riding with an ambulance to the hospital probably wouldn’t be much better. 

When he said he was worried about hurting Mino back when they became a couple didn’t he think something like this would happen, but with Mino’s past in mind couldn’t he help but to worry about which reactions this could provoke from Mino. Maybe he was scared of hospitals now and wouldn’t come visit him at all? That would be fine though because he didn’t think he’d have to stay for long. 

His train of thought was interrupted by the ambulance pulling up further up in the street. A fireman pointed in his direction while communicating with his men inside the building on the radio. 

The police were the next to arrive and as soon as the paramedic had assessed him and helped him over to the ambulance had they begun asking him questions. The paramedic was hooking him up to oxygen and a pulse oximetry when he told her it was fine to talk to them because she looked like she was ready to send them off. 

He explained about moving day, about probably being the last one out and about how he suspected it was a fire started by someone on purpose. The police was all ears, but he could still see doubt in the police man’s eyes as he spoke. He weren’t sure what hit him, but he suddenly realized this might be a good way to get information for his thesis. If he told them he’d rather chat more with them later they might know something and tell him. 

Deciding to play the I can’t breathe card a bit more than necessary the paramedic shooed them away for him and he let his head fall back onto the plastic covered headrest of the ambulance bed. He could for some reason hear birds chirping despite the roars of the fire further down the street. It reminded him of home, his new home, with Mino and he finally decided to text him. 

    "The arsonist struck again. Same building as last time.. While I was in it. Made it out fine but they say I have to have my lungs checked at the hospital because of the smoke" 

He hoped Mino wouldn’t call, because then he would hear how bad his voice sounded. He felt fine and after receiving extra oxygen was most of his lightheadedness gone too. He explained that he got a bit of a headache to the paramedic and fearing carbon monoxide poisoning he was whisked of to the hospital. 

The last thing he saw as the ambulance turned the corner was the flames up the building from the basement windows. The windows must have been opened before the fire started allowing for extra oxygen, the flames probably wouldn’t have made it out that quickly if not. 

For his entire ride to the hospital had he been deep in thought, trying to remember everything as detailed as he could. From the smell of the guy to what he had said. The last part, that was pretty much a threat wasn’t it? If he told Mino he’d probably go ballistic and send him out of town. He had told the police, they should know who this Alexander guy is. He couldn’t help but to wonder why he was on the loose to begin with. Weren’t he a suspect in the previous fire? He had to be.

So many questions were piling up in his head now and it didn’t help on his headache. He was distracted as his phone buzzed in his hand. It was Mino. 

    "I’m on my way there" 

The text said. He sighed wondering if that was a good idea, but he was still glad in a selfish kind of way because he never liked hospitals. Just the smell of them made his skin crawl and as soon as he was hooked up to something did he alway feel trapped and helpless. It provoked an incredible flight response in him which took a lot of effort to fight, with Mino there he might feel calmer. He had to be calmer because he had a feeling Mino would be far from calm.

Because of his cough and hoarse voice had he been sent right away to get a chest X-ray. The results had been fine as the doctor had explained a short while later and he’d been rolled off to a ward for observation as things might change over time. 

Mino had arrived to an empty room and he'd swore he could almost see the pattern in the floor from where Mino had been pacing. 

When he saw Mino's expression had the look of relief been evident which had made him feel relived as well, but he also felt an overwhelming sadness well up in him because he felt so responsible for having caused Mino to worry. 

    "I’m sorry" he said in a weak voice. 

Mino just shook his head silently and took a seat beside his bed. 

    "You weren’t here when I got here" Mino said in just a whisper. 

The nurse and the porter who had moved him up from the x-ray ward had left the room now and their hands had already found the others. 

He’d expected Mino to be angry and to ask questions about what had happened. He didn’t, he just silently trembled while holding on to his hand. 

    "I’m fine, I’ll be fine" he tried to reassure him, but Mino just shook his head staring straight ahead. 

A couple of hours went by, a doctor stopped by and the same nurse from before. He was brought food, but didn’t really feel like eating. He was coughing a bit, but no soot came up from his lungs which his doctor was really pleased about. 

When the sun had set and the nurse had taken his untouched food out had he sighed and leaned back a bit in his bed. He was tired and his lungs not being in its best state probably didn’t help, but at least the headache was gone. He still got the nose tube with the oxygen attached to his face which he guessed helped. 

He could see Mino swaying on the spot, still holding onto his hand with both of his own hands in an almost too tight grip. 

    "Go home and rest, I won’t be going anywhere today it seems" he said trying to sound calm and reassuring, but Mino shook his head violently at this suggestion. 

    "Okay then" he replied to Mino’s wordless reply.

The nurse from before came to inform them visiting hours soon was over, but they pretty much pretended not to notice. Once she had left again had Mino crawled up into his bed like some protective puppy intending to guard it’s owner from all the evil in the world. 

He let his arm wrap around Mino to make sure he wouldn’t roll out of the bed and let himself doze off. 

An hour later and he could hear the soft puffs of Mino’s breath against his chest letting him know he’d gone to sleep. 

A new nurse stopped by telling him to wake Mino to send him home. He told her in a whisper he’d be eternally grateful if he could stay, quietly adding that Mino had recently lost someone very important in a very similar situation not long ago. 

Her expression had softened at that and she’d pulled down the small blind on the door window and turned of the lights off. She’d then thrown an extra blanket over Mino’s shoulders and left the room.

There was still kindness in the world and that brought him comfort in the darkness. Even if he couldn’t sleep was the closeness of Mino a real calming factor, he was proud of him for being there for him and he felt loved. Marveling at the realization he smiled into the darkness, he felt loved and he weren’t alone. Together they could solve this whole thing he was sure of it. 

He just needed to make sure they both got through to the other side still in one piece, because he could hardly wait for all the moments they were going to share together in the future. The memories they would create. 

He sighed a small happy sigh at the thought and Mino stirred a little in his sleep, tightening his grip around him in the process. Being held felt nice, being close. The more he got to experience it the more he enjoyed it. He could only hope this would be the only time they shared such a moment together in a hospital bed.

He didn’t sleep much that night despite feeling okay, his cough was more or less gone in the morning and his voice was much better. The hospital still wanted to keep him for another day and the day after they would do another x-ray to check for changes. 

Mino never left the hospital the entire time he was there. He only went to the cafeteria to get food or to go to the bathroom and he could tell by the stressed out expression on Mino’s face when he returned that he’d been hurrying.  

The police had stopped by the morning before he was discharged to ask a couple more questions and he had made sure to ask a few in return. This time he’d decided to go for full transparency telling them everything he knew and Mino had chimed in too. 

He’d even managed to squeeze in a few questions himself, about if the first fire was an accident or not (which it wasn’t and they acknowledged that), about his landlord, was it truly a suicide? Which they didn’t want to comment on and then Mino had demanded to know why this Alexander guy wasn’t apprehended and locked away from the first fire. 

The two policemen had looked grimly at each other before saying in a low voice that he got a solid alibi for the first fire, a video tape even proved that he couldn’t have been there when it started. 

    "Couldn’t he have set it up beforehand?" Seungyoon asked before the police could change the subject. "He was the old guys son after all? I don’t know the details obviously, but I lived in the building for years" he said paying cl