When Kibum had been in the hospital, Minho had wondered what it would be like to get the kind of call he’d had to make to Jonghyun. Now he wished he didn’t know.

“Jonghyun!” Minho came tearing through the hospital, towards his friend who was already seated in the waiting room. “What happened?”

Jonghyun caught him by the shoulders and ordered, “Take a deep breath. Onew was in a car accident, and he was injured, but he’s going to be okay.”

“A car accident?” Minho asked, fighting down some of the panic he’d been feeling. “But Jinki can’t even drive. He doesn’t have his license. So who was driving? Jonghyun, was Joon driving?” He asked the last part angrily.

“Onew wasn’t driving,” Jonghyun said, “but we’re still processing the scene and we can’t say anything else for sure. There’s no point in speculating on what happened just yet.”

Minho frowned. “Were you there at the scene? How did you know Jinki was in an accident?”

Jonghyun led Minho to sit down in a nearby chair. He explained, “I heard the call come in to the station for a processing team. When they ran Jinki’s name I checked to see if he’d been taken to a hospital, called you, and came here right away.”

Minho scrubbed a hand over his face. “I think you scared several years off my life.”

“He’s going to be okay,” Jonghyun comforted. “The last time I checked the nurses were able to tell me he was awake and there didn’t seem to be any lasting damage. You’ll be able to see him soon.”

Minho’s legs splayed out in front of him. “Maybe … I’ll just sit here.”

“Are you two still fighting?”

Minho gave him a harsh look. “We’re not fighting. We broke up. He won’t want to see me.”

Jonghyun posed, “Do you want me to ask him when I go in? I have to take his statement. Even if you are … having some issues, I can’t imagine he won’t want to see you. He’s just had a pretty scary experience.”

After a moment of thought, Minho said, “I don’t think I even want him to know I’m here. You said he’s okay, right? I’m trying to give him space. I have to give him space. If he’s okay, I’ll go.”

Voice stern and all business, Jonghyun said, “Onew was the passenger for certain in the car. The paramedics pulled him out of the side seat. Whoever the driver was, he’s missing. More like gone without a trace. I read the paramdic’s initial analysis already, and it’s not good. Onew has a broken wrist, and it isn’t from the crash.”

“What are you saying?” Minho asked carefully.

Jonghyun looked away and said, “Someone broke his wrist after the crash. He’s got the bruises from the grip necessary to make the break as proof. That’s the real reason I’m here. There’s an open investigation, and Onew is our only witness to what happened.”

“You’re telling me someone hurt him on purpose?” Minho barely got the words out, his mouth was so dry.

“I’m telling you someone intentionally broke his wrist after his accident,” Jonghyun confirmed.

Minho squared his shoulders. “I’m going in with you.”

Jonghyun remarked with a tight smile, “That’s more like it.”

Jinki, despite being relatively okay, was still pretty banged up in Minho’s opinion. His wrist had already been set in a cast, but he had various scrapes and bruises all along his exposed skin. He certainly looked like he’d been in a car accident.

“Jonghyun,” Jinki greeted, his behavior dim in comparison to what Minho knew was normal. “The doctor told me they were sending someone from the precinct. I didn’t know it would be you. And … Minho.”

Minho felt flustered. “I’m not … I only came because Jonghyun said you’d been in an accident. I know you don’t want me hanging around, but I had to come. I didn’t know how bad you’d been hurt.”

“I’m okay,” Jinki said, speaking with a lisp, probably due to the swelling of his face and a split lip. He looked like he’d taken some impact to the side of his face, maybe bouncing off the window of the frame of the car. “You …” He took a deep breath. “Thank you for coming to check on me, but I’m okay. You can go now.”

Minho ignored his words, nearly barking out, “Jonghyun said someone hurt you. Who hit you? What happened? Was Joon driving the car? Who touched you?”

He sounded like a crazy boyfriend, someone who didn’t deserve someone as wonderful as Jinki. But he couldn’t control the fear he felt rushing through him, terrified that Jinki had been hurt while Minho had been off doing anything but shadowing him like his gut had told him to.

“Minho,” Jinki said tiredly.

“Sorry,” Minho mumbled. The he repeated, “Who hurt you?”

