Later Never Comes | Lee Eun-Hyuk|

First Time For Everything

There was so much noise happening, and yet, Eun-Hyuk could only hear the sound of his heart beating. It was the only thing he could hear clearly, everything else was muffled and blended together. His vision was blurry and he could barely feel anything. He watched two people die in front of him and almost got killed himself. His thoughts were swimming in his mind and he didn't know how to organise them, mix that with struggling to breathe and you've got someone that doesn't know how to function.

"Eun-Hyuk."

A voice.

A simple, kind voice could be heard in the mix of this chaos that was his own mind. Why was that voice so clear?

"You're okay. It's gonna be okay."

He felt himself getting pulled away from the noise by this person, their hands gently pushing him towards the bathroom. Everything was still blurry to him and all he could see was the body of Min-Ju.

Then he felt his glasses being taken off his face.

"Let's clean these up." The voice said, turning on the tap and letting the warm water run for a moment before soaking a cloth and wiping the lenses with it.

Eun-Hyuk was still frozen, however, being taken away from everyone helped him start to cope a little more. He had stopped shaking, and his breathing was returning to normal. But since his glasses were off, he could barely see who was helping him.

"You've got some blood on your face, do you mind if I wipe it off?" They asked, Eun-Hyuk nodded, allowing them to place the warm cloth on his face. They wiped his nose, but also his cheeks, his forehead, all over his face.

"I heard somewhere that heat can help calm people down." They explained before placing his glasses in his hand. He took a moment before placing his glasses on the bridge of his nose, looking through the newly cleaned lenses to see who was helping him.

"Ae-Cha?"

Of course.

The girl softly smiled at him as he looked at her. "How are you feeling?" She asked, giving him as much time as he needed to speak. He thought over how he was feeling, taking in a deep, shaky breath.

"I didn't know what to do." He replied. "It was too risky to keep the doors open, but she was right there." He frowned.

"There was nothing you could have done. It's not your fault." She said, earning a slight scoff from Eun-Hyuk.

"You're the only one that seems to think that." He said before Ae-Cha shook her head. "It's only that woman that thinks it's your fault, and she's grieving so she's not thinking clearly. You've been keeping us alive this whole time but that doesn't mean that anyone should assume you know everything." She frowned.

"You're human too."

He slowly nodded and took a deep, and more stable breath before composing himself. He tried to push his emotions down for the sake of survival.

"You're right. We should go, we need to build up that barricade." He said, pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. Ae-Cha hesitated to move for a moment.

"Are you sure? I can go out and help if you need a minute alone–"

"I'm fine. It needs to be done." He said, earning a nod from Ae-Cha as she turned around to leave. "Ae-Cha?" He said, stopping her for a moment.

Ae-Cha turned around, she was hoping that she hadn't done anything wrong to upset him more. Or maybe he was going to tell her to do something else whilst he built up the barricade.

"Thank you."

That surprised her, it was the second time he'd thanked her, but this time felt more shocking and she didn't know why.