*Brace youself for you'll be reading a chapter that has 21 pages. This is like a present for you for waiting patiently :)*

CHAPTER 49: MAKE IT FOREVER, HYUNG

“No, baby. You’re not dreaming. Now, rest.” Youngjae said as he gently ruffled Jongup’s soft locks. Feeling sleepy, the latter blinked his eyes couple of times before he slowly closed his eyes. Youngjae took some more time to make sure Jongup was fully asleep and as he was about to send a message to Himchan, there was a knock on the door. Youngjae turned his head to look at the newcomers, and upon seeing the persons in sight, he sighed in relief.

“Jae hyung…” Kyungsoo soundlessly made his way to Youngjae and bowed his head a bit. Jongin who came together with him copied what his boyfriend did. Youngjae returned the same gesture before he straightened his back. He was the one who informed the best friend of Jongup of what happened to the Moon baby, and he thanked God for giving his baby dongsaeng a very good friend because once Kyungsoo knew that Jongup was admitted to the hospital, he immediately told the older that he would be there soon.

“How’s Uppie?” The shorter asked, concern and worry laced his every word. He eyed his friend who was lying on the bed, sleeping peacefully.

“He’s fine… I guess. I don’t know. The moment he opened his eyes, he thought Daehyun was dead and cried his eyes out. Doctor came and examined him, so yeah… now I need to go meet the doctor again to know his current state.” Youngjae briefly explained to Kyungsoo and Jongin who nodded their head knowingly.

“And Daehyun hyung?” Kyungsoo carefully asked, afraid that his best friend might wake up upon hearing the bodyguard’s name.

“Daehyun hyung is currently being monitored in CCU. Ah, Kyungie-ah, I’m already late. I should see the doctor now. Later, I’ll tell you everything… but now, can you do me a favor, please?” Youngjae asked after he checked the time on his phone screen.

“Ah, ne. What is it, hyung?”

“Can you please look after Gupbaby while I go see the doctor? Chan hyung is taking care of Daehyun hyung who is still unconscious and Yongguk hyung is out to buy us breakfast and Chanyeol followed Baekhyun home because he needs to feed his halmoni her breakfast and Junhong hyung is filming his next drama, will come here this afternoon.” Youngjae took a deep breathe in as he said those words in one breathe. Kyungsoo blinked his eyes as he tried to process Youngjae’s bullet train words.

“Okay, Jae hyung. Just go and come back with good news.” Kyungsoo replied, his heart-shaped lips formed a warm smile and Youngjae returned it with his. He leaned down to give another peck on the sleeping Jongup’s forehead.

“Thanks, Kyungie. I’ll be back ASAP. Oh, have a seat, Jongin.” Patting Kyungsoo’s back, Youngjae said in a rush before he made his way to the door and exited the room, leaving two blinking persons. Kyungsoo was the one to break the silence.

“Who is Baekhyun?”

It was already afternoon, Jongup woke up when he felt someone gently shook his shoulders. He groggily opened his eyes and was surprised to see lots of people came to visit him. And he was more than surprised to see the one who shook him awake was the little cute Taehyung. The boy grinned while he softly called Jongup with ‘Omma’ making all the people inside the room to smile. Jongup slowly sat up and Kyungsoo helped him as he leaned his back against the headboard of the bed. Taehyung crawled and immediately placed himself beside Jongup.

“Aigoo, Taetae-ah, you really miss your Omma that much, eo?” Yifan said as he pinched Taehyung’s soft cheek. The little boy nodded his head and leaned closer to Jongup’s body. The latter formed a warm smile before he enveloped Taehyung in his embrace.

“Where’s Luhan hyung?” Jongup asked, his hand made its way to caress Taehyung’s soft locks.

“Youngjae brought Junhong and Luhan to CCU. Taehyung and I just got back from there.” Yifan replied. His hand made its way to gently patted Taehyung’s arm because the boy wanted to go near his father but due to the hospital principle, children were not allowed in the CCU units. So, the little Taehyung could only observe behind the glass window.

“H-How’s Daehyun hyung?” Jongup could not help but ask. He really wanted to go see Daehyun himself but seemed like he had to hold his intention for now because everyone was there to visit him.

“Appa’s sleeping. But poor Appa, there are lots of wires and tubes attached to his body. Daddy said Appa is in pain, that’s why the doctor has to do that to Appa so that Appa will get better. Is it true, Omma?” Taehyung innocently asked and Jongup was caught off guard. He did not know what to say because yeah, he really did not know what exactly happened to Daehyun, right? Nevertheless, he formed his sweet smile to little Taehyung and nodded his head, as if agreeing what the boy told him.