“Minho.” He was a little startled by the way Jonghyun said his name, and the touch to his arm that followed. “You can’t be in here while I question him. If he wants to tell you something afterwards, that’s his choice, but as I asked to be assigned to his case, I’m telling you as a police officer, you can’t be here. You’ve seen he’s fine for yourself, now you have to wait outside.”

“I’ll go get some water,” Minho said, looking between Jinki and Jonghyun. “I’ll come back in about fifteen minutes.”

“No.” Jinki leaned forward, his good hand curling over the railing of the hospital bed. He looked so pale against the white sheets he was wrapped in, and more shaken than Minho had ever seen. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Come back,” Jinki said deliberately slow. “Don’t come back. I really do appreciate you wanting to know if I was okay, but I’m sure Jonghyun would have called you to let you know that. I’ll be fine. I really mean that. So don’t come back.”

Hurt flashed through Minho. “Why are you saying these things? Even if you don’t want to be with me anymore, even if we’re not together, we still care about each other. I’m here because I care about you, and because no one else is with you right now. You shouldn’t have to sit alone in a hospital. If you want to tell me where your cousin is, I’ll go get him. Rr when he’s getting here I’ll clear out. But I think he was driving, and he probably won’t be showing up to keep you company any time soon.”

“You don’t talk about my cousin, Minho. Ever.” If anything, Jinki seemed to grow more pale.

“Minho,” Jonghyun ground out. “Leave, now. If Onew wants to let you back in afterwards, then that’s okay. But you have to leave now. That’s not negotiable.”

Heart throbbing, Minho said, “I’m going to go, but then I’ll be back. Jinki, if you don’t want me here, in the room with you, then I will respect that. I’ll sit outside. But someone physically hurt you, and on purpose. That’s one thing I can’t abide by. I’m not leaving until you have someone else here to keep you company, and watch your back. I’ll sit out in the waiting room until you’re discharged, if need be. You make the choice.”

Minho heel and made his way from the room, heading straight back to the waiting room to decide if he should call Kibum. Kibum was Jinki’s friend, and he’d probably want to know, but Minho wasn’t sure about much anymore. And Kibum didn’t exactly need the extra stress of knowing Jinki had been hurt badly enough to end up in the hospital.

It was closer to twenty minutes by the time Jonghyun came back, and Minho didn’t like the look on his face one bit.

“Tell me something,” Minho begged.

“Watch him,” Jonghyun said carefully. “He’s got to stay the night because of the hit he took to his head, and he shouldn’t be alone right now. If you can’t stay, I’ll get one of the rookies to come down, or I’ll spend the night myself.”

“What the hell is going on?”

“Can you stay?” Jonghyun asked. “Or do I make a call?”

“I’ll stay,” Minho said with a firm nod. “I’ve gotten a lot of practice camping out in waiting rooms lately. That shouldn’t be something I can brag about. I know that.”

Jonghyun corrected, “No, you’re going to go in and sit with him. Onew’s okay with it, and truthfully it seems like he actually wants you there more than he’ll admit to it. Minho, seriously, you two have issues with trying to protect each other. I already talked to the nurses on rotation. They’re going to make an exception for you and put an extra cot in Onew’s room for the night.”

“Protect? Why’s Jinki trying to protect me?”

Jonghyun shook his head. “You should ask him that. Oh, and Minho?”

Minho’s head cocked. “Hmm?”

Jonghyun pursed his lips, like he wasn’t completely sure what he wanted to say. Then he managed in a cautious voice, “I’d think about keeping Rosie close for the foreseeable future, if I were you.”

“Jonghyun,” Minho asked, voice at a whisper, “are you absolutely sure?” Jonghyun wouldn’t have suggested such a thing without both a lot of thought and some real concern. “Because …”

“I am,” Jonghyun said. “I’m going to try and find Joon, and figure out what happened and why, but something about this smells, and it smells badly. I think Onew could be in danger, and he’s going to need you to watch out for him right now. So think about Rosie. I helped you out with that for a reason.”

Minho gave a serious nod. “Keep me in the loop.”

“Go,” Jonghyun said, pushing him. “And stop being so emotionally constipated. That’s my department according to Key.”

There was a chair already set up next to Jinki’s bed when Minho entered. It was a private room, which was somewhat concerning, and it made Minho ask right again if Jinki was as well as he claimed.

