Sunrise [Yungi FF]

19. Broken

He turned to the door without waiting for a reply, feeling a jab of shame for the unspoken rest of the sentence. Even though it might just be one version of me.

"Wait," called San. He strode up to Mingi. "You'll change your mind after hearing this. Just listen to me one last time."

Mingi was ready to face San again but gave up when he heard the same matter-of-fact, all-knowing tone. "I'm sorry." He squeezed the doorknob and made his choice.

That night in the car, when Mingi was embracing Yunho with their lips connected, when he felt like the whole world didn't matter because he was in his shelter of warmth and safety, he thought he had made the right choice.

He just didn't know what that choice would cost him.

A plain ceiling. Bare walls. Curtains. White. White everywhere. And lights. Blinding like the headlights of the car that crashed into them.

"...ho?"

The echoey voice reverberated in his skull, but it sounded distant, faraway. 

He made out two eyes, a nose, a mouth.

"...Yunho!" He heard Jongho's voice, and then his name. "Oh god...I'm going to find a nurse."

Jongho slipped away and was gone in a flash. Yunho tried to grab onto his friend but his hand laid futile by his side. His eyes were just growing back into focus; he was barely conscious and way too slow.

A few moments later he felt warm skin on his arm. "...how do you feel?" A second voice said. It continued as a wordless drone in the background as Yunho let the nurse touch his forehead and fiddle with the tubes sticking out his hand, barely feeling anything because his body was so sore.

After the nurse left, Jongho scooched over and squeezed Yunho's hand. "I'm so glad you woke up. You've been out for three days and I was so scared..." Yunho heard a tremor in Jongho's voice. He turned his head on the pillow and saw tears streaming down Jongho's cheeks. "The doctor said you'll probably be fine if you wake up...I'm just-"

Yunho gently removed the hand on his arm so he could pull Jongho in for a hug. "I know. I'm fine. It's okay now," he said, barely getting the words out because of his scratchy throat.

As if reading his mind, Jongho helped Yunho sit up and poured him a cup of water. "Are you hungry? I can buy you some food."

Even the lukewarm liquid was hard to swallow. Yunho gulped down the rest in one go and shook his head. "I just want to know what happened."

The warm smile and the relief on Jongho's face vanished in an instant. He tried to keep a neutral voice as he said, "I don't think it's a good idea to talk about that. You just woke up. You need to re-"

"I can't rest if you don't tell me." Yunho stopped and winced when he felt a throb in his head. It was as if his body was also trying to resist. "I remember crashing into a car, but how did it happen?"

Jongho took the cup from Yunho to stall for time. "You were going really fast." The sentence ended with a lilt.

Yunho knew that too, though the memory was fuzzy. He could almost feel the icy wind against his skin again. "And?" he pushed.

"I don't know," Jongho replied quietly. "No one told me anything. It doesn't matter."

"Yes it does." Yunho closed his hands into tight balls, grabbing fistfuls of the blanket with them. "It's all over your face. How can it not matter to you? Mingi was driving. The car-" He groaned and held his head, a stab of agonizing pain ripping through his skull.

"Yunho!" Jongho set the cup back down on a counter next to the bed with a slam and cursed as he reached for Yunho. Frustration and concern coated his voice. "I told you we shouldn't talk about this! It'll hurt you. You're not ready yet."

"I am ready!" Yunho blurted, tears blurring his vision. His head was still stinging but his chest hurt more, knowing Jongho was right all this time; that he had been hiding in his delusion because he was afraid to look at the whole picture; that he wasn't actually ready but he had to be.

Jongho, stunned into silence, let his hands fall back onto his lap.

"The car," Yunho said, picking up where he left off. "it was coming towards us. We were in the wrong lane." He took a shuddering breath, the fragments of his memory flashing across his mind like frames from a movie. "Mingi wasn't drunk and we were on a straight road, so it couldn't have been a complete accident."

"Yunho, you're thinking too much," Jongho said, his soft voice lacking conviction.

A shiver ran up Yunho's spine when he closed his eyes and his mind brought him back to that night. The two beams of headlights were cutting through the windshield already, but he focused on what was inside.

Did Mingi turn the steering wheel? Did he cut into the wrong lane deliberately?

There was no definite answer in Yunho's mind when he opened his eyes again. "I'm sorry," he said, looking at Jongho. "You were already frustrated at me after what happened to your friend." Jongho's heart clenched at the mention of Yeosang, who was recovering but still hadn't regained consciousness yet.

Yunho continued with a bitter chuckle. "And now this happened. I guess sometimes you just have to live through it yourself to understand it." He was holding in his tears but now a single drop rolled down his cheek.

He thought of Mingi's erratic behavior and the times when Mingi lashed out at him for no reason. They seemed insignificant before, but the car accident somehow amplified them, and now they were screaming at Yunho like a dozen alarms blaring.

Still, something at the corner of his heart urged him to ask, "Do you know where my mirror is?"

Jongho looked at Yunho as if he was crazy. "They did give me your belongings." He pulled open a drawer under the counter and ruffled around until he found a small bag. "Oh right. It broke during the crash. It wasn't sheltered in a bag or anything, so it must've hit something during the impact."

Jongho handed the small pouch to Yunho, who took it with trembling fingers. Inside was the familiar light blue cover of the mirror, but the actual glass was broken, the thin cracks across the surface forming an intricate spider web.

And when Yunho took it out from the bag and looked at it, his reflection was separated into a hundred tiny pieces.