They spent another hour chitchatting and Jongup felt a lot better with their presence around him though he was missing someone and curious about him. Baekhyun had excused himself to go to the CCU back to take care of Daehyun and Himchan asked Chanyeol to accompany the younger. Yifan and Luhan already went back home, and they were willing to take Taehyung along too. Same goes to Kyungsoo and Jongin as they already had been there since morning, so they headed home. There were only Himchan, Youngjae, Yongguk and Junhong in the room with Jongup. So, the Moon baby took the chance to ask them.

“C-Chan hyung…” Jongup called Himchan who was cleaning the table as the younger had just finished his food.

“Yes, Gupbaby? What’s wrong?” Himchan stopped what he was doing and approached his dongsaeng. Concern and worry were written all over his face. Youngjae who was also helping Himchan came to sit at the edge of Jongup’s bed.

“Daehyun h-hyung…I wanna know about him.” Jongup looked at his hyung expectantly while Himchan and Youngjae looked at each other. Himchan took a seat on the chair next to the bed and looked up. Jongup continued his words.

“What happened to Daehyun hyung? Why was he being hospitalized before? I doubt it is just because of fatigue.” Himchan took a deep breath before he let it out slowly. Well, Gupbaby has the right to know anyway…

“Heart disease… He had a heart attack and luckily Guk and I were the—”

“What? Heart d-disease?” Jongup’s small eyes widened in shock.

“Yeah, he had it quite a while actually. Thank goodness Luhan forced him to do medical checkup, or else… I don’t think we’d ever know his disease. He was hiding it from all of us. That stubborn guy…” Himchan sighed at the end of his sentence.

Jongup asked a few more questions that were lingering in his head. Himchan and Youngjae eventually told the Moon baby the whole story and the latter could not feel guiltier. For the umpteenth times, Jongup had his hand clasped over his mouth as his body shook from crying his eyes out again. Youngjae was quick to envelop the fragile angel into his embrace. Jongup was feeling bad… he thought he was the worst person in the world. He had witnessed himself some of the signs indicating that Daehyun was actually sick and what did he do? He freaking ignored it for crying out loud.

To top that, Daehyun was now still lying on one of the hospital beds in the CCU unit because he had saved the Moon baby. The bodyguard even risked his live just to rescue Jongup and the latter did not think anymore. He earnestly asked his hyungs to let him see Daehyun and because Youngjae knew what he should do to get Jongup felt better (Dr. Siwon had explained his condition), so he and Himchan led their baby to the CCU section. Jongup was asked to wear a special gown, gloves and mask in order to enter the CCU unit. Once he was ready, he entered the room alone for only two visitors were allowed to be in the room at one time. Upon seeing Jongup was approaching the bed, Baekhyun stood up and watched as the Moon baby slowly made his way to stand next to Daehyun’s bed.

“I’m going to have a cup of coffee.” Baekhyun gave an excuse for he wanted to leave Jongup and Daehyun alone. Privacy was what all the younger needed at the moment. Jongup nodded his head and thanked the older before he made his way out of the room, not before patting the younger’s shoulder a few times, as if to give some strength to the latter.

Jongup instantly felt cold, being alone with assortment of intimidating machines around him was slightly frightening him. The machines that were continuously producing beep sound were only escalating the racing heart of the Moon baby. He took a quick glance at those machines before he averted his gaze to Daehyun who had a pale face, a breathing tube in his mouth and throat. He tried his hard to hold back his tears seeing Daehyun who was hooked up to various wires and tubes that were connected to those machines. He must be in real pain…

Making himself sat as close as possible to the bed, Jongup carefully took a hold of Daehyun’s cold hand and slowly brought it to his cheek. His warm gloved-hand gently caressed the other’s hand, as if to let the bodyguard know that he was there. His eyes were trained to look at Daehyun before he unconsciously called out the latter’s name.

“Daehyun hyung…”

He paused for he did not know where to start and what to say.

“D-Don’t you want to wake up, hyung? I’m here…” Jongup his dry lips, eyebrows furrowed for he really could not find the right words to utter.

“I-I dreamt of you, hyung. And… in the dream, you promised that you’d protect me until your heart stops beating.” Jongup stopped if he could get any response from the older. But when he received none, he continued to speak.

“You will keep your promise right, hyung?”

Jongup randomly talked to the unconscious Daehyun, silently hoping that the bodyguard would hear him and eventually wake up. According to a nurse who came to check on Daehyun’s condition, she said that Daehyun should be awake around this time and Jongup stubbornly wanted to stay there despite the protest that he received from Himchan and Youngjae. Jongup could not help but want to be the first person that Daehyun saw when he opened his eyes. Not Baekhyun, not the doctor and not the nurse.