“It’s because of what happened,” Jinki said, looking out the nearby window.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Minho sat slowly in the chair. “Or maybe why you changed your mind about letting me be in here with you.”

“Honestly?” Jinki turned to him, tears in his eyes. “I thought I could get you to leave. I thought you’d be safe if you left. But Jonghyun said nothing short of the world ending would make you leave before I was released, probably not even that, and I realized I had to stop being so mean to someone I love so much.”

Minho wobbled a little on his chair. “You … love me?”

“Very much,” Jinki confessed. “I’m still so angry with you, but it doesn’t mean I don’t love you. Minho, I’m so sorry I couldn’t say it before now. I was scared. I didn’t want to jinx us. I didn’t want to chance it. I know it sounds stupid when I say it, but when you spend your life losing people you care about, you tend to freak out a little bit when people claim to love you. And … and honestly, you’re the first person I’ve ever been in love with. You’re really the first.”

Minho leaned forward tentatively, giving Jinki enough time to bow out if Minho was misreading the direction they were going. Then softly, with a calloused hand, he cupped Jinki’s jaw and kissed him almost reverently.

“I really missed you,” Minho said when they broke apart. “I’m sorry for being an .”

“I’m sorry for refusing to listen. About Joon.”

Minho sat back in his chair. “About your cousin? Jinki, tell me what happened today. What happened to your wrist? And what happened in the car?”

“You look like you want to kill someone,” Jinki observed, holding his good hand out to Minho who took it immediately.

“For hurting you, yeah, I do. And you’re going to tell me who that person is.”

Jinki shook off the statement, and said, “Today was Joon’s last day in Seoul. We were going to go out for lunch, and then he was leaving. He told me that he wasn’t going to come back for a while, too. He never comes back frequently, but he said it like it was going to be an extremely long time. Maybe years.”

“So he was with you,” Minho assumed. “Was he driving?”

Jinki nodded. “He had a car. He said he rented it, but honestly, when I looked there was no rental paperwork or identification. I just let it go anyway. I didn’t want to accuse him of anything, or fight with him. I love him, Minho. He can have his secrets if he wants. He’s always sort of had them, and we’ve always had this silent agreement that I don’t pry.”

“The accident?” Minho prompted.

“This dark blue sedan came out of nowhere!” Jinki rushed out. “It completely blindsided us, and it hurt a lot. I’ll admit, I wasn’t really paying attention to the traffic around us, but we had the right of way. The light was in our favor. The car that hit us did it deliberately.”

At Jinki’s words Minho reached out to trace his fingers along the longest scratch on Jinki’s cheek. “This from the glass?”

“Yeah.” Jinki held perfectly still. “My head hit the window and it broke. The doctors gave me some pain killers, so it doesn’t hurt much.”

Getting back on subject, Minho asked, “Where did Joon go? Jonghyun said you were the only one the paramedics found when they arrived.”

Jinki warned, “It’s a little hazy, and I don’t really remember what happened right after the crash. But Joon was there before the crash. He was driving, and then after we got hit, I remember him shaking my shoulder, telling me to wake up, and asking if I was okay. I must have out.” Jinki closed his eyes, concentrating. “Someone opened Joon’s door. A man, with a scar on his face. A lot of scars, actually. He pulled Joon out, yelling at him. He said Joon was trying to leave town without telling anyone, and that he’d stolen from them.”

A man with a scar on his face.

Minho had seen a man like that before, days previous when he’d been out with Taemin.

“Joon was hurt in the accident too,” Jinki went on. “I think he hurt his ribs. He was wheezing, and when that man pulled him from the car, he was in a lot of pain. I reached after him. I tried to pull him back in. That’s when…”

“Your wrist happened?”

Jinki nodded solemnly. “I guess it was a warning, for me to back off, or not go after them. I don’t know. I couldn’t think through the pain.”

“Do you know who these guys were? The one with the scar and whoever rammed your car?” There was no way Minho was going to rub anything in Jinki’s face, but he’d known all along about Joon. His gut had never been wrong.

“No. But Joon did. I could see it on his face, along with the acceptance. He … there’s no way he didn’t know these people, or what they could do. He wasn’t surprised they were there. I’m just so sorry I didn’t believe you. I knew my cousin wasn’t a saint, but I should have at least listened to you when you thought he could be mixed up in something bad.”

