Beautiful // Nomin

~29~

The EMTs arrived at the apartment and went in quickly to see Jisung's condition. Jaemin stood by, listening them say medical terms he couldn't understand. Jisung was put on a stretcher and rushed out. Jaemin followed them passed the heartfelt decorations put up by that still hand, passed the crooked "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" letters on the wall, passed the roses in the glass vase. Happiness never lasted.

Mere seconds seemed like hours before Jaemin was finally settled in the back of a wailing ambulance, Jisung lying in front of him, drifting in and out of reality. Jaemin reached out his hand and put it gently on his dongsaeng's. "Jisungie, hyung is so proud of you coming back home. I love you so much," he whispered in the younger's ear and planted a soft kiss on his forehead. He had to stay calm. He couldn't let his anxiety take hold of him.

"So can I get names and background?" One worker with papers, called "Kim," asked Jaemin, who dreaded this but with Jisung in a serious condition, could only do as he was told.

"He's my younger brother, Park Jisung. He's seventeen. I'm Na Jaemin, turning nineteen in a couple of days."

"And the apartment we just came out from, that's your place of residence?"

"Yes. The two of us live there together as of now." Jaemin hoped he wasn't getting into legal trouble.

"Your parents?" the man asked with no conveyed emotion.

"We don't have parents," Jaemin said in a lower voice. Biological parents, yes of course, but as a disowned child, Jaemin didn't have to call them his anymore.

The man paused in filling out the paper, as if he didn't know what to write for that. He left it blank.

"Okay. And what led up to the events that we see right now?"

Jaemin took a moment to clear off his mind and get a clean picture. "I went to work this morning and came home around 1-2 and found him in the locked bathroom, so I unlocked it and saw him lying on the ground." He tried to resist the tears he felt coming.

"And did Jisung wake up? Do anything unordinary?"

"He woke up when I was getting my phone and grabbed me, asking me not to leave. But I had to call you guys, then he was unconscious again."

"You know he's been using drugs, right."

"Yes sir."

"You know he's been using them for quite a while?"

"No sir," Jaemin almost whispered.

"He's been using [insert drug]. That's a dangerous illegal substance."

"I'm sorry," Jaemin put his head in his hands and started crying.

Another worker, "Park," beside the expressionless man asking questions turned to him and said, "We'll worry about legal or not later." He looked at Jaemin with sympathy. "Don't worry, he'll be fine. You reacted soon enough for us to treat him at the hospital."

Jaemin's silent crying burst into sobs, and Park gingerly stepped toward the other side to give Jaemin a comforting hug. He was obviously more feeling than Kim, who just put away his papers for now and observed the motionless Jisung in between them.

Jaemin was too distraught to think of it now, but later, when his heart had calmed down, he would realise that this turn of events would affect so much more than he'd ever thought.

----

Jaemin:: Hyung I'm sry

                   I won't be able to make it tmrw