Until You See Black

Chapter 4

The waiting room was painfully quiet as the eight, usually hyper boys, sat silently. Their manager had left about an hour ago, claiming he had to sort out some things. He had offered to take them back to their dorm, promising he'd call them if there was any word from the hospital. But of course, they refused, not wanting to go anywhere until their maknae was back safely in their arms.

They'd all given up the concept of talking. And for the first time, none of them knew what to say to each other. Instead they resorted to sitting in silence, all left to their own thoughts. Despite the silence, not one of them sat alone. All of them clinging to each other, wanting as much skin ship as they could get.

It had been around 2 hours since Jeongin had been rushed into surgery. 2 hours too long for their liking.

So far they had no news on how it was going. Every so often one of them would ask the receptionist for any word of what was happening, each time receiving a little shake of the head and told that they'd inform them if anything was heard.

"This is all my fault," Seungmin said suddenly, breaking the silence and shocking every one out of their own thoughts.

"What do you mean?" Woojin asked worriedly, tightening his hold on the younger as a means of comfort, "you couldn't have prevented this."

"He was acting weird this morning and I knew he wasn't feeling well but I figured it was just a little bug and didn't want to hurt his pride by calling him out on it," Seungmin replied, more tears now streaking down his already tear stained face, "if I had told someone or called him out on it then maybe this wouldn't have happened. My only dongsaengs and I can't even act like a proper hyung."

At those last words Felix decided to but in.

"If it's your fault then it's mines as well," he said sadly, "before we left I noticed he wasn't himself but he was so sure he was fine so I just left it."

"Look," Chan started, knowing the feeling his dongsaengs were going through and hating that they felt that way, "None of us are to blame. Sure, we all noticed something was wrong and did nothing about it, but how could we have known it'd turn out like this? If we'd known how it'd end up then yes, it was our fault. But the fact is we had no clue what would happen, so we shouldn't beat ourselves up about it."

"Still though," Seungmin sighed, rubbing the tears out of his left eye, "I can't help but feel guilty. Like I could've done something."

"I know, but you shouldn't blame yourself," Chan replied gently before looking at the rest and adding, "none of you should."

"Excuse me," a young nurse suddenly said, giving the boys a fright as they hadn't seen her, "are you here for Yang Jeongin?"

Suddenly everyone was sitting up, no longer paying attention to their previous conversation.

"Yes, is he okay? Can we see him?" Minho instantly asked as he sat on the edge of his seat.

"All I can tell you about the surgery is it was successful and you'll be able to see him soon," she said with a smile at seeing the relief flood the faces of the eight boys in front of her.

"How soon?" Jisung asked this time, the smile plastered on his face resembling the sun.

"Very soon," the nurse laughed light heartedly at his enthusiasm, "Doctor Park just wants to see you first before you see your friend."

"Okay," Woojin said, taking the role of the eldest as he stood up first and made his way the short distance over to the nurse, "could you please take us to him?"

"Of course. This way please," the nurse simply replied as she turned around and started to lead the boys into the corridors of the hospital.