A slight twitch of Daehyun’s hand was enough to send a message to Jongup that he was coming around. Jongup could not help but hold Daehyun’s hand in both of his hands tighter while he silently pleaded for the bodyguard to open his eyes. He watched as Daehyun scrunched his face up a bit as he tried to open his eyes. Jongup immediately stood on his feet, his hands gently squeezed Daehyun’s while he patiently waited for the other to finally gain his consciousness.

Daehyun’s eyes were slowly opened and Jongup could not help but let the relief tears roll down his cheeks. He held back the sob that almost escaped from his parted lips. Daehyun took some time to finally able to fix his hazy gaze before he slowly averted his gaze to his right side. Daehyun’s blank eyes met Jongup’s teary ones and the latter could not help but smile, making his eyes turned crescent moons despite that his smile was hidden behind the mask. The Moon baby quickly pressed the call button that was placed next to the bedside. Welcome back, Jung Daehyun hyung…

Time flew so fast that they barely realized it had been three months already since the kidnap incident happened. During the recovery period or cardiac rehabilitation at the hospital, Jongup would always come to visit his bodyguard after his classes and be the one who would walk together with Daehyun around the hospital. Jongup was almost going insane for having Kyungsoo and Jongin too close to him because they were asked to look after the Moon baby in the university by his beloved hyungs. He did not believe his Youngjae hyung even asked them to follow him into the restroom, afraid that he would be kidnapped again. The freaking restroom? Really, Youngjae?

Jongup sometimes wondered who was actually having the trauma after the tragic incident but on second thought, he was grateful to have such protective brothers. He understood that the hyungs were probably being paranoid of having his baby brother kidnapped and to top that, his bodyguard was not around him. Daehyun had been discharged after staying for almost one week at the hospital and was now living in the Moon house. Courtesy of the very stubborn Himchan who wanted Daehyun and Taehyung to be close enough for him to look after. Yongguk was not being himself too when he threatened the equally stubborn Daehyun – if the latter did not want to live in the Moon’s, he would do something that everyone would not even imagine he could do. Well, everyone knew it was an empty threat but Daehyun.

Daehyun eventually agreed to live in the house and he could only sigh internally when he was being treated like a prince. It was not that he did not appreciate the love and care he received from the Moons, but he thought he was nobody to be treated like that. He was just an ordinary 23-year-old bodyguard who had just lost his place to live and he really felt bad for not being able to carry out his duty. He was strictly restrained from driving for almost two months (indirectly meant he did not go to university with Jongup) and just like Jongup, he was almost going crazy for he did not know what to do when Taehyung went to the nursery and nobody allowed him to do anything in the house.

Hyosung would reprimand him every time he tried to do something, say, when he tried to help her out by cleaning the house. He got to listen to a very long nag from the older because the last time she asked him if he was okay or not, she received a positive answer but when the night came, she received a very shocking news – Daehyun had a heart attack. A negative one, hah. She would not believe whenever Daehyun said he was okay and could do the house chores. It took the whole two months period for Hyosung to finally let Daehyun do anything he wanted.

Daehyun had started to carry out his duty back right after the two months period ended. He felt so good to be able to work again and when the students got to see that Jongup came together with Daehyun, the rumors about them roared again. The last time they remembered was Jongup with someone else who was very tall and elegant looking when riding a motorbike. But then, seeing Jongup and Daehyun who became close again was enough to make their fans spazzing and fangirling over them.

They were close… in fact, closer than before but none of them ever mentioned about their true feeling for each other. It made Jongup wondered whether it was true that Daehyun had feeling for him or not because the latter seemed to act normal and very brother-like… very protective like his other five hyungs (Chanyeol included of course). Well, he sometimes felt like confessing his feeling to Daehyun already, but whenever the latter was in front of him, he did not know why he would blush like mad and ended up forgetting everything that he had memorized in his head. Wayyy to go, Moon Jongup.

Jongup looked at his reflection in the mirror before he stepped out of his room. He fell asleep for two hours straight after he got back from the university because he stayed up making short notes for future revision last night. Upon reaching the final step of the staircase, he found himself furrowing his eyebrows because the house seemed so quiet and empty. He made his way to the living room and to his dismay, no one was there. He pouted before he turned around and made his way to the kitchen with the hope there was Hyosung or anyone else that he could greet.

“Where’s everyone?” Jongup quietly mumbled to himself when he saw no Hyosung in the kitchen. He then mentally knocked his head for he remembered that that week was the third one, and Hyosung would always go back to her hometown. Jongup puffed his cheeks and pouted more as he made his way out of the kitchen. Usually, there would be Taehyung in the living room watching his favorite cartoon at this time. Ah, probably they’re at the garden. Jongup was about to make his way to the front door when he was suddenly greeted by someone.

“Jongup-ah…”

“Gamjagiya!” Jongup reflectively stepped backward with both of his hands over his chest. His heart stopped beating for seconds