~chapter thirty-four~
smile
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you just call out my name

Mari wakes up suddenly and unpleasantly, her hand shooting up God knows what for and why; there’s a nightmare lingering in the back of her mind, but the second white light flashes into her eyes, she forgets about it entirely. She can hear rhythmic beeping on her side and something warm around her hand, the one that hasn’t flailed. 

“Kai,” she tries to say, but it comes out rasping and dry and is followed immediately by a series of body-wracking coughs. Jaejoong wakes at the sound of them, bolting up in his chair and shouting for a nurse before grabbing the cup and jug sitting on the side table and filling it with water. He helps Mari sit up more and take a sip, rubbing a hand lightly across her back and cheek. It hurts.

“You can’t just wake up normally can you,” he mutters as he puts the cup down on the side table with a shaking hand and helps lower Mari back onto the bed from her sitting position, “nope, you gotta pull a Dracula rises from the dead move.” 

“Can’t pass up that kind of opportunity,” Mari croaks out, “once in a lifetime.”

Jaejoong’s eyes are serious when he looks at Mari again.

“Better be.”

“I swear.” 

Then, after a beat, “Where’s Kai?”

“He’s fine. He’s alive,” Jaejoong tells her shortly and quickly so she can finally calm down. Tension seems to leave her body. In the same second a nurse shows up and right after her comes Suho, trotting like a lost puppy, his expression totally devastated.

“How are you feeling?” He asks, standing on Jaejoon’s left. The nurse checks her pulse and does all the usual check-up that Mari has no idea about. “Is she okay?”

“She’s stable,” the nurse says, a bit bored. Excuse you, Jaejoong can’t stop himself from thinking. “She woke up, so. That’s your sign. She’s gonna be fine.”

“What about Kai?” Mari asks again, her eyes restless on all the people around her.

“Taemin is waiting for him to wake up,” Suho informs her. “He’s got a few stitches and they gave him a lot of anesthetics, so it might take a while for him to wake up. But he’s fine.”

Mari feels the overwhelming relief rushing in her veins and sighs deeply, only it ends with another coughing fit.

The nurse leaves the room, telling her not to talk too much and drink a lot of water – she looks pointedly at Jaejoong when saying this – and they’re silent for a few seconds. Then Suho speaks up.

“I know it’s not my business-“

“You’re right, it's not,” Jaejoong cuts him off, giving him no possibility whatsoever to even finish the sentence, and looking at him with a fake, wide smile. Suho half pouts, half glares and Mari smiles at this, remembering not to laugh; if breathing makes her cough so much, she’d probably puke her lungs out by laughing.

The door slide open again and her stomach does a weird movement that is usually followed by some sickness, but it’s not caused by the smoke still in her system. Two men enter the room, one of them wearing a black suit, the other one a police uniform. Jaejoong stiffs at her side and she stops breathing for a second. 

Then Suho’s voice breaks the shuffling and it’s weirdly squeaky. 

“Hyung?!”

The man in a suit snaps his eyes at him and halts in his tracks; the cop behind him frowns between the two of them, clearly confused. The same goes to Mari and her brother. 

“When did you start to work on arson cases?” Suho asks the man. 

“Since it links to Kai,” the man admits. Then he looks at Mari, quirks an eyebrow. “Hi, my name is Donghae. This is deputy Chang,” he points at his colleague. “Miss Kim, isn’t it? I’ve got a few questions for you.”

“Why so stiff?” Suho asks, a bit surprised. “She’s my friend, hyung. She only just woke up.”

“I know. And I’m sorry for bombarding you with questions the minute you regain consciousness,” Donghae looks sincerely sheepish at this and Mari feels herself relax. “But I need to write down a report. And I know for a fact that the fire started because someone kidnapped you.”

Then something seems to skip in Donghae’s head because he squints momentarily, looks at Mari as if seeing a ghost, and snaps his fingers at something. He opens his mouth but stops from commenting.