“No.” Minho reached for him, leaning over the bed to hug Jinki as tightly as he dared. “You don’t have to be sorry just because I was right. I still made a mistake. I still wasn’t honest with you when I said I’d leave your cousin alone. We still have trust issues we’re going to work through, and that doesn’t change just because I was right. I still take just as much responsibility as you’re trying to.”

Minho could feel Jinki’s fingers as they dug into the shirt he was wearing. “I think Joon went and did something bad,” Jinki confessed with a shaking voice.

Minho released Jinki and gave him a sad smile. “Looks that way.”

Jinki took a shuddering breath, let go of Minho, then traced the back of his hand, past where the plaster of the hard cast started, and down to where the IV was imbedded into a vein. “Will you tell me what you know? Everything?”

Minho asked, “Are you sure you want to hear it? He is your family.”

With a firm nod, Jinki said, “If I’m going to have any chance of helping him, I have to know what he’s been doing. I have to know what he has done.”

“Okay.”

Jinki ended up knowing more than Minho had expected. Granted, it wasn’t that Minho thought Jinki was some delicate flower, or completely oblivious to anything that wasn’t sunshine and rainbows, but still, Minho hadn’t expected Jinki to interrupt him and say, “I know about him hurting those people in the past. I’m not condoning the actions, but I know who he was protecting, Minho, and you’d do the same.”

There was something about the way Jinki declared himself. Like he believed in the necessity of the actions, or like he’d do the same. It was inconceivable, because Jinki wasn’t a criminal like Joon was, but then there was also a lot Minho didn’t actually know about Jinki.

“Beat a man into a coma?” Minho asked with a scoff. “Unlikely.”

“You might if you found out someone was hurting your little sister.”

Minho blinked widely. “What?”

Jinki allowed, “Some of the kids at the boy’s home knew they had family. I didn’t know, but Joon did. His little sister actually got placed into a home, and as much as he missed her, he wasn’t going to try anything to mess that up for her. You have to remember that getting placed in a home was something that we all wanted more than anything else. We looked at getting placed like it was the best thing that could happen. Joon spent years clinging to the knowledge that at least if he didn’t get placed, his sister did. She got it.”

“But?”

Jinki pressed the full weight of his body back against the pillows on his bed and looked up towards the ceiling. “But kids are stupid, Minho. They expect the best and they don’t’ stop to consider that bad things can happen instead. Sometimes I think I was better off for not getting placed, because I could have ended up in the kind of home that Joon’s little sister did.”

Minho asked, “And what kidn of home was that?”

Jinki’s eyes shifted to Minho. “The kind where you’re scared to go home after school. Where you get beat and starved and your foster parents only took you in for the check that comes in the mail on the first of the month.”

Minho didn’t have to hazzard a guess what Joon’s response had been to finding out his sister was being abused. Minho had read the police report a half dozen times. And while he couldn’t condone the behavior, it was understandable. Especially coming from someone like Joon, with his temperament and how protective he seemed to be over the people he considered family.

“So the man in the police report was the foster father?”

Jinki nodded. “I remember the day he finally saw the bruises, and realized how little she weighed, and noticed how she flinched when he raised his voice or made a sudden movement. I have never, Minho, not any other time in my life, seen him in such a rage. That’s why he beat that man into a coma. He would have killed him, if his sister hadn’t stopped him in time.”

That might have settled one instance, but there were too many others, and Minho doubted Jinki could defend them all as well as the first. “What about gouging a man’s eyes out?”

With some distaste, Jinki admitted, “He did that as a gang initiation. I begged him not to join that gang, and then when he made his choice, I didn’t talk to him for six months. He thought he had to do it, for various reason, and it took him a while to regret his decision.”

So there was the gang confirmation. Jinki wasn’t blind to that much. Unfortunately, what Jinki didn’t seem to know about was any of the things Joon had gotten up to while in that gang, or his links to the Triad, and the half a dozen other things that Minho had to explain.

