A Family

Luhan enters his best friend’s room with a glass of water in his right hand and a box of tissues in the other. He stops on the door step as he sadly looks at his sniffling best friend, who has still not completely calmed down. He understands his best friend.  He might not have experienced it firsthand, because he never really had anyone to lose—until he met Kyungsoo. The pain he feels despite never having anyone to lose is already too painful—how much more can it hurt if there’s someone he can actually lose?

Kyungsoo has always been the stronger between the two of them—emotionally or even physically. He is always calm and collected when problems happen. He never cries. Luhan has only seen his best friend cry once; when he lost the man he loved the most two years ago. Seeing him in that exact same situation, crying over a dying man, crushes Luhan’s heart. He does not want his best friend to lose anyone anymore. He doesn’t want him to be in pain. He doesn’t want him to cry. He doesn’t want him to be sad. He loves Kyungsoo. He’ll do anything—absolutely anything—for him. Because he loves him. More than just a friend. Because Kyungsoo is the only family he has left.

The only person he can call family.

Luhan starts walking towards his best friend and puts a hand on his shoulder, patting it gently.

“Please, Kyungsoo,” Luhan begs as he hugs his best friend. The younger man, still sniffling, buries his head in the crook of Luhan’s neck. Luhan looks up at the ceiling as he himself feels tears forming in his eyes. He gently rubs Kyungsoo’s back comfortingly. The sight of his best friend sad and crying is just too unbearable for him. He can’t cry. Not now. He needs to be strong for Kyungsoo when Kyungsoo can’t.

He heaves a sigh. He needs his best friend to stop crying now. He pulls away a little bit to cup his best friend’s face and look at him in the eyes.

“Stop crying now, Kyungsoo. What kind of doctor cries because his patient is hurt?” Kyungsoo sniffles and looks at his best friend with his huge doe-eyes sparkling with tears.

“But this is different. This is him,” Kyungsoo starts sniffling again as tears race their way down his cheeks.

Luhan hugs him again and starts rubbing the back of his head lovingly.

“He’s fine now Kyungsoo. You’re a good doctor. You  saved him,” he whispers in to the smaller man’s ear, his eyes roaming around to the messy room full with different medical equipments and sheets covered with blood.

“But if you didn’t arrive I would’ve been just crying all the time and he’d be dead by now,” he pauses as he sniffles, “I’m so stupid. I’m a stupid doctor. I don’t deserve to be one.”

“No, no, no. Don’t say that Kyungsoo. You saved him and he’d be gone by now if it weren’t for you,” he answers reassuringly. It’s true that Kyungsoo single-handedly saved the unconscious man. All Luhan did was help his best friend carry the man to the room and hand all the necessary equipments, that his best friend thankfully still have, to Kyungsoo. That all happened after he succeeded in helping his best friend get his senses back.

Early that morning, he had planned to come visit his best friend to inform Kyungsoo personally about him leaving for a road trip. He wasn’t expecting to find his best friend on the floor with an unconscious man on his lap as he stares off to space, tears continuously streaming down his face.

They stayed in the position for a couple more minutes as he constantly rubs his best friend’s back to calm him down with the constant reassuring whispers of ‘he’s fine now and everything’s gonna be alright’ and ‘pelase stop crying now, please?’.

After a few more minutes, his best friend stops crying, his sobbing turning into shaky breathes. Kyungsoo slowly pulls away and smiles at his best friend.

“Thank you, Luhan.” Luhan only smiles at his best friend and Kyungsoo closes his eyes momentarily as Luhan kisses his forehead before standing up. Kyungsoo follows his best friend with his eyes as the latter picks up the used bloody sheets. That man lost too much blood.

As Luhan picks up a sheet, he remembers something. He stands up and looks at his best friend who is staring at the man on the bed. He mentally argues with himself whether he should tell his best friend what he knows. But he doesn’t know how to break it to his best friend.

“Luhan? What’s wrong?” Luhan gets pulled out of his stupor and he faces his best friend.

“N-nothing. I’ll just take these to the laundry room and machine wash it, okay? I’ll be right back.”

“Okay...Thank you,” Kyungsoo answers. “And Luhan?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t you think we should bring him to the hospital?”

Luhan hesitates before answering. “You have everything you need here because you’re a doctor and he’s already perfectly fine. I don’t think that would be necessary… B-besides... we don’t know anything about him yet.”

Kyungsoo nods before letting a soft smile grace his face.

It isn’t the usual smile that Luhan really likes to see but still, as long as his best friend isn’t crying, it’s fine.

He decided not to tell Kyungsoo for now.

+ + +

“Come on, Kyungsoo. I can still stay a few nights here. Really. You need me here. I don’t want to leave you here alone,” Luhan says as he follows his best friend, who is washing the dishes in the sink even though Luhan insisted on doing it himself.

“I’m not alone, Luhan. I have him here and Zelo is going to take over the night shifts, so everything will be fine. You don’t need to worry.”

Luhan frowns. “But that man isn’t awake. How can you expect me to leave my best friend at the time he needs me the most!”

“Luhan, you already told me that you have a road trip tomorrow. You have to go, okay? You said it’s for your business. I know how much you treasure your business,” Kyungsoo doesn’t even look back at his best friend; his eyes are fixed on the dishes he’s washing.

A pang of guilt gnaws the pit of Luhan’s stomach. He lied to his best friend and his best friend believes him too much.

“Not as important as you are to me though,” Luhan softly answers. He shouldn’t have lied in the first place.

Kyungsoo pauses and looks up from the sink. He heaves a sigh before turning off the faucet and takes off his gloves. He walks to his best friend leaning on the kitchen table and hugs him.

"Why is my best friend suddenly being too sweet?” he hugs him tighter.

“I’ve always been sweet. You’re just too serious in life to actually notice that you’re best friend is a human-sized cheese ball.”

Kyungsoo laughs on his chest before giving him a final squeeze and pulling away.

“You will go tomorrow, okay? If you won’t go for you sake, then do it for me. I won’t be happy when I know my best friend is holding himself back for my sake. Please Luhan hyung, for me?” He looks his best friend in the eyes.

Luhan is forced to look at his best friend, doe eyes looking up at him innocently, pleading. He heaves a sigh in surrender. He could never ever, ever win against those eyes.

“Fine.”

 Kyungsoo smiles up at him.

“Sometimes I think you’re just really bipolar—one time you’re a strict and scary doctor, another time you’re like a love-sick teenager, sometimes you’re like a baby, or a scared little child, other times you act as if you’ve lived for 500 years and knows the way of the world. I can never understand you, Do Kyungsoo.”

Kyungsoo pecks him on the right cheek.

“That’s why you should be thankful you have a unique best friend like me.”

Luhan smiles.

I am. I will forever be thankful.