“Uh,” he says eloquently instead. “May I please ask you all to leave the room?” He says then. Jaejoong looks like he wants to fight, so Donghae lifts his arms in surrender. “Easy. Standard procedure.”

If his colleague’s face is any indication that it’s not a standard procedure, but the deputy leaves the room anyway. Suho is still confused and sends his brother a worried look before leaving as well. Jaejoong is the last one and he stops by the door in some kind of a nervous manner.

Mari’s heart is going crazy in her chest and unfortunately there’s a machine beeping beside her showing how fast it’s actually beating. Donghae sends her a wary look, sits on the chair on her right as she swallows hard. 

“Water?” he asks, pointing at a glass. Mari nods shortly and only after she’s done drinking Donghae starts his questioning. “You work at that bar,” he notes and she nods, too clenched to answer still. “You also acted weird around us when Kai asked about that friend of his that has troubles with the local mafia,” he states again, his voice stern but curious, and Mari doesn’t nod or even hum. “I take it as a yes.”

Mari feels as if ground is slipping from under her feet. 

“Listen,” Donghae says. “This case may have nothing to do with your own troubles, and I’m not here to interrogate you about your personal reckoning—but I need to know if these two cases are somehow related.” 

So Mari nods.

Donghae sighs heavily, runs a hand through his hair. He pulls out a notepad from the inside of his suit together with a pen.

“Alright,” he muses. 

“But it’s not like that,” Mari cuts in. Donghae lifts his eyes up. “Whatever troubles I had before, it’s—it’s over. The fire happened because of a single man. He’s… I…” she doesn’t know what to say, frankly; she stutters and mumbles and Donghae is patient as she does so. “He was obsessed with me. After he found out that I’m no longer involved with his… organization, he decided that… Gosh, I can’t believe I’m saying it… that if he can’t have me, no one can have me.”

Donghae lifts his eyebrow.

“I think that he had a problem with that organization of his too,” Mari notes, looking back at the weird behavior of his, at his bruised face and the fact that he didn’t show up on the last day. 

“He was the one who set the warehouse in flames?” Donghae asks, scribbling something down in his notepad. Mari nods. “Why did Kai show up there?”

“Because Garn—the person who set fire, I mean, uh, called him. I have no idea why. It seemed more like he wanted to get back at Kai for something than he wanted to take revenge on me. But it’s so twisted that I can’t—“

Her breathing wheezes weirdly then and she coughs violently. Donghae stands up, ready to rub her back, but he stops mid-air, not sure if he can even touch her. Mari calms down after a few long seconds, still wheezing, and Donghae hands her a glass of water.

“And your brother? How did he know about it?” 

Mari freezes because she doesn’t know either, now that she thinks of it. Donghae, seeing her face, falters a bit. 

“Okay,” he says, scribbling down another note. “Would you be able to recognize the arsonist?” 

Mari wants so say yes because she would never forget his face, but her voice gets stuck in . The organization he works for takes care of each other’s back; if Garn was to get arrested, they’d get back at her. Then again, it didn’t look like Garn was any longer a part of the organization, so what if she would rat him out? Would he come after her? Would anybody come after her?

“I see that’s something you need to think about longer,” Donghae says stiffly. “No rush.”

“You say ‘no rush’ but you look like you want to bolt out of here,” Mari says hoarsely. Donghae chuckles softly, worry lines visible by his eyes, and looks up at her with weird fondness.

“I’m simply in rage of the whole situation,” he states sincerely. “We’ve been trying to catch these guys for a long time and they always seem to be able to get away from our grip. And now, one of them did something openly. The police is searching the place now, looking for evidence. If they find something, maybe you won’t be asked to give your testimony.”

“I’m sorry that I can’t help you,” Mari says quietly, clutching her hands on the covers. Donghae nods, a final, sad smile on his lips. “Is Kai going to be in any trouble after he wakes up? Why—why did you come here when you found out it was about him?”

“I was the one to lead his father’s case,” Donghae says, clearly understanding that Mari was no normal friend. “I was supposed to look after him and his criminal record for the next half a year. Kind of like a curator, if you mind. So I got notified. And they need as much people as they can get, because that gang that’s been after you is a big problem in the city.”