“These men that caused your accident, and took your cousin, they’re probably Chinese Triad,” Minho said. “Those are the people Joon’s been most recently linked to. And if Joon’s involved with them right now, which it looks like, it’s going to be bad, Jinki. Considering how easily he’s been slipping in and out of the country, he may be in the smuggling business. That’s what the signs are pointing to right now. I’ve been doing my homework, and both the Korean government and Chinese government are reporting an increase in this kind of crime. With your cousin’s history and connections …”

Jinki interrupted quickly, “I heard that man with the scarred face say Joon had stolen from them. Minho, there’s no way Joon could be stupid enough to steal from those kinds of people. Just couldn’t have. Right?”

“I don’t know,” Minho said honestly. “But the fact that he’d endanger you … that’s the only part I find hard to believe. How could he expose you to those kinds of people?”

Jinki slumped down in his bed, eyes closing. “He probably thought he could handle it. He thinks he’d invulnerable. Or maybe he just doesn’t’ care anymore. Eun Ah is gone, Mir is out of reach, and Joon’s sister died a little over a year ago. I don’t know what more he could have to anchor himself with.”

“You feeling okay?” Minho asked, suddenly worried over Jinki’s behavior. “I can go get a doctor.”

“No.” He waved Minho’s concern off. “I’m just dizzy. Really, really dizzy.”

“Hey. I’m here. Hold onto me.” Minho slid their fingers together. “I’ll be here for you always. If you need to be weak right now, I’ll be strong. We’ll support each other when we need it the most. We love each other, remember?”

Jink drew Minho down onto him, forcing Minho to brace himelf against the bed to avoid falling completely onto Jinki. Minho let himself just be hugged, feeling in his bones how much Jinki needed it.

“I don’t want to be weak,” Jinki said, mumbling his words into the fabric at Minho’s shoulder.

Honestly, Minho said, “Everyone had to be weak once in a while. It’s okay. That’s just a part of being human, and you’re crazy if you think I haven’t been weak more than once in my life. The thing is, I’ve always had strong people to help pull me up, like I’m going to do for you. We will get through this, Jinki. We’ll get through it and we’ll be stronger for it. Trust me.”

Jinki hummed something less than words and settled in.

A few hours later, with Jinki given the okay by his doctor to nap, Minho made a few calls. He was more than a little apprehensive about letting Jinki out of his sight, even for a few moments. But it had taken some real effort for Jinki to even calm enough to fall into a restful sleep. Minho wouldn’t risk waking him, and so he huddled over his phone protectively in the hallway, trying not to be seen by any of the nearby nurses.

Jinki’s work was sympathetic and promised to send flowers.

Kibum and Taemin made Minho swear up and down that Jinki was fine and they didn’t need to go down there.

“He’s just going to spend the night as a precaution,” Minho told Kibum over the phone line. “He took a knock to the head and his blood pressure is a little high. I only get to spend the night because Jonghyun pulled a few strings. If you came down here you probably would get stuck in the waiting room.”

If Jinki was in any danger, the last thing Minho wanted to do was expose it to Kibum or Taemin. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he almost desperately wanted to keep them away from any trouble. The less they knew the better, and the further away they stayed, the safer they were. Especially with mumblings of Triad.

“You and Taemin and Jonghyun spent the night in the waiting room when I was in the hospital,” Kibum argued.

Minho shot back, “That was different. Kibum, just believe me on this. You’re better off staying home and keeping an eye on Taemin. Jinki is getting out tomorrow morning, and if you absolutely must smother him with affection, that’ll be the time to do it. He’s already sleeping, and he probably will continue to do so for the rest of the night. Don’t come down here, okay?”

There was a bit more grumbling about fairness and Minho trying to treat Kibum like he was Taemin’s age, but eventually they ended the call with kind words.

Minho’s call to Jonghyun culminated with, “There’s nothing new in terms of information. We’re running the cameras in the area, but this was obviously a hit and run by a pro. I’m thinking we’ll find nothing but blind spots. Now get back to Jinki and let me do my job.”

There was nothing to do after those three calls but slip back into Jinki’s room as silently as possible and settle in for the night.

Minho hated to think it, but Jinki’s accident had actually brought them back together. They probably would have made it on their own, especially with the way Jinki had confessed to loving him, but the accident had surely sped things up. And more than anything, it was giving them a chance to work through the problems in their relationship, fix what was obviously broken, and figure out how to trust each other again.

Despite all of the chaos spinning around them, there were still things to be thankful for. Minho thought that was something.