| Through The Glass | MINCHAN/BANGINHO

|CHAPTER TWO|

Chapter 2

"...but I'm happy you're here, in this world even if you're not in the next."

THE SAME RINGING from before chimed endlessly in his head, his already light head seemingly becoming more light. It felt as though his brain was pounding against the walls of his skull, trying its best to worm its way out through his ears, nose, and mouth. A grunt fell from Chan's lips, eyes flickering open and letting his head loll off from side to side as his mind tried to process where he was. Doctors hovered above him, speaking to him and asking him questions that were just too muffled for him to decipher.

"Could you let him breathe for a second? He just woke up!" A new voice screeched from behind all the doctors, some of them backing away at the sudden loud volume. The figure the voice belonged to stepped forward and broke through the crowd of people. Standing before Chan was his old best friend, BamBam and surprisingly, Chan felt anything but relief. BamBam walked and looked like a damn god, as if his life was actually together and not at all what Chan's had been.

Shivers coursed down Chan's spine when he locked eyes with BamBam, shrinking in on himself in pure insecurity. Here he was, curled up in a hospital bed that was probably worth more than the rent he struggled to pay and probably looking like a mess in front of his well dressed best friend who had made it big. It hadn't helped that BamBam was looking at him with so much concern it was overwhelming. BamBam wasn't supposed to look at Chan like that; He wasn't supposed to care. Not when they were so different.

BamBam approached his bed, hands out as if Chan was some sort of wild animal. Chan flinched back. "Channie..." BamBam croaked, head and hands hanging in shame. Doctors murmured around them in confusion, obviously trying to figure out why this idol had been worrying about a boy who was troubled and no doubt broke. "Leave us," BamBam turned to the doctors with eyes aflame. Everyone scurried out the room merely at his words; BamBam no doubt had a lot of power over them.

The elder of the two swirled back around to face Chan with a sad smile, teeth latching down on his bottom lip. Chan looked anywhere and everywhere to avoid BamBam's gaze, fingers roughly clutching the edges of the thin blanket thrown over him. He focused on the ache in his fingertips and nails when BamBam sat down in the chair next to him, but when delicate, slim fingers took a hold of his callused, dirty ones he could no longer rely on the ache in his hands but instead the one in his heart. "Channie... Please."

Chan didn't look up but the way his body tensed and his head shook, the nickname obviously hadn't sat well. "You don't get to call me that anymore." His voice cracked and wavered as he spoke. Chan's eyes were clenched shut and a tear leaked from between the closed lids when a hand gently caressed the edges of his cheekbone. He flinched away once more. "You left, Kunpimook. One minute we were watching a movie, and the next you were on stage in front of millions people." Chan wasn't aggressive in the way he spoke, quite the opposite, really. He sounded weak, broken.