Mari nods in understanding.

Donghae leaves half an hour later after asking Jaejoong some questions (out of Mari’s hearing range, unfortunately) and after finding out that Kai won’t wake up any time soon. 

Suho tells her that he’s going to check up on Kai and Jaejoong sits beside her again, nervously clenching and unclenching his fists, as if waiting for something.

“Okay, out with it,” he tells Mari. 

“How did you know I was in trouble?”

“Wire.”

Mari gapes at him. At first she’s sincerely confused and the word is weird to her ears. Wire? What the heck is a wire? She thinks that her brain got burned by all the smoke because he honestly doesn’t understand the meaning of this word. Wire.

Then it clicks into place and she opens widely in a silent, disbelieving gasp.

“How could you?” She says, sitting up because her whole body is suddenly rigid. “You were spying on me? Listening to my calls? What’s wrong with yo-u?!” 

The last word gets cut out because she starts coughing again. It’s slowly getting on her nerves. She swats a hand at Jaejoong and he takes the slap on his knee because it’s neither hurtful nor hard and he thinks he deserves it.

“I had to make sure you’re safe. I wasn’t going to keep it forever,” he explains quickly, his expression becoming worried when Mari doesn’t stop slapping him randomly. 

“Like that’s a huge comfort, you sick bastard!” she curses at him. 

“I saved your life!” Jaejoong outburst, catching her hand in mid-air and clenching his fingers around it. 

“And Kai saved yours,” Mari decides to say. Jaejoong falters, but doesn’t disagree. 

“I did it because I was worried about you. You can’t blame me for that.”

She surely can’t, but it still stings.

“Have you been listening to all my conversation, you creeper?”

“Of course not. As soon as I could hear you two sappy kids I’d focus on something different. You sound like the most cliché drama couple I’ve ever seen.”

Mari blushes wildly at that.

“That’s not true,” she argues. “We’re not a couple and we’re not saps,” she adds, although her heart rate speeds up and Jaejoong eyes the machine that’s controlling it before quirking a brow at her. Mari blushes more.

“Your heart rate speeds up when I say his name, dammit,” he says sulkily. 

“And you’re suddenly jealous?”

“Kai.”

The beeping becomes faster and then even faster when Mari realizes it.

“God you’re hopeless.”

Silence feels the room. Mari is flushed and looking pointedly at the door; Jaejoong is sulking, but his expression gets thoughtful at some point.

They listen to the wind whistling outside and to the sounds of heels clicking on the hallway. A child laughs loudly and it echoes even in the room. 

“I know you hate me,” Jaejoong says suddenly. Mari’s heart pangs hurtfully at his words, but she can’t exactly deny it. She doesn’t hate him, of course she doesn’t; she just can’t see him in a role of an older brother yet. They’re still getting there after all this time. Maybe now, after this storm is over, they’ll be actually able to trust each other again. “But Kai saved my life, and I think I owe him something. So. I’m going to tell you a secret now.”

He leans closer to her and Mari focuses her attention on his eyes and on his frown-y eyebrows and on his sincere gaze. 

“You have feelings for him. He has feelings for you. You’re both too shy to admit it. You’re both hurt in some way. And yet, you both made each other’s lives better. So next time you see him, don’t hesitate, Mari. I beg you. Because if your friends have to hear your lovey-dovey banters all the time as I had to listen to your phone calls, then I really feel sorry for them.”

Mari slaps him on the shoulder, but it’s weak and more of a playful smack; Jaejoong smiles at her then and suddenly falls forward until his head is flush against the bed beside Mari’s hand. She wordlessly combs her fingers through his hair and Jaejoong relaxes under her touch.

~*~

Kai wakes up with an awful, sharp pain at his side and panics right away. The machine on his left is going crazy and there’re hands on him suddenly. 

“Calm down, geez,” a familiar voice says; Kai lifts his arm in search of that person and soon his hand is between someone’s palms. He opens his eyes to see Taemin’s worried expression. He wants to speak, but he can’t – nothing comes out from between his sandpaper-like lips. 

