"I'd like to ask you what happened," The nurse droned on with a hint of interest as she blotted at the dried blood on Jongup's head. "but it seems it's not my place to ask." She continued to carefully remove traces of the dark flecks without transferring any cotton fibres onto the open wound. Jongup hummed, half in approval and the other in pain. The nurse quietly pulled her gaze away from the wound and down to his ID badge.

"Don't worry about the cost of any of the ointments since you work in the business."

"Ah, thank you."

The two stayed predominantly silent for the rest of the procedure, which took a while as his head had to be bandaged carefully instead of stitching the cut, ignoring the occasional hiss from her patient.

"You work for Dr. Bang Yong Guk?" She asked after sterilising her hands with a goopy cyan goo. Jongup brushed cotton fibres from his pants as he hummed in approval. "Figures." She muttered under her breath, passing clean dressings for him to use during the healing process.

"Jongup?" A voice echoed from the door of the sterile room. His head snapped up quickly to meet with the owner of the familiar voice standing by the doorway. 

"Youngjae?"

The nurse arched a single eyebrow suggestively. "I'll leave you two alone then, I'm off the clock." The volumptious woman squeezed between the two men, giving Jongup a final once over before sharply leaving.

"What are you doing here?" Youngjae squeaked.

"What are you doing here?"

The younger finally got a chance to see his friend clearly. Youngjae stared hard at Jongup with red, puffy eyes. He trailed his gaze down the elder's face, eyes locked on to the dried streaks on his cheeks. "She's ill again, isn't she?"

"What's it to you?"

"Why are you being like this?" Jongup retorted again with a rhetorical question, folding his arms in irritation. The dim throbbing in the back of his head intensified immensely, fogging up his vision and tainting it red.

Youngjae ignored him. "Why are you here?"

"Why do I have to answer to you? You're not my girlfriend!" Youngjae winced at the snarky comment, unconsciously bit his lip and furrowing his brow. It was embarrassing for him to have the only submissive character in his life rebel against him, especially after spending so many years together.

"I-I know that, Jongup, I'm just concerned." Youngjae rubbed his eyes raw, as if to remove the red tinge. His eyes widened. "Wait a second.."

"What is it now?" Jongup's fingers touched his bandage.

"Who's at the hospital?" Jongup froze guiltily and averted his gaze.

"..."

"So you're telling me that there is no one at the hospital that can help with that creepy kid, that same kid who has done nothing but ruin people's lives?" Youngjae pinched the bridge of his nose before continuing. "At least Himchan is with Yongguk."

"Yeah..." Jongup lied.

Youngjae lifted his hand to caress Jongup's face. "You're injured."

"Now you notice!" Jongup hissed, smacking away Youngjae's hand. Suddenly Jongup's phone started ringing, reminding the elder that his handset had ran dry. Youngjae in retaliation from his partner's resistance snatched the vibrating phone from him.

"I think Yongguk's dad has found him and-" Youngjae hung up on Himchan's crackling and distorted voice quickly, staring intensely into Jongup's terrified eyes.

"Are you going to tell me what's going on? Or shall I tell you what's really going to happen. This is your fault, damnit! You let him go didn't you? No one is there monitoring that child, well anyone who can help, that is. On top of that, Yongguk isn't being monitored himself and we know that he is a bigger kid than Junhong. Yongguk is going to go back to the hospital and ruin his life with that kid and his ex girlfriend is pregnant with his kid, did you forget? Do you want that innocent child to be brought up in such a ed up fairy tale?"

Jongup feigned ignorance towards the obvious points that his friend was throwing at him and looked out of the window at the powerful storm and its relentless rain. "If we head back now, it'll take at least an hour."

"That's not fast enough Jongup! We don't have enough time to waste!"