Chapter 9

The Caretaker

Kai was panicking. His palms were sweating profusely as they gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white. 

"You have got to be kidding me," he gritted through his teeth. He slammed his left hand on the wheel out of anger, pressing the horn by accident. His head couldn't think straight. Min was sitting next to him, out, and he couldn't even do anything about it. Never before had Kai felt so useless. 

The car pulled into the house with a sharp turn. Kai quickly scrambled from his seat over to the passenger side of the car and pulled it open, tucking his head in to remove Min's seatbelt. The boy's head was slumped over onto the armrest, his black hair scattered across his profile. Short, even breaths came out of his mouth. His face was gaining back a little color, but his countenance only displayed unrest. Kai sighed. 

Now came the challenge of how to bring him inside. 

Kai wasn't stupid. He knew that Min wasn't the skinniest person alive, and that it would probably take him a long time if he were to pull Min in by himself. It was just that Kai had never put much thought into the guy's weight. In fact, he never noticed it. Appearances were shallow things that didn't deserve to cause misjudgement on a person's character. He had learned that a long time ago, and he was glad he knew it. As far as he could tell, he liked Min. It didn't matter if the guy weighed two times his own bodyweight or that he had been giving Kai a bit of a hard time, because he liked his personality. He liked Min.

Min was his friend. 

Maybe it started when the door opened to reveal his host that he was staying with. Maybe it happened when he was watching the boy devour his ramen, or when he was helping him with his math equations. Or maybe he came to the conclusion just now, when he was looking at Min's lifeless body and his innocent face that seemed to reveal a plethora of emotions, yet hid a thousand words behind its mask. 

It had taken him a bit of a while to realize it, but Kai agreed to what he supposed. Over the last week or so, he had grown to enjoy Min's company, even though the first few days had been a little rough. His friend was refreshing and interesting in a way that Kai had never experienced before. His life back at home had been so structured, so routine-like, that coming to this house and meeting this boy was like a breath of fresh air. Min was sassy, but he was also innocent and honest, a trait that Kai didn't see very often in many people. He had a certain childish streak that others would probably deem as naive, but Kai found it amusing and slightly admired him for it. Kai wished he himself could be so carefree and that he could live life however he wanted to like Min did. He wished he didn't have to think about how other people thought of him, that his reputation was on the line for every word coming from his mouth. 

Kai didn't want to go back to his former lifestyle. He loathed it with all of his heart and despised every cold-hearted, insincere person behind the mechanics. They lied, they cheated, and they backstabbed, all for their own gain. Min's house was way more welcoming than the "home" that he had grown up in for twenty years of his life. Yet he knew his time here with his newfound friend would end eventually, whether it be next week or next month. He couldn't stay here forever, even though he wished he could. Finally, he had found a trustworthy friend, and fate was being cruel to him and taking that away as well.

Kai draped Min's limp arm over his shoulder and pulled him up with difficulty. He took small steps slowly up the pathway into the house, supporting his friend's body with his own strength. At the door, he dug his hand into Min's blazer and grabbed the house key to open the door. As soon as they got inside the house, he dropped the boy onto the couch and fell down on the floor beside him, exhausted. 

Kai jolted awake sometime during the night as he saw no light protruding in from the windows and the room was completely washed in darkness. Then he realized that the noise behind him was what woke him up.

Kai quickly turned around and peered closely at Min's face in the darkness, searching to see if something was wrong. His body was writhing slightly and his face was contorted in what appeared to be a pained expression. Is he having a nightmare? 

Kai furrowed his eyebrows and lifted his hand to place it gently on Min's forehead. He suddenly yanked it back due to the burning heat.

", he's sick."  As if things weren't already bad enough, Min had now gotten a fever. Great. 

Kai had no idea what he was supposed to do. He had never had to take care of a sick person before; it was always the other way around. He had people at his every fall and scrape and he was used to it. Now Min was making him feel a loss at what to do, again. 

Kai grabbed a fleece blanket from Min's room that he was staying in and draped it over Min's body, tucking in the corners. He then wetted a cloth with cold water and placed it on top of the boy's forehead that was slowly raising in temperature. 

Does he have any fever reducer around here? Kai knew the convenience store was probably closed at this extremely late hour, so he resorted to shuffling in the bathroom cabinets for anything, anything at all. He was slowly becoming more and more frantic. He couldn't let anything happen to Min, or it would all be his fault. After all, he had forced the guy to come with him to the club. 

Kai flipped open the medicine cabinet and spied a dark blue bottle of Nyquil sitting on one of the plastic shelves and quickly took hold of it. Before he could close it, however, something caught his eye. 

Zoloft. Prescription for Anxiety and Depression. Park Sungmi. 

The bottle of pills stared back at him as Kai gazed at it in confusion. Who was Park Sungmi? What was