“I know what you wanna ask about,” Taemin says smugly. “But because you scared the living out of me, I’m not going to tell you for the next six—“

Kai wheezes painfully, waving a distressed hand at him.

“-five…”

He pats his bed wildly, demanding for him to tell him how Mari is, but of course.

“-four, three-“

“Taemin,” Kai rasps, his voice barely there. “This isn’t funny, this is really ing—“ 

“-two…”

“That’s life and death, you ing moron—“

“One. And if you’d just calm down you’d know that if something was wrong with Mari, or if she’d be in a life-threatening danger, I would probably be with her or tell you right away. Of course she’s fine, Kai, you saved her life, you stupid, useless, idiotic, hero, I hate you so much and I can’t even hit you because you’ve been literally dragged out of a burning building with a ing metal part in your side!” Taemin shouts, standing up from his chair and flailing his arms around like a madman. “You promised me it won’t happen again! Stupid !”

And with that, he storms out of the room.

Only then Kai realizes that there’s another person on his side and he sees his mom, her eyes red and teary, and she sobs into a tissue she has in her hands. 

Kai, not sure what’s going on, lets the thought of Mari being safe sink in and his eyes are closing again then, his eyelids too heavy. He sees Suho entering the room, his expression a mix of relief and surprise, and he wants to roll his eyes at both his mom and him for being so worried, but he knows that he would act the same. 

“You really are a piece of work,” Suho mumbles, and it’s the last thing Kai hears before dozing off again.

~*~

Mari stares at her right calf, her brows furrowed, in complete confusion.

“Wait,” she says. “When exactly did I hurt my leg like that?” she asks, pointing at the bandage from her knee to her ankle. It’s slightly pink on the side, indicating that there’s been blood involved. “I didn’t feel a thing.”

“You also bruised your back a lot,” Jaejoong says, sitting down with a grunt and taking a sip of his coffee he just got from a coffee machine down the corridor. “And I’m speaking about your bones almost cracking. Particularly your right blade-bone.” 

“Must’ve been when I was trying to get free,” Mari mutters, trying to move her shoulder, and yep, here comes the awful, heavy pain. She hisses and moans at it and then curses. Jaejoong lifts his eyebrow at that, but doesn’t comment. “I practically can’t move, dammit.”

“Thought about telling the police about Garn?”

Mari shots him an annoyed look.

“I can’t,” she says. “Give me some chocolate.”

Jaejoong rolls his eyes. He became her private assistant since day one. Mari has been visited by her every friend possible – Jinki, Lay, Tao, Kyungsoo, Myungsoo, Kibum, Jonghyun, even Hoya. They all brought her flowers, fruits and chocolate and now she had a huge bag of sweets by her bed and she shamelessly took advantage of being in such state to order Jaejoong around a bit.

She and Jaejoong turn on the TV after asking her neighbor – miss Park, a very nice but very talkative old woman with purple hair – if it’s okay. They spend an hour like this, watching some drama. 

Then Taemin comes to the room holding a huge flower bouquet in his hands and gasping lightly.

“Whoa,” Mari says. “Who is that for?”

Taemin squirms at her in confusion, then realizes she’s talking about the flowers and rolls his eyes at his own idiocy.

“Kai,” he gasps out. “Another fan of his came. But. He’s awake.”

Mari sits up, ready to get out of the bed and crawl to Kai’s room if she needs to, but Taemin waves a hand at her.

“No, I mean, he woke up, but he’s asleep again. But the doctor said it’s a good sign, so.” 

Mari falters and leans back onto the wall again, pouting slightly.

Since the second day she’s been in the hospital she’s been preparing herself to talk to Kai. Really talk to Kai. She made up her mind and if she was going to be any part of Kai’s life, he had to know what she feels for him.

And what she felt for him wasn’t really something that could be described with words.

