Epilogue
Paper BoatPeep - peep – peep - peep.
“Doctor I think he wakes up!”
He screamed his voice full of worry. Nervously he fumbled on the sterile blanket, an old habit he never really got the chance to quit. Usually he prefers to grab someone’s tight or arm, even hands were welcome. But there was no one he could have hold onto.
“Don’t worry the medicals will kick in, he won’t feel anything …”
The doctor tried to reassure him but he couldn’t help but to feel on the edge of panic.
“But …”
He didn’t want them to put him to sleep again, this would be his third surgery but it was actually the first time he showed some kind of reaction, the first time he seemed to want to wake up.
He was so terrified of losing him, that all he could do was to stare. Monitoring how the nurses injected him another ampule with another serum before his eyes darted back to Chansungs not so peaceful face. He looked so fragile, so scared, so hurt and then suddenly the twitching eyelids opened. It seems to be an extreme difficult and painful thing to do, since it seems to take an enternity. Everything around Minjun seems to pass by in slow motion, and the irritating noises faded. He hasn’t even realized he was holding his breath until he heard his own gasp.
“Chansung? Are you alright?”
Chansung slowly tried to narrow his eyebrows, making Minjun lips curl in a sad smile. Chansung never has liked to be called pet names, but it always has been a habit to the composer.
But as happy as he was to get a reaction from the once youngest from their group, it also frightened him. Wasn’t he supposed to be asleep? They were about to bring him to the next surgery right? To more hours where he would feel like a cat on a hot tin roof. So why was he awake?
But it didn’t really matter since now he was able to search for his hand, carefully not to pull on the hoses and wires. He almost didn’t dare to touch him, too scared he might hurt him even more. But once he got hold of the familiar slightly chubby fingers he felt a lot better. It still was the very same strong hands which could break an apple apart like before the accident, just the strength was missing.
The bubble around him burst and all the blocked out voices became even louder. Blurred was only his sight because the tears streamed down without mercy.
‘Move!’
The nurse barked and almost knocked him out of her way, but he hadn’t let go of his hand. She grabbed Chansung infusion to push it along with the now moving bed.
“Chansung if you come back, let’s make holiday, we could go to Switzerland, or Honolulu. Or let’s sail somewhere, wherever the wind will take us.”
It took a while but to his surprise Chansung tried to open his mouth, tried to reply something.
But all he could hear was a dry pained sound. Luckily he had noticed that his throat was too dry and Minjun probably couldn’t have understood. Therefore he tried it a second time, weak but audible enough.
“The others...”
Obviously Chansung fought with every word, but Minjun could guess what he wanted to know.
“They are save Chansung, just focus on your own recovery.”
He had to blink away the tears, because Chansung was in no condition to bear with the truth just yet. Hell he doesn’t even know how to deal with it!
Sometimes he found himself grabbing into the air, because it became a habit that there would be taecyeon with coffee next to him. Or he thought he felt Khuns firm comforting hand on his shoulder. And when he woke up at night he could swear the "twins" sat next to each other fast asleep. But they were never there. Nichkhun died suburb, Taecyeon passed away on the way to the hospital. Junho was a fighter, he always was, he tried he even had spoken to him, but his injuries were too serious, and he never made it out of the E.R. Wooyoung was the difficult one, he looked as if everything was okay, just asleep, but after a few days the doctors had to let him go. Brain dead, they said.
“…we all…together?”
“Yes, yes together, we will wait okay? Don’t let us wait!”
They had reached the end of the corridor and therefore the end of the public area, Chansung’s hand slipped out of his caring grip, out of his reach. He watched as the frame of the bed disappeared behind the heavy doors of the E.R. and the red light went on.
There will never be enough tears to express the loss and the sadness Minjun felt, but as long there was at least one alive he would hope and pray and protect with all he could.
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