“I need to go now. I left Suho and Kai’s mom there and believe me that Suho will be no obstacle if more fangirls will come with presents to see Kai sleeping like the creeps they are,” he makes a face and is gone.

Mari falters even more.

“Jealous?” Jaejoong asks, stealing a chocolate ball from her and popping it into his mouth with a smug grin.

“You’re awful,” Mari retorts, leaning on the other side and snuggling into the pillow.

She thinks about Kai’s arms around her. About his strong voice. About his obscene, as she once called them, lips. About his quiet, caring personality and glimpses of humor and happiness under his mysterious exterior. 

And about how she loved all of it.

She loved every bit of him. She loved the way he talked, the way he tried not to show his emotions but they were all visible on his face; the way he would tuck her into sleep, as he did so many times completely disinterestedly, the way his eyes would linger on her if he would notice just a tiny sign of distress of her face; the way his eyes would shine every time he would mention Taemin. She even loved how discreet he was. How he never judged anyone. How caring he was towards other people, even if he didn’t know them. How humble he was, dammit. He knew how he looked like, he had fans, he was a model, and he’d still get embarrassed if she’d compliment him. How was that even possible? 

She loved the way he wanted to fix his failures. She loved his mussed hair. She loved how he looked when being sleepy. She loved the fact that he was a er for tees with comic heroes on them. She loved the fact that he craved light because for her he was light himself. She loved his perceptiveness and his love for animals.

She loved the fact that her life became so much better since he showed up in it and that she could watch his life changing. She loved the fact that she was there when he began to fix his fails, that she was there when he went to get his mother. That she was there to see him going from distant, cold and sad to less distant, warm and smile-y. 

And he came for her. He was there every time she needed him; and somehow, he decided that he needs her too. 

~*~

Kai was a quick healer. He woke up again on the next day; it was the third day Taemin was spending in the hospital with Kai’s mom and Jaejoong. Suho had to go to work on that day, but they were all sure Kai wouldn’t mind. 

Taemin was still furious. He was sitting by Kai’s side, leaning his feet on the bed (no shoes!, he defended as the nurse send him an unfriendly look at his position) and he basically spend his days by glaring at his sleeping best friend. Even Kai’s mom told him that he looks like a murdered and that she’s having second thoughts about letting him stay alone with her son.

They bonded over talking about the past. It was a surprise because their past mostly involved Kai being repeatedly beaten into a mush by his father and running away to find solace at Taemin’s place. And yet, not even once during their conversations they mentioned these moments. Instead they talked about Kai’s first performances at school and about Kai and Taemin’s pranks and doings. Taemin admitted that that little explosion in chem lab back in seventh grade was in fact him and Kai’s idea of revenge and not Mir’s poor knowledge of compounds. 

Being in the hospital with Kai had a lot of benefits. For example, he met Siwon a day before. The guy eyed him up and down and asked what agency he’s working for. Taemin felt smug as ever and asked him to guess. Siwon quirked a brow at his dazzling smirk and gave him his business card. 

“Give me a call when he feels better,” he said. “Knowing him he won’t even text me that he’s okay. And also…” he leaned closer. “What do you think about photo sessions?”

Taemin grinned up at him.

“I think we can think of something,” he mused and winked at the older man. Siwon grinned back, clapped his hands with a simple ‘excellent’ and was gone after telling Kai goodbye. No one cared if Kai could hear them, they talked to him anyway.

“Mari looked like she’s ready to jump on Jaejoong’s back and command him to bring her to you the second I told her that you woke up,” Taemin tells Kai on the fourth day when his mom is out in the city. He tries very hard to make himself comfortable between all the flowers and gifs Kai got, not only from his fans that found out but also from all the companies he worked for. A flower slapped him in the face and he sputtered at it. “, you just started working as a model, where all these came from?”

Kai is barely conscious at this point because they drugged him like whoa and Taemin feels jealous a bit because the guy looks blissed out. Then Taemin realizes that he may look like this because he mentioned Mari.

“She’s fine, you know,” Taemin says. “Even Jaejoong stopped worrying. That guy is scary, by the way. In that all protective brother way, too. I’d be scared if I was you.”

Kai grumbles at that. Taemin snorts.

“A responsive pup you are today, aren’t you, sunshine?” He muses fondly. Kai raises his brows at him. “Aww, look at him, all cute and trying to be disapproving. I know you love me, idiot. I’ll take advantage of your mom being out so I can tease you some more.”

Kai growls and turns his head to the other side.

“It’s funny because you can’t speak and I still know what you’re thinking,” Taemin says, smirking and nudging Kai’s shoulder with his socked feet. “Taemin, you , leave me alone so I can drown in my Mari feelings. I can’t even visit her right now, not in this state, and I don’t know which is worse: being drugged or being unable to talk to her,” he says everything in a squeaky, quite girly voice. He doesn’t even see the doors opening to the room.

Kai turns to glare at him. If looks could kill… well. Taemin would be probably out of the window in the exact second.

“You’re stupid. And I don’t sound like that!” Taemin explains, continuing his own translation of Kai’s stares and glares and frowns. 

Then there’s a snort on his side and Taemin flails in his seat. The damn flower slaps him on the face again and he turns to see a nurse standing by the bed with a notepad in her hand. The nurse looks his age, which is new.

“That’s quite impressive, actually,” she says, scribbling something down. She checks Kai’s pulse then and Taemin follows her with his stare. Kai frowns when she checks the oxygen tank by his bed, probably a bit confused because she looks young, really young. “Oh. Here we go. Can you translate his eyebrows to me now?” She asks, smiling brightly at Kai and then glancing at Taemin with the same smile.

That’s the moment Taemin realizes that he’s completely and utterly gone.

He glances at Kai, his mouth open wide. 

“He says,” he starts, coughs a little and finally closes his gawking mouth. “Why the hell is that teenager checking my oxygen tank. Are they trying to drug me again?"

The girl laughs loudly, throwing her head back. So she laughs with her whole body; that’s nice to know. And Taemin wasn’t even trying to be that funny and she still laughed. God.

She scribbles something in her notepad again. 

“You’re healing fast,” she mutters to Kai then, frowning at some of his documents. “You mind?” She asks, lifting his shirt to take a look at his side wound. She hums quietly. "No changes. Good."

She continues to make that little remarks and notes in her pad. Kai smirks when she leaves and Taemin kicks him on the shoulder. Kai hisses loudly but Taemin doesn’t feel even remotely bad for him.

“Now that I think of it,” Taemin says suddenly. “She’s probably the first girl that has seen you and didn’t faint at the sight. Or squeaked.”

“That’s because she would rather see you ,” says a voice from the door. Taemin whips his head around and beams at the sight of their friends.

Kai chuckles on the bed and suddenly the room gets completely filled. Chen, Xiumin, Luhan, Kris, Chanyeol, Minho, Sehun – everyone is there, everyone is loud and everyone is happy to see Kai conscious again. 

Kai sits up with Taemin’s help and Sehun is the first person who throws himself at him. He hardly feels any pain, but his leg got burned and there was glass under his skin so he does flinch when someone accidentally touches it. Chanyeol embraces him from the other side, someone crawls onto his bed, to sum it up – there’re boys everywhere, hugging him, screaming into his ear and showing him how much they missed him. He gets elbowed three times but he doesn’t care.

“You’re all crazy,” he says, and it’s the first sentence that he can actually rasp out; he feels weirdly proud. Taemin laughs like a madman.

Then the boys suddenly split, and they step aside to reveal Mari standing by the door.

She’s propped on Kibum’s and Baekhyun’s shoulders. Her leg is covered in bandage, her cheek is visibly burned, there's a bandage around her head too. 

“Hi,” she says, beaming openly at him. All the boys look smug and proud as ever.

“Hi yourself,” Kai says, mirroring her smile, and everyone seems to get crazy at that.

They only calm down when Jinki comes to scold them all.

Two more chapters to go oh god

Thanks for subscribing and reading cuties <3 Next chapter on the